he former ' receiver, , is excited to take on his old team as he looks for revenge when they welcome the to the MetLife Stadium on Sunday, November 24. played for the East Rutherford-based side between 2019 and 2023 but was let go when his contract expired, eventually heading to the NFC South where he linked up with the in June 2024. The 31-year-old had made 4095 receiving yards for 23 touchdowns in 74 starts with the team and has continued his career in Florida with 166 yards from 16 receptions for one touchdown, proving he still has something to offer. And in the mix for the offense against the Giants, the overall 40th pick of the 2016 NFL Draft is excited to show what he has to offer when he goes up against a -less Giants on Sunday. "I mean, obviously you got a little bit more juice,'' told The New York Post of the clash with the Giants. "I've got some familiar faces over there, people I've built a relationship with. "But when you step in between them white lines, it's business, and that's the way you have to approach it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to going back man, it's going to be fun.'' Giants game huge for Shepard and also the Bucs The game will take place on November 24 at the MetLife Stadium, with kick-off expected from 13:00 ET/10:00 PT. The match will be broadcast live on CBS Sports with delivering the play-by-play. After losing Chris Godwin to a season-ending injury, the contest against the 3-8 Giants will be key for and to get their seasons back on track with the chance to claim their fifth win of the campaign. If they prevail and the lose, they will move to second in the NFC South whilst they could also move up as high as eighth in the NFC Conference.
WASHINGTON (AP) — American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide Tuesday because of a technical problem just as the Christmas travel season kicked into overdrive and winter weather threatened more potential problems for those planning to fly or drive. Government regulators cleared American flights to get airborne about an hour after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a national ground stop for the airline. The order, which prevented planes from taking off, was issued at the airline's request after it experienced trouble with its flight operating system, or FOS. The airline blamed technology from one of its vendors. As a result, flights were delayed across American’s major hubs, with only 37% of the airline's 3,901 domestic and international flights leaving on time, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company. Nineteen flights were canceled. Dennis Tajer, a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, a union representing American Airlines pilots, said the airline told pilots at 7 a.m. Eastern that there was an outage affecting the FOS system. It handles different types of airline operations, including dispatch, flight planning, passenger boarding, as well as an airplane's weight and balance data, he said. Some components of FOS have gone down in the past, but a systemwide outage is rare, Tajer said. Hours after the ground stop was lifted, Tajer said the union had not heard about any “chaos out there beyond just the normal heavy travel day.” He said officials were watching for any cascading effects, such as staffing problems. On social media, however, customers expressed frustrations about delays that caused them or their family members to miss connecting flights. One person asked if American planned to hold flights for passengers to make connections, while others complained about the lack of assistance they said they received from the airline or gate agents. Cirium noted that the vast majority of flights were departing within two hours of their scheduled departure time. A similar percentage — 36% — were arriving at their destinations as scheduled. Dallas-Fort Worth, New York’s Kennedy Airport and Charlotte, North Carolina, saw the greatest number of delays, Cirium said. Washington, Chicago and Miami experienced considerably fewer delays. Meanwhile, the flight-tracking site FlightAware reported that 4,058 flights entering or leaving the U.S., or serving domestic destinations, were delayed, with 76 flights canceled. The site had not posted any American Airlines flights on Tuesday morning, but showed in the afternoon that 961 American flights were delayed. Amid the travel problems, significant rain and snow were expected in the Pacific Northwest at least into Christmas Day. Showers and thunderstorms were developing in the South. Freezing rain was reported in the Mid-Atlantic region near Baltimore and Washington, and snow fell in New York. Because the holiday travel period lasts weeks, airports and airlines typically have smaller peak days than they do during the rush around Thanksgiving, but the grind of one hectic day followed by another takes a toll on flight crews. And any hiccups — a winter storm or a computer outage — can snowball into massive disruptions. That is how Southwest Airlines stranded 2 million travelers in December 2022, and Delta Air Lines suffered a smaller but significant meltdown after a worldwide technology outage in July caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations even more disruptive than during slower periods. That is especially true for smaller budget airlines that have fewer flights and fewer options for rebooking passengers. Only the largest airlines, including American, Delta and United, have “interline agreements” that let them put stranded customers on another carrier’s flights. This will be the first holiday season since a Transportation Department rule took effect that requires airlines to give customers an automatic cash refund for a canceled or significantly delayed flight. Most air travelers were already eligible for refunds, but they often had to request them. Passengers still can ask to get rebooked, which is often a better option than a refund during peak travel periods. That’s because finding a last-minute flight on another airline tends to be expensive. An American spokesperson said Tuesday was not a peak travel day for the airline — with about 2,000 fewer flights than the busiest days — so the airline had somewhat of a buffer to manage the delays. The groundings happened as millions of travelers were expected to fly over the next 10 days. