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Austin Ekeler was concussed late in the Commanders' loss and taken to hospital for evaluation
By CHRISTINE BRUNKHORST The Minnesota Star Tribune Anita Felicelli’s stories are masterfully unsettling. Combine your most eerie déjà vu moment with your most vividly prophetic dream and you have the tone of the 14 futuristic tales in “How We Know Our Time Travelers.” This is the new science fiction. Not so much Isaac Asimov’s techy gadgetry or Ursula K. Le Guin’s moral conundrums, Felicelli’s vignettes explore a world where time and consciousness — the last unexplored frontiers — have been conquered. The stories are set in the Bay Area in the near future. The government is an unreliable entity, politics have fallen apart and we’ve “rocketed past the point of stopping the death of the planet.” It is a time of drought, wildfires, hurricanes, cult movements, senescent robots, fringe theories and time travel. But, amidst these existential challenges, the need for love and connection remains. In the first story, “Until the Seas Rise,” a young woman who keeps herself financially afloat by volunteering for pain studies is robbed on the beach on the night of a tsunami. As the wave crests, she reflects on what seems the essential question of the book, “Why can we never control pain? Why are we always controlled by absence? It’s nearly incomprehensible, this ever-present incinerating desire for what’s not there.” Loss permeates these stories, as do technologies invented to allay it. In “Assembly Line,” an art teacher with a curiously mechanical thought process wonders what her student-turned-boyfriend works on in the “forbidden” rooms of his apartment. In “The Glitch,” rogue holograms assail the coder who created them. In “Keeping Score,” a couple downloads an app only to find that the constant tallying of who does what for whom is destroying their relationship. And then there are Felicelli’s stories about time. In “Steam Tunnels,” a ragtag group of disaffected female college students is chased by a menacing figure in the sewer system beneath the University of California, Berkeley. When they emerge, the campus has become a ghost town, their clothes are tattered and worn and their hair has turned white. In “The Encroachment of Waking Life,” a woman mistakenly boards a time-travel flight from Barcelona to San Francisco and visits not her boyfriend of the moment but her boyfriend of 20 years in the future. Women narrate most of the stories, which seems particularly poignant in a world where tech bros dominate the microphones. In one tale, a female potter throws all her clay into the creation of a real boy. In another, a friendless scammer and swindler of wealthy men wonders if a band of anarchic, menacing “fog catchers” exists only in her mind. In another, an elderly mother with dementia struggles to maintain dignity in a world that has discarded her. I thoroughly enjoyed the mind-bending perspective of these stories, especially the final pair: one a personification of illness that will blow your mind and make you weep, and one an epistolary tale with letters between a scientist consumed by creative mania and her loyal, half-believing friend. Author of novel “Chimerica” and short story collection “Love Songs for a Lost Continent,” Felicelli is a writer to watch.Mark Cuban calls out NBA for ‘petty’ moveNEW YORK, Dec. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ready Capital Corporation RC (the "Company") announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share of common stock and Operating Partnership unit for the quarter ended December 31, 2024. This dividend is payable on January 31, 2025, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on December 31, 2024. Additionally, the Company announced that its Board of Directors declared quarterly cash dividends on its 6.25% Series C Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock (the "Series C Preferred Stock"), and its 6.50% Series E Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock (the "Series E Preferred Stock"). The Company declared a dividend of $0.390625 per share of Series C Preferred Stock payable on January 15, 2025, to Series C Preferred stockholders of record as of the close of business on December 31, 2024. The Company declared a dividend of $0.40625 per share of Series E Preferred Stock payable on January 31, 2025, to Series E Preferred stockholders of record as of the close of business on December 31, 2024. About Ready Capital Corporation Ready Capital Corporation RC is a multi-strategy real estate finance company that originates, acquires, finances and services lower-to-middle-market investor and owner occupied commercial real estate loans. The Company specializes in loans backed by commercial real estate, including agency multifamily, investor, construction, and bridge as well as U.S. Small Business Administration loans under its Section 7(a) program. Headquartered in New York, New York, the Company employs approximately 350 professionals nationwide. Contact Investor Relations 212-257-4666 InvestorRelations@readycapital.com Media Relations PR@readycapital.com © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
