How to Get Mew in Pokémon TCG Pocket
How to Get Mew in Pokémon TCG Pocket
Mew is comfortably one of Pokémon TCG Pocket’s rarest cards, and very few people own this purveyor of all things psychic. Acquiring Mew is extremely difficult in Pokémon Pocket, and we have step-by-step instructions on how to do this.
As a ****, I loved Mew. Even at an early age, I appreciated the lore of Mew and its ties to ancient Pokémon mysticism. Add the fact its design is adorable (despite being ridiculously powerful) and its heated rivalry with Mewtwo, and you have one of the coolest Pokémon in the entire Pokédex to this day.
Pokémon TCG Pocket’s launch set mostly pays homage to the Kanto 151 era, and Mew is very much part of this elite collection of Mon. You might not be able to see Mew when you look at the Genetic Apex set in its entirety, but I can assure you, that Mew is obtainable.
How to Unlock Mew in Pokémon TCG Pocket
Mewtwo has competition once more. Credit to The Pokémon Company
Mew is an automatic unlock once you collect all 226 cards in Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Genetic Apex set.
Firstly, no, you don’t need to collect all the Hyper Rares, Full Arts, and Promo A cards—just the base set of 226 cards. This does mean you need the initial EX cards though, as they comprise the original collection. When you have the 226th and final card to complete the group, a challenge unlocks, and Mew is yours.
Here’s a quick walkthrough:
Play Pokémon TCG Pocket and open booster packs.
Use the best ways to open free packs to speed up the process.
Once you’ve collected all cards from booster packs, Wonder Picks, or crafting cards, a prompt appears telling you you’ve done the “Complete the Kanto Pokédex” objective.
Press “OK” in the confirmation to acknowledge this.
You now receive Mew—an Immersive Three-Star Rare card.
Swipe up to add it to your collection, and this fills in the 283 slot in the Genetic Apex deck.
The Kanto Pokédex task is one of several secret missions that few players know about in Pokémon TCG Pocket. Ordinarily, doing this takes weeks, months, or maybe even longer—depending on your level of commitment.
Mew Stats in Pokémon TCG Pocket
Mew is a Basic, Psychic-type Pokémon with 60 HP, and has one move. Take a look at Mew’s full stats below:
Stage: Basic.
Type: Psychic.
HP: 60.
Moves: Psy Report—Your opponent reveals their hand: 20 Damage.
Weakness: +20 Darkness.
Retreat Cost: 1 Energy.
It’s believed that YouTuber Willow was the first person to unlock Mew in Pokémon TCG Pocket. I’ve provided a video of the moment the social media personality first unlocks Mew, as well as a look at the card’s special Immersive video.
More players are bound to obtain their own Mew as time goes on. Again, the Genetic Apex set isn’t supposed to be completed so quickly; so have patience, and your time should come.
Find out how to get Mew’s genetic counterpart—the Mewtwo 10 Promo Card—as well as details on the famed Pokémon TCG Pocket **** Pack.
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X is testing a free version of its Grok AI chatbot that doesn’t need a blue-tick subscription
X is testing a free version of its Grok AI chatbot that doesn’t need a blue-tick subscription
Over the weekend various users of X noticed that they were being offered a free-tier version of Grok, X’s AI chatbot, to try. The free version comes with some limitations, however.
So far Grok has only been available on subscription, an approach that’s markedly different from other AI generators like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s MetaAI and Google Gemini, which offer a free tier that has fewer features than the paid-for version. Similarly, Apple Intelligence is still yet to roll out completely, but will remain free for its first few years at least.
X user @lohansimpson posted a screenshot of the Grok invite and wrote, “Free Grok is coming(With limits)! It will be limited locations at first”.
BREAKING: Free Grok is coming(With limits)! It will be limited locations at first pic.twitter.com/V8tbV8QkQtNovember 10, 2024
Screenshots of the invitation to try Grok contain the text, “A free tier of Grok is now available in your region. Chat, generate images and analyze photos. Limits apply.”
According to a researcher on X who has the user name swak, users on the Grok free tier will be limited to 10 Grok 2 questions every two hours and 20 Grok 2 mini questions every two hours. Grok 2 and Grok 2 mini are different LLMs that X offers. You will also be restricted to analyzing up to three images a day.
It’s not all good news for X users, because if those are the limitations on the free tier of Grok then it will be much more restricted than its competitors, like MetaAI.
An image created in Grok 2. (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff/X)
Unrestricted images
Grok raised a lot of eyebrows, and quite a few questions, when Grok 2 was released in August this year containing the Flux image generator which had very few restrictions on its image-generation capabilities compared to other AI image generators.
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While most AI image generators will stop short of letting you create images of politicians, celebrities, and copyrighted characters, like Superman or Iron Man, Grok seemed to be happy to let you create these type of images with abandon.
It’s not clear if the free version of Grok will have the same unrestricted access to the Flux image generator as the subscription service X currently offers, but a move to offer Grok to the wider X user base for free could dramatically increase the number of Grok users almost overnight, turning it into a real competitor to ChatGPT, Meta AI and Google Gemini.
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Car finance industry sets aside billions for motorist claims
Car finance industry sets aside billions for motorist claims
BBC
Marcus Johnson did not know he would be paying commission on his car finance agreement
Motorists who bought a car on finance could share in billions of pounds in compensation following a landmark test case.
When Marcus Johnson, 34, from Cwmbran, Torfaen, bought his first car – a Suzuki Swift – in 2017, he was not informed the car dealership was being paid 25% commission, which was added on to what he had to pay back.
In a landmark case with two other claimants, the Court of Appeal ruled in October that the finance company should pay the hidden commission plus interest back to Mr Johnson, and he is now due to receive just over £3,200.
Trade Centre Wales and MotoNovo finance’s parent company FirstRand have not responded to requests for comment.
Mr Johnson said he was “furious” when he found out what had happened, adding: “I paid £1,650 for what I can only describe as showing me around the showroom for 10 minutes and then printing off a bit of paper.
“I signed a few documents and then drove away in the car.”
He said he had no option but to use finance when he bought the car, describing it as “heartbreaking” to find out so much extra money had been taken.
“Someone in my situation at that time, not being able to buy that kind of age car with cash, you would use finance,” he added.
“And for companies to be able to be allowed to charge these ridiculous amounts of commission without disclosing it, without me being made aware of it at all, myself and thousands of other people.”
Mr Johnson bought the car from dealership Trade Centre Wales for £4,600, and the company arranged finance with Cardiff-based MotoNovo Finance.
He was not informed that the dealership was receiving commission of £1,650, which amounted to about 25% of the total he borrowed.
The car finance industry is now setting aside huge amounts of money to settle similar possible claims in the future.
How can you claim?
It is important to log your claim as soon as possible, according to Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert.
He said claimants did not necessarily need to go via a claims management firm, which would take a cut of any payout.
Mr Lewis advised people first determine whether their finance agreements included a discretionary commission arrangement and, if it did, lodge a time-stamped complaint to the company.
This was echoed by Rip-Off Britain’s legal expert Gary Rycroft, who told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast the legal precedent set by the Court of Appeal ruling meant “secret commission” was deemed unlawful.
He said it was important to check your contracts and ask your car finance company whether it had been disclosed if unsure.
He said non-disclosure made for a clearer case but arrangements “******* in the small print” could still be worth making a claim against.
But he added that, while getting your ducks in a row early was a good thing, there was a good chance lenders would be lodging a Supreme Court appeal, so claims may not be able to be acted upon for some time yet.
Marcus Johnson
Marcus Johnson bought a Suzuki Swift in 2017
Mr Johnson sold his Suzuki Swift in 2020, but after three years of regular payments, he still owed £3,500 which he assumed then was due to the interest on the loan for the car.
“With paying off the agreement for three years, I had only scratched the surface,” he said.
Dealerships were not acting outside of the rules and regulations of the industry by taking this sort of commission at that time, but they had a duty to inform their clients.
The court of appeal said “burying such a statement in the small print which the lender knows the borrower is highly unlikely to read will not suffice”.
There have been changes in the rules governing commission since 2021, when the Financial Conduct Authority banned discretionary commission arrangements.
Kevin Durkin, from HD Law, who represented Mr Johnson in the test case, said: “As a financial reward for them being chosen, FirstRand Bank paid Trade Centre Wales a commission which Marcus knew nothing about.
“There was only a vague reference to this arrangement in the paperwork which the court of appeal found was *******.
“As such it meant that Marcus paid more than he necessarily needed to.”
He added it was far from being an isolated case, with many car dealerships and finance companies having operated in this way.
“It’s completely widespread,” he added.
“Almost all cars that are purchased on finance through a dealer or credit broker are sold in this way.
“I’ve yet to see any terms and conditions in a case involving my clients where the terms and conditions reference is either absolute in terms of ‘we will receive a commission’ or alternatively is made prominent in the paperwork that is being signed.”
Mr Johnson said he would never use a finance agreement again, but was delighted when the Court of Appeal found in his favour.
“It was a big moment of relief and excitement and obviously happiness all at the same time – especially with how tough things are at the moment,” he said.
He said he hoped others would also get money back, adding: “I’m so happy that my case and the decision that was made could potentially help thousands of other families, to me that’s worth more than the money that I reclaimed in a way.”
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“There’s remote things that he just has to take a look at”: Todd Howard’s Workaholic Habit May be Responsible for the Greatest Bethesda Criticism
“There’s remote things that he just has to take a look at”: Todd Howard’s Workaholic Habit May be Responsible for the Greatest Bethesda Criticism
When it comes to an incredible legacy, Bethesda Game Studios is a company that not only has a long history but also a catalog packed with absolute bangers. Without many of the company’s leading RPGs, the genre would’ve turned out to be a lot different.
Bethesda is one of the biggest names in the gaming industry. (Image via Microsoft)
However, there’s no denying the fact that Bethesda’s recent games haven’t hit the mark. Fallout 76 is a tragedy that the studio probably wants to forget, and Starfield, despite its positive reception, didn’t deliver on what the players had hoped for.
What’s the reason for Bethesda fumbling its recent releases? There are many things, but one that might be the biggest factor is Todd Howard’s workaholic nature.
Todd Howard Might Be The One To Be Blamed For Bethesda’s Recent Failures
Bruce Nesmith is a person whose name you might’ve never heard, even though you’re a big fan of Bethesda’s RPGs.
He began working with the famed Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR on Apple III titles and eventually partnered up with Bethesda as early as 1995, where he was one of the lead designers for The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II – Daggerfall. He stuck around the company until 2021 when he left to be an author.
Related
Todd Howard Doesn’t Want You to Know the Bethesda Game That’s Even More Doomed Than Elder Scrolls 6
In an hour-long conversation with KIWI TALKZ, Nesmith opened up about his decades of experience working at Bethesda and his relationship with Todd Howard. At one point, he mentions that during the end of his tenure, Howard would have somewhere around two dozen projects at his table.
There’s remote things that he just has to take a look at, in addition to a variety of larger projects. So, that’s a lot.
It’s great to see that Howard is working so hard to push out multiple genre-defining hits. However, one man simply can’t handle all such projects. The company’s RPG keeps evolving with every entry and gets ******* in scale. Howard singlehandedly leads all the projects, and it puts too much pressure on him.
With how Bethesda’s projects are delayed so much, it’s evident that the pressure is getting to Howard. It’s always hard to wait for a new title in a beloved franchise. However, that pain is more felt by fans of Bethesda’s franchise than other fanbases.
