PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia Phillies and right-handed pitcher Joe Ross finalized a one-year contract on Monday. The 31-year-old Ross made 10 starts and 25 total appearances for the Milwaukee Brewers last season. He went 3-6 with a 3.77 ERA. Selected by the San Diego Padres in the first round of the 2011 amateur draft, the 6-foot-4 Ross has pitched in 123 career games across seven seasons with the Washington Nationals and Brewers. In his career, he has combined for a 4.19 ERA with 469 strikeouts to 170 walks. He's 29-34 with a 4.19 career ERA. Ross is the latest in an offseason of minor moves for the NL East champs. The Phillies acquired left-hander Jesús Luzardo from the Miami Marlins and signed free-agent outfielder Max Kepler to a $10 million, one-year deal. ___ AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB The Associated PressBoard Approves Dividend of $0.2875 Per Share on the Company's Common Stock NORTH BETHESDA, Md. , Dec. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), one of the world's leading lodging franchisors, announced that its board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.2875 per share on the company's common stock. The dividend is payable on January 16, 2025 , to shareholders of record on January 2 , 2025. About Choice Hotels® Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) is one of the largest lodging franchisors in the world. The one to watch in upscale and a leader in midscale and extended stay, Choice® has over 7,500 hotels, representing nearly 635,000 rooms, in 45 countries and territories. A diverse portfolio of 22 brands that range from full-service upper upscale properties to midscale, extended stay and economy enables Choice ® to meet travelers' needs in more places and for more occasions while driving more value for franchise owners and shareholders. The award-winning Choice Privileges® rewards program and co-brand credit card options provide members with a fast and easy way to earn reward nights and personalized perks. For more information, visit www.choicehotels.com . Forward-Looking Statements Certain matters discussed in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Certain, but not necessarily all, of such forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, such as "expect," "estimate," "believe," "anticipate," "should," "will," "forecast," "plan," "project," "assume," or similar words of futurity. All statements other than historical facts are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current beliefs, assumptions, and expectations regarding future events, which, in turn, are based on information currently available to management. Such statements may relate to projections of the company's revenue, expenses, EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, earnings, debt levels, ability to repay outstanding indebtedness, payment of dividends, repurchases of common stock and other financial and operational measures, including the company's occupancy and open hotels, RevPAR, and liquidity, among other matters. We caution you not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements do not guarantee future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Several factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements of the company to differ materially from those expressed in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Such risks include, but are not limited to, changes to general, domestic and foreign economic conditions, including access to liquidity and capital; changes in consumer demand and confidence, including consumer discretionary spending and the demand for travel, transient and group business; the timing and amount of future dividends and share repurchases; future domestic or global outbreaks of epidemics, pandemics or contagious diseases or fear of such outbreaks, and the related impact on the global hospitality industry, particularly but not exclusively the U.S. travel market; changes in law and regulation applicable to the travel, lodging or franchising industries, including with respect to the status of the company's relationship with employees of our franchisees; foreign currency fluctuations; impairments or declines in the value of the company's assets; operating risks common in the travel, lodging or franchising industries; changes to the desirability of our brands as viewed by hotel operators and customers; changes to the terms or termination of our contracts with franchisees and our relationships with our franchisees; our ability to keep pace with improvements in technology utilized for marketing and reservations systems and other operating systems; our ability to grow our franchise system; exposure to risks related to our hotel development, financing and ownership activities; exposures to risks associated with our investments in new businesses; fluctuations in the supply and demand for hotel rooms; our ability to realize anticipated benefits from acquired businesses; impairments or losses relating to acquired businesses; the level of acceptance of alternative growth strategies we may implement; the impact of inflation; cyber security and data breach risks; climate change and sustainability related concerns; ownership and financing activities; hotel closures or financial difficulties of our franchisees; operating risks associated with our international operations; labor shortages; the outcome of litigation; and our ability to effectively manage our indebtedness and secure our indebtedness. These and other risk factors are discussed in detail in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and, as applicable, our Quarter Reports on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. © 2024 Choice Hotels International, Inc. All Rights Reserved View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/choice-hotels-announces-quarterly-cash-dividend-302329442.html SOURCE Choice Hotels International, Inc.