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 40 million passengers through Jan. 2. Airlines expect to have their busiest days on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations more disruptive than during slower periods. Even with just a brief outage, the cancellations have a cascading effect that can take days to clear up. About 90% of Americans traveling far from home over the holidays will be in cars, according to AAA. “Airline travel is just really high right now, but most people do drive to their destinations, and that is true for every holiday,” AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz said. Gasoline prices are similar to last year. The nationwide average Thursday was $3.04 a gallon, down from $3.13 a year ago, according to AAA. Charging an electric vehicle averages just under 35 cents per per kilowatt hour, but varies by state. Transportation-data firm INRIX says travel times on the nation’s highways could be up to 30% longer than normal over the holidays, with Sunday expected to see the heaviest traffic. Boston, New York City, Seattle and Washington are the metropolitan areas primed for the greatest delays, according to the company. Associated Press writers David Koenig, Mae Anderson and Mike Pesoli contributed to this report.Tsuruha Holdings Inc. ( OTCMKTS:TSUSF – Get Free Report ) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 60,600 shares, an increase of 72.6% from the November 30th total of 35,100 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 606.0 days. Tsuruha Stock Performance Shares of OTCMKTS TSUSF opened at $55.00 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $55.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of $59.07. Tsuruha has a 12-month low of $55.00 and a 12-month high of $60.71. About Tsuruha ( Get Free Report ) Read More Receive News & Ratings for Tsuruha Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Tsuruha and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .New Orleans mayor launches own 'news' service for the cityQuest Partners LLC lowered its stake in shares of Garrett Motion Inc. ( NYSE:GTX – Free Report ) by 50.4% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 56,946 shares of the company’s stock after selling 57,870 shares during the quarter. Quest Partners LLC’s holdings in Garrett Motion were worth $466,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Gladius Capital Management LP acquired a new position in Garrett Motion during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $58,000. Seizert Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Garrett Motion by 76.6% in the 3rd quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 659,132 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,392,000 after acquiring an additional 285,918 shares during the period. Royce & Associates LP raised its stake in Garrett Motion by 7.1% in the 3rd quarter. Royce & Associates LP now owns 1,649,218 shares of the company’s stock worth $13,491,000 after acquiring an additional 109,430 shares during the last quarter. Lummis Asset Management LP lifted its position in Garrett Motion by 49.1% during the 3rd quarter. Lummis Asset Management LP now owns 175,150 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,433,000 after acquiring an additional 57,702 shares during the period. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Garrett Motion by 3.3% during the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,225,850 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,027,000 after purchasing an additional 38,852 shares during the last quarter. 86.27% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Insider Activity at Garrett Motion In other news, SVP Thierry Mabru sold 50,000 shares of Garrett Motion stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.47, for a total transaction of $373,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 140,509 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,049,602.23. The trade was a 26.25 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website . 0.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Garrett Motion Price Performance Garrett Motion ( NYSE:GTX – Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The company reported $0.24 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.30 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $826.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $854.00 million. Garrett Motion had a negative return on equity of 31.48% and a net margin of 6.54%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.23 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Garrett Motion Inc. will post 1.08 EPS for the current fiscal year. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Separately, BWS Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $12.00 target price on shares of Garrett Motion in a report on Friday, October 25th. Read Our Latest Research Report on GTX Garrett Motion Company Profile ( Free Report ) Garrett Motion Inc, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells turbocharging, air and fluid compression, and high-speed electric motor technologies for original equipment manufacturers and distributors worldwide. The company offers cutting-edge technology for the mobility and industrial space, including light vehicles, commercial vehicles, and industrial applications. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GTX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Garrett Motion Inc. ( NYSE:GTX – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for Garrett Motion Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Garrett Motion and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
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Letter to the Editor | News story speaks volumes