One of the company’s biggest IPs, Fallout, has already gone years without a new mainline release, with Fallout 4 dating nine years ago. The Elder Scrolls 6 has just now entered production, and even that franchise hasn’t seen a release in over a decade. It’s high time Bethesda considered hiring more developers or outsourcing projects to give Howard some breathing room.
Former Lead Admits Bethesda Games Could Be More Refined
The company’s games are infested with game-breaking glitches and bugs. (Image via Microsoft)
While Bethesda has given us some incredible games, its titles are undoubtedly bug-infested. Seriously, you can’t go a single minute without facing a game ****** or UI glitch that completely ruins your experience, and even the company’s own ex-employees agree with the problems.
Related
A Disastrous Flaw in Todd Howard’s Bethesda That Made Starfield Dev Quit Thankfully Never Affected Fallout, Elder Scrolls
In an interview with VideoGamer, Nesmith opened up about the development side of the company before he left in 2021. He admits that the company’s games could have a lot more time in the oven but believes there’s a good reason why the studio pushes out games that aren’t polished.
Having an NPC run in place in front of a wall for a little while became acceptable because of the 17 things you could do with that NPC, whereas most games you’d be able to do two.
Nesmith also states that the studio’s titles are so huge and include many moving parts that releasing a bug-free title is basically impossible. The studio has to make tough calls to publish something that’s filled with bugs or skip key deadlines.
Of course, there are plenty of game developers out there who give us buggy games, but the quality of the company’s overall recent work is a big reason why bugs might not be so overlooked as they were in Fallout 3 and Skyrim.
With that said, do you think it’s time for Bethesda to fast-track its big franchise releases? Let us know in the comments below.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
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Scientists Confirm Four Different King Cobra Species After 188 Years of Mystery
Scientists Confirm Four Different King Cobra Species After 188 Years of Mystery
A study has confirmed that the iconic king cobra, previously thought to be a single species, is actually a group of four separate species. This revelation ends a mystery that has puzzled scientists for over 188 years. The new findings mark a significant advancement in the understanding of the world’s longest venomous snake. For nearly two centuries, the king cobra was believed to be one species: Ophiophagus hannah.
The new findings, published in the ********* Journal of Taxonomy on October 16, claims that scientists began questioning this assumption due to noticeable differences in the snake’s physical characteristics, including colour patterns, across various regions. In 2021, genetic research uncovered distinct genetic lineages among king cobra populations. The latest study, led by Gowri Shankar Pogiri, founder of the Kalinga Foundation and director of the Kalinga Centre for Rainforest Ecology, combined genetic findings with physical traits of museum specimens to identify the four species.
Four Newly Identified Species
The four newly recognised species include the Northern king cobra (O. hannah), the Sunda king cobra (Ophiophagus bungarus), the Western Ghats king cobra (Ophiophagus kaalinga), and the Luzon king cobra (Ophiophagus salvatana). The Northern king cobra is found across northern India, Myanmar, and Indochina, while the Sunda species is native to the Malay Peninsula and several islands. The Western Ghats king cobra is exclusive to the Western Ghats in India, and the Luzon king cobra is located in the northern Philippines.
Researchers also observed unique body patterns and characteristics between these species. For instance, the Sunda king cobra often lacks bands or has narrow pale bands with dark edges, whereas the Western Ghats king cobra features bands without dark borders. The Luzon king cobra is distinguishable by angular pale body bands.
Implications for Venom Research
The discovery of these four species has important implications for antivenom research. As all king cobra species are venomous, this could lead to more targeted development of antivenoms, tailored to the specific venom of each species in their respective regions. Scientists, including Pogiri, suggest that there may still be undiscovered species, particularly on isolated islands, and studies are ongoing.
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Intel Core Ultra 5 225H delivers 14% better single core and 16% improved iGPU performance than Meteor Lake per early benchmarks — the CPU still falls short of its Lunar Lake counterparts
Intel Core Ultra 5 225H delivers 14% better single core and 16% improved iGPU performance than Meteor Lake per early benchmarks — the CPU still falls short of its Lunar Lake counterparts
Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra 5 225H from the Arrow Lake-H mobile family has been tested at Geekbench (via Benchleaks), delivering moderate uplifts compared to its predecessor in the CPU and iGPU (OpenCL) departments. However, even this sizeable uplift is still insufficient to leapfrog Lunar Lake, which sits comfortably at the top of the table at much lower power limits.
The Core Ultra 5 225H is the successor to the Core Ultra 5 125H. It features 14 cores (four P + eight E + two LPE) and 14 threads alongside 18MB of L3 cache. The test bench is an upcoming notebook from Samsung—codenamed “NP965XHD”—offering 16GB of unspecified memory. Based on this test, the Core Ultra 5 225H clocked at a maximum of 4.9 GHz—roughly 9% faster than the Core Ultra 5 125H.
Starting with the CPU scores, the Core Ultra 5 225H amassed 2,547 points and 12,448 points in the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. This lands it 14% faster in single-core performance than the 125H, though multi-core ******** a disappointment at just 8% faster; that may be attributed to the lack of hyperthreading. Lunar Lake still takes the lead in single-core while consuming less power. The gap was more prominent with the previously leaked Core Ultra 9 285H, so these results probably do not indicate the final silicon.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Arrow Lake ships with Intel’s upgraded Xe-LPG+ architecture with the Core Ultra 5 225H sporting the Arc 130T iGPU with 7 Xe cores (112 Xe Vector Engines) clocked at 2.2 GHz. Oddly enough, 7 Xe-LPG+ cores outperform 7 Xe2 cores (Core Ultra 5 228V), at least in OpenCL, a synthetic test.
To explain this, Lunar Lake operates at a lower TDP (17W – 37W) than Arrow Lake-H (expected to be 28W – 115W). Secondly, Lunar Lake offers faster gaming performance in practice than what theoretical benchmarks suggest, owing to architectural refinements and better drivers. Nonetheless, Core Ultra 5 225H’s iGPU scores 16% better than its Meteor Lake equivalent. Real-world performance, however, will primarily be subject to driver support and game optimizations.
Intel will release the Core Ultra 200H/U/HX/non-K CPUs at CES 2025. Rumors allege that Battlemage will arrive ahead of RDNA 4 and Blackwell as early as next month.
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Judge delays key ruling on fate of Trump hush money conviction
Judge delays key ruling on fate of Trump hush money conviction
In this courtroom sketch, former U.S. president Donald Trump appears by video conferencing before Judge Juan Merchan during a hearing before his trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence ***** star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York City, May 23, 2023.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
A New York judge on Tuesday delayed by one week his ruling on whether to grant President-elect Donald Trump’s request to set aside the guilty verdict in his ********* hush money case, or to let it stand and sentence him in late November.
The postponement was announced two days after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office asked the judge for time to consider how Trump’s electoral win affects the case.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who was set to issue his ruling Tuesday, is now scheduled to determine if the case should be dismissed on Nov. 19.
Trump is currently set to be sentenced Nov. 26 on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen to ***** star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s lawyers asked to dismiss the case and set aside the jury verdict in July, following a Supreme Court ruling that greatly expanded the scope of presidential immunity.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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US ex-congressman Michael Grimm paralysed after polo accident
US ex-congressman Michael Grimm paralysed after polo accident
Former US congressman Michael Grimm has been paralysed from the chest down after being thrown from a horse during a polo tournament.
His friend and former New York City council member, Vincent Ignizio, told the Associated Press the “tragic accident” occurred in September, and that he was currently receiving treatment.
Ignizio has also set up a fundraising page to pay for the New York ***********’s medical treatment.
A former marine and FBI agent, Grimm, 54, represented Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in the House of Representatives, but resigned months before being convicted of tax evasion in 2015.
“Through the grace of **** and the amazing medical teams who have helped him, Mr Grimm has miraculously thread the needle to survive,” his fundraising page said, adding that the treatment to enable him to walk again would cost “millions of dollars”.
Ignizio said his friend was being treated at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey, where the late actor Christopher Reeve stayed after a similar accident in 1995, the Associated Press reported.
“His ultimate goal is to get himself to walk again,” Ignizio added.
On Monday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his “thoughts and prayers” were with Grimm and that he was “deeply saddened” by the accident.
“Grimm is a Marine veteran, and as we honour our nation’s service members this Veteran’s Day, I hope for a full and speedy recovery,” he wrote on X.
Grimm was first elected to the House in 2010.
After a two-year federal investigation into his finances, he was charged in 2014, and the following year sentenced to eight months in prison.
Prosecutors at the time said he under-reported wages and revenue so as to avoid payroll, income and sales taxes.
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NFL Power Rankings Week 11: Chiefs back at No. 1, plus quarterback confidence rankings
NFL Power Rankings Week 11: Chiefs back at No. 1, plus quarterback confidence rankings
The Week 11 NFL Power Rankings are checking in on the most important position in the game — quarterbacks.
It’s been a weird year for the most high-profile position in the game. The best quarterback in the league has not been that impressive. A can’t-miss prospect is missing by a lot. A future Hall of Famer is finishing his career on fumes. And Russell Wilson is 3-0.
We’re rating every team’s confidence in its quarterback situation from 1 through 10, and you’ll notice we’re leaning heavily on EPA-per-dropback statistics provided by TruMedia. That’s simply how many expected points a quarterback generates each time he intends to throw. It’s not a perfect statistic, but it’s pretty widely considered the best way to measure overall efficiency at the position.
Our ****** in these teams’ quarterbacks affected the rankings this week in several spots, including at the top, where a familiar face is back despite barely winning once again.
Last week: 2
Sunday: Beat Denver Broncos 16-14
QB confidence rating: 10
Patrick Mahomes is 12th in the league in EPA per dropback (.12), 17th in passer rating and has thrown almost as many interceptions as touchdowns (nine to 12). That passer rating is on pace to be the worst of his career. Doesn’t matter. He’s still the player every team in the league would trade their guy for in a minute. Two more wins will give him 100 for his career counting the regular season and playoffs. He’s also a three-time Super Bowl champion, two-time MVP and the reason the Chiefs are the title favorite again this year regardless of his numbers.
Up next: at Buffalo Bills, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET
Last week: 1
Sunday: Beat Houston Texans 26-23
QB confidence rating: 7
This could be a nine, but there’s always a concern with Jared Goff that something bad is lurking around the next corner. For instance, a five-interception game like he had Sunday night against the Texans. That’s more interceptions than he had in the first eight games of the season combined. The other knock on Goff is his offensive coordinator and teammates make it easy on him. His air yards per attempt (6.9) rank 29th in the league. Still, his EPA per dropback (.16) ranks eighth in the league and can’t be dismissed.
Up next: vs. Jacksonville Jaguars, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
‘Just to be here is surreal’: Jake Bates, Lions complete wild comeback vs. Texans
Last week: 3
Thursday: Beat Cincinnati Bengals 35-34
QB confidence rating: 9
The only reason this isn’t a 10 is Lamar Jackson’s 2-4 career record in the playoffs. Jackson is the frontrunner for NFL MVP, which would be his third. Only Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have done that, and Jackson is only 27 years old. He leads the league in EPA per dropback by a wide margin (.37). Rodgers is the only player since 2010 to top that number in a season. His .40 in 2011 earned him the MVP trophy.
Up next: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
4. Buffalo Bills (8-2)
Last week: 4
Sunday: Beat Indianapolis Colts 30-20
QB confidence rating: 8
Josh Allen has scored 58 non-passing touchdowns since being drafted in 2018. That’s 12th in the NFL in that *******. He has thrown 184 touchdown passes in that span, which ranks third. That’s 242 times he’s put the Bills in the end zone. This year, he’s seventh in EPA per dropback and has thrown 17 touchdowns against just four interceptions.
