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Football clubs ‘alarmed’ by lack of consultation on regulator – Karren Brady

UnitedHealthcare CEO kept a low public profile. Then he was shot to death in New YorkHALIFAX — A day after Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston led the Progressive Conservatives to a massive majority win, the Liberals were licking their wounds and wondering why their party was almost wiped off the political map. On Wednesday morning, once all the ballots were counted, the incumbent Tories had secured 43 of the 55 seats in the legislature, an increase of nine. The NDP won nine seats, an increase of three, and the Liberals fell to only two seats, a dozen less than when the campaign started. One Independent candidate held her seat — a first for the province. Liberal Leader Zach Churchill, a 40-year-old former cabinet minister, lost his seat after a long, see-saw battle with his Tory rival in the riding of Yarmouth — Churchill's hometown on Nova Scotia's southwestern shore. The Liberals had to give up their role as official opposition and the party barely held on to official party status. "At the end of the day, this falls on my shoulders," Churchill said afterwards. "This loss belongs to me and me alone." But it would be wrong to blame Churchill for his party's collapse at the polls, says Tom Urbaniak, a political science professor at Cape Breton University in Sydney, N.S. "Zach Churchill was dealing with a damaged Liberal brand — damaged in large part by the current standing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau," Urbaniak said in an interview Wednesday, adding that Houston took advantage of that weakness. "(Churchill) was portrayed as Justin Trudeau's junior protege. And that stuck with some Nova Scotians." Throughout the campaign, Houston and his Tory colleagues tried to link Trudeau — whose Liberals are trailing the federal Tories by about 20 points in the polls — with Churchill, a well-spoken career politician who was elected to lead the provincial party in July 2022. "We know Zach Churchill defends his federal cousins at every turn,” provincial Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Kent Smith said in a statement early in the campaign. “Once again, when Zach Churchill had the choice to stand up for Nova Scotians or stand with Justin Trudeau, he chose Trudeau.” Churchill was also hobbled by a relatively low provincial profile, Urbaniak said. Despite the fact that he had held the riding of Yarmouth for the past 14 years and served in the cabinet of former Liberal premier Stephen McNeil, Churchill failed to leave much of an impression on the electorate, he said. Part of the problem was that McNeil, who served as premier from 2013 to 2021, rarely let his ministers spend much time in the limelight. "Stephen McNeil, at times, ran a one-person government," the professor said. "The premier made the big decisions .... That came back to hurt Zach Churchill." As well, Houston's decision to call an early election also stung the Liberals and the NDP, both of which were still nominating candidates when the campaign started. On another front, the Liberals in southwestern Nova Scotia were hurt by the fact that residents in several fishing communities had long complained about what they said was the federal Liberal government's failure to stop the illegal fishing of lobsters and baby eels. "The perceived federal mismanagement was a factor in some ridings," Urbaniak said, pointing to the Acadian riding of Clare, which had been held by the Liberals for the past 31 years. Liberal candidate Ronnie LeBlanc, a local fisherman, lost the riding to rookie Tory candidate Ryan Robicheau on Tuesday night by more than 1,000 votes. During the campaign, Churchill promised to establish an inquiry into illegal fishing, but voters on the South Shore were unimpressed. The Tories won all nine ridings in the region. It was Churchill's first election as leader. On Tuesday night, he declined to say if he would stay in the role. Neither Churchill nor Houston were available for an interview Wednesday. As for the NDP, party leader Claudia Chender said she was looking forward to taking on the large Tory majority. "I think what we take away from being the official Opposition is that people are looking for a strong voice and they are looking for a different voice,” said Chender, a 48-year-old lawyer. It was also her first election as leader. She said her priorities include pushing for more protection for renters, and reducing the number of people still seeking a doctor. The three additional seats won by the NDP are all in the Halifax area, part of the party’s traditional power base. Chender said the election results showed her party has room to grow, particularly along the South Shore and in Cape Breton. “In many ridings across this province there were tight two- or three-way races and we are building,” she said. “I think that work has started and will continue.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2024. Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press