NBC Sports enters Madden video game universe with alternate broadcast on PeacockGAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Princely Umanmielen's return to the Swamp ended with a police escort . Umanmielen, who spent three years at Florida before transferring to Ole Miss, left the stadium with a number of officers surrounding him. And the defensive end still tried to get at heckling fans. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.Unwrap the latest AI features with Amazon Fire Tablets
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More than a day past the scheduled conclusion of two days of COP29 talks, host Azerbaijan urged bleary-eyed delegates to seek consensus to avoid failure. "I know that none of us want to leave Baku without a good outcome," COP president Mukhtar Babayev told a late-night session, urging all nations to "bridge the remaining divide". Developing power Brazil pleaded for at least some progress and said it would seek to build on it when it leads COP30 next year in the Amazon gateway of Belem. "After the difficult experience that we're having here in Baku, we need to reach some outcome that is minimally acceptable in line with the emergency we're facing," Brazil's environment minister Marina Silva told delegates. A number of nations have accused Azerbaijan, an authoritarian oil and gas exporter, of lacking the experience and will to meet the moment, as the planet again sets record temperatures and faces rising deadly disasters. Small island nations threatened by rising seas and impoverished African states on Saturday angrily stormed out of a meeting with Azerbaijan, saying their concerns had been ignored. The European Union, United States and other wealthy countries met directly with poorer nations to work out final details, with both blocs also concerned at efforts led by Saudi Arabia to water down calls from last year's summit to phase out fossil fuels. "If we don't do it, people at home -- in every home across the world -- would say, why did you not get an agreement? Because I believe we can," Irish climate minister Eamon Ryan told AFP. A draft of the final text seen by AFP proposes that rich nations raise to $300 billion a year by 2035 their commitment to poorer countries to fight climate change. It is up from $100 billion now provided by wealthy nations under a commitment set to expire -- and from $250 billion proposed in a draft Friday. That offer was slammed as offensively low by developing countries, which have demanded at least $500 billion to build resilience against climate change and cut emissions. Sierra Leone's climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai, whose country is among the world's poorest, called the draft "effectively a suicide pact for the rest of the world". As staff at the cavernous and windowless stadium began closing down, diplomats rushed to meetings with one another, some ready with food and water in preparation for another late night. Panama's outspoken negotiator, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, voiced anger at offers by rich countries but warned not to repeat the failure of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. "I'm sad, I'm tired, I'm disheartened, I'm hungry, I'm sleep-deprived, but there is a tiny ray of optimism within me because this cannot become a new Copenhagen," he told reporters. UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the revised offer of $300 billion was "a significant scaling up" of the existing pledge by developed nations, which also count the United States, EU and Japan among their ranks. Climate activists shouted "shame" as US climate envoy John Podesta walked the halls. "Hopefully this is the storm before the calm," he said. Wealthy nations say it is politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding. Donald Trump, a sceptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, returns to the White House in January and a number of other Western countries have seen right-wing backlashes against the green agenda. The draft deal posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources. Ali Mohamed, the Kenyan chair of the African Group of Negotiators, told AFP: "No deal is better than a bad deal." South African environment minister Dion George, however, said: "I think being ambitious at this point is not going to be very useful." "What we are not up for is going backwards or standing still," he said. "We might as well just have stayed at home then." The US and EU have wanted newly wealthy emerging economies like China -- the world's largest emitter -- to chip in. China, which remains classified as a developing nation under the UN framework, provides climate assistance but wants to keep doing so on its own voluntary terms. The EU and other countries have also tussled with Saudi Arabia over including strong language on moving away from fossil fuels, which negotiators say the oil-producing country has resisted. "We will not allow the most vulnerable, especially the small island states, to be ripped off by the new, few rich fossil fuel emitters," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. bur-np-sct/lth/givTrump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving timeThis may seem an exaggeration, but there is an ongoing isolation