By Brendan Marks, Michael Silver, Jeff Howe and Dianna Russini Bill Belichick, the longtime NFL coach who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots but has not led a team in a year, will be the next football coach at the University of North Carolina, sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic on Wednesday. The deal is expected to be for $30 million over three years, according to sources briefed on the matter. Advertisement Belichick, who left the Patriots after the 2023 season, will move to the college ranks after spending his entire coaching career in the NFL. He agreed to fill the vacancy left by Mack Brown , the winningest coach in North Carolina’s history, who was fired just before the end of a tumultuous 2024 regular season in Chapel Hill. During his 24 seasons with the Patriots, Belichick won six championships while paired with Tom Brady at quarterback, a run that cemented Belichick as one of the NFL’s most decorated coaches. He has 333 wins, including games in the regular season and playoffs, and is 14 victories away from tying Don Shula for the NFL career record for head coaches. Belichick has worked in the media since departing New England, but it has long been clear that he was looking to coach again. The opportunity to do so comes in Chapel Hill, where the Tar Heels have not won a conference title since 1980 . The program has been to 14 bowl games since 2008 but has won 10 games in a season just once since 1997, the final year of Brown’s first stint as head coach. Belichick, 72, spent some time in college football this year at Washington, where his son Steve Belichick joined the Huskies as defensive coordinator under first-year head coach Jedd Fisch. Sources briefed on Bill Belichick’s interactions, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said Washington successfully used Belichick’s full Patriots defensive scheme this season. Steve Belichick is expected to join his father’s North Carolina staff after one year with Washington, per sources. Steve’s expected role with the Tar Heels is not finalized yet, but the 37-year-old previously coached as a defensive assistant, safeties coach, defensive backs coach and outside linebackers coach with the Patriots. Advertisement Bill’s father, Steve, worked in college football for more than 40 years (including a stop at UNC). Belichick also maintained a close relationship with Nick Saban, the longtime Alabama head coach who retired in January . Saban won seven national titles in his college career as a head coach – and also was a defensive coordinator for Belichick with the Cleveland Browns in the early 1990s. Still, UNC will be Belichick’s first college coaching position of any type; he began his career with the Baltimore Colts and also had stints with the Detroit Lions , Denver Broncos , New York Giants and the New York Jets along with the Browns and the Patriots. In an appearance Monday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Belichick made his pitch for what a college program could look like under his leadership. “The college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that had the ability to play in the NFL,” he 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 and an education that would get the players ready for their career after football, whether that was (at) the end of their college career or at the end of their pro career. GO DEEPER Mandel: North Carolina is going to regret hiring Bill Belichick “But it would be geared toward developing the player, time management, discipline, structure and all that, that would be life skills, regardless of whether they’re in the NFL or somewhere in the business.” By moving to the college ranks, Belichick might sacrifice the pursuit of a record he once appeared destined to break. For a long time, surpassing Shula’s NFL wins record was a driving force for Belichick, a chance to one-up the coach who once said that Patriots scandals “diminished” what Belichick built in New England. But sources close to Belichick say he was turned off by the NFL’s hiring cycle last winter , when only the Atlanta Falcons opted to interview him even though eight teams had openings. Belichick was expected to have a stronger NFL market this offseason; three franchises have already fired their coaches — the Jets, the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints — and another five to seven openings are expected. Whether a stop at UNC weakens or burnishes his chances of returning to the NFL, his shift to the college game is a late twist in the career of an NFL lifer. The buzz around Belichick hit a fever pitch in the past week. For the Tar Heels, finding someone to replace Brown, who was fired in late November, had proved more difficult than anticipated. Several names had been linked to the job without panning out, including Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall, arguably the top candidate from the Group of 5 level, who declared Sunday that he would stay put. Advertisement Amid discussions about several candidates, UNC had ongoing contact with Belichick, which hung over the search as a wild card. His hiring ultimately capped a dramatic process to fill one of the most enticing vacancies available in the college ranks. A long-simmering power struggle at UNC between athletic director Bubba Cunningham and North Carolina’s Board of Trustees played a major role. After Brown was fired, Cunningham appeared on UNC’s “Carolina Insider” podcast and detailed what he was looking for in the Tar Heels’ next football coach. “We have to develop this program,” Cunningham said. “As we’ve said, we’ve been right at the cusp of really great seasons: getting to eight, nine wins. How do we get to 10, 11? Who can get us to that level?” The Tar Heels also had reason to replace the 73-year-old Brown with a younger coach more suited for the long haul of elevating the program to contend for conference championships and the College Football Playoff. With help from an advisory committee, Cunningham hoped to cull an