Arizona women's basketball focused on fundamentals with squad of young players

Sake japonés ingresa a la lista del Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la UNESCO

A German pharmacist invented polystyrene in 1839. Today, the production of polystyrene produces more than 12.5 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, and 15 million metric tonnes are produced every year, with a less than 1% recycle rate. In 2016, Tetra Pak was the first company in the food packaging industry to have its climate impact reduction targets approved by the Science-Based Targets (SBT) initiative. One year later, in 2017, Tetra Pak had a 13% reduction in its overall climate impact despite a 19% increase in packages sold. The biodegradable packaging market was valued at $473.74 B in 2023 and is projected to reach more than $800 B by 2032. Scaling biodegradable packaging A Ukrainian startup, S.Lab , has been working to scale biodegradable packaging. The company was founded in 2021, but with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the company moved its production facilities to Málaga, Spain. Julia Bialetska , CEO and co-founder of S.Lab said they chose this area because the region is striving to become climate-neutral by 2030, actively investing in sustainability, fostering the development of related businesses, and serving as a convenient logistics hub. Bialetska says Spain is an agricultural country with a lot of agricultural waste, including hemp and linen, which the company uses in its production. The local government also provided S.Lab with a production premise for five years. In 2024, the company launched its first fully automated production line in Coín, with a capacity of up to 30,000 units per month. Bialetska says this is a full production cycle: from purchasing waste from local farmers within a radius of 50 km from the production site to producing the packaging itself. Bialetska told Forbes that scalable biodegradable packaging solutions can be adapted for large-scale production to meet volume demands while adhering to environmental regulations and consumer preferences. "These solutions must balance sustainability with functionality, ensuring no features are compromised while remaining safe for the environment," said Bialetska. From the forest and the fields to the lab S.Labs leaned on nature when it developed its approach to biodegradable packaging using mycelium and agricultural waste. "We borrowed the natural process of mycelium growth from nature as the baseline of our process," said Bialetska. "Mycelium is a network of mushroom roots, and it is rapidly growing, creating long white nets that bind anything that they grow on." "This mechanic could be compared to a spider that creates nets and twists them around something nutritious," she added. Bialetska says that, in their case, agricultural waste acts as a skeleton/matrix for the material, and mycelium is a glue that binds all the particles together. "The main challenge was to transfer this process from the forest to the lab and then from the lab to the proper continuous manufacturing," said Bialetska. "For that, we developed our own hardware technology." Agricultural waste of hemp stems and linen France cultivates the largest hemp crop in Europe, but Spain has a history of growing hemp for industrial uses, and today, hemp is grown across the Iberian peninsula. "Normally, stems remain on the fields after the harvest or are thrown away after the processing as there is no use of this part of the plant," said Bialetska. "So instead of throwing them away, we take those stems and transform them into packaging that afterwards can be returned to nature and will fully biodegrade in 30 days in the soil." Hardware for continuous manufacturing S.Lab filed two European Union patents in 2024 for its continuous sterilization process and forming and shaping robot. Three new patents are in progress and are expected by Q4 2025. The company has several active packaging pilots with L'oreal, JTI, and Nespresso and is an approved supplier with L'oreal. “Our continuous, chemical-free sterilization method and innovative robotic forming mechanism of mycelium-based packaging solve the main problem