Minutes after the University of North Carolina announced it had hired Bill Belichick as its next head football coach, the Tar Heels’ Instagram account posted a photo of the legendary NFL coach — at no more than 3 years old — sitting in the UNC bleachers. “Welcome home, Coach,” the post reads, dredging up the memory of when the young Belichick shadowed his father, Steve, who was a UNC assistant from 1953 to 1955. As news of his hiring spread around the NFL world, the reaction ranged from excitement at seeing him back on the sideline to disbelief. The most decorated coach in NFL history after earning six Super Bowl rings with the New England Patriots, and two more as the defensive coordinator with the New York Giants, Belichick is officially making his next challenge college football after agreeing to a five-year deal with UNC. “I will have to see him on the sideline to believe that’s happening,” Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury joked Thursday. “We’ll see how the NFL job search goes and all that. I will have to see him on the sideline coaching in Chapel Hill to believe that’s happening." While Belichick’s knowledge of the sport, and his success, are unquestioned, there has been debate among those who have played for the 72-year-old coach during his 40-plus years in football about how well his style will translate to the college game. Some of his former players believe his skill set will work at any level. That list apparently includes Tom Brady, the quarterback during all six of Belichick’s Super Bowl wins with New England. “Congrats, coach. The Tar Heel way is about to become a thing,” Brady posted on Instagram on Thursday, referencing “The Patriot Way” that he popularized in New England. Some cautioned that the players he brings into the UNC program should prepare to have their limits tested like never before. “I think he’s going to do good,” said Patriots receiver Kendrick Bourne, who played under Belichick during his final three years in New England. “Bill does a good job of developing players, developing young men. I think it will be a challenge for the young man. He’s a tough coach, which we all know. But I think it will be good for certain players that have the right mindset.” Bourne's advice? Always stay locked in mentally. “Just stay tough,” Bourne said. “Have a gritty mindset because it’s not going to be easy, but in the end, it’s going to be worth it." Though some have questioned why the Tar Heels would even consider hiring Belichick after parting ways with 73-year-old Mack Brown this season, current Patriots coach Jerod Mayo said good coaching is ageless. “To me, it doesn’t matter if you’re a young man or a 10-year vet in the league, he’s a great teacher,” said Mayo, who played eight seasons under Belichick, winning a Super Bowl during the 2014 season, and then succeeded him as head coach after last season. "I wish him nothing but the best. It doesn’t really matter what level, I think he’ll be successful.” NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is a relative newcomer to the college game himself. He spent three seasons at Jackson State before going to Colorado in 2023. In a message posted to the X social media platform, he welcomed Belichick as a competitor. “Coach Bill Belichick is a coaches coach to all us Coaches along with my man coach (Nick) Saban,” Sanders posted. “They’re game changers and they know how to move people forward. I know this is a great thing for College Football & for North Carolina. God bless u Coach, if you’re happy I am 2.” But former Patriots defensive back Je’Rod Cherry wonders how well Belichick’s old-school coaching style will be received in an era in which in-your-face methods don't always fly as well as they did when Belichick began his career. “You can’t coach hard anymore,” Cherry said during an appearance on ESPN GameNight. “You can’t yell at guys, curse at guys and that’s what he does. You are going to have to find guys who are going to accept that brand of coaching and will accept someone constantly getting on them." New York Jets safety Jalen Mills, who played for Belichick with the Patriots from 2021 to 2023, said he was surprised by the news. “I thought he definitely was going to try to wait it out until after the season and come back to the NFL,” Mills said. "But I think it’s gonna be a good thing for him because now you get a guy who has won and, of course, he’s going to try to turn that program around. But he also gets to connect with the younger generation and kind of modify and adjust to this younger generation of football on top of what he already knows. So I think that’ll just help him as far as coaching. And then, of course, he’ll give those guys, those young guys, structure as far as what the NFL looks like, too.” Just how much the Belichick on the college sidelines will resemble the one in the cutoff hooded sweatshirt who patrolled NFL sidelines is unclear. Belichick hinted they will be one and the same. During an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN prior to agreeing to the UNC job, Belichick laid out what his approach at the college level would be. “The program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players than have the ability to play in the NFL,” Belichick said. “It would be a professional program — training, nutrition, scheme, coaching, techniques — that would transfer to the NFL. It would be an NFL program at a college level.”Update: SD 27 facility rental fees halved, but fundraisers see increase in costs