Syrian Christians attend Christmas mass for first time since fall of AssadChristian Krüeger on the hole where his son, Filip, died in April. michael bamberger Do you remember the second Saturday in April this year? Saturday, April 13, 2024. It was exceptional and ordinary, as most days are. The third round of the 2024 Masters was played on that Saturday. That would place it for many golf fans, and maybe jog the memory for some others, even if they are who not. By sunset at Augusta on that Saturday, Scottie Scheffler had a one-shot lead in the tourney. Tiger Woods made the 36-hole cut but, spent by Friday’s fierce winds, shot a third-round 82. Ludvig Åberg , a promising 24-year-old Swedish golfer in his first Masters, had a showy tee time for Saturday afternoon, 2:15, and shot 70. Fantastisk! On it goes, that Saturday. So fantastic and ordinary and everything else. Maybe you played that day. Maybe you watched the tournament. Maybe you cleaned the garage. In Sweden, a golf fan named Christian Krüeger, in his late 50s, was organizing his day so he could watch Åberg on the Swedish telecast, even though it would be late at night in Gothenburg, where Christian was playing in a national tennis tournament for senior amateur players. Christian’s wife, Susanne, at their home in Stockholm, was less likely to watch it. She was drawn to more aerobic sports. When their three kids were young, Christian, a finance executive, had a three-year plan to get down to a single-digit handicap. He would rise in the predawn darkness to practice and play. “Keep this up,” Susanne told him, “and you’ll be a single-digit golfer — and a single father.” Christian took a leave from golf. Whatever sports their two sons and daughter played, Susanne and Christian played, too. The Krüeger fivesome was always playing. They skied and skated; they played tennis and squash; they swam and biked. They climbed mountains. Outdoor activity was a way of life for them. What else would you expect? They’re Swedish! The middle child, Filip Krüeger, was 4,000 miles from his parents on that Saturday. He had left Sweden for Philadelphia in 2018 to play squash at Drexel. In his five years at the university — his eligibility extended by the pandemic — he was the team captain four times. He had graduated from Drexel and was living in an apartment in downtown Philadelphia with his girlfriend. He was starting a career in finance, like his father, like his mother. He was loaded with promise and half-broke, in that just-out-of-college way. His family was affluent, in that unassuming Swedish way. A rustic country house, high-tech cold-weather coats. In Philadelphia, that Saturday morning in mid-April was windy, cool and gray. Filip and his friends were on for golf, off for golf, then on again. There was a small posse of them, Drexel squash players from different countries who, since the pandemic, had fallen deep into the rabbit hole of golf. Their text chain made the rounds, four guys raised their hands, and off they went, by car, to a nearby course, Filip and three of his buddies, heading out to the Melrose Country Club, just outside the city limits. The course was once private and pristine and was now public and run down, but it was fine for them. They were regulars. The price was right — $50, mandatory cart — and it was seldom crowded. Some of its holes were originals by Perry Maxwell, a Golden Age design legend, but that meant nothing to Filip and his golf pals. It had what they wanted: 18 holes of fresh air, outdoor golf. That Saturday had turned into a lovely spring day in Philadelphia. By afternoon, the clouds had lifted and Melrose was awash in spring sunlight. It was about 3 p.m. when the four squash-playing golfers reached the ninth tee. The rest of the day and weekend was shaping up nicely for Filip. He’d play the back nine, watch the last hour of the Masters telecast. He’d catch up with Hatti, his girlfriend, who was with work colleagues in Connecticut. Maybe he’d play squash Sunday morning, watch the fourth round of the Masters Sunday afternoon, do some prep Sunday night to get ready for the workweek. He was always doing something. *** MELROSE’S NINTH HOLE IS A PAR-4, about 330 yards long. A pretty ordinary hole, really. To the far left, you can see the traffic on Tookany Creek Parkway. Between the parkway and the fairway, there’s a large swath of scraggly rough. In the rough, there’s a cluster of tall, tangled trees. One of the trees, a red oak, about 200 yards off the tee and about 100 feet tall, was right on the edge of the fairway. Right on the edge of the fairway, with an odd and pronounced lean toward the fairway — and limbs that stretched far over it. Nobody’s favorite tree. But you could say that of the whole left side of the hole. It was a bogey waiting to happen. Bogey or worse. Best to avoid the entire region. But, as is often the case in golf, this ninth hole at Melrose offered more appealing options, too. All you had to do was orient yourself to its right side, where there were fewer trees in play, manageable rough and a welcoming fairway. On the Saturday in mid-April when Filip and his friends were playing Melrose, the ninth fairway was the picture of spring, practically dancing in the sunlight. If you were on the hunt for beauty, you could find it on that hole, as you can find it most anywhere. The feminine sweep of its fairway. The modest hill leading to its simple, elevated table-top green. The wide open up-the-middle entrance to the green, but its gatekeepers, too: a trap on its right side, a severe hill on its left. You see holes like this throughout rural Scotland, on courses way off the tourist trail. Nobody would call the ninth at Melrose postcard-ready. But it did have a certain something. As he stood on the ninth tee, Filip Krüeger took a photo on his phone. One of his partners is on the tee in the foreground. On the left side you can see the rough with its hodgepodge of trees. And, to the right of the rightmost tree, a broad stretch of fairway, its grass green and inviting, like the GO light on a traffic signal. *** THIS SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN MID-APRIL is going too fast. Can we slow down the clock here, go to four corners, do something ? Along those same lines: this paint-by-words portrait of Filip Krüeger is inadequate. For starters, the four-time captain thing. Nobody at Drexel can recall anything like that happening before. He graduated from Drexel . True, but insufficient: He had a joint degree in engineering and finance. You don’t ChatGBT your way to that degree. Yes, Filip was, as noted,starting a career in finance in Philadelphia. But nobody thought Philadelphia would be able to contain him, and neither would a career in finance. Filip had, through squash, friends from all over the world and, traveling in that college-kid bare-bones way, had already seen a lot of it, with a notion to see the rest. As for his girlfriend, Hatti. Hatti Specter. She was more than Filip’s girlfriend. She and Filip met through