Up next: vs. Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET
Signature Josh Allen
: #BUFvsIND on CBS/Paramount+ : pic.twitter.com/K4WrqFMZ1w
— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2024
Last week: 8
Sunday: Beat Dallas Cowboys 34-6
QB confidence rating: 7
The Eagles have won five straight, and in that stretch, Jalen Hurts is fifth in EPA per dropback (.20) and third in passer rating (126.1). Against the Cowboys, he was 7-for-9 for 115 yards and two touchdowns while under pressure, according to Next Gen Stats. He’s also leading maybe the best rushing ******* in the league. He had 56 yards and two touchdowns on the ground Sunday.
Up next: vs. Washington Commanders, Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
The Eagles are ‘building that bully’ after an overdue Cowboys beatdown in Dallas
6. Pittsburgh Steelers (7-2)
Last week: 9
Sunday: Beat Washington Commanders 28-27
QB confidence rating: 4
Pittsburgh is not in this position because of its quarterback play, but Russell Wilson deserves some credit for being 3-0 since taking the job from Justin Fields. Wilson’s chuck-it-deep style has been a nice fit with George Pickens and the Steelers. The veteran quarterback is third in air yards per attempt (9.9) since Week 7, and his .19 EPA per dropback is on pace to be his best since the 2015 season.
Up next: vs. Baltimore Ravens, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GEORGE PICKENS TD OH MY
: #PITvsWAS on CBS/Paramount+ : pic.twitter.com/rFXdORC9VE
— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2024
Last week: 6
Sunday: Bye
QB confidence rating: 6
Jordan Love’s problem, and problem may be a relative word in this context, is that he just signed a $220 million contract, and he has thrown an NFL-high 10 interceptions. He’s 19th in EPA per dropback (.02), and his season has to have Green Bay fans a little worried that he’s a good quarterback who had an elite finish to the 2023 season rather than an elite quarterback.
Up next: at Chicago Bears, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
Last week: 7
Sunday: Beat Jacksonville Jaguars 12-7
QB confidence rating: 5
Sunday was the game the Sam Darnold skeptics have been waiting for. Darnold threw three interceptions and had a passer rating of 48.2 against a Jacksonville defense that had been very generous to opponents all season. Darnold is 21st in EPA per dropback (.01). After the first month of the season, he was 11th (.09), but fading in the second half has been a hallmark of Darnold’s career. It appears now more than ever that he’s just keeping the job warm for J.J. McCarthy (No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft), who suffered a season-ending knee injury in training camp.
Up next: at Tennessee Titans, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
9. Washington Commanders (7-3)
Last week: 5
Sunday: Lost to Pittsburgh Steelers 28-27
QB confidence rating: 7
Jayden Daniels was just average on Sunday against the Steelers. It’s about time. The rookie was starting to look like he’d never stub his toe. Daniels completed 50 percent of his passes and had the second negative EPA game of his career. Still, he’s second in the NFL in EPA per dropback (.22) behind only Lamar Jackson. He is second in quarterback rushing behind Jackson as well, prompting a postgame question comparing the rookie to the reigning MVP. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin quickly shut that down.
Up next: at Philadelphia Eagles, Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET
Mike Tomlin when asked postgame about similarities/differences between Jayden Daniels & Lamar Jackson:
“Man, be real slow comparing people to Lamar Jackson. That’s a multi-time MVP. That’s Mr. Jackson. We’ll see Mr. Jackson in a few days.”#RavensFlock pic.twitter.com/E4UG9Feju1
— Carita Parks (@CaritaCParks) November 10, 2024
Last week: 15
Sunday: Beat Tennessee Titans 27-17
QB confidence rating: 8
Justin Herbert’s numbers aren’t flashy, but he might be your favorite quarterback evaluator’s favorite quarterback. Herbert threw 18 passes Sunday but rolled up a 123.1 passer rating and is now sixth in that category among qualified passes (103.2). After toiling in relative obscurity for the first four years of his career, Herbert has a chance to get into the national conversation this year if the Chargers keep winning.
Up next: vs. Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, 8:20 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
How Jim Harbaugh channeled a folk-rock ballad to lead Chargers to third straight win
Last week: 16
Sunday: Beat New York Jets 31-6
QB confidence rating: 7
Kyler Murray completed 22 of 24 passes Sunday, including his last 17, and it wasn’t because he was throwing to wide-open receivers all day. The odds of completing his final 17 passes based on their expected completion percentage was .245 percent, according to Next Gen Stats. Murray is 11th in EPA per dropback at .13, which is the best number of his career, and with 12 touchdowns and three interceptions, he’s on pace to have the best touchdown-to-interception ratio of his career.
Up next: Bye
Kyler Murray completed 22-of-24 for 266 yards and a TD against the Jets (career-high +21.6% CPOE), including each of his last 17 passes.
The odds of Murray completing each of his last 17 passes based on the probability of each attempt:
1 in 408 (0.245%)
Powered by @awscloud pic.twitter.com/clGT9nsCTr
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) November 11, 2024
Last week: 10
Sunday: Beat Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-20
QB confidence rating: 7
It feels like Brock Purdy has reached an important milestone this season. There’s no longer a daily debate about whether he’s a great quarterback or merely the product of his environment. He’s just playing mostly good football. Purdy is sixth in EPA per dropback (.18) and second in air yards per attempt (9.1). Since he was drafted in 2022, he leads the NFL in passer rating (106.9). On Sunday, he threw for 353 yards and was 4-for-5 for 39 yards on the 49ers’ game-winning drive.
Up next: vs. Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
49ers, Jake Moody deliver wobbly win but team is still trying to find its dominant self
13. Houston Texans (6-4)
Last week: 12
Sunday: Lost to Detroit Lions 26-23
QB confidence rating: 7
C.J. Stroud’s season now officially qualifies as a sophomore slump. He had a 64.2 passer rating and threw two interceptions Sunday night and lost despite a five-interception game from his opponent. Stroud is 24th in EPA per dropback (******-.01). As a rookie, he finished sixth (.11). Houston has lost two in a row and three of its last four.
Up next: vs. Dallas Cowboys, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET
Last week: 11
Sunday: Lost to New Orleans Saints 20-17
QB confidence rating: 7
Kirk Cousins is on track to be in the Comeback Player of the Year conversation, but his campaign took a hit Sunday as Cousins ******* to throw a touchdown pass against the Saints for the second time this season. Those are the only two games in which Cousins hasn’t thrown a touchdown in his first year with the Falcons. He’s 10th in EPA per dropback (.13) and has his team in first place in the NFC South. If you took away the two games against New Orleans, Cousins would be sixth in EPA per dropback (.17).
Up next: at Denver Broncos, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET
15. Cincinnati Bengals (4-6)
Last week: 18
Thursday: Lost to Baltimore Ravens 35-34
QB confidence rating: 8
This losing record isn’t Joe Burrow’s fault. The fifth-year quarterback hasn’t played this well since he led the Bengals to the Super Bowl. Burrow is seventh in EPA per dropback (.17) and third in passer rating (108.1) after completing 34 of 56 passes for 428 yards and four touchdowns while losing a thriller against Lamar Jackson on Thursday night. Those are both the second-best marks of his career. See, not his fault.
Up next: at Los Angeles Chargers, Sunday, 8:20 p.m. ET
16. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-6)
Last week: 13
Sunday: Lost to San Francisco 49ers 23-20
QB confidence rating: 7
Baker Mayfield leads the NFL with 24 touchdown passes. That’s only four short of his career high, which he set last year in Tampa. His EPA per dropback (.11) ranks 13th and is tied for the best mark of his career. Mayfield is trying to keep the Buccaneers afloat without receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and he almost did it Sunday against the defending NFC champions despite passing for only 116 yards.
Up next: Bye
BAKER MAYFIELD WHAT?!
: #SFvsTB on FOX : pic.twitter.com/Mlj7lDybXM
— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2024
17. Denver Broncos (5-5)
Last week: 14
Sunday: Lost to Kansas City Chiefs 16-14
QB confidence rating: 6
Rookie Bo Nix had a higher passer rating than his counterpoint Sunday, which is notable because his counterpoint was Patrick Mahomes. Nix was 22-for-30 for 215 yards and two touchdowns and posted a .36 EPA, which is the highest mark of his 10-start NFL career. In four of Nix’s first five games, he posted a negative EPA. In three of the last five games, he’s been in positive numbers. He still ranks 29th overall in EPA (******-.11), but he’s moving in the right direction. He also has rushed for 290 yards and four touchdowns.
Up next: vs. Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
‘We were right there’: Broncos heartbroken by blocked field goal loss to Chiefs
Last week: 17
Monday: Lost to Miami Dolphins 23-15
QB confidence rating: 7
This is not Matthew Stafford’s best season. He has thrown seven interceptions, including one in each of the last six games. He had 293 passing yards Monday night but couldn’t get the Rams into the end zone. Stafford, the No. 1 pick in 2009, is 26th in EPA per dropback (******-.03), which is the third-worst number of his career. Still, even at 36 years old, Stafford is a guy lots of coaches would pick to win them one game.
Up next: at New England Patriots, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
19. Seattle Seahawks (4-5)
Last week: 19
Sunday: Bye
QB confidence rating: 6
Since Geno Smith’s bounce-back 2022 season, his passer rating is going in the wrong direction. That year it was 103, the highest mark of his career as a starter. It fell to 92.1 last season and currently sits at 88.6. Smith isn’t playing poorly. He’s 16th in EPA per dropback (0.3), but it’s becoming clear that Seattle needs peak Geno to be competitive. An 11-to-10 touchdown-to-interception ratio is not peak Geno.
Up next: at San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET
20. Miami Dolphins (3-6)
Last week: 27
Monday: Beat Los Angeles Rams 23-15
QB confidence rating: 6
By the numbers, Tua Tagovailoa is playing great. He is eighth in EPA per dropback (.14), and he’s completing more than 70 percent of his passes. However, Monday night’s win, in which he was 20-for-28 for 207 yards, one touchdown and one interception, improved his record as a starter this season to just 2-3. Granted, those losses came to Buffalo (twice) and Arizona, but there’s still something missing from this offense, and Tagovailoa is the player most responsible for getting that fixed.
Up next: vs. Las Vegas Raiders, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
21. Indianapolis Colts (4-6)
Last week: 21
Sunday: Lost to Buffalo Bills 30-20
QB confidence rating: 3
Anthony Richardson was trending on X early in the day Sunday. That’s not a good sign considering he was benched two weeks ago. Veteran Joe Flacco hasn’t backed up the team’s decision to make that move. Flacco threw three interceptions Sunday and is 0-2 since replacing Richardson. Coach Shane Steichen says the veteran will remain the starter “until I say otherwise.” That should probably be soon. Developing a young player, even one with a 44.4 completion percentage, makes more sense than continuing with Flacco, who is 21st in EPA per dropback.
Up next: at New York Jets, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
Drake Maye got the best of fellow rookie Caleb Williams on Sunday and is the Patriots’ biggest reason for hope at the moment. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
22. New England Patriots (3-7)
Last week: 29
Sunday: Beat Chicago Bears 19-3
QB confidence rating: 7
Drake Maye may be overrated here, but he gets a bump because he’s the only reason for hope in New England at the moment. Maye looked particularly good in comparison to fellow rookie Caleb Williams on Sunday. The Patriots have won two of their last three games, and Maye is 25th in EPA per dropback (******-.02). He’s also averaging 38.8 rushing yards per game, which is fifth among quarterbacks.