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday that he has chosen Keith Kellogg, a highly decorated retired three-star general, to serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg, who is one of the architects of a staunchly conservative policy book that lays out an “America First” national security agenda for the incoming administration, will come into the role as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third year in February. Trump, making the announcement on his Truth Social account, said, “He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!” Kellogg, an 80-year-old retired Army lieutenant general who has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues, served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence , was chief of staff of the National Security Council and then stepped in as an acting security adviser for Trump after Michael Flynn resigned. As special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Kellogg will have to navigate an increasingly untenable war between the two nations. The Biden administration has begun urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of those as young as 18. The White House has pushed more than $56 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s February 2022 invasion and expects to send billions more before Biden leaves office in less than two months. The U.S. has recently stepped up weapons shipments and has forgiven billions in loans provided to Kyiv. Trump has criticized the billions the Biden administration has spent in supporting Ukraine and has said he could end the war in 24 hours, comments that appear to suggest he would press Ukraine to surrender territory that Russia now occupies. As a co-chairman of the American First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security, Kellogg wrote several of the chapters in the group’s policy book. The book, like the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” is designed to lay out a Trump national security agenda and avoid the mistakes of 2016 when he entered the White House largely unprepared. Kellogg in April wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.” Trump's proposed national security adviser , U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, tweeted Wednesday that “Keith has dedicated his life to defending our great country and is committed to bringing the war in Ukraine to a peaceful resolution.” Kellogg featured in multiple Trump investigations dating to his first term. He was among the administration officials who listened in on the July 2019 call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which Trump prodded his Ukrainian counterpart to pursue investigations into the Bidens. The call, which Kellogg would later say did not raise any concerns on his end, was at the center of the first of two House impeachment cases against Trump, who was acquitted by the Senate both times. On Jan. 6, 2021, hours before pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Kellogg, who was then Pence’s national security adviser, listened in on a heated call in which Trump told his vice president to object or delay the certification in Congress of President Joe Biden ’s victory. He later told House investigators that he recalled Trump saying to Pence words to the effect of: “You’re not tough enough to make the call.” Baldor reported from Washington. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
Trump transition says Cabinet picks, appointees were targeted by bomb threats, swatting attacksSpire Analysts Boost Their Forecasts After Q4 ResultsLOS ANGELES — Doctors are stumped about what is plaguing Brandi Glanville. In a Tuesday interview with ET, the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" alum said the face-altering condition she has been investigating for the past year feels like something "s–ing or having babies in my face." Glanville said the mystery ailment has left her with recurring facial swelling, speech problems, missing teeth and a reluctance to go out in public. "I've been on meds this whole year. I don't socialize. I don't go out," Glanville told ET, estimating that her total medical costs — including medications, doctor visits, MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans — have surpassed $70,000. She said that at one point, she was on IV antibiotics that helped her facial swelling but were too expensive to maintain. The "Brandi Glanville Unfiltered" host added that she's consulted "every doctor under the sun," from immunologists to rheumatologists to infectious disease doctors. While none have supplied a definitive explanation, some have suggested her issues could stem from a "new parasite." Glanville told ET she could have contracted the parasite while filming in Morocco for "The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip" in January 2023. On set, she said, "We had food sitting out for hours on end, and some of it was meat." Glanville's face swelling and speech struggles began six months later, she said, "and we're still here, trying to figure it out." Bravo did not reply immediately Thursday to The Times' request for comment. The "Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip" in question, which would have been the spinoff series' fourth, never aired. While Bravo did not confirm why they axed the season, People reported at the time of filming that cast members Glanville and Caroline Manzo left the set early after an alleged incident. Manzo later filed a lawsuit accusing Glanville of harassment during last year's filming, according to court documents reviewed by The Times. Glanville said that her medical issues, combined with the lawsuit from Manzo, have prevented her from taking on new work in recent years. "Generally, I'm the first call [for Bravo gigs]," she said. "But now I have, like, a scarlet letter and the medical stuff so even if I could go to work, my face would be doing gymnastics." Medical interventions have been noninvasive so far, Glanville said, but surgery could be next. The reality star joked that contrary to popular belief, she has not yet had plastic surgery on her face. "I can't afford it if I wanted it," she said. ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