squash at Drexel, and they were a committed couple. Flying to Stockholm during the dark days of the pandemic they pretended to be married, to ease the entry requirements. It didn’t take much pretending. They were beshert , to use a Yiddish word Hatti’s family has known forever, and the Krüeger had come to know: destined, fated. Meant to be. *** SQAUSH RUNS THROUGH THE SPECTER FAMILY. Arlen Specter, the longtime Pennsylvania senator, played a lot squash, almost to his final days. His son Shanin, a Pennsylvania trial lawyer, is a serious squash player with a court at home. Shanin’s wife, Tracey, a triathlete, life coach and cook, played college and adult competitive squash. Shanin and Tracey have four daughters, and for Hatti, the youngest, squash has been a lifelong passion. The gleaming, public Arlen Specter U.S. Squash Center, the national home for American squash, is on the Drexel campus. The Drexel team plays across the street, on courts named for Shanin’s law firm, the Kline & Specter Squash Center, on Market Street in the University City section of West Philadelphia. The firm’s office is a mile away, across the Schuylkill River, on Locust Street in downtown Philadelphia, near the Racquet Club. Shanin is never far from squash. He’s also, at work, never far from City Hall and its courtrooms, and never far from Philadelphia’s federal court buildings. When Shanin was a kid, his father was Philadelphia’s district attorney. Later, Shanin’s mother, Joan Specter, was a Philadelphia city council member. When she died in June, at age 90, her life in politics was discussed prominently at her funeral, but so was her earlier career, as a commercial baker of apple pies. She owned cooking schools and wrote a food column. She was a foodie, a stylish and slender one. Nobody left the post-service spread at Mrs. Specter’s funeral hungry. I’m really speaking for myself, but I do think it had to be true for everybody there. Now would be a good time to point out that my wife and I have counted Shanin and Tracey as friends for years. Christine and I are drawn to the Specter home for any number of reasons. I could start with Tracey’s own cooking but it goes far deeper than that. *** BACK TO MID-APRIL. On that Saturday night in Augusta, I had planned to have dinner with my friend Ryan French, but it didn’t come together, a victim of the no-phones policy at the Masters. On Sunday, Scottie Scheffler won the tournament and I wrote-up the broadcaster Verne Lundquist, descending from the CBS booth at 16 for a final time. On Monday, I took a colleague with a car problem to the Hertz office at the Augusta airport, played the six-hole First Tee course in Augusta, got lunch and started a leisurely drive home. I spent Monday night at the Fairfield Inn in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. I’m stalling here, reciting all this mundane activity, hoping it might trigger something for you. Your Saturday. Your Sunday. Your Monday. Your any day. There’s a new version of Our Town on Broadway now. Maybe you know the play. In the third act, Emily, the protagonist, is dead, but through the magic of Thornton Wilder’s writing and his omnipotent creation, the Stage Manager, she is able to relive her 12th birthday, in all its majesty and ordinariness. Emily: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute? STAGE MANAGER: No. (Pause.) The saints and poets, maybe—they do some. On Tuesday, April 16, while driving on I-95 near Baltimore, a luscious song came on the car radio. Mine Forever, by Lord Huron, an indie-folkie rock band with a big following on some college campuses and pockets of popularity beyond that. I knew the band but not the song. About six years ago, Christine and I had heard Lord Huron when Shanin and Tracey hired the band for a big-bash family-and-friends party, for Shanin’s 60th. By text, cruising north on I-95, I told Shanin that Lord Huron had just made a rare radio appearance. I signed off with, “Hope you’re well.” “Unfortunately, not well,” Shanin wrote back. He briefly described a freakish accident involving Hatti’s boyfriend, on a golf course in suburban Philadelphia, three days earlier. “Devastating,” Shanin wrote in a text, “and very difficult to comprehend.” *** FILIP SNAPPED THAT PHOTO ON Melrose’s ninth tee, put his ball on a peg, made a big swing with a driver . . . and hit a ground-ball duff that went nowhere. It happens. But then he crushed a high, drawing 5-iron, as pure as could be. It might have reached the base of the hill that leads to the green, but the shot nicked a tree — a limb, actually, jutting out from that 100-foot-tall red oak and stretching over the fairway. The shot got knocked down. Filip got in the passenger seat of the cart. His friend José López, a former Drexel squash player and a civil engineer from El Salvador, got behind the wheel. José drove down the left side of the hole on the half-crumbling cart path, but they weren’t thinking about that. They were heading to their shots and planning their next ones. That’s golf. Your ball is like a dictator. It tells you where to go. But the golfer is a dictator, too, trying to boss that golf ball around. They were just about to pass the tall red oak with the odd lean and the protruding limb when, without warning, it gave way. No wind burst, no anything, just a 90-year-old tree collapsing, as if a sniper had hit it. It’s hard to imagine: 50 tons of tree, 100,000 pounds, standing one second, crashing into ground the next. The tree fell suddenly, violently, with terrifying speed, exposing its root system as the tree’s base was ripped out of the ground. A part of the tree landed on the passenger side of the cart, crushing it. The other two playing partners, slightly ahead of José and Filip and on the other side of the fairway, called 9-1-1. All manner of emergency medical professionals came racing down Tookany Creek Parkway. EMTs and firefighters and police officers were on the scene in minutes. José was walking around in shock, unaware that he was bleeding profusely from a laceration on his arm. Filip’s death, in all likelihood, was immediate. *** THE AFTERMATH OF A QUICK and inexplicable death triggers a storm of its own. Investigations are set in motion. Professionals from different fields step in, to document and report, to conduct tests, collect samples, take statements. There are dozens of people who need to be called. There are