related to bio-based solutions, which is scalability,” said Bialetska. Bialetska added that while other companies may offer solutions using materials like mycelium or agricultural waste, they can struggle to meet industrial-scale demands and rarely disclose their capacities. "This is why our production numbers matter, they demonstrate our readiness and reliability, making us a viable partner for industries transitioning to sustainable packaging at scale,” she said. "Our entire manufacturing process is controlled through advanced robotics, sensors, and computer vision, ensuring precision and reducing human error through real-time data monitoring and analysis.” Bialetska says their production line can also adapt to diverse client needs, including custom designs and sizes, without adding to production costs. "Our manufacturing technology is the first to produce mycelium-based packaging with precise 90° angles, mirroring the functionality of conventional packaging, which provides a lot of possibilities for packaging for various sectors," she added. S.Lab’s tech and production process can achieve up to three times the energy efficiency of traditional EPS production. "It is a closed-loop, energy, and water-efficient production, and this results in 90% lower CO2 emissions and 90% less water usage than polystyrene production," said Bialetska. Innovation at CES 2025 Visitors to the S.Lab stand (Venetian Expo, Eureka Park, Hall G—62659) at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2025 will be able to see S.Lab's production line prototype and mini-factory, which will also include a number of biodegradable packaging samples. Their mini-factory prototype is a self-contained 40-foot container featuring a built-in production line for on-site packaging production at customers' facilities. "By providing mini production lines, we offer clients sustainable packaging produced at their own premises without disrupting their existing processes," said Bialetska.‘World at dawn of third nuclear age’, armed forces chief warnsIreland fans face nightmare journey and ticket crunch as Bulgaria venue is confirmed

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Fifth-year defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton has surged forward this season. He’s started more games (seven) than in the rest of his career combined (three), and he produced one of the Kansas City Chiefs’ season highlights with his fourth-down sack in Las Vegas to punctuate an epic goal-line stand. And he tends to be found in the middle of pivotal scrums, like he was against the Raiders on Friday as Nick Bolton made a game-saving fumble recovery. To understand a bit about how and why, well, consider what might be called the most important play of the season: The alert, instinctive way he came to catch 13-year-old Andy Radzavicz as the boy fell headfirst out of the stands at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Nov. 24. “They say I’m a hero,” Wharton said in an interview with The Kansas City Star, spoken in such a tone as to suggest that he just did what anyone would. But look closely at the start of the viral TikTok video and you see something revealing about both the person and the player – who happened to be looking up because he likes to give his gloves away after games. “His eyes just get kind of big, and he darts over,” Jay Radzavicz, Andy’s father, said Monday in a phone interview with The Star. “We had a good guy in a good position.” ‘A different way to meet him’ In fact, the undrafted free agent out of Missouri S&T made his way to the NFL in large part because of a soul and heart that make him relentless – something coach Andy Reid noted earlier this season when he said “nobody practices harder, nobody works harder than ‘Turk’,” and that persistence has paid off for him. Those traits certainly paid off for the Radzavicz family, now forever grateful to Wharton for what he did to save Andy from a potentially serious injury. As Wharton reflected on the moment in an interview after the Chiefs’ 19-17 victory over the Raiders on Friday, he recalled hearing someone calling his name. Then he felt fear himself as he saw the boy wearing a Bolton No. 32 jersey tumbling from the stands above the Chiefs exit. So he barged through a couple security guards, who had their back to the stands. “I don’t think they knew what I was doing,” Wharton said with a laugh. “So I kind of had to just lay out a little bit and push them (back).” You can’t see any of that in the video that Jay jokingly has likened to the Zapruder film. And you don’t get to see that Wharton asked Andy if he was OK and helped hoist him back