DK Metcalf is happy to block as Seahawks ride streak into Sunday night matchup with Packers
Report: Gus Malzahn Will Be Mike Norvell's OC at FSU After Resigning as UCF HCStephen Curry took responsibility for the Golden State Warriors ’ recent loss, acknowledging that the team needs to address its issues promptly to avoid becoming a mediocre team. Despite holding a six-point lead with just 77 seconds remaining, the Warriors ultimately fell to the Houston Rockets 91-90 in the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup. Stephen Curry attributed the team’s struggles to its ongoing process of self-discovery. He noted that the Warriors are still experimenting and figuring out their identity as a unit. According to Curry, identifying and solving their problems will be a crucial turning point in their season. The pattern of scoreless droughts down the stretch has to be addressed or else we’ll be a mediocre team. I’ll take responsibility for not being able to get us organized and not being able to finish plays. Ball’s in my hands. I got to make shots. Steph Curry: “The pattern of scoreless droughts down the stretch has to be addressed or else we’ll be a mediocre team. I’ll take responsibility for not being able to get us organized and not being able to finish plays. Ball’s in my hands. I got to make shots.” pic.twitter.com/MdxUG1q9E0 The Golden State Warriors’ loss to the Houston Rockets has dropped them to a 14-10 record, and their recent performances have been lackluster. According to Curry, who had a solid individual game with 19 points and five assists, the team’s inability to close out games effectively will lead to another disappointing season if not addressed. The Warriors’ collapse against the Rockets was particularly alarming. They failed to score a single point in the final three minutes of the game and committed two shot clock violations during that stretch. The team’s offense was disjointed and ineffective down the stretch, a pattern that is becoming increasingly familiar this season. Golden State Warriors head coach, Steve Kerr slams referee following loss to Houston Rockets Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was left fuming after a disputed call in the final minutes of their NBA Cup loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday. With the Warriors leading 90-89, a loose ball foul was called on Jonathan Kuminga , which Kerr vehemently disagreed with. The call ultimately proved decisive, as the Rockets capitalized on the opportunity to take the lead. Steve Kerr went on a 2 minute rant about the officiating tonight Generational fine incoming pic.twitter.com/zyX7Fcux5E Kerr was scathing in his criticism of the officials, suggesting that even an elementary school referee would not have made such a call in a crucial game situation. The Warriors had been in position to ice the game, but Stephen Curry missed a three-point attempt, and the loose ball foul call swung the momentum in the Rockets’ favor. Kerr expressed frustration that the call was made for a foul rather than a jump ball, which he felt would have been the more appropriate decision. He also suggested that a timeout call for the Rockets would have been more understandable. This article first appeared on FirstSportz and was syndicated with permission.
BJP Invokes Indira Gandhi-Kishore Kumar Rift In Allu Arjun Case. Here's The Tale Of Two Legends
Seattle Seahawks receiver is DK Metcalf is just fine when he doesn't have the the ball because it means he gets to showcase his blocking skills. “I just look at it as a sign of respect that I’ve gained from other defensive coordinators and just continue to do my job with it as blocking or being a decoy,” the two-time Pro Bowler said. While opposing defenses have keyed in on Metcalf, other aspects of Seattle's offense have surfaced during its four-game winning streak. The run has the Seahawks (8-5) sitting atop the NFC West heading into Sunday night's game against the visiting Green Bay Packers (9-4). Geno Smith's new top target is second-year receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who needs 89 receiving yards for his first career 1,000-yard season. Smith-Njigba has 75 catches for 911 yards and five touchdowns, while Metcalf, often dealing with double coverage, has 54 catches for 812 yards and two scores. Metcalf says he feels the pride of a “proud parent or a big brother” when it comes to Smith-Njigba's success. Seattle's offense also got a boost from the ground game in a 30-18 victory over the Arizona Cardinals last weekend . Zach Charbonnet, filling in for the injured Kenneth Walker III, ran for a career-best 134 yards and two touchdowns. The Seahawks face another hot team in the Packers (9-4), who have won seven of nine. Green Bay's two losses over that stretch have come against NFC-best Detroit (12-1), including a 34-31 victory by the Lions on Dec. 5, which means the NFC North title is likely out of reach for the Packers. The Packers are well-positioned for a playoff berth, but that almost certainly won't come this weekend. They would need a win, a loss or tie by the Atlanta Falcons and a tie between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. Metcalf, who learned to block from his father, former Chicago Bears offensive lineman Terrence Metcalf, says he tries to take blocking seriously to set himself apart from other receivers. His priorities are simple when he's getting double-teamed and the ball goes elsewhere. “Trying to block my (butt) off and trying to get pancakes on defensive backs,” he said. When the Packers surged their way into the playoffs last season, quarterback Jordan Love