protocols, standard operating procedures, in place. There’s a book. But every quick and inexplicable death has a preamble that is all its own. How did this tragic perfect storm, one that leads to unimaginable sorrow, come to be in the first place? What preceded it? And as you dive into that preamble, something extraordinary happens. The mundane becomes beautiful. What was meaningless is suddenly stamped FOREVER. Filip’s final photo, final scorecard, final drive, even if it was a duff. His final 5-iron, right on the sweet spot, a shot that looked so good, until it ticked that tree on the left. Filip started the round 5-7-4, then went 5-5-6. (Golf loves threes, doesn’t it?) Followed by a miracle, a par on 7, and a return to earth, a double on 8. Eight holes, 11 over par. Filip was always taking photos. The last one he took captured the tree that claimed his life. That 100-foot-tall red oak, with its old-age lean and its outstretched arm. What are the chances? What are the chances that a tree would fall on a moving golf cart and result in a death? Hard to get your arms around it. Filip’s final scorecard: 1. 5 2. 7 3. 4 4. 5 5. 5 6. 6 7. 4 8. 5 The box for 9 remains empty. *** IN HIS ALMOST 26 YEARS, Filip had lived a rich, rich life, as a squash player, team captain, student, world traveler, son, brother, friend, work colleague, golfer with the bug, boyfriend. Twenty-five years, 10 months, six full days and most of a seventh. That final Saturday afternoon in mid-April. *** I KNOW FILIP. I didn’t in fact, but I feel like I do. I watched a video of his memorial service, from late April, organized by Hatti and held in a large auditorium on the Drexel campus. (Christine and I were at a family wedding.) At a court-naming ceremony in Filip’s honor at the Drexel squash courts in November, attended by a hundred or more people, I was bowled over by the spirit of the event, the presence of the former Drexel president, Susanne Krüeger’s ability to comfort others , the quality of the Swedish treats on catering tables against a back wall. Over the past half-year or so, I have had the chance to talk about Filip with Susanne and Christian Krüeger; Tracey and Shanin Specter; his friend and golf partner José López; Noel Heaton, a former Drexel squash player and Filip’s closest friend; and Hatti. Most especially Hatti. You can sense Filip’s energy, playfulness and intelligence when you hear Hatti and others talk about him. You get a sense of his presence, his charisma. He was tall, lean and fit, with blue eyes, a mop of thick reddish hair and a half-goofy smile. When he played squash with Shanin, the question was not who would win. The question, at least for Filip, was how long he should stretch the points out so Shanin could get a workout without collapsing on the court. Shanin described their matches as “charitable events.” Filip’s long arms, in concert with his competitive desire, helped him get to almost any shot while playing squash. He used those long arms to hug sweaty opponents in victory and defeat. But they were bad for his golf — they looped around, trying to do too much. He was working on it. He played golf casually — mulligans, improved lies, gimmes — but he was serious about getting better. Filip and Noel often went to Five Iron Golf, an indoor range a short walk from the apartment Filip shared with Hatti. Before that, all through his five years at Drexel, Filip lived with Noel, a Canadian, along with two other Drexel squash players, one from Colombia, the other from India. They called their apartment the U.N. Filip traveled easily and well, and no matter where he went, in the U.S. or anywhere else, he was attuned to the world around him. In Mumbai, Filip stopped to listen to the call for prayer from minarets, considered the lives in the city’s vast slums, engaged his shoeless caddie in conversation. Filip was open, curious and empathetic. Those qualities were in his bones. Hatti studied public health at Drexel. She’s 24 and graduated Drexel last year. In the wake of Filip’s death, Hatti has thrown herself into her work, first as a campaign aid and now as a legislative aid to Sarah McBride of Delaware, an incoming member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the first openly transgender person elected to the House or Senate. Hatti was at a fundraiser for McBride in Connecticut, where McBride’s brother lives, when Filip died. One of Hatti’s sisters and a cousin drove from Philadelphia to Connecticut to tell Hatti the news. NOOOOOO! No-no-no-no-no. That cannot be true. When Hatti speaks of Filip, tears can drop from her eyes and run down her cheeks like a dripping faucet on a sink. But the crying has no effect on her breathing, no effect on her ability to say exactly what she wants to say. In the days immediately after Filip’s death, she wrote down what she did, who she called, what she thought. She’s loaded with emotion and precision, an uncommon combination. It’s some one-two punch. The morning after the accident, early on that Sunday, Hatti was at the Montgomery County coroner’s office. She was there before it opened. She wanted to see her Filip’s body. An officer there advised against it. Hatti was insistent. The officer was, too: “It’s not the way you want to see him for the last time.” Hatti, strong-willed by nature, relented. In his work life, as a trial lawyer, Shanin Specter has seen a lot of catastrophic death. In his private life, he has not. The phrase Act of God is used often when insurance claims and the legal system collide under freakish circumstances. We’re not going down that road here, owner culpability, case law in accidental death, insurance riders, Act-of-God standards. We’re here to honor Filip and his love of sport, life, people. No lawsuit has been filed in the matter. There likely will be a private settlement. Shanin said a Melrose owner told him, “Take the keys to the course.” “We don’t want the course,” Shanin said in response, as he recounted the conversation. (The managing owner of the course did not respond to interview requests, one by email, one by phone, both received.) “What we want is to make sure nothing like this happens again.” Shanin would like to see course operators be required to release annual public reports assessing the health of the trees on the courses they run. By one 12-year study, falling trees kill an estimated 30 to 40 people annually in the