into the stands and somehow still had the presence of mind to give Andy his gloves. The football-crazy family that lives near Jacksonville got to express their gratitude more directly on Friday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. As part of another trip spanning the country for NFL and college games, they’d already arranged to be at the game. But through word of mouth, the Chiefs organization discovered they would be attending and arranged pregame field passes and let Wharton know where they’d be. “It was a different way to meet him,” Wharton deadpanned with a smile, “other than when he was falling.” The family gave Wharton a Missouri S&T sweatshirt; Wharton gave them the jersey he wore in Charlotte and signed it in a few different places on the numbers: “To Andy” “Go Chiefs!!!” “TW#98” “Strive for Greatness” “Always put God First” “Love those who love you” Count Andy in the latter group. “He’s my favorite by far now,” Andy said. Holiday roads Jay Radzavicz was raised in upstate New York and had an early fascination with football. Around the time he was in eighth grade, he remembers a family cross-country drive in a Griswold-esque paneled station wagon highlighted by stops in Columbus, Ohio, and Manhattan, Kansas, just so he could stare at the empty stadiums and imagine them on game days. He’d become far more acquainted with the area and grew to be a Chiefs fan when he was a football graduate assistant at Central Missouri State and during his 11 years in Pittsburg, Kansas, where he was a reporter, producer and sports director for KOAM-TV. The imagination and wanderlust for sports stoked in his youth stayed with Jay Radzavicz, who later spent 20 years as a producer with the Golf Channel and now runs his own production company. So traveling for events has been a big part of family life for Jay Radzavicz, his wife, Maureen (LIV Golf’s director of tournament media operations) and their sons Andy and Asher. By Jay’s estimate, Andy probably has been to about 40 NFL games by now, including a number in Jacksonville, and several dozen college games. While the boys have different NFL allegiances (Asher is a Bills guy and secured a glove from Josh Allen on Sunday night), they are aligned when it comes to their favorite college team: Kansas State. In 2020, Andy was elated to get gloves from one of his idols, Deuce Vaughn, after Kansas State’s 69-31 loss to Texas. “Because he’s short (5-foot-5), and I’m short, too,” Andy said. “He inspired me.” (For the record, Andy said he wasn’t sure how tall he is right now but was reminded by his father he was about a foot shorter than the other receivers on his team this fall.) That 2020 game was part of a combo trip to see the Chiefs against the Broncos, one of a number of such travels they set up a couple times a year. Last week, for instance, Jay and the boys flew on Thursday after Thanksgiving dinner and took in the Chiefs game on Friday. Then they drove to Ames, Iowa, for the Kansas State game on Saturday and rather remarkably made the 870-mile drive to Buffalo for the Sunday night game. The boys had hoped to stop to see Notre Dame Stadium and Toledo’s Glass Bowl on the way. But they had to stay on track to get to Wally World, er, Highmark Stadium, on time. ‘You’ve got to root for him’ Andy’s first game at Arrowhead was the 37-31 overtime loss to New England in the 2018 season AFC Championship Game. “I liked the experience,” he said from the airport in Buffalo on Monday, “and I wanted to be a Chiefs fan.” At the time, Wharton had just finished his senior year at Division II Missouri S&T, where he thrived in every way after not attracting any Division I offers coming out of University City High outside St. Louis. Wharton, who studied psychology at the school best known for engineering, was both a dominant player and standout young man there. Andy Ball, then the assistant head coach calling the offense, still raves about Wharton’s tremendous athleticism, phenomenal “motor” and the selfless and deeply caring teammate he was. “He’s such a humble good guy,” said Ball, the school’s head coach since 2022. “If you know him, you’ve got to root for him.” All the more so, or at least all the more so for more people, as Wharton’s career has rebooted after he missed most of the 2022 season with a torn ACL and was working his way back in 2023. And after making that vital postgame play that suddenly made him national news in about every media outlet imaginable. When it happened, Jay was some 30 or so yards away to give Andy room to converge among a group of kids as he so often does to get autographs, a high-five or a glove. (Or baseballs, for that