Up next: vs. Los Angeles Rams, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
23. Chicago Bears (4-5)
Last week: 20
Sunday: Lost to New England Patriots 19-3
QB confidence rating: 5
Is it too early for Bears fans to panic about Caleb Williams? No, probably not. This year’s top pick has three straight games with a negative EPA, and he’s 33rd in that category for the season (******-.13). He hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass since Week 6. His completion percentage (60.5) ranks 32nd. His sack percentage (11.4) is 33rd and a sign that not only is Chicago’s offensive line not as good as expected but that Williams is taking too long to get the ball out of his hands. Things are not good.
Up next: vs. Green Bay Packers, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
24. New York Jets (3-7)
Last week: 22
Sunday: Lost to Arizona Cardinals 31-6
QB confidence rating: 2
The Jets bet their present and future on Aaron Rodgers having one more run in him. They’re losing that bet badly. Rodgers is 26th in EPA per dropback (******-.02), 29th in completion percentage (62.4) and 25th in yards per attempt (6.4). On Sunday, he threw for 151, no touchdowns and completed only two passes that traveled more than 7 yards, and the Jets couldn’t manage a touchdown. If this is Rodgers’ last season, it looks like it will be a somber one.
Up next: vs. Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
After blowout loss in Arizona, Jets are out of time and Aaron Rodgers is out of answers
25. Dallas Cowboys (3-6)
Last week: 23
Sunday: Lost to Philadelphia Eagles 34-6
QB confidence rating: 6
Dak Prescott is 31 years old, and he could be about to have season-ending surgery to repair a hamstring that is torn off the bone. It wasn’t going great when Prescott was healthy. He’s 27th in EPA per dropback (******-.05), which is not what the Cowboys were expecting when they made him the highest-paid player in the NFL in the offseason at $60 million annually. Cooper Rush, Dallas’ primary backup since 2021, passed for 45 yards on Sunday, and Trey Lance had 21 yards and one interception on six passes as the Cowboys dropped their fourth straight.
Up next: vs. Houston Texans, Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET
GO DEEPER
Trey Lance or Cooper Rush? Cowboys are a mess that neither quarterback can fix
26. Las Vegas Raiders (2-7)
Last week: 26
Sunday: Bye
QB confidence rating: 2
How much influence will new Raiders ********* owner Tom Brady have on which quarterback Las Vegas drafts in April? You’d think a lot. There seems to be little question the Raiders are going to be in the quarterback market. Current starting quarterback Gardner Minshew II, if he does in fact hang on to the starting job after the bye week, is 30th in EPA (******-.11). After that, the depth chart is Desmond Ridder and Aidan O’Connell.
Up next: at Miami Dolphins, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
Last week: 31
Sunday: Beat New York Giants 20-17
QB confidence rating: 3
The Panthers have won two in a row with Bryce Young as their starting quarterback, but it’s probably a mirage. The wins have come over the Saints and Giants, and the former No. 1 pick hasn’t been the driving force in either victory. He’s averaging 5.4 yards per attempt with a ******-.10 EPA per dropback in those two games. Young only took back the starting job because of an Andy Dalton injury, and these last two weeks probably didn’t change the organization’s mind much.
Up next: Bye
Bryce showing off the wheels : NFL Network pic.twitter.com/KPM0mqUpGX
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) November 10, 2024
28. New Orleans Saints (3-7)
Last week: 32
Sunday: Beat Atlanta Falcons 20-17
QB confidence rating: 5
The Saints appear to be linked to Derek Carr through at least 2025 because of his contract. That comes with a ceiling, but it comes with a floor, too. Carr passed for 269 yards and two touchdowns to newly acquired Marquez Valdes-Scantling on Sunday, and he is ninth in EPA per dropback (.13) this season. That’s on pace to be the second-best mark of his career and his best since 2019.
Up next: vs. Cleveland Browns, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
29. New York Giants (2-8)
Last week: 25
Sunday: Lost to Carolina Panthers 20-17
QB confidence rating: 2
The best news for the Giants is they can move on from Daniel Jones after this season for the low, low price of $22 million in ***** money. It’s been time to move on for a while. Jones threw 37 passes Sunday and had only 190 yards and two interceptions to show for it. For the season, he’s 28th in EPA per dropback (******-.08). For his career, which has spanned six long years as the starter in New York, he’s 24-44-1. He’s had only one winning season and has never gotten to 10 wins.
Up next: Bye
GO DEEPER
The Giants are getting worse, so what is the case for retaining Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen?
30. Cleveland Browns (2-7)
Last week: 24
Sunday: Bye
QB confidence rating: 1
Deshaun Watson’s injury allowed Cleveland to change the subject from its controversial quarterback for now, but the conversation is coming back. Watson’s fully guaranteed deal means there’s no easy or inexpensive way to move past him. The Browns can take a small country’s GDP worth of ***** money, have a backup quarterback with a $72 million cap hit next year or start Watson again in 2025. Amazingly, the third option may be the most palatable, even though he posted a ******-.25 EPA per dropback this season, which ranks 37th among qualifying quarterbacks.
Up next: at New Orleans Saints, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
31. Tennessee Titans (2-7)
Last week: 28
Sunday: Lost to Los Angeles Chargers 27-17
QB confidence rating: 2
The only reason Tennessee gets a two is because only Cleveland is getting a one. The Titans aren’t in much better shape, but at least they have answered the question they came into the season asking. Is Will Levis the starter of the future? No. Levis was fine Sunday, throwing for 175 yards and two touchdowns, but Tennessee fans are probably hoping that doesn’t provide the team with false hope. The game managed to even up his touchdown-to-interception ratio at seven to seven for the season. Levis is 36th in EPA (******-.22).
Up next: vs. Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
32. Jacksonville Jaguars (2-8)
Last week: 30
Sunday: Lost to Minnesota Vikings 12-7
QB confidence rating: 4
The good news from Sunday? Mac Jones’ 14-for-22, 111-yard, two-interception day should make Jacksonville fans feel better about Trevor Lawrence. The Jaguars’ regular starter may be headed for season-ending shoulder surgery, which might not be the worst thing considering this is a lost season in Jacksonville and Lawrence could use a reset. He has underplayed expectations since being drafted No. 1 in 2021, ranking 25th since then in EPA per dropback (.00). He had 11 touchdowns and six interceptions this season before being sidelined last week.
Up next: at Detroit Lions, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET
(Top photo of Patrick Mahomes: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
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Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PS5 Pro: upgrading Insomniac’s masterpiece
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PS5 Pro: upgrading Insomniac’s masterpiece
SimpleSlave246d ago
You’re most def in the *********. Yeah. Aside from some boneheaded decisions, like having a mask on Willem Dafoe or shoehorning Venom in the Third one, those movies are far more enjoyable and honest than the new Marvel’s Spider-Man movies.
As for Tobey and Kristen, they both help ground the characters and make them more relatable and human than the new Disneyfied versions. It’s no secret as to why the best parts of the Disney Spider-Man movies are the ones with the characters from the original Trilogy; Dafoe, Tobey and Molina.
The original trilogy is indeed not perfect, but they still have heart and feel like the people behind them actually cared about the property whereas the new version feels like brain numbing been-there-done-that by the numbers Disney affair.
But to each their own.
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Strengthening cyber: Best IAM practices to combat threats
Strengthening cyber: Best IAM practices to combat threats
The 2024 *** government Cyber Security Breaches Survey makes sober reading with 70% and 74% respectively of medium and large businesses reporting some form of cyber incident within the previous 12 months.
With phishing accounting for 84% of these attacks and AI enabling the launch of increasingly sophisticated cyber campaigns, organisations need to defend themselves against attacks targeting two key vulnerabilities in their defences: insecure user accounts and human error. IAM needs to be a key part of an organisation’s security posture against these threats.
Unfortunately, many organisations have inadequate IAM and lack effective control and visibility of who has access to their resources. This creates a vulnerability that is targeted and exploited.
Organisations should combat this threat by establishing an identity-centric security approach that moves the security perimeter from the edge of the corporate network to the individual user. It reduces the risk of an attacker exploiting insecure identities by enforcing verification and authorisation of all entities prior to allowing any access and then only permits authorised activity.
Identity-centric security needs to be at the core of an organisation’s cyber security posture. It is delivered through effective IAM governance, strong but proportionate access controls, user education, and proactive detection and response capabilities designed to rapidly identify and repel any breach.
Reduce the ability of attackers to exploit accounts through effective IAM governance
An effective IAM governance framework for managing the end-to-end identity lifecycle is a key element in reducing the ability of attackers successfully exploiting an account to infiltrate an organisation’s resources.
The first step is getting the basics right. At a minimum, regular re–certification reviews should be performed to see who has access to what resources and their entitlements. It should then remove any account and/or access right that is not required. This should be coupled with the enforcement of effective joiners, movers and leavers, and ‘access request’ processes designed to only provide users with appropriate access to resources they need to perform their roles.
This reduces the exploitable ******* surface by, for example, removing dormant or duplicate accounts and unnecessary access to resources. It should also deliver a single traceable view of who has access to which resources and enable unauthorised access to be more effectively identified.
Enforce strong but proportionate access controls to reduce the risk of compromise
As an organisation’s users and their accounts will be actively targeted, it is necessary to enforce access controls that not only reduce the risk of breach, but if an attacker does succeed, minimises their ability to exploit this access.
Organisations need to apply proportionally stronger controls according to risk. At a minimum, organisations should use Multi-Factor-Authentication (MFA) tools and techniques. These include mobile authenticator apps leveraging One-Time Passwords or biometrics combined with controls using contextual signals such as a user’s location or the status of their device. Such mechanisms provide an additional layer of defence in the event a user falls for a phishing email and provides an attacker with their credentials.
In the event these defences are breached, the enforcement of a least privilege model, where users are only provided with the minimum entitlements required for their jobs will limit the ability to exploit this. Building upon this, privileged accounts used for higher-level administrative activities must be kept separate and not used for daily business–as–usual work. Such controls impede an attacker’s ability to move laterally across the network and reduces their ability to compromise an organisation’s systems and data or deploy system corrupting ransomware.
Use education to reduce the risk caused by ignorance
Cyber attackers exploit ignorance and muscle memory with techniques such as MFA ******** (where attackers repeatedly spam the user with MFA requests until they accept) which is used to compromise credentials.
Education of these threats needs to be part of an organisation’s defences. Measures include awareness campaigns on how to identify and respond to phishing emails, best practice, and steps to take if they feel they may have been compromised. This helps the workforce take pride in good cyber security and empowers them to do the right thing.
Use threat detection and response capabilities to reduce the impact of any breach
Although effective IAM should be at the heart of the defence against cyber phishing and ransomware attacks, it essentially provides a static defensive perimeter. Organisations must assume this will be breached and use their wider security operations capability to proactively deliver threat detection and response, including approaches such as Zero Trust.
Organisations should develop capabilities to detect and analyse signals that could be an indicator of attempted or existing compromise. Trend analysis on usage and breaches can be used to identify and close vulnerabilities. Threat detection tools (e.g. a SIEM capturing IAM and PAM logs) combined with established playbooks can, for example, reduce the impact of a successful phishing campaign by detecting and responding to anomalous activities such as seeking escalation of rights.
A coherent identity-centric security approach needs to be a core part of an organisation’s defences if it is to successfully combat cyber, phishing and ransomware attacks. The combination of the use of high quality identity data and technology services to control access to its resources, with proactive threat detection and response capabilities, and user education, is vital for a security posture designed to meet rapidly evolving cyber attacks.
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Germany plans February election after coalition collapse
Germany plans February election after coalition collapse
Germany is set to hold elections on 23 February, following the collapse of the governing coalition.
The country was plunged into crisis after Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats, fired the finance minister and coalition partner, ********** Lindner of the Free Democrats, following weeks of internal tensions.
The February date is a proposal and there are several steps to confirmation. The ******* press agency DPA reported that these were largely a formality.
It said the next step was for Scholz to put the current government to a confidence vote on 16 December.
If he loses, which is the expected outcome, the election date will formally be proposed to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He will then have 21 days to dissolve the ******* parliament, the Bundestag.
Tensions boiled over in the Bundestag last Wednesday during a row over the 2025 budget.
The chancellor fired Lindner, saying he had “betrayed my confidence” and put the interests of his party over those of the country.
Lindner accused Scholz of “leading Germany into a phase of uncertainty”.
The turmoil plunged Europe’s largest economy into political chaos, hours after Donald Trump’s US election victory triggered uncertainty about the future of the continent’s economy and security.
Scholz’s initial plan for a no-confidence vote in January and elections in mid-March was rejected by the leader of the opposition ********** Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, as not soon enough.
The DPA reported that leaders of both main parties agreed the February date, and that the Greens and Free Democrats, the junior coalition partners, support the plan.
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Predicting the College Football Playoff rankings after Week 11: What to do with Indiana?
Predicting the College Football Playoff rankings after Week 11: What to do with Indiana?
Two top-five teams lost just days after the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2024 season were released, so there should be a Top 25 shake-up by the selection committee with the second rankings on Tuesday night. Just how much they change after Georgia and Miami lost is the question.
My College Football Playoff projections model predicts what the committee is likely to do with its rankings each week. Last week, my projected rankings had 24 of the top 25 teams (the only non-ranked team was Missouri, which I had 26th), so it did a pretty good job of identifying the Top 25. What about precision? The model predicted all of the top 17 teams’ rankings within two spots. The first big miss came when it projected Clemson and Army at 18th and 19th, respectively, while the committee had them at 23rd and 25th. Overall, 22 of the 25 teams were within two spots, 16 were within one spot and nine were exactly right, including seven of the top 12.
GO DEEPER
College Football Playoff 2024 projections: Indiana up to 92 percent chance to make field
This is a new week and a new test, as teams are going to be moving around a bunch at the top. So let’s take another stab at projecting what the committee will do with the rankings.
Projected CFP Top 25 after Week 11
Rk
Team
Record
****
AP poll
1
10-0
51
1
2
8-1
35
2
3
8-1
17
4
4
8-1
80
3
5
10-0
81
5
6
8-1
70
6
7
9-0
54
7
8
8-1
56
8
9
7-2
3
9
10
8-2
39
10
11
7-2
1
11
12
9-1
68
12
13
8-1
65
14
14
7-2
21
15
15
8-1
85
13
16
7-2
47
17
17
7-2
41
20
18
7-2
52
18
19
9-0
132
16
20
8-1
93
19
21
6-3
7
21
22
6-3
5
23
23
6-3
13
22
24
7-2
32
24
25
7-2
60
NR
Next five: Arizona State, Pitt, Tulane, UNLV, Illinois
Biggest question: How is Indiana being evaluated?
Indiana is fresh off a victory over Michigan, easily one of its best wins of the season but also its closest. For the first time in 10 games, the Hoosiers won by single digits, hanging on to win 20-15 despite having just 18 yards of total offense in the second half. Indiana has already crashed the AP top five for the first time since 1967. It is 10-0 for the first time ever and will be in the mix for a top-five ranking Tuesday after it was eighth in last week’s CFP rankings. The reason it’s not a surefire top-five team is because its strength of schedule, in my projections, ranks 81st. How much will that matter?
GO DEEPER
Why No. 8 Indiana is the 12-team College Football Playoff’s ultimate test case
The Hoosiers’ Playoff positioning will ultimately be determined by how they perform against Ohio State in Columbus on Nov. 23 after they’re idle this week. If that’s a competitive game, you can almost guarantee the Hoosiers a spot in the CFP. But if it’s a blowout, some think they don’t have the resume to deserve or guarantee an at-large bid. And while I won’t defend their schedule strength, I don’t think enough attention is brought to some other CFP contenders.
According to my projections, Texas has played the 80th toughest schedule and Tennessee the 70th. Now, there are some differences across strength of schedule metrics from various sources, but Tennessee’s best win is Alabama and its second best win is arguably Kentucky (and it lost to Arkansas). Texas’ best win is probably Vanderbilt or Michigan.
Indiana will likely finish the season with the easiest schedule among the contenders, but I don’t think it’s as egregious as some have been making it out to be. A good performance against Ohio State should give the Hoosiers not only a Playoff bid, but an opportunity to host a game in the first round.
GO DEEPER
Indiana edges Michigan to reach 10 wins, likely Playoff and wants more: What is this world?
What the 12-team bracket would look like
The bracket below is based on the projected selection committee rankings for Nov. 11. Find my projections for the final bracket here.
(Photo of Curt Cignetti: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)
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Rode’s tiny $149 Wireless Micro kit is designed for smartphone users
Rode’s tiny $149 Wireless Micro kit is designed for smartphone users
Rode has announced the Wireless Micro, a two-mic kit with a smartphone receiver and charging case that costs just $149. The idea is to help TikTok and other creators capture much better-quality audio than their smartphone’s microphone can offer.
The receiver unit connects to the bottom of your smartphone via a USB-C or lightning port. Meanwhile, the microphones (aka transmitters) attach to the subject via integrated clips or magnetic attachments, then capture what Rode calls “pristine” quality sound. Specifically, they offer a 20-20 kHz frequency range and 73 dB signal-to-noise ratio, with a transmission range around 330 feet.
Rode
To use it, simply connect the receiver to your iOS or Android device and it will take over as the system microphone. From there, everything is automatic, as the transmitter mics are automatically paired to the receiver and sound will be captured to your camera app of choice. Levels are automatically controlled with the company’s GainAssist technology.
The omnidirectional transmitters weigh just 12 grams (0.42 ounces) and are tiny enough to be discreet when clipped onto your subject. The built-in microphones use what Rode calls “acoustic chambers” with a patent-pending design. That supposedly lets you capture clear and intelligible audio while reducing wind noise, though a pair of windmuffs is also included in the kit.
Rode
The Wireless Micro also includes a charging case that delivers two full recharges for up to 18 hours of battery life, while giving you a secure place to store everything.
There are a few things missing, though. You can’t connect an external mic to the transmitters, unlike with other Rode wireless mics or the DJI Mic 2. There’s no smartphone Bluetooth capability, and it doesn’t offer a 3.5mm connection for cameras — a feature that will supposedly exist on the rumored DJI Mic Mini. Still, this looks like a great option for creators who primarily use smartphones. It’s now available in a two mic kit with a receiver and charging case for $150.
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Instagram AI Feature That Lets Users Generate Profile Pictures Spotted in Development
Instagram AI Feature That Lets Users Generate Profile Pictures Spotted in Development
Instagram could be working on a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will allow users to generate profile photos. A new ***** claims that the Meta-owned social media platform is testing a feature that will allow users to use AI models to create new profile pictures using AI. While not a lot is known about the feature at this point, similar features are reportedly being developed for Facebook and WhatsApp. Meanwhile, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri recently announced that automatic feed refreshing, which was triggered when the app is opened after a certain *******, has been abandoned by the service.
Instagram Developing AI Profile Picture Generation Feature
Developer Alessandro Paluzzi found evidence of this feature on the Instagram app, and shared details in a post on Threads. He was able to find a new menu option when updating his profile picture on Instagram that says, Create an AI profile picture. A screenshot of the menu was also shared by the developer.
While it is difficult to say how exactly this feature would work as it is still in development, it will likely be powered by one of Meta’s Llama large language models (LLMs). The feature could work in two ways — it could let users generate an AI image from scratch using text-based prompts or convert existing profile pictures in different styles using AI.
This wouldn’t be the first AI feature to arrive on Instagram. The Meta-owned platform already offers access to Meta AI, its conversational chatbot, in the form of a standalone chat as well as in group chats. The company also rolled out an AI rewrite feature for DM messages, which allows users to rephrase and change the tonality of messages being sent to another user.
Meanwhile, Meta recently announced that it testing an AI-powered facial recognition technology to detect scam ads on Facebook and Instagram. The feature will spot ads that fraudulently use public figures in their ads to lure users and block them. It also revealed its plans to use the technology to verify users via video selfies to help them gain access to their compromised accounts. Neither of these features are widely available at the moment.
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28% of credit card users are still paying off last year’s holiday bill
28% of credit card users are still paying off last year’s holiday bill
Americans tend to overspend during the holiday season.
In fact, some borrowers are still paying off debt from last year’s purchases.
To that point, 28% of shoppers who used credit cards have not paid off the presents they bought for their loved ones last year, according to a holiday spending report by NerdWallet. The site polled more than 1,700 adults in September.
However, this is a slight improvement from 2023, when 31% of credit card users had still not paid off their balances from the year before.
More from Personal Finance: Here are the best ways to save money this holiday season 2 in 5 cardholders have maxed out a credit card or come close Holiday shoppers plan to spend more
Growth in credit card balances has also slowed, according to a separate quarterly credit industry insights report from TransUnion released on Tuesday.
Although overall credit card balances were 6.9% higher at the end of the third quarter compared to a year earlier, that’s a significant improvement from the 15% year-over-year jump from Q3 2022 to Q3 2023, TransUnion found.
The average balance per consumer now stands at $6,329, rising only 4.8% year over year — compared to an 11.2% increase the year before and 12.4% the year before that.
“People are getting comfortable with this post-pandemic life,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. “As inflation has returned to more normal levels in recent months, it has also meant consumers may be less likely to rely on these credit products to make ends meet.”
Recent wage gains have also played a role, according to Paul Siegfried, TransUnion’s senior vice president and credit card business leader. Lower inflation and higher pay “may be driving consumers toward a financial equilibrium,” he said.
Still, spending between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31 is expected to increase to a record total of $979.5 billion to $989 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
Shoppers may spend $1,778 on average, up 8% compared with last year, Deloitte’s holiday retail survey found. Most will lean on plastic: About three-quarters, 74%, of consumers plan to use credit cards to make their purchases, according to NerdWallet.
“Between buying gifts and booking peak-season travel, the holidays are an expensive time of year,” said Sara Rathner, NerdWallet’s credit cards expert. However, this time around, “shoppers are setting strict budgets and taking advantage of seasonal sales.”
How to avoid overspending
“There’s no magic wand, we just have to do the hard stuff,” Candy Valentino, author of “The 9% Edge,” recently told CNBC. Mostly that means setting a budget and tracking expenses.
Valentino recommends reallocating funds from other areas — by canceling unwanted subscriptions or negotiating down utility costs — to help make room for holiday spending.
“A few hundred dollars here and there really adds up,” she said. That “stash of cash is one way to set yourself up so you are not taking on new debt.”
How to save on what you spend
Valentino also advises consumers to start their holiday shopping now to take advantage of early deals and discounts or try pooling funds among family or friends to share the cost of holiday gifts.
Then, curb temptation by staying away from the mall and unsubscribing from emails, opting out of text alerts, turning off push notifications in retail apps and unfollowing brands on social, she said.
“It will lessen your need and ******* to spend,” Valentino said.