United States. A small percentage of those deaths occur on golf courses, but there is no known number. Most of these deaths are caused by an ill-fated meeting of extreme wind with a tree suffering from a decaying root system or disease. There is no established national standard for what constitutes reasonable golf-course care, or what constitutes negligence, for that matter. Tree maintenance is a fundamental part of course safety. Filip’s parents are leaving the matter of the settlement to Shanin. A payment will change nothing. “Whatever the family gets, they would pay that for 10 more minutes with their son,” Shanin said. *** YOU LIKELY HAVE THE BIG PICTURE, for Filip as a young man and for Filip and Hatti as a young couple. They had been together for almost five years when Filip went out for golf that day and Hatti went to Connecticut for a fundraiser, and they were bound for — we can all guess. Hatti went to Sweden for a memorial service for Filip in May and is planning a trip this winter to visit Filip’s parents. The families are linked forever. Tracey and Shanin offered this to Susanne and Christian: You lost a son but gained a daughter. *** JOSÉ TOLD ME THAT THE 5-IRON, the one Filip used to play his final shot, was in the back of the cart when the tree fell and, astoundingly, the club was not damaged at all. It’s still in play. Over the course of a round, different players from the Drexel squash-and-golf crowd will take shots with it. They’ll say, “Four hands on that shot.” Noel, a low-handicap golfer and now a squash pro at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, had no interest in golf in the aftermath of Filip’s death. Another squash pro at the Cricket Club redirected Noel’s thinking: “If Filip knew you had stopped playing, he would be so disappointed.” Noel returned to golf, with purpose. *** ON A SATURDAY IN MID-NOVEMBER, seven months after Filip’s death, the Krüeger family came from Sweden to Philadelphia and the Drexel squash center to attend the court-naming ceremony for their middle child. It was a moving event, more joyful than solemn. Susanne and Christian and their children, Victor and Frida, greeted Filip’s friends, posed for photographs, spoke publicly and privately, rooted for Drexel in a squash match. As the day was wrapping up, I asked Christian if he had any interest in making a trip to Melrose. He did. The following morning, the Specter and Krüeger families had brunch together in a downtown apartment, part of a hotel, where the Krüegers were staying. In the afternoon, I picked up Christian there and we drove to Melrose. Neither of us had been there before. The course is in Cheltenham township just over the border from a sprawling section of Philadelphia sometimes called the Great Northeast. During the drive, Christian talked about his experiences as an exchange student for a year in a North Carolina high school. About the great Swedish tennis player Björn Borg and the golfer Jesper Parnevik’s father, a Swedish comedian. He talked about his company’s investment in a popular London show based on the music of the Swedish band Abba. The conversation was easy and genial. We turned off Tookany Creek Parkway and into the Melrose driveway. Its parking lots were in poor condition and nearly empty. The massive mustard-colored clubhouse, surely once elegant, was now hulking and uninviting, fading. We had not called ahead to make arrangements of any sort. The afternoon was mild but also dank. There wasn’t much sunlight left. We saw an older man putting his clubs in his car and asked him to point us toward the ninth hole. He told us that the front nine was on the other side of parkway. He then talked about the course and how its condition had deteriorated over time. He said that the Melrose owners were closing the course, for good, in a couple of weeks, at the end of November. He had played there for years but expressed all this in a what-are-you-gonna-do manner. “I’ll find somewhere else to play,” he said. Christian and I walked through a tunnel that takes you under the parkway and to the front nine. Once there, we made a guess about direction and walked with purpose. The course was almost empty. We hiked up a hill and reached its modest summit. We stopped, looked around, and found ourselves taking deep breaths of the fall air. It was invigorating. We figured out that we were on the fourth tee. We walked from there to nine. Christian had told me that he and Susanne had experienced moments and days when they were hounded by despair and sorrow. But he also said he had never felt the need or desire to see a therapist, minister or medical professional. He knew many people in the shackles of grief did, but he did not. He said he found peace by being with, and talking, to his wife, his children, his friends, the Specters, his work colleagues, Filip’s friends and teammates and coaches — and Hatti. His mental health, he said, required talking openly, expressing everything, being active and engaged. It required remembering, sharing, mourning, celebrating. He did not allow himself to consider the bizarre confluence of events. They had happened, and they could not be changed. Regret was a waste of time, and time is precious. Christian stood on the ninth tee. For a long moment, he was still and silent, absorbed by all the surrounded him, all that had happened there. The tee was dry and baked out, with more bare spots than grass. Then, the moment over, Christian began reenacting Filip’s last movements, the shots he played, the photos he took, the friends he was with, the views he saw. There was nothing compulsive about it. He was just putting pieces together, as one puts together pieces from a puzzle. He took that last photo here. The duffed drive probably went there. Then the 5-iron. He and José got in the cart. We walked down the fairway, the cart path to our left. A lone golfer finished the hole and began the drive to the other side of the course, where the clubhouse is located. Since Filip’s death many trees had been removed from the course. But as Christian and I walked up the ninth hole and looked left, the tangled hodgepodge of trees was still there, minus one. The tree that claimed Filip’s life was gone, with a blanket of sawdust and a grassy hump marking where it had been. In the vicinity, we saw yellow caution tape laying sloppily on the ground. Christian noted that, how nobody