initial list of roughly 30 names – which included Belichick, per a senior school official familiar with the search process — down to 10-12. GO DEEPER Did Bill Belichick abandon his quest for the NFL victories record? Never say never “But all the coaches we’re talking to right now are playing, and so they’re continuing to be in championship games or in the playoffs,” he added. “So it’ll probably take a week or so.” North Carolina officials, including Cunningham, spoke with Belichick last Wednesday and met with him in person on Thursday. Sources familiar with the board’s thinking believed that it, as well as UNC’s highest-profile boosters, preferred that Belichick be the one to succeed Brown. But multiple people briefed on the school’s conversations with Belichick described a disconnect between the coach’s and the school’s expectations for the terms of the job, as well as discord within UNC about whether its conversations between Belichick and members of the board had followed its normal procedures. Advertisement There is also another major apparent tension: NFL and college football are not the same sport, despite college football’s recent elements of professionalization since the legalization of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, along with more freedom in player movement. Those significant developments have prompted universities to hire general managers, who handle roster management and bring on analysts to scrutinize finances much in the way professional sporting leagues hire salary cap experts. Of course, college sports are not nearly as regulated and regimented as professional sports. There are no multiyear contracts. Players can transfer every year. While there will be a cap on upcoming revenue sharing (around $20 million), it’s possible and perhaps likely that NIL payments will keep the sport from having a true salary cap. In college, coaches are at the top of their programs. But they must spend much more of their time fundraising with donors, recruiting high school players on the road, making sure players attend class and other duties away from on-field coaching. One of Belichick’s close friends, Saban, just left the sport in part because he didn’t want to deal with it anymore. The NFL and college calendars are also very different. In college football, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint, despite the NFL season being much longer. The offseason for coaches in college football is more demanding and time intensive. As one former NFL coach who transitioned to life as a college staffer in the past year told The Athletic : “There’s not a big summer break, like you get in the NFL, when coaches can truly unwind, like phone is off. College isn’t as hard of a season — not even close — but it’s much more year-round.” But for Belichick, the autonomy given to a college head coach could be a draw. One reason Belichick didn’t yield much NFL interest last offseason was the way the Patriots roster fell apart in his final few seasons. In New England, Belichick ran the entire football operation, serving as the sole and final decision maker. And the resulting roster in his final years was among the worst in the league, resulting in the split when New England went just 4-13 in 2023. The Patriots’ downturn disincentivized NFL teams from offering the total control Belichick seeks. Belichick’s final years in New England were also defined by drama, first due to a deteriorating relationship with Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl at quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after leaving the Patriots in 2020, then amid tension with Robert Kraft, the team’s owner. At UNC, Belichick can run the program without answering to anyone about football decisions. There will be other challenges — like NIL, the transfer portal and navigating boosters — that are more complicated than reporting to one owner, but football decisions in college go through the head coach, and now Belichick can yield that kind of power again. In its best form, it lets Belichick flex an unrivaled knowledge of the game, built from studying football and reading books on the sport as a young kid at the Naval Academy while his dad coached with the team. Bill Belichick emphasized "IF" he was coaching in a college program, it would be "a professional program." 👀 @PatMcAfeeShow "The college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that have the ability to play in the NFL." pic.twitter.com/p2raPzm2DN — ESPN (@espn) December 9, 2024 With the transfer portal open, Belichick now must simultaneously hire a staff — something people familiar with his thinking say he has already begun doing — and evaluate the Tar Heels’ roster to figure out which incumbent players are worth fighting to keep. Then there’s the matter of high school recruiting, something Belichick has never done before. UNC’s class, which is ranked 90th nationally per 247Sports, only has nine commits right now — and arguably its most important recruit, four-star quarterback Bryce Baker , opted not to sign during the early signing period last week in the wake of Brown’s firing. (Baker has since visited Penn State , and LSU also remains in the mix.) Keeping him in UNC’s class should be a priority for Belichick and whoever he hires to run the Tar Heels’ offense. Advertisement North Carolina has never been mistaken for a football school, with its men’s basketball team playing top fiddle with its six Division I national championships. Belichick won’t change that historical standard, but his name recognition has the potential to do for UNC what Deion Sanders has done for Colorado. “Coach Prime” obviously brings much more energy and flash than a 72-year-old Belichick will, but the pure curiosity — how Brady’s longtime coach deals with teenagers — will be high. And as was the case with Sanders, UNC doesn’t necessarily need to be good under Belichick, at least not immediately, to garner more attention than it has in quite some time. The Tar Heels will be a nationwide object of