matter: The boys have a bin full from MLB games). By now, Andy knows how to handle himself. But this time, something was different as he went down the stands to “try to meet all the Chiefs players” and leaned in to call out to Wharton and running back Carson Steele: He thought one railing was extending right into another. Only when he leaned his hip into it did he discover they didn’t connect. “I just, like, got off-balance,” Andy said, “and I just toppled over.” It was so sudden he almost didn’t have time to be really scared of what it would have been like to land on his head. For that matter, by the time Wharton was handing him back up he was worrying about something else: whether he was going to be in trouble for falling on the field. It all happened so fast that Jay didn’t really realize the gravity of it until the TikTok video emerged in the next day or so. Next thing you know, it’s featured on “The Pat McAfee Show” and “Today” and “Inside Edition.” “It just kind of snowballed from there,” Jay said. All because a potential tragedy was averted by “a good guy in a good position.”NEW YORK (AP) — Brian Thompson led one of the biggest health insurers in the U.S. but was unknown to millions of people his decisions affected. Then Wednesday's targeted fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk thrust the executive and his business into the national spotlight. Thompson, who was 50, had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group Inc for 20 years and run the insurance arm since 2021 after running its Medicare and retirement business. As CEO, Thompson led a firm that provides health coverage to more than 49 million Americans — more than the population of Spain. United is the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run versions of the U.S. government’s Medicare program for people age 65 and older. The company also sells individual insurance and administers health-insurance coverage for thousands of employers and state-and federally funded Medicaid programs. The business run by Thompson brought in $281 billion in revenue last year, making it the largest subsidiary of the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group. His $10.2 million annual pay package, including salary, bonus and stock options awards, made him one of the company's highest-paid executives. The University of Iowa graduate began his career as a certified public accountant at PwC and had little name recognition beyond the health care industry. Even to investors who own its stock, the parent company's face belonged to CEO Andrew Witty, a knighted British triathlete who has testified before Congress. When Thompson did occasionally draw attention, it was because of his role in shaping the way Americans get health care. At an investor meeting last year, he outlined his company's shift to “value-based care,” paying doctors and other caregivers to keep patients healthy rather than focusing on treating them once sick. “Health care should be easier for people,” Thompson said at the time. “We are cognizant of the challenges. But navigating a future through value-based care unlocks a situation where the ... family doesn’t have to make the decisions on their own.” Thompson also drew attention in 2021 when the insurer, like its competitors, was widely criticized for a plan to start denying payment for what it deemed non-critical visits to hospital emergency rooms. “Patients are not medical experts and should not be expected to self-diagnose during what they believe is a medical emergency,” the chief executive of the American Hospital Association wrote in an open letter addressed to Thompson. “Threatening patients with a financial penalty for making the wrong decision could have a chilling effect on seeking emergency care.” United Healthcare responded by delaying rollout of the change. Thompson, who lived in a Minneapolis suburb and was the married father of two sons in high school, was set to speak at an investor meeting in a midtown New York hotel. He was on his own and about to enter the building when he was shot in the back by a masked assailant who fled on foot before pedaling an e-bike into Central Park a few blocks away, the New York Police Department said. Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said investigators were looking at Thompson's social media accounts and interviewing employees and family members. “Didn’t seem like he had any issues at all,” Kenny said. "He did not have a security detail.” AP reporters Michael R. Sisak and Steve Karnowski contributed to this report. Murphy reported from Indianapolis. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly.

