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Tim Doherty Analyst I

In any profession the question that is always asked is, "Who is the best?" People have a desire to determine the one who achieved the greatest success at their field. In many cases there is no definite answer, but we spend our time debating who excelled to the greatest extent.

The NBA is no different. For years basketball fans have argued over who is the greatest player of all time. Players like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are among the players who come to mind. However, the one player who defined greatness was Michael Jeffrey Jordan.

It's hard to compare players from different eras. The best way to do so is by evaluating how dominant a player was during his time. Michael Jordan was named to 10 All-NBA first teams, essentially meaning he was among the best five players in basketball for 10 seasons. He also added nine All-Defensive first-team selections over the course of his career.

Jordan was the NBA's most valuable player five times, and many believe he should have won even more. Most notably, it is widely believed that Karl Malone unjustly won the 1998 MVP over Jordan because writers believed Jordan had won enough. Jordan was also named the NBA's defensive player of the year in 1988.

By any calculation, Jordan is the greatest scorer the league has ever seen. He won a record 10 scoring titles, and boasted a career average of 30.1 points per game, the most in NBA history.

Jordan was also among the greatest winners in NBA history. During the early portions of his career, Jordan had to go up against all-time great teams such as the Larry Bird-led Boston Celtics and the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons. When Jordan was finally able to reach his first NBA championship in '91, he didn't look back. Jordan led the Bulls to six NBA titles, and was named finals MVP all six times.

The thing that separated Jordan from many of the all time greats was his compulsive need to win. Jordan was and is still known for his intense competitiveness which on many occasions has gotten him in to trouble. However, on the basketball court this was a trait Jordan used to his advantage.

He was among the all-time great trash talkers and had a knack for getting into his opponents' heads. When the media compared him to Portland Trailblazers guard Clyde Drexler prior to the '92 NBA Finals, Jordan took notice and used the finals as an opportunity to prove Drexler wasn't in his class. When Jordan's Bulls met Karl Malone's Jazz in the '97 finals, the same year in which Malone controversially won the season's MVP award, Jordan dominated Malone and once again proved his greatness. Every little thing anyone did or said Jordan used to fuel his competitive fire.

Finally, Jordan has hit more clutch shots, and has had more big game performances than any player in NBA history.

Let us count the ways: There was the 63-point game against the '86 Celtics at the Boston Garden; the game winner over Craig Ehlo in the '89 playoffs; the "shrug game" in which Jordan hit six first-half three pointers and scored 35 first half points in the '92 NBA finals; Game 5 of the '97 NBA finals where Jordan scored 38 points, including the game-deciding three pointer with 25 seconds left, despite battling the flu; Game 6 of the '98 finals when Jordan stripped the ball from Karl Malone and proceeded to hit a foul-line jump shot to clinch the finals.

Russell may have won more championships, Chamberlain may have averaged 50 points per game in a single season and Kareem may be the all-time scoring leader, but if you take into consideration the entire package, Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time.

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Michael Jordan: The Greatest of All Time

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In any profession the question that is always asked is, "Who is the best?" People have a desire to determine the one who achieved the greatest success at their field...

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LeBron James #23 of the Los Angeles Lakers exults after winning the 2020 NBA Championship over the ... [+]
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Fans, pundits and former players can obviously make a very sound and sensible argument that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player that has ever lived. A convincing, compelling case can also be made for the criminally underrated and underappreciated Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Yet, at this point, in the wake of a 35-year-old LeBron James capturing his fourth NBA championship, only those three names belong in the GOAT conversation.

However, there will be plenty of time to compare and contrast LeBron and MJ. For now, let's take some time to appreciate what the kid from Akron, Ohio, has been able to accomplish these past 17 years.

I'll avoid using flowery language or superfluous prose. Let's get right down to the raw data.

In order to appreciate LeBron's statistical domination among his contemporaries, take a look at the leaders in each of these categories in the playoffs this century (notice the gap between first and second place):
Defensive Rebounds:

1. LeBron James: 1,954

2. Tim Duncan: 1,880

3. Dirk Nowitzki: 1,234

4. Kevin Garnett: 1,107

Made 3-pointers:

1. Stephen Curry: 470

2. LeBron James: 414

3. Klay Thompson