fascination, as college and pro football fans alike tune in to see how the experiment turns out. Required reading — Additional reporting by The Athletic ’s Bruce Feldman, Ralph Russo, Chris Vannini and Chad Graff. (Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Britain's Financial Conduct Authority is promising millions of people help with their pensions under new proposals that include offering access to free, targeted support to allow consumers to make more informed decisions about their retirement. Laying out the plans on Wednesday evening, the FCA said the proposals were part of a wider review with the government of the boundary between investment advice and guidance, adding that informed investment decisions ensured healthy capital markets. "We know people find pensions particularly difficult to understand, so we are deliberately starting with this to help consumers with their pension decisions," said Sarah Pritchard, the FCA's director of consumers, competition and international. More than 16 million people in Britain save for their retirement into defined contribution pension schemes, whose value depends on the performance of pension investments. The regulator said the vast majority of consumers were ill-equipped to manage complex pension decisions confidently and that some suffered from the "Ostrich effect", failing to ask questions because they feared discovering whether their pension pots were sufficient or not. Insurers say they would like to provide targeted advice for customers, which they see as a cheaper but useful alternative to full regulated advice. But the FCA on Wednesday suggested that targeted support should be provided by the industry for free. It pointed out that only 9% of adults had taken full regulated advice in the last 12 months, while its flagship 2024 Financial Lives , opens new tab survey showed that 75% of consumers aged over 45 do not have a clear plan for how to take money from their pension or do not know they have to make a choice. Under the proposals, firms could identify people drawing down on their pension unsustainably or help consumers who are uncertain about how to take a retirement income, offering bespoke suggestions to specific consumer groups who share the same characteristics. "This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity and it's critical everyone across the industry gets behind this theme for the benefit of savers," said Stephen Lowe, group communications director at retirement specialist Just Group. "Closing the advice gap by a meaningful amount is realistically likely to be a multi-year project. Targeted support could be a game changer and it’s the service that has generated most optimism." Sign up here. Reporting by Kirstin Ridley, additional reporting by Carolyn CohnEditing by Keith Weir Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tabNone
NoneA groundbreaking work by Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte, which smashed auction records in New York, has an “equally magnificent” twin in Australia. An anonymous collector paid $185 million for the work overnight Wednesday, achieving a record price for the artist and a surrealist painter, according to Christie’s auction house. The previous record for a Magritte painting was $121 million set at Sotheby’s in March 2022. Magritte’s Empire of Light 1954 which sold for a world record A$185 million. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Its near-identical sister is on rare show in Australia at the Art Gallery of NSW, a highlight of its summer blockbuster. The impressive oil is on loan from the Menil Collection in Houston, one of 117 works in the most comprehensive exhibition of the Belgian artist’s paintings ever seen in Australia. Similar in perspective and size, the two paintings differ in the silhouette of trees and another tiny detail – on close inspection the Australian version features a darkened boulder in the foreground. “As he often did, Magritte secreted details in the shadows that don’t show up in reproduction,” says Nicholas Chambers, curator of the Magritte retrospective. Magritte’s The Dominion of Light, 1954, on show at the Art Gallery of NSW. Credit: Paul Hester “In the Menil Collection work at the gallery, for example, a boulder sits in the absolute foreground, barely discernible in the darkness and standing witness to the uncanny scene.” Like Claude Monet, who painted haystacks multiple times across times of day, seasons and weather conditions, Magritte used the same composition of a lamplit urban house to paradoxically blend night and day, shadow and light. He painted 27 versions in his Empire of Light series, 10 of which were on paper. The series inspired a scene in The Exorcist in which Father Merrin arrives at the MacNeil family’s house, the film’s director William Friedkin revealed in 2003. Geoffrey Smith, chair of the auction house Smith & Singer, said the version on display in NSW was as “equally magnificent” as the painting that sold. “What is so fascinating about this composition, and why it’s so compelling, is that it captures this seemingly impossible collision between day and night. “We don’t think there is any difference on first look, but then you have the blue sky of daylight and in the foreground the darkened house and trees illuminated by lamp-post light. Magritte is the equivalent of Jeffrey Smart – they so elegantly disrupt the world around us.” Smith attributed the auction result to the rarity of such works coming up for auction, much less on public display. The buyer’s identity has not been made public. “These works of art are so iconic and so rare, so few remain in private hands, so when a work of this stature and provenance comes to market it creates such excitement,” he said. “The opportunity comes once in a lifetime. “And here you have a work of art, an auction record for the surrealist painter, and Australians have another version, equally magnificent, on our doorstep. How well-timed is that?” Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday .
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Burt, the huge crocodile that rose to fame with a cameo in the movie “Crocodile Dundee” and continued to impress visitors with his fiery temper and commanding presence, has died. Burt died over the weekend, the Crocosaurus Cove reptile aquarium in Darwin, Australia , said. He was at least 90 years old. “Known for his independent nature, Burt was a confirmed bachelor — an attitude he made clear during his earlier years at a crocodile farm,” Crocosaurus Cove wrote in social media posts. “He wasn’t just a crocodile, he was a force of nature and a reminder of the power and majesty of these incredible creatures. While his personality could be challenging, it was also what made him so memorable and beloved by those who worked with him and the thousands who visited him over the years,” the aquarium wrote. A saltwater crocodile , Burt was estimated to be more than 5 meters (16 feet) long. He was captured in the 1980s in the Reynolds River and became one of the most well-known crocodiles in the world, according to Crocosaurus Cove. The 1986 movie stars Paul Hogan as the rugged crocodile hunter Mick Dundee. In the movie, American Sue Charlton, played by actress Linda Kozlowski, goes to fill her canteen in a watering hole when she is attacked by a crocodile before being saved by Dundee. Burt is briefly shown lunging out of the water. But the creature shown in more detail as Dundee saves the day is apparently something else. The Internet Movie Database says the movie goofed by depicting an American alligator, which has a blunter snout. The Australian aquarium where Burt had lived since 2008 features a “Cage of Death” which it says is the nation's only crocodile dive. It said it planned to honor Burt's legacy with a commemorative sign “celebrating his extraordinary life and the stories and interactions he shared throughout his time at the park.”David Warner is leaning towards preferring Sam Konstas over Cameron Bancroft as his opening partner as the Test legend prepares for his first full BBL season with the Sydney Thunder. Only weeks after both pushed ultimately unsuccessful cases for the Test opening vacancy, Bancroft and Konstas are set for more internal competition at the Thunder. Nic Maddinson’s finger surgery has left the pair as the two clearest options to partner new captain Warner at the top to start the BBL, which the pair enters with varying recent records. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Konstas, yet to make his BBL debut, memorably announced himself with twin centuries in NSW’s first Shield game of the summer before making another for the Prime Ministers’ XI in a 50-over match last month. Bancroft has failed to pass 20 in 15 of 19 digs across red and white-ball cricket this summer, but did make an unbeaten 105 in Western Australia’s penultimate Sheffield Shield game before the break. Head here to watch Big Bash cricket live, free and on demand on 7plus Warner said a firm decision had not yet been made on the opening partnership. “We’ll speak about it this week, we’ll see in the warm-up game. I’m probably erring between myself and probably Sammy Konstas at the top,” he said. Warner has been impressed by Konstas, but wants to talk shop with the 19-year-old ahead of the Thunder’s first game against the Adelaide Strikers next Tuesday. “We know he’s talented but it’s about going out there in the Twenty20 stuff and trying to work out how to sort of play that format as well, and what he’s going to bring to the table,” Warner said. “I’ll have a chat to him about how he wants to play and what his style of cricket is as well. “We’ll have these conversations in the next couple of days about how we want to play and making sure that everyone’s on the same page.” After being signed as a foundation player for the first BBL summer, Warner has dipped in and out of the Thunder for the past two summers around Australian duties. Now retired from internationals, the 38-year-old is set to play the entire tournament for the first time in a big boost for a competition that has long struggled for star power in the absence of Test players. “I’m excited,” Warner said of the BBL. “It’s another challenge for me. I’ll uphold my own standards and make sure I’m contributing to the team and getting us off to a good start and leading by example of the field with the captaincy.” With West Indies globetrotter Sherfane Rutherford and rising star Ollie Davies also on the books, Warner said he held high expectations for the Thunder’s batting order after a last-placed finish last summer. “There’s questions for all us to answer the last couple of years, the way that we’ve played,” he said. “We’ve got some craft in the middle and hopefully at the top of the order we can fire as well.”
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