had even bothered to collect the yellow tape . He walked around, looked around, absorbing, collecting. He was in the place where son had spent the final moments of his life, this patch of tired golf course. The father offered a valedictory: “There is something beautiful about it.” There was no false cheer in his voice. More like acceptance and appreciation, tempered by sorrow. *** A FEW DAYS LATER I LEARNED that the Melrose owners had filed plans with Cheltenham township, seeking to build 300 townhomes on the property’s 116 acres, for a 55-and-over community. There was a news story about the proposed development in a local paper in early April, two weeks before Filip died. The plan to shutter the course at the end of the 2024 season was already in place. Course maintenance was not a high priority — the online reviews will tell you that. The newspaper story said the development plans called for 40 acres of open space. *** TWO SONGS FROM THE SOUNDTRACK. Track 1. The young people like to play music while they play golf, and there was music playing in the cart Filip shared with José throughout their round on that Saturday in mid-April. It was at a low volume, in the background, but that round, like all their rounds, had a soundtrack. On their eighth and ninth holes they were playing music by a German musician and DJ named Adam Port and a group called Keinemusick. José selected the music but he and Filip both enjoyed it. It falls into no simple category. Techno house music with beats and instruments that bring to mind Africa or Berlin or Portugal or all three. A reviewer somewhere on the web wrote that Port’s music “makes time fade into insignificance.” An interesting take. Filip and his friends — their whole generation, really — grew up with the world at their fingertips, via the internet. For Filip, it was a starting point but that’s all it was. He always had his passport handy. *** Track 2. I met Hatti several times on the Drexel campus in University City, to talk about Filip. Lord Huron, the band that played at the big-bash party the Specters threw when Shanin turned 60, came up in our conversation at least once. On one occasion, after an interview on a warm mid-summer day, I gave Hatti a lift downtown, where she was meeting friends. While we drove, I played the Lord Huron song I heard while driving home from Augusta, Mine Forever. It opens with a demand and segues into a request and there’s no clock on either: If you ever wanna see my face again, I wanna know; If you ever get lonely, please let me know. Near the song’s end, there’s a short, powerful refrain: In my mind you’re mine forever; in my mind you’re mine forever; in my mind you’re . . . The song concludes, hauntingly, with 15 seconds of whispered French: Je ne t’oublierai pas. Je te laisserai dans la lumière déclinante. Vivre jusqu’à ta mort. Je te verrai dans une autre vie. A translation: I won’t forget you. I’ll leave you in the fading light. Live until you die— I will see you in another life. We arrived at Rittenhouse Square, bustling with life, draped by beautiful manicured trees, some with peeling bark in the summer heat. Hatti had not heard the song before. “I like it,” she said. She grabbed her backpack, hopped out of the car and into the sunshine, another person in the afternoon crowd. The author welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com . Suggested listening : Track 1 (Lord Huron) | Track 2 (Adam Port) Latest In News Golf.com Contributor Michael Bamberger writes for GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. Before that, he spent nearly 23 years as senior writer for Sports Illustrated . After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first for the (Martha’s) Vineyard Gazette, later for The Philadelphia Inquirer . He has written a variety of books about golf and other subjects, the most recent of which is The Second Life of Tiger Woods . His magazine work has been featured in multiple editions of The Best American Sports Writing. He holds a U.S. patent on The E-Club, a utility golf club. In 2016, he was given the Donald Ross Award by the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the organization’s highest honor.
Microsoft is taking away the Xbox Avatar EditorNew Delhi Amid concerns flagged by the Congress, the Election Commission on Tuesday said there were no arbitrary additions or deletions of voters in Maharashtra where assembly polls were held recently. The poll body focussed on two primary concerns raised by the Congress – arbitrary deletion of voters and subsequent additions in the electoral rolls of Maharashtra, and changes in voter turnout data figures on the day of polling between 5pm and 11.30pm. After meeting the ECI on December 3, senior Congress leader Manu Abhishek Singhvi had claimed that in 118 constituencies in the state, of which the BJP won 102, each constituency saw voter turnout increase by about 25,000 persons per constituency, compared to the general elections between the general and the state elections. In its November 29 letter to the ECI, the party had claimed that in the 50 assembly constituencies that saw an average increase of 50,000 electors, the BJP won 47 of them. The ECI claimed that this was a “baseless accusation” that “creates unnecessary and avoidable doubts and anxiety in the mind of the public”. On discrepancy in voter turnout between 5 pm and 11:30 pm, the ECI said, “At the time of counting, data entered in Form 17C is tallied with data in EVM in presence of the counting agents and therefore allegation of gap between voting percentage data released 5:00 PM on poll day and final polling percentage data is superfluous.” “Commission trusts that INC should not have any clarification missing after these elaborations. Commission is committed to a respectful collaborative relation with all political parties, so critical for a healthy democracy and welcomes suggestions for any improvement in the electoral process,” the response signed by ECI secretary SK Das said. It said that there were only six assembly constituencies, not 50 as claimed by Congress, where more than 50,000 electors were added. Copies of the draft rolls, and claim and objections were provided to Congress in all constituencies, the ECI said. “INC representatives indeed participated in revision of electoral rolls at various stages till the finalisation of electoral rolls,” the ECI said. It