If you’re starting out the holiday season debt-free, you’re in a “strong position” to take advantage of credit card rewards, Rathner said.
Credit cards that offer rewards like cash back or sign-on bonuses will offer a better return on your holiday spending, she said.
However, if you are planning on purchasing big-ticket items to work towards such bonuses, make sure you’re able to pay off the balance in full to avoid falling into holiday debt, Rathner said.
What to do if you have debt from last year
People walk by ***** signs in the Financial District on the first day back for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) since the Christmas holiday on December 26, 2023 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
If you have credit card debt from last year, the first thing you can do is “look for ways to lower the interest you’re paying on that debt,” said NerdWallet’s Rathner.
A balance transfer card, for example, typically offers a 0% annual percentage rate for a ******* of time, which usually spans from months to even a year or more.
If you move your debt from a high-rate credit card, it may help you save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in interest payments, depending on how much you owe, Rather said.
“That keeps your debt from growing,” she said.
But you need to pay off the debt in full before the interest-free ******* ends to fully benefit, Rathner noted.
Additionally, there are a few caveats: You generally need to have good-to-excellent credit to qualify for the balance transfer and there may be fees involved. A transfer fee is typically 3% to 5% of the balance that you transfer over, Rathner said.
While you may need to budget for that detail, “the savings on the interest might be higher than the fee you would pay,” she said.
Otherwise, you may be able to consolidate into a lower interest personal loan, depending on your creditworthiness. Similarly, cardholders who keep their utilization rate — or the ratio of debt to total credit — below 30% of their available credit may benefit from a higher credit score, which paves the way to lower-cost loans and better terms.
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Supreme Court rejects Mark Meadows’ bid to move Georgia prosecution involving 2020 election to federal court
Supreme Court rejects Mark Meadows’ bid to move Georgia prosecution involving 2020 election to federal court
Washington — The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his state prosecution to federal court in the case stemming from an alleged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
The court’s denial of Meadows’ appeal leaves in place a lower court decision that returned the prosecution to state court. Meadows and President-elect Donald Trump, for whom he worked, were charged alongside 17 others by Fulton County prosecutors for their alleged efforts to reverse Trump’s electoral loss in Georgia in 2020.
They pleaded not guilty to all charges. Proceedings have been on hold for months as a Georgia appeals court is set to consider in December whether to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue prosecuting Trump and his allies.
Meadows served as Trump’s chief of staff from March 2020 to January 2021 and was a prominent figure in the president-elect’s attempts to stay in office for a consecutive term after the November 2020 presidential election.
Two counts were brought against him by Fulton County prosecutors: the first alleges that he engaged in a wide-ranging racketeering *********** with Trump, and the second alleges he participated in an effort to solicit a public officer, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to violate his oath of office.
Meadows is portrayed in the indictment returned in August 2023 as a go-between for Trump and others involved in coordinating the strategy for contesting the 2020 election and disrupting the ****** session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. He participated in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger, during which the then-president asked Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, enough to make him the winner of Georgia’s election.
After Meadows was charged, he sought to transfer the case to federal court under a federal officer removal statute and argued that the actions alleged in the indictment related to his role as chief of staff.
The district court, however, sent the case back to the Fulton County Superior Court. While U.S. District Judge Steve Jones conceded that some of the charged conduct involved Meadows’ official duties, there was not enough evidence to establish that a “heavy majority” of the acts alleged against him related to his role as chief of staff.
“Meadows’s alleged association with post-election activities was not related to his role as White House Chief of Staff or his executive branch authority,” Jones wrote in his September 2023 decision.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the district court’s decision, finding that the federal officer removal statute does not apply to former federal officers and “his participation in an alleged *********** to overturn a presidential election was not related to his official duties.”
“At bottom, whatever the chief of staff’s role with respect to state election administration, that role does not include altering valid election results in favor of a particular candidate,” Chief Judge William Pryor wrote for the three-judge panel.
Meadows appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that whether a chief of staff prosecuted based on actions related to his work for the president can remove his case to federal court is not a close call.
Calling the 11th Circuit’s decision “miserly and counterintuitive,” Meadow’s lawyers warned in a filing that allowing it to stand would open former federal officers up to politicized state prosecutions for unpopular federal policies.
“The chief of staff is a unique federal officer, the top aide to a coequal branch of government personified by the president,” they wrote. “If former officers cannot remove at all, and if even a current chief of staff cannot remove a case arising out of acts taken in the White House in service of the president, then the floodgates are open, and ‘nightmare scenarios’ will not take long to materialize.”
Fulton County prosecutors urged the Supreme Court to ******* Meadows’ appeal and leave the 11th Circuit’s decision in place. They noted that Trump did not even move his case to federal court, and said Meadows ******* to “articulate any coherent source of authority for the president or his staff to supervise or affect a state’s administration of elections.”
Melissa Quinn
Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
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Kentucky’s keys are in the hands of a coach unlike any other
Kentucky’s keys are in the hands of a coach unlike any other
LEXINGTON, ***. — This began with a threat. Not a thinly veiled threat. No. This was about as direct as it gets.
Mark Pope, all 6 feet and 10 inches of him, stood tall, pushing his shoulders back. Considering his size, his shaved head, and his background — a decade spent ******** around the paint as a journeyman NBA center back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when freedom of movement was a foreign concept and survival required withstanding elbows in the chest — he should be an imposing figure. Except Pope has this way of being impossibly likable. He looks and sounds like a human exclamation point. He throws around adjectives like he’s writing the latest “Hardy Boys” volume. Everything he sees or hears is brilliant! Or incredible! Or the greatest thing ever! Mixed in with the overloaded enthusiasm is the reality that Pope is, even though he’ll never admit it, an intellectual. He can spend hours discussing philosophy or theology. In a past life, he was a Rhodes scholar candidate on his way to becoming a doctor. He is, as his former coach Rick Pitino says, “smarter than 99 percent of college basketball coaches.”
Add it all up and Pope, no matter how big, isn’t intimidating.
That’s why the threat wasn’t his.
“I’m fair game, but if you say anything about the ******,” Pope warned, shaking hands inside his office at the University of Kentucky, half-smiling, eyes moving cautiously, “Lee Anne will ***** your house down.”
Welcome to the Pope Family. There’s your postcard.
Last spring, they were scattered. Each one in his or her own world. Lee Anne was in Texas, visiting a brother in the hospital. Ella, the oldest, was off embarking on early professional life. Avery, then a college junior, was heading into tennis practice at Brigham Young University. Layla, a BYU freshman, was in Salt Lake City, prepping for that night’s Utah Jazz-Houston Rockets game, her makeup half-done for a dance team performance. Shay, the youngest, was home in Provo, Utah, in the throes of high school volleyball practice.
And Dad? He was in a job interview with Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart.
Soon their cell phones were buzzing. Text messages in the family group chat. Pope told his wife and four daughters he needed them on a call. He mentioned a Zoom. No, no, one of the ****** replied. Just start a group Facetime. OK. Everyone scrambled to find a quiet spot to talk, a little privacy. But then — where’s Shay? Volleyball practice wasn’t over yet. As the youngest, she is, of course, the favorite. They couldn’t start without her. Finally picking up her phone, Shay found a screen flooded with alerts. “Oh, my gosh.”
The call could hardly handle their collective wavelength. Wide eyes stared at screens, stared at one another. There was smiling, some lip-biting. Finally, Dad asked, “How do we feel if I go to Kentucky?” The tears started rolling.
This wasn’t a done deal yet. Pope told his family, “Listen, if anyone isn’t OK with this, I will stay at BYU.” He meant it. And he needed to hear from everyone on the call. He went around one by one.
Each daughter looked at her dad and saw a man who, in the moment, had somehow lassoed his whole life history and pulled it all together. Mark Pope was born in Omaha, Neb., to a family that followed his dad’s career. Don Pope took a job with Union Pacific in New York in the 1970s, when Mark was a ****. Then he took a job with Burlington Resources in Seattle. Don and his wife, Linda, raised six kids in Bellevue, Wash. Mark grew tall, starring on the basketball court, and accepted a scholarship to the University of Washington in 1991. Two years later, his coach was let go, setting off a chain of events that, you will learn, somehow led to his life unfolding with a charmed bliss he could never have imagined; and, ultimately, shaping the direction of college basketball’s winningest program — the Kentucky Wildcats.
So, yes, it was a big question.
Lee Anne went first, telling her husband she loved him and was proud of him. Yes. Then each of the ******. Yes. Yes. Yes. Go Cats.
Shay went last, sort of hiding her face from the screen. As the baby, she’s the only Pope girl who didn’t previously move around a lot as a ****, instead growing up primarily in Utah, spending her whole life in a singular world. Everyone on the call knew a move would impact Shay the most. Changing high schools, new friends, living in a huge spotlight. Hard stuff for a 15-year-old.
Shay peeked at the screen so her family could see her. Yes.
“I knew what Kentucky was, because my dad has talked about it so much, but I didn’t really get it,” Shay says now. “I was sad, but … it’s just, I love my dad, and he’s … he’s my favorite person, you know? This is, like, his actual dream. And that’s ******* than me being **** or sad about having to leave my friends, right?”
Lee Anne and Mark Pope, center, with daughters, from left, Shay, Layla, Avery and Ella. (Chet White / *** Athletics)
Outside the family, there once existed a prevailing thought that maybe Pope wasn’t the man for arguably the biggest job in college basketball. It was April, to be exact. Back when all ***** broke loose.
First, John Calipari, Kentucky’s second all-time winningest coach behind Adolph Rupp, pulled an all-time vanishing act, trading years of growing animosity for an out-of-nowhere move to Arkansas. The general feeling was shock, but understanding. Both sides — Cal and the Cats — probably needed a fresh start. If anything, those in Lexington were excited. It was assumed the program would land some big-time name. Scott Drew. Dan Hurley. Bruce Pearl. Or maybe even a demigod like Billy Donovan or Jay Wright.
But then Drew said no. And Hurley said no. Pearl and others were non-options, weighed by prohibitive contract buyouts. Donovan wasn’t willing to talk until after the NBA season. Wright was a pipe dream.
That led Barnhart to Pope. The fifth-year BYU head coach was a Kentucky legend; symbolically, maybe more so than athletically. He first arrived in Lexington in 1993, when Pitino brought him in as a transfer, hoping he’d be the glue guy for a team ready to win a national championship. Pope had started for two seasons at Washington, but would come off the bench for the dynamic, dynastic Kentucky teams of the mid-90s. A ***** hydrant in the middle of a collection of Cadillacs — Tony Delk, Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty, Derek Anderson, Ron Mercer. He was co-captain of the 1996 national title team. He set screens like a door jamb, grabbed every loose ball and defended like a madman. All told, Kentucky went 62-7 in his two seasons. Pope earned a place in Wildcat lore and was drafted with the 52nd overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft.
But, head coach? Of Kentucky? Pope had a nice four-year run at Utah Valley, and went 110-52 at BYU, but — c’mon. He never won a league championship. He never won an NCAA Tournament game. His 2023-24 team successfully navigated BYU’s difficult jump from the West Coast Conference to the Big 12, but flamed out in the first round of the big dance, losing to 11th-seeded Duquesne.
Kentucky fans are notoriously demanding and chronically online. The response to Pope’s emergence as head coach went as follows: He’s too unproven. He can’t recruit. The job is too big for him.
All of those things could very well be true.
Barnhart hired him anyway.