Chief executives should have their pay capped to maintain a fair balance between workers and bosses, according to a survey that found a majority of respondents in favour of restricting top salaries. A poll by the High Pay Centre thinktank of more than 2,000 people found that 55% agreed that chief executive pay should be set as a multiple of workers’ low or average earnings “so that pay differences between the high and low or middle earners don’t grow too wide”. Only 15% objected. Against a backdrop of rows over bosses’ pay and and calls by the head of the London Stock Exchange for chief executives to be paid more to retain “top talent”, the thinktank said the survey showed that there was a growing appetite for a rethink about the relationship between the boardroom and workers on the shop floor. The thinktank, which said its survey was funded by the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust and conducted independently by the polling firm Survation, called on ministers to consider handing workers the right to be on company boards and to publish more information about top pay. Asked if they supported the idea of voting for two workers on a board, 51% said yes and only 11% opposed. Enhanced transparency over the pay for top earners was supported by 70% of respondents, “meaning companies would publish more information on employees making over £150,000”. The High Pay Centre will publish “A Charter for Fair Pay” this week ahead of the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill. It will argue that the UK needs to reset the relationship between workers and top executives to foster a more collaborative way of working and stronger economic growth. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has made it her central mission for the UK to become the fastest-growing economy in the G7 group of rich nations. In recent months the UK’s growth rate has slipped back to near the bottom of the G7, just ahead of Italy. On Friday showed the first contraction in activity for a year as firms gave the government’s budget plans, which included extra costs on businesses to pay for enhanced public services, the “thumbs down”. Reeves is also under pressure to tackle the UK’s income inequality, which the thinktank said was a “defining characteristic of the UK economy”. The OECD, which includes Germany, Mexico, the US, Costa Rica and Slovenia among its 38 members, ranks Britain as the eighth worst in terms of income inequality. Figures show that among EU member states, only Bulgaria and Lithuania are more unequal than the UK. In 2022, income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) grew by 1.3%. The thinktank said the majority of the widening income gap was caused by a reduction in the disposable incomes of the UK’s poorest 20% of households by 3.4%, while the disposable incomes of the richest 20% of households grew by 3.3%. Director of the High Pay Centre, Luke Hildyard, said there was an opportunity to use the new government’s legislative agenda “to strengthen worker voice and bridge the pay gap between top executives and the wider workforce.” He said policies recommended by the thinktank did not dictate pay outcomes through extra government regulation, “but establish the framework for a more democratic, participatory business culture leading to higher pay for low- and middle-income workers and reduced inequality”.Article content President-elect Donald Trump routinely upends U.S. politics with a tweet. Now he’s done it to Canada, with his threat to . Politically, who wins from this? Maybe Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump has handed Trudeau his comeback chance. The PM might elude electoral disaster if he can spike these tariffs before Trump is sworn in Jan. 20. Trudeau has been awful on so many fronts that he doesn’t deserve another shot. Not many minds will change in Alberta, Saskatchewan or much of B.C. But a tariff win would earn him credit in key parts of the country. Already he’s working furiously to look like a leader. He got Trump on the phone quickly, a surprise in itself since the president-elect is said to despise him (although Trump never said he would have Trudeau arrested at the border — that was an AI audio hoax). Trudeau met virtually with all the premiers Wednesday. They constantly ask for these sessions without getting them. This time it happened at light speed. Provincial criticism of Trudeau is so far muted and tentative. Premiers know a united approach will be critical. Donald Trump uniting Canada? It seems surprising, until you recall that much the same feeling gripped the country when Trump attacked the free trade deal in 2016. On Tuesday, the whole national narrative changed in real time during the House of Commons session. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre kept blasting Trudeau for destroying Canada’s economy and turning the nation over to criminals and addicts. It was pretty much the regular Conservative line that has been enormously successful for Poilievre. Trudeau responded that Poilievre was echoing his own old slogans, while the Liberals are actually working on the crisis. You could see some disquiet on the Conservative benches, and a bit of uncertainty in Poilievre. The Conservative line on the state of the country is very familiar by now. Suddenly, there’s a new political reality that will transfix the country for at least two months, and possibly deep into the federal election year. Several Liberal ministers explained what’s already being done. They gave the rare impression of doing serious work on an issue of deep concern, a big change from their usual obsession with social engineering. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc was especially effective as he detailed cross-border collaboration on drugs and crime that goes on every day. A lot of holes were punched in Trump’s bizarre assumption our border is as big a problem as Mexico’s. The real fear now is that Canada will be flooded with migrants facing the massive expulsion order Trump promises. The dollar is already tumbling. Investment will fade or head for the U.S. Even union leaders such as Unifor president Lana Payne are terrified by that prospect. She almost sounded like a corporate CEO. Lost investment threatens hundreds of thousands of union jobs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford reacted like a neglected cousin. “It’s like a family member stabbing you right in the heart,” he said. Quebec’s Francois Legault consoled himself with the thought that the Americans will only tax imports they can replace domestically. He figures aluminum would be exempt. In Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith . She may be right. It’s hard to imagine Trump raising gasoline prices when he promises cheaper energy. Despite American rhetoric about energy self-sufficiency, there’s no way the U.S. can get by without Alberta oil and gas. Smith is one premier who won’t be caught getting cosy with Trudeau. On Tuesday, she , one of which would make it illegal for federal officials to set foot on Alberta project sites. Smith also has close contacts with many Republican state governors and federal lawmakers. She’ll try to secure exemptions and deny Trudeau the applause. For Smith and her UCP, the thought of Trudeau getting sole credit — and maybe winning another election — is the new nightmare.Meta’s 2025 vision: Ray-Ban Smart Glasses to get built-in display, report suggests

Sam Darnold leads game-winning drive in OT and Vikings beat Bears 30-27 after blowing late leadto the sound of voices outside his death row cell just after 5 a.m. on Monday morning. A neighbor in the Special Confinement Unit at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the federal government sends men it has sentenced to die, was talking about a segment he caught on NPR. “One guy, he wakes up early and listens to the radio,” Taylor told me later that morning. “And he was like, ‘Hey, I think I heard them say something about Biden — he commuted the sentences of 37 guys.’” Taylor turned on CNN. Sure enough, the was written on the screen. “And I was surprised,” he said softly, with a blend of joy and relief. “ .” Since the reelection of Donald Trump, a rising chorus of activists, lawmakers, and members of the legal community had been to commute the sentences of all 40 men on federal death row to life without parole. Although Taylor was one of the dozens who had filed an application asking for clemency, he was not optimistic. He started feeling a glimmer of hope on Friday night, when he checked his email to find an from the Wall Street Journal saying that Biden was mulling mass commutations. He printed it out and made copies for his neighbors. “This is my FIRST time feeling REAL hope about commutations for the row!” he said. Read our complete coverage Out for Blood Only four years ago, Taylor and his neighbors lived through an that left him deeply traumatized. Between July 2020 and January 2021, the Trump administration executed 13 people in the federal death chamber. As an orderly, Taylor cleaned out the death watch cells where the men would await their execution. His clemency petition described how he carefully packed up any belongings left behind, approaching the task “as a small measure of dignity he could give to his fellow man.” Taylor was sentenced to death in 2008 for fatally shooting an Atlanta restaurateur named Guy Luck. His lawyers described it as a botched kidnapping that crossed state lines into Tennessee. Taylor was 18 years old at the time and had never been convicted of a crime. His trial, which took place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was rooted in racism, his post-conviction attorneys argued. A woman who served as an alternate on his jury later told a local reporter that she’d heard other jurors say they needed to “make an example” of Taylor. “It was like, here’s this little black boy,” she said of fellow jurors’ sentiment. “Let’s send him to the Chair.” Like many who commit violent crimes in their youth, Taylor, who is now 40, matured considerably over his 16 years on death row, developing a reputation as someone who showed deep empathy and care toward his neighbors. My own correspondence with Taylor dating back to 2020 reflects this too. In our most recent conversations, he was more interested in advocating for his neighbors than he was to talk about himself. Taylor had not yet spoken to his family when he sent me an email on Monday night. His lawyer Kelley Henry, a supervisory assistant federal public defender, had shared the news with his sister, whose birthday is Christmas Eve. Recounting their exchange, Taylor said, “My sister cried, saying this was the BEST birthday gift for her.” Henry, who still , wrote in a statement that she was “profoundly grateful to President Biden