said that in the five month-period between the general and state elections, there was an addition of 4,881,610 electors and deletion of 800,391 (average of 2,779 electors per assembly constituency), resulting in a net addition of 4,081,228 electors in the state. This is because, in December 2021 (brought into force in August 2022), the Representation of People Act, 1951, was amended to increase the number of qualifying dates for registration in electoral rolls from only January 1 to April 1, July 1 and October 1. As July 1 and October 1 fell in the five-month period, people who turned 18 years olf also became eligible to registered for the state elections and were enrolled. Of the 4,081,228 net additions, 872,094 (21.4%) were between the ages of 18 and 19, while 1,774,514 (43.5%) were between the ages of 20-29, accounting for 64.8% net additions. The ECI said that returning officers and the district election officers, under the supervision of the ECI, prepare the electoral rolls which are revised annually. The final roll is published around January 5 each year and is then continuously updated until October. The draft roll is published until October. After this publication, both the public and political parties can file claims and objections. In addition, ahead of all state assembly elections, the ECI carries out Special Summary Revision (SSR) of the rolls which involves house to house survey, physical field verification by the booth level officers, random checking by higher-ups, and regular meetings with political parties. Political parties appoint booth level agents to oversee the process. The ECI said that monthly lists of additions, deletions and modifications to the rolls are published on the website, and the draft and final rolls are available on the CEO/DEO’s websites. Free copies of part-wise draft and final rolls are provided to all recognized political parties while general public can get a copy by paying a “nominal fee”. The ECI said that two copies of the electoral rolls, one hard copy with images of the electors and one soft copy without the images, is made available at ERO level. “These instructions are uniformly followed in the entire country,” the ECI said. The ECI also said that the list of all claims and objections is shared with recognized political parties on a weekly basis. Congress had claimed that voters were arbitrarily deleted from the rolls in the five-month period between the general elections and the Maharashtra assembly polls. The party had asked for the raw data and the forms involved. The ECI outlined the standard operating procedure around deletion from the rolls. It said that deletions due to registered death require proper verification, including submission of a death certificate. For unregistered deaths and change in address, the necessary forms (Form 7 and Form 8, respectively) must be received. For each deletion, the BLO must submit a field verification identity. For all proposed deletions, except registered deaths, the ECI said that a notice is issued and the concerned elector is given “reasonable opportunity” to be heard. If more than 2% of all electors are proposed to be deleted from one polling station, the electoral registration officer must personally “cross verify” each case of deletion. The ERO must also personally cross verify deletions is the same person objects to the deletion in more than five cases. On discrepancy in voter turnout, the ECI said, “[T]he Commission has decided to not only inform you once again, but also educate citizens at large about the concept of statutory sharing of VTR with candidates contesting the elections in Form 17C, and the very different concept of non-statutory framework of sharing VTR on VTR APP designed for the general public and underline the difference between the two,” the ECI wrote. During the general elections, the changes in voter turnout had been a major sticking point, resulting in a scathing letter from the ECI to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. The ECI said that “voter turnout” is not a legally defined concept nor is its publication legally required at any level. It reiterated that Form 17C (part I), is the “immutable co-shared record”, with details of the number of votes recorded, that is shared with the polling agents of the candidates at the end of the poll after it is filled out by the presiding officer of the polling station. The data given in the voter turnout app is a “facilitative measure” by the ECI which is not a statutory requirement. It is collected by sector magistrates every two hours starting at 9 am through various media including phone, in person visits to the booth, messaging group, etc. “It is possible that sector magistrates may not get accurate upgraded trends from some PSs in some cycles of data collection,” the ECI wrote. These trends are not a substitute for the data in Form 17C, it said. “Considering 5:00 PM data as the final voter turnout or as its closest approximation is merely a misconception,” the ECI said and called it “interim data of approximate voter turnout”. Polling can continue even after 6 pm, the ECI said. After polling ends, the presiding officer has to perform “multiple statutory, non-statutory and administrative functions”, the poll body said. Form 17C Part I (with data from the EVM about the number of votes registered on the machines, votes polled during mock poll, number of votes cast, etc.), is given to the candidates or their agents at the end of the poll, on the polling day itself, the ECI said. On the polling day, the returning officer must collect and securely store EVMs in strongrooms. “Updation of the poll turnout data on the VTR APP coming around the same time, is only a next priority,” the ECI said. “The voting data provided at 11:45 PM on the day of poll can also not be considered as final voter turnout, as it is also not possible to provide the final voter turnout data before scrutiny of Election Papers, which is held on the next day of poll in the presence of the candidates and observers. Also, some polling parties may not have been able to return/submit their documents by that time,” The ECI said that the scrutiny of Form 17A (list of people who voted at booth level) is done a day after polling. In certain cases, some polling parties return on P+2 or P+3 days day to difficulties in “geography, security concerns and weather conditions”.