pandemic. The current wave of loneliness, along with the decreasing number of family members; and even the growth of pet care businesses are signs of this problem. As a parent and teacher, I see this growing problem among my sons' peers and in my classrooms. While we seem to be growing more connected to things (internet, devices and services), we are disconnecting with people. This lack of personal connection is starting more at a younger age and deepening through generations with significant negative social impact on society and individuals. To prevent future personal and societal problems, families, schools and workplaces need to encourage and foster personal connections through meaningful friendship. Reading and understanding books becomes harder. Students with few friends or siblings will have issues with books from Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, or even the Wimpy Kid series; all focus on relationships. These books have been regularly used to teach the love of reading, building imagination and understanding society. The ability to get a deeper meaning or relate to the author's message is lost. This deeper understanding becomes even harder with business text, which requires reading at different levels to apply concepts innovatively or address new conditions. Understanding how various people use words is an essential skill, ideally with foundations built when learning to talk at home. The quality of friendships is vital in addressing social ills. More quality friends reduce the need for social media and the documented associated extremes. Physical interaction gives the same dopamine hit that social media provides but in better dosage and longer duration. By focusing on quality friends, depression and other social ills can be reduced as people share their feelings, grow, and interact in a positive manner. For students, having genuine friends helps with studying and learning from schoolwork. There are more exchanges and explanations of ideas in a positive environment. Research supports that talking with others builds stronger relationships than text messages. Thus, for students, more trustworthy contacts help them develop as individuals. I see many university students struggle in class because they have few people they call friends. Students struggle with mental health problems because the structure that existed before and provided help is not there. Parents assume that students are connecting because of online interactions, but that cheap substitute for real friendship is not working. More friends means less dependence on one person; hence, relationships are better. Young adults have fewer people to interact with, resulting in intense interactions. Thus, there are more strains or demands on fewer relationships. For example, if someone has one friend, they discuss ten items with their one friend, requiring much of that one friend's time and energy. Therefore, the friend may start limiting interaction as the relationship requires a lot of energy and the person talking feels less fulfilled. Two unhappy people. However, if someone has five friends, then they can discuss two items with each other; and so the friends are happy to interact more because the relationship requires less energy. Ironically, by having more friends, individuals develop better relationships. The principle applies even at the workplace because if someone can relate to a wider number of people in the office, they can get more done and contribute to better productivity. Workplaces have always seen the need for friendship at work, though it may not be referred to as such. In offices, teamwork, openness, and psychological safety are terms that have similar meaning to authentic human interaction. Work-from-home advocates prioritise interacting with people at home, whereas return-to-office advocates prioritise interacting with people in the office. However, generational problems and the lack of interpersonal experiences, real and perceived, highlight the difficulty of communicating various needs and desires by the individual. It comes as no surprise that communication is one of if not the most valuable skills for the workplace. Companies have to spend time developing workers' abilities in talking with each other because that particular skill may not have been fully developed at home or in school. Having real friends helps individuals and society by reducing loneliness and business inefficiencies caused by employees' mental distractions. A sense of belonging starts with family interactions followed by schools and grows into society. Mariano Miguel Carrera, PhD, is a lecturer at the International College at King Mongkut's University of Technology, North Bangkok.PlayStation Plus Just Added the Most Experimental Sonic Game of All Time
Austin Ekeler was concussed late in the Commanders' loss and taken to hospital for evaluationJames Madison 71, Jacksonville St. 65
Alabama and Mississippi tumbled out of the top 10 of The Associated Press Top 25 poll Sunday and Miami and SMU moved in following a chaotic weekend in the SEC and across college football in general. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
Suspended Bev Priestman makes first public comments in wake of drone-spying scandal