was a major reason why. He had 18 touchdown passes and one interception during Green Bay's final eight games. During the last four games of this season, Love ranks third in the NFL with a 118.9 passer rating with six touchdowns, one interception and a league-best 10.3 yards per attempt. “I always feel like I can put the ball where I want to — and that’s part of it, too, having that confidence to be able to throw those passes,” Love said. “There’s always like I said a handful of plays that might not come off or be in the exact spot that you wanted it to or the throw might be a little bit off. So, that’s where you’ve just got to try to be at your best every play, be consistent and accurate as possible.” Green Bay’s pass defense has been picked apart the last two weeks. First, it was torched by Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins in a Packers win. Next, it allowed Jared Goff to complete his final 13 passes as the Lions rallied to victory. It won’t get any easier this week. Smith is second in the NFL in attempts, completions and passing yards and is fifth in completion percentage. “It’s been a remarkable turnaround for him in terms of just where he started,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It’s not always where you start, but where you finish. And it tells me a lot about the person in terms of his resiliency and ability to fight through some adversity. He’s a dangerous quarterback.” The potential return of former All-Pro cornerback Jaire Alexander (knee) could help the Packers. Will the Packers break out their head-to-toe white uniforms? The last time Green Bay wore the winter white look was in a 24-22 win over Houston in October. The Packers asked fans to weigh in on social media . As for the Seahawks, they'll be sporting their “Action Green” uniforms. Metcalf is a fan. “I would say this about the Action Green, I love them personally in my opinion, but the big guys hate them. I don’t know why, don’t ask me," he said. “Hopefully, the Packers wear all white, so it’ll be a fun-looking game.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Somewhere on the path out of Africa, our ancestors encountered Neanderthals, and their joint children would beget all non-African humans alive today. Now two new research papers have shed startling new light on how this happened. The papers, " Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture " in Nature led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and " Neanderthal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans " in Science were published Thursday. The Nature paper by Arev Sümer, Johannes Krause and colleagues analyzes seven modern humans who lived in two different Europe 49,000 to 42,000 years ago – the earliest humans in Europe to be studied to date. The Science paper by Leonardo Iasi, Priya Moorjani and colleagues analyzed 300 current and ancient individuals to study the timing and the duration of the intermixing. Previous research showed three major Homo sapiens-Neanderthal admixture events : over 200,000 years ago, 120,000 to 105,000 years ago and then after 60,000 years ago. But the new work implies that all non-Africans today result from a lineage of modern humans that mixed with Neanderthals 49,000 to 45,000 years ago in a single event. By single event we don't mean one coupling on one starry night, but a process of gene flow that may have lasted centuries or even a few thousand years when the two species overlapped, the researchers say. The other mixing events did happen. They resulted in hybrid human-Neanderthals. We have found traces of these hybrids. The other lineages went extinct. Ours didn't. Caught knapping The genetic material for the new work was recovered from seven people who lived 49,000 to 42,000 years ago in Ranis, Germany and Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic. Though the two towns are 230 kilometers distant, the seven were related, Sumer said in a press conference. The Zlatý kůň people were cousins of the Ranis people, fifth or sixth degree. The team also identified the earliest modern family at Ranis: a mother and daughter, found with a second- (or third-) degree cousin. The people at Zlatý kůň and Ranis were not our ancestors: their line died out. But they had the same Neanderthal background that we do. Which means? About 50,000 years ago a band of modern humans left Africa. Possibly while crossing through the Middle East, they mated with Neanderthals about 49,000 to 45,000 years ago. Reaching Europe, the descendants of the band split up, with one branch forming the Zlatý kůň and Ranis family, which died out. Another branch became our ancestors. The humans and Neanderthals may have lived in proximity for thousands of years, the researchers say. That doesn't necessarily mean they were having relations for 5,000 years. We have no idea how "it" went down, the archaeologists clarified in the press conference. There is no archaeological or cultural evidence whatsoever to temper our fancies in this context. We can't even point at clear cultural transfer. Note the heartbreak of the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician cultural complex from about 45,000 years ago, Krause says. LRJ artifacts characterized by sophisticated leaf-shaped stone blades have been found stretching from Britain to Poland in Europe. Note that even in that space, the LRJ sites are very rare, yet they badly muddied the waters because, based on the timing and geography, it was assumed to be a very late and highly skilled Neanderthal culture. It turned out that modern humans had reached northern Europe by 45,000 years ago. The suggestion arose that the blades were so advanced, the Neanderthals encountered modern humans who graciously taught them extreme knapping. Recently analysis in an LRJ site in Thuringia deduced that after all, the LRJ makers were modern humans who had penetrated northern Europe that long ago. Ditto regarding the gorgeous Châtelperronian technology; we don't know who made it – Neanderthals, modern humans, hybrids. So we have no evidence of transfers between Neanderthals and modern humans but do have solid evidence for sex, leading Priya Moorjani to observe that we were all one species. "The differences we imagine between these groups weren't very big," she says. "They could mix and did so for a long period of time and lived side by side over time, so I think that shows we were far more similar than different. I would expect exchange of ideas and cultures." X marks the missing spot Maybe. The new analyses suggest our Neanderthal ancestry component took shape very fast after that single putative gene flow event, within 100 generations, Krause says, thanks to strong selection of Neanderthal genes. In other words, some Neanderthal heredity strongly supported our occupation of Europe and other genes could have been deadly for us. Think of it this way. You are an early modern human venturing into prehistoric Europe, which was colder, and the pathogens were different. Neanderthals had been there for hundreds of thousands of years and had adapted to it, developing immunities to the pathogens. Your hybrid children could gain immunity from the Neanderthal parent, conferring a great advantage. But some genes would not work well for us. Some parts of our genome have heavy Neanderthal signals and others have none (and such was the case already in the earliest hybrids, Krause explains). Such as, we ladies have almost no Neanderthal or Denisovan signals in our X chromosome. Does that imply the sex was confined to human women with Neanderthal men? It does not. "There are regions in our genome that don't tolerate Neanderthal DNA," Krause explains. Perhaps human fetuses with a Neanderthal X chromosome weren't viable. Neanderthal women with human men may not have been a match made in heaven. A 'success story' So what have we? Seven people at two spots in Central Europe who lived about 49,000 to 42,000 years ago and had the same Neanderthal sequences we do, but who are not our ancestors. Their line died out. But they stemmed from the same group that was ancestral to us, which had met Neanderthals 80 to 50 generations earlier – likely in the Near East and possibly in Israel. We know Homo sapiens and Neanderthals co-occupied our region. In fact Israeli researchers suspect that the Levant was a land where Homo sapiens and Neanderthals struggled over eons. So possibly a small group of humans venturing out of Africa ran into Neanderthals in the Middle East, and their children continued onto Europe, where the lineage of Ranis and Zlatý kůň would die out. But ours would stride on. It bears adding: If they mixed over centuries or a few thousand years – geologically that's an eyeblink but in terms of human history, consider how much has happened in the last 7,000 years, such as the rise of civilization, Benjamin Peter points out. "I think it reasonable to assume lots of different things were happening in that time period – not one event or one culture or one group that interacted with Neanderthals but a lot of population structures, people different from each other that all interacted with Neanderthals," he speculates. The teams note that other early human lines who died out in Europe, for instance in Bulgaria and Romania, evinced signs of additional admixture. But in the group that survived, maybe all in all there were a couple of hundred Neanderthals interacting with a group of humans numbering maybe 5,000 and the result is We. Can all this genetic analysis tell us what the early Europeans and Neanderthals looked like? No. Krause points out that dozens of genes at a minimum affect skin color and at this point in the science, we can't even tell based on genetics what our own species looks like at a distance. "If we apply methods developed in Europe [to deduce skin color based on genetic analysis], they don't work in South Africa. These methods are population-specific. So if the European methods don't work there, how would they work for Neanderthals?" he says. He suspects that being fairly freshly out of Africa, the early modern humans in Europe all had dark skin and eyes. As for Neanderthal appearance, most of the skin color variants we can identify in Neanderthal genomes aren't present in Homo sapiens, so we don't know what they do. And we have gene variants that Neanderthals don't have, and all this means exactly nothing. So we can't say our ancestors saw blond Neanderthals and swooned. Or vice versa. Anyway, about 39,500 years ago all human lineages in Europe died out – Neanderthals and early modern humans alike, including the small modern human bands at Ranis and Zlatý kůň. Except for our ancestors, who had reached Europe about 43,500 years ago, according to the latest analysis, and somehow weathered whatever happened, and were fruitful and multiplied and peopled the continents, eventually walking over the Bering Bridge to the Americas and sometimes, with dogs in tow . Separate work implies that Denisovans, a sister species to Neanderthals (or are we all one?), survived in Southeast Asia, mixing with humans, until perhaps 15,000 years ago. Maybe they did, but we won. We won? A little humility might be in order. The human story isn't just a story of success. "We also went extinct several times," points out Science coauthor Benjamin Peter. In fact we always went extinct in Europe, and all other modern humans in Europe joined the Neanderthals in that final void, except for one little band that didn't. The end.Cowboys RB Rico Dowdle could be in line for a big game against Carolina's 32nd-ranked run defense