Now the keys to the kingdom are in the hands of a coach unlike any other in program history. He’s a coach who is, above all else, Lee Anne’s husband, and dad to Ella, Avery, Layla and Shay. He’s a member of The ******* of ****** ******* of Latter-day Saints. He’s the first *** graduate to serve as head coach since Basil Hayden — a 1922 grad who coached the Wildcats in 1926-27. (Joe B. Hall, who led Kentucky to the 1978 national championship, transferred to, and graduated from, Sewanee.)
Sitting in his office, the 52-year-old looks around like a puppy encountering snow for the first time, and says, can you believe this? Like he wants it to feel like a shared experience.
“This is so awesome,” he adds. “And yet, believe it or not, it feels totally natural to me.”
Lynn Archibald first became aware of Mark Pope sometime in the late 1980s. He began recruiting the 6-foot-9 center from Bellevue (Wash.) Newport High School as University of Utah head coach. Then, after being let go in 1988-89, continued the recruitment as an assistant on Bill Frieder’s staff at Arizona State.
It was a long line of suitors. Pope was among the best Class of ’91 high school players in the West. Maybe a notch below Jason Kidd and Cherokee Parks, but high on the list of top recruits nationally. In November 1990, he broke hearts by choosing hometown Washington over a list including California, Arizona, Syracuse, Utah and Kentucky. Arizona State wasn’t in the picture, but Archibald still thought highly of Pope. He typed up a letter congratulating him and welcoming him to the Pac-10 Conference.
That’s how Archibald did things. Old-school. He was self-made and appreciated those who were the same. His coaching career was the byproduct of a knockabout college playing career — some time at Utah State, a year at El Camino Junior College, a degree from Fresno State. He found some work coaching in the California prep ranks in the ’60s and threw himself into it. He dutifully attended camps conducted by Long Beach State head coach Jerry Tarkanian, who eventually hired him. Archibald spent two seasons at Long Beach State, then filled an opening at Cal Poly, then reunited with Tarkanian in 1974, joining his staff at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Two years in the desert were followed by one season at USC, then five as Idaho State head coach.
This would be Archibald’s life’s work — chasing the profession. Along the way, he and his wife, Anne, had two sons, Beau and Damon, and a daughter, Lee Anne.
After being let go at Idaho State, Archibald spent 1982-83 as Jerry Pimm’s assistant at Utah. He was surprised when Pimm took a job at Cal Santa Barbara that April, and more surprised when Utah asked him to take over. At the time of Archibald’s promotion, Tarkanian told The Salt Lake Tribune, “He is the finest person I know and is a great coach. Everybody loves him.” There are reams of quotes like this about Archibald. He was handsome, funny and curious. As a ******* with a worldly view, he was a pioneer in international recruiting — tapping Yugoslavia, Venezuela, Nigeria for players.
Archibald’s family was part of every team he coached. Lee Anne saw Utah players Mitch Smith, Manny Hendrix and Kelvin Upshaw as superheroes. She changed schools every few years and rarely complained. She was a coach’s ****.
There was one last move, this time in 1994. Archibald returned to his home state of Utah, filling an assistant spot at BYU — the perfect place to settle with a family in full bloom. The Archibald kids were off chasing their own dreams by now. Lee Anne was on her way to New York City for, get this, a job as David Letterman’s personal assistant. Damon landed a scholarship to play ball at Boise State. Beau was a talented high school player, on his way to a scholarship at Washington State. Life was good.
So you understand why Lynn Archibald didn’t tell them, why he made his wife promise to keep the secret. Prostate ******* wasn’t going to define his final years. He didn’t want the kids to make their life decisions based on him being *****. He didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him. So he wouldn’t tell them until he absolutely had to.
Archibald ***** in May 1997. Only 52. Lee Anne and her brothers were there for the final weeks. Looking back, she says now that, had she known about her father’s diagnosis two years earlier, she likely wouldn’t have lived in New York, or started her career — exactly all the things her dad didn’t want her to give up. She wonders where life would’ve taken her.
Because Lynn Archibald gave his kids the freedom to keep on living in his final years, a perfect series of dominoes all fell in order. In 1998, Damon Archibald met Mark Pope at the Pete Newell Basketball Camp. Immediately, he was floored to come across what he would describe as, essentially, the male version of his sister. Damon, who had never previously set up his sister with anyone, let alone another basketball player, wrote down Lee Anne’s phone number and gave it to Mark.
Mark, a member of the Indiana Pacers, called Lee Anne during the 1998 NBA player lockout. The two did what people did back then — phone calls on landlines and email exchanges. Around that time, Letterman told Lee Anne he needed help setting up a charity. It would be based in his home state. To get it off the ground, she’d need to take regular trips to Indianapolis.
They met later in 1998; married in 1999. Then came the ****** — Ella in winter 2001, when Pope was the starting center for the Milwaukee Bucks; then Avery, during Pope’s brief stint with the Knicks; then Layla, when he was with the Denver Nuggets, then Shay in 2009, when Pope was out of the league, in medical school.
As it turns out, in another life, Pope might have ended up as a 6-foot-10 emergency room physician. Except, one day, not long after Shay was born, while studying orthopedic surgery at Columbia, Mark came home one day to tell Lee Anne that the younger students around him felt about medicine the way he felt about basketball. Lee Anne, with ****** certainty, responded that there was only one option.
“***** the ships,” she says, 15 years later.
So at 37, with four kids, Pope dropped out of med school and took a job on Mark Fox’s coaching staff at the University of Georgia. Title: Assistant to the director of operations. Salary: $24,000 for the year.
Lee Anne understood the ride ahead. That her family was about to subscribe to wins and losses, and to sharing their dad’s time with waves upon waves of young men, and to job changes beyond their control — from Georgia, to Wake Forest, to an assistant gig at BYU in 2011, to Utah Valley in 2015, and back to BYU. She was now a coach’s wife. And she was more equipped to do that than anyone imaginable.
That joke? The one you might be thinking of? Something like, “Oh, you think coaching Kentucky is hard? Trying raising four ******.” Yeah, Pope has heard it before.
It usually plays out something like this. The family is packed in an elevator, or standing together in an airport, or waiting in line at a coffee shop, minding their own business, when the old trope comes up. Some guy sees Pope, sees the wife, sees the four daughters, and quips, “Sheesh, sorry, man,” or, “Man, got your hands full,” or whatever other empty-headed zinger seems like a good idea.
But Pope doesn’t do tropes. Instead, things get very uncomfortable, very quickly. Pope has, according to Lee Anne, never laughed, never played along. Not once. Not ever. Instead, he clenches his jaw, narrows his eyes and spits back. “Are you kidding me, man? This is the best. Do you know how lucky I am?”
It’s in that moment that old jokes go to **** and the Pope ****** are reminded who their father is. Understanding the coach requires understanding the father, and Pope is equipped with the emotional maturity that comes with balanced realities.
“All these years, he’d be with his boys all day, then home to his ******, who all adore him,” Lee Anne Pope says. “But the thing is, he’s the same guy in both settings. It’s not like he hangs it up at the door.”
They all have their stories. They usually come with tears. The Pope family isn’t one to hide emotions.
Ella, for instance. Sitting on a couch in her dad’s office, arms wrapped around a pillow, she remembers a ride to school one day in grade school. She had created a video that was to air throughout the school that day. Opening her laptop, watching it one last time on the drive, she was hit with a wave of nerves. She closed the laptop, turning ghost-white. Pope, realizing what was happening, slowed down to a stop, pointed to Ella’s stomach, all twisted in knots, and said, “That’s it. That’s the feeling. That’s when you know you care and when you know you’ve worked at something. That’s the best.” She’s never forgotten it, never forgotten that passion is worth pursuing, worth manifesting, worth feeling. She remembered it when she was the only Pope girl to pursue basketball, earning a scholarship to Ohio University.
Avery thinks of her dad’s ability to be there, right where she could see him. Those tennis matches in the deep heat of California or Arizona, the sun rippling off the court. Other parents parked as close as possible and sat in air-conditioned cars. But Mr. Pope? He watched out in the sun because Avery was out in the sun. He didn’t sit because she didn’t sit. He wouldn’t yell or make a scene or even stand out. He would instead intently watch each point, Avery says, “living and dying for every moment.” He’s always had that way of appearing from out of nowhere. Earlier this year, soon after Pope was named Kentucky head coach, she was scheduled to give a farewell talk to her LDS ******* ward in Provo in preparation for her upcoming two-year mission in El Salvador. She was scheduled to speak for, at most, 15 minutes.
“He had a million things going on, and it made no sense for him to fly across the country, but there he was,” she says. “I’ve always felt like, in my life, there have been so many different times where it would be OK if he wasn’t there. But then he’s there. And it just happens over and over and over again.”
Layla remembers coming home upset one day in the sixth grade, telling her parents a boy in school called her “the B-word.” The following morning, a surprise guest speaker was scheduled. The class door swung up at 1 p.m. and in came coach Mark Pope and six members of the Utah Valley State basketball team. “Today we’re going to talk about respecting women,” Pope said to a room of wide eyes and deep silence. They spoke to the class for nearly an hour. On the way out, Pope introduced himself to the boy who had insulted his daughter. He shook his hand, maybe offering an extra squeeze.
“I mean, we were in sixth grade!” Layla says now, laughing hard. “It was incredible. I was like, oh my goodness, this is the greatest day of my whole life. But that’s my dad. He’s, like, the most protective, loving person ever. And the only time you’ll ever really see him truly **** is if you did anything to hurt me or my sisters or my mom.”
Shay loves to tell the story of the cash advance. Back in Utah, she had the idea to order DoorDash to school, then upsell the food in the cafeteria. She called her old man. “Dad, I have this idea, but I don’t have any money.” Pope, without hesitation, responded. “Love it. You’re a genius. I’ll give you a hundred dollars to get started.” The money came via Venmo and Shay started moving product. Capitalism in action. “It worked perfectly,” she says. That is, until Lee Anne’s phone rang, with a school official saying her daughter was essentially operating a racketeering outfit in the caf.
“Apparently,” the official said to Lee Anne, “one of Shay’s parents was involved in funding this.”
“He’s just the best,” says Layla, now a 16-year-old sophomore.
The stories go on and on. The Pope women speak of their father like an amusement ride. He has a way of mastering moments, the few that he gets, to make the most of them. He’s an experience, one that blocks out all the other noise.
“Even if we have a million eyes on us,” Ella says, “my dad makes it feel like it’s just us.”
Kentucky coach Mark Pope is presented a plaque after winning his first game at Rupp Arena on Nov. 4. (Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
Over the summer, Pope met with local Lexington media for an offseason news conference. He leaned into the most relatable version of himself. The ex-NBA player who says he wasn’t much of a basketball player. The Rhodes scholar who says he isn’t very bright. In that news conference, he pressed play on the role he’s presented for as long as he can remember.
“A bit casual, maybe a little self-deprecating,” he now says. “That’s my armor.”
The media session wrapped up and, on the way out, Pope asked longtime Kentucky basketball media relations director Deb Moore for feedback. “How’d that go?” Moore told Pope that he was good, then paused, and added one passing thought. “But at some point, in this job, you’re going to have to take yourself a little more seriously,” she said.
The point — Kentucky, for as incredible and passionate and dedicated as it is, can also be ruthless. It’s a place where a vulnerable disposition is ripe to be weaponized. It’s a place where, once the wins and losses start coming, the coach with the clipboard is no longer seen as a person. He’s a target.
Pope was furious. “Deb, you don’t know me yet …” he popped back.
The two didn’t speak for the next three days. Pope continued to bake and Moore wondered if she’d gone a step too far. But then came Sunday, a trip to *******, and some time for Pope to think.