for his extraordinary act of mercy and grace.” She expressed hope that the commutations would serve as an example to like . She wrote, “The death penalty is a relic of the past and should be left there.” Wither the “False Promise” Biden’s 37 commutations were historic — a sweeping act of mercy never seen before from a U.S. president. Although his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama presided over a de facto moratorium on federal executions, due in part to the inability to for lethal injection, he only one federal death sentence, along with that of one man on military death row. Of the 13 people executed by Trump, 10 of them had sought clemency from Obama before he left office. In his statement announcing the commutations, Biden, who reimposed the moratorium immediately upon taking office, made clear he did not wish to repeat Obama’s mistake. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he said. Most Read Although Biden in 2020, many advocates had quietly worried that he would leave office without taking action. Over his decades in government, Biden made a name for himself as a “tough on crime” senator who did more than almost anyone to expand the federal death penalty in the first place. Pressure on Biden to make good on his vow to end the federal death penalty came from all quarters, behind the scenes at the White House, and in public demonstrations. Last week, activists and death row family members appeared Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., at a briefing on Capitol Hill. Related After the commutations were announced, some that Biden did not go far enough. Members of the abolitionist group called on him to commute the sentences of the remaining three men on federal death row, who include Dylann Roof, the self-declared white supremacist who at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In his statement, Biden characterized the three men denied clemency as guilty of “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.” Death Penalty Action Board President Sharon Risher, who lost her mother and cousin in Roof’s massacre, was emotional in a for reporters on Monday morning. “I need the president to understand that when you put a killer on death row, you also put their victim’s families in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until there is an execution before we can begin to heal,” she said. Among those who represent people facing execution, however, each life spared was a source of celebration — and palpable relief. Veteran attorney Margaret O’Donnell, who has spent decades advocating for people on federal death row, described a flurry of phone calls from men whose sentences were commuted. “Over the years, I have learned their life stories, shared their fears, known their pain of living in solitary confinement so far from those they love and have come to deeply appreciate how they do their best to live meaningful lives,” she told me. O’Donnell had spent part of her time since Trump’s execution spree coordinating a to help death row families stay in touch with their loved ones. Earlier this year, I met Rose Holomn, who had made use of the program so that her son, Julius Robinson, could see his father for the first time in years. In January, she told me she felt betrayed by Biden: “He didn’t keep his promise.” In a phone call Monday, however, Holomn was exuberant. She saw the news around 8 a.m. on the Fox affiliate in Atlanta, where she lives. “I ran around the house — ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jesus!’” she said. For 27 years, she has only seen her son through plexiglass; no contact is allowed at death row visits. Now she was overjoyed at the thought of being able to hug him sometime in the near future. Though many questions remain about what comes next, Holomn sounded undaunted. She helped her son survive death row for nearly 30 years. She asked me to include something in my article: “Be sure to put in there: ‘A mother’s love goes a long way.’”None

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WhatsApp ditches 'Typing' indicator for animated bubble, users not happyKevin Kisner, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, was named lead analyst for NBC Sports' golf coverage alongside commentator Dan Hicks. Kisner, 40, made his debut as an analyst for NBC in 2024, working in the booth for the Phoenix Open, The Players Championship and the FedEx Cup Playoffs. A native of Aiken, S.C., Kisner still will maintain a limited playing schedule on the PGA Tour. He participated in 23 events in 2004 and made the cut six times, while finishing 198th in the FedEx Cup points standings. "I'm humbled and grateful to have the chance to sit in the seat that many legends like Johnny Miller and Paul Azinger have sat in before me on NBC," Kisner said in a release. "I'm looking forward to offering a different voice and adding a new dynamic to the broadcasts, hopefully reaching more fans and telling things like it is. That's what I think I do best." Kisner's most recent PGA Tour victory came in the 2021 Wyndham Championship when he bested Branden Grace, Si-woo Kim, Kevin Na, Adam Scott and Roger Sloan in a playoff. Kisner also earned wins at the 2019 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the 2017 Dean & DeLuca Invitational and the 2015 RSM Classic. He has earned $29.3 million since first joining the tour in 2011. --Field Level Media