“It had sat with me and sat with me and sat with me,” he says. “I finally came to realize, this matters to people in a different way. Like, this job is ******* than me. This job is more important than me. Really, there’s a little reverence to it. But that’s a new role for me. I’ve always eschewed that a little bit. Because I just want to be reachable and connect with people. Now I need to find a balance.”
In reality, Pope understands all this more than anyone Kentucky could’ve hired. The few times Big Blue lost during his time as a player, Pope retreated to the Cat Lodge, the team’s housing facility, and cried alone. It was the pressure of being captain. It was the pressure of answering to Pitino. It was the pressure of being 2,400 miles from home, in a place so hard-wired to every bounce, every play, and every breath of Kentucky basketball.
He gets it. And he welcomes it.
“I think he will handle it better than all of us,” Pitino says of himself and other former Kentucky coaches. “Because he’s so grounded and he’s such a spiritual person. I think he’s going to handle it beautifully. He knows it so well.”
The faithful are giving Pope a chance. His return to Lexington last spring was greeted with a raucous introduction that filled Rupp Arena — all 23,500 seats — to the brim. He is, after all, one of them.
But Lee Anne knows there are still doubts. And she knows the honeymoon will only last so long. And she knows her family is in a spotlight so big that not even an amusement ride can block it out. This, though, she says, is what they’re all built for. It’s why they all said yes on that family call. It’s why they believe in the coach.
“You know, somebody said to me, he’s goofy,” Lee Anne says, a little defense in her voice. “But no. He’s not goofy. He’s just — in a world where everyone is cool, he is not too cool. And there’s a big difference. He’s brilliant. He’s authentic. And he’s going to outwork everyone. I know it.”
The office door is closed and Pope makes one last thing clear. He didn’t make his family. His family made him. The biggest job in college basketball doesn’t change that. The heat that’s coming — playing Duke, traveling to his hometown to play Gonzaga in Seattle, battles in the SEC, the second-guessing, the fans swarming to social media, the exposure — will only be granted pieces of him. Never the whole.
“Being the coach at Kentucky,” he says, “if it’s everything you are, you won’t be any good at it.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
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Helldivers 2 Players are Realizing a Sad Truth in Their ****** for Democracy That’s Getting Too Real
Helldivers 2 Players are Realizing a Sad Truth in Their ****** for Democracy That’s Getting Too Real
It’s safe to say Helldivers 2 has faced its fair share of ups and downs since its release in February. Despite these challenges, the game has managed to build a dedicated playerbase that is committed to doing whatever it takes to spread democracy across the galaxy. Players are drawn to the chaotic, fast-paced combat that constantly forces them to think on their feet, making each mission feel fresh and engaging.
Players are enjoying the game with its recent updates and changes. | Image Credit: Arrowhead Game Studios
However, what truly sets the game apart is its ability to keep the player engaged without leaning too much on the microtransaction. Recently, the game has once again rejuvenated its player base with a steady stream of updates and meaningful changes. In doing so, players are starting to realize that perhaps it’s time to raise their standards when it comes to modern games.
Helldivers 2 Highlights the Regressive Reality of Modern Games
Players are slowly realizing the predatory nature of modern games. | Image Credit: Arrowhead Game Studios
It’s no secret that many modern games and franchises have shifted toward microtransaction-heavy models. Players are often expected to spend real-world money to purchase cosmetics, skins, and weapons with little or no option to earn these items through gameplay. These systems more often than not push players into a constant spending cycle.
Yet Helldivers 2 stands in contrast to this model. While there is still the option to buy Super Credits with real money, the game doesn’t force this on players. Instead, it allows them to grind for rewards in a way that feels both satisfying and fair. The system rewards players who are exploring and completing challenging missions.
With a good amount of grind, players can earn enough to buy new armor, weapons, and other cosmetics through the gameplay loop itself. Recently, a player on Reddit, admitted that the game is far from perfect but it hits a sweet spot that other live-service games often miss. This sudden realization made the player think about how they need to change their standards with games.
Comment byu/Tank9301 from discussion inHelldivers
Comment byu/Tank9301 from discussion inHelldivers
Comment byu/Tank9301 from discussion inHelldivers
The thread quickly gained traction, with players sharing similar sentiments. The comments are filled in from players who were thrilled not just with Helldivers 2‘s gameplay but with its player-first approach to rewards.
What This Means for the Future of Gaming
Players need to raise their standards for modern games. | Image Credit: Arrowhead Game Studios
The story of Helldivers 2 isn’t just about how it is not following the trend of predatory monetization models. But it’s a story of how a game can be both fun and fair. It’s proving that developers can create experiences that don’t prioritize profit over player satisfaction. This player-first approach has kept the community invested and engaged long after its release.
Recent titles like Concord, ******** Squad, and Skull & Bones should serve as a reminder that games that only try to capitalize on the trend and not focus on providing great gameplay experience will continue to flop. It’s a clear call for other game studios to rethink their approach.
In a time when “live service” has often come to mean “pay-to-play,” Helldivers 2 is proving that it’s still possible to create a game that feels like a true experience, one that values its players and offers them genuine opportunities to earn rewards without having to open their wallets at every turn.
In the end, it ******** to be seen whether or not the trend of prioritizing player experience will catch on with other games, but for now, Helldivers 2 stands as a shining example of what the gaming industry could be.
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Dehumanizing child-free women in film and TV gives misogyny a stage
Dehumanizing child-free women in film and TV gives misogyny a stage
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
“When are you giving us grandkids?” and “You’ll change your mind,” are familiar lines heard by child-free women around the table at family dinner.
Dealing with pokey questions from relatives is one thing, but seeing misogynistic female stereotypes of purposefully child-free women on screen and in the media is another.
University of South Australia Ph.D. student Belinda Lees has dedicated the past four years to researching how screenwriters could create more nuanced and complex child-free women protagonists in biopics, after uncovering the barrage of often negative portrayals in existing media.
Lees’ research comes at a time when Australia’s birth rate has hit an all-time low, with many adults under 50 saying they’re unlikely to ever have kids, mostly because they just don’t want to.
Other reasons include the state of the world, a general nonaffinity for children, or preferring to focus on their career and interests, but it’s clear that more women are opting out of motherhood—a choice that often comes with harsh criticism.
In an article published in the Journal of Screenwriting, Lees says that the negative representation of child-free women in biopics like “Blonde” (2022), “Becoming Jane” (2007), and “A Private War” (2018) could lead to image and self-esteem issues and may exacerbate the issue of aggression against women by validating harmful societal attitudes.
As a child-free woman, Marilyn Monroe in the biographical fiction film “Blonde” is depicted as mentally unwell, obsessive, and hysterical due to the loss of her unborn children, as the film touches on difficult subjects such as ********* and grief after termination.
Lees says the dramatized and strikingly negative depiction of Monroe’s life may be accepted as fact due to the nature of the biopic genre.
“On-screen, when child-free women are portrayed negatively, it marginalizes, reduces, others, and invalidates a woman’s choice to remain child-free—which may not even be a voluntary choice,” she says.
“It’s a feedback loop where harmful depictions of child-free women in film and TV strengthen these problematic attitudes in real life, which can in turn influence aggressive behaviors towards women.
“This is partly why there’s a history of prominent female figures being criticized for their lack of children, like former Prime Minister Julia Gillard who was called “wooden” and unfit to lead due to her “deliberately barren” status.
“Filmmakers need to move away from these regressive tropes towards more complex, respectful depictions—such as Sally Wainwright’s portrayal of Anne Lister in “Gentleman Jack” (2019–2022), where her admiration of Lister’s character translates to a meaningful on-screen portrayal of one of history’s first modern *********.”
The attitudes of male filmmakers and writers are often less admiring, which can lead to problematic depictions just like that of Monroe in “Blonde”.
“Almost 20% of men believe that feminism should be violently resisted, and 30% hold hostile sexist views—no doubt a contributing factor to the 71 women and ****** that have been ******* in Australia this year,” Lees says.
“Acknowledging this devastating statistic, if it’s true that on-screen objectification of women can lead to aggressive attitudes and behaviors in men, then it could also be true that more inclusive and empowering representations may influence audiences more positively, creating a safer society for women and ******.”
Lees says the film industry needs writers and filmmakers who are committed to connecting with their child-free characters on a meaningful level, and that dehumanizing child-free women by framing them in film as selfish, hedonistic, immature, and abnormal can further the beliefs that lead to physical, verbal and ******* ******.
“Finding an authentic link with these women and presenting them as complex, nuanced and complete people is an important step forwards in erasing misogynistic and harmful narratives about child-free women.”
More information:
Belinda Lees, Representing the child-free woman in the twenty-first century biopic, Journal of Screenwriting (2024). DOI: 10.1386/josc_00149_2
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Dehumanizing child-free women in film and TV gives misogyny a stage (2024, November 12)
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Gartner warns GenAI demand will lead to datacentre energy shortages
Gartner warns GenAI demand will lead to datacentre energy shortages
The surging demand for generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) workloads is likely to lead to operational constraints in AI datacentres due to energy shortages, according to Gartner.
The analyst is predicting that 40% of existing AI datacentres will be affected by power supply issues by 2027, because of how rapidly energy consumption is expected to rise over the coming years due to more server farms hosting AI workloads.
According to Gartner’s forecast, the amount of power needed by datacentres to run incremental AI-optimised servers will hit 500 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year in 2027, which is 2.6 times higher than in 2023.
“The explosive growth of new hyperscale datacentres to implement GenAI is creating an insatiable demand for power that will exceed the ability of utility providers to expand their capacity fast enough,” said Bob Johnson, vice-president analyst at Gartner.
“In turn, this threatens to disrupt energy availability and lead to shortages, which will limit the growth of new datacentres for GenAI and other uses from 2026.”
As previously reported by Computer Weekly, the soaring demand for GenAI offerings has been cited by various hyperscale cloud suppliers as a source of revenue growth in recent quarters, with both Microsoft and Amazon committing to building new datacentres to accommodate this demand.
However, Gartner said these facilities may take longer than expected to come online due to the power supply issues.
“New, larger datacentres are being planned to handle the huge amounts of data needed to train and implement the rapidly expanding large language models (LLMs) that underpin GenAI applications,” said Johnson. “However, short-term power shortages are likely to continue for years, as new power transmission, distribution and generation capacity could take years to come online and won’t alleviate current problems.”
And enterprises that are ******** big on GenAI for their future business growth need to take this into account, because power supply issues will likely lead to rising energy costs, he said.
“Significant power users are working with major producers to secure long-term guaranteed sources of power independent of other grid demands,” said Johnson. “In the meantime, the cost of power to operate datacentres will increase significantly as operators use economic leverage to secure needed power. These costs will be passed on to AI and GenAI product and service providers as well.”
Another complicating factor in all this for enterprises is that, to meet the growing energy demands GenAI is likely to cause, it’s likely that non-renewable sources will need to be used, and this could spell bad news for enterprises and their pursuit of net-zero.
“The reality is that increased datacentre use will lead to increased [carbon] emissions to generate the needed power in the short term,” said Johnson. “This, in turn, will make it more difficult for datacentre operators and their customers to meet aggressive sustainability goals relating to [carbon] emissions.”
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Trump selects Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem to fill Cabinet positions
Trump selects Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem to fill Cabinet positions
Trump selects Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem to fill Cabinet positions – CBS News
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President-elect Donald Trump is filling his Cabinet positions and other administration roles as he prepares for a second term in office. He is expected to name Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his choice for secretary of state. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is Trump’s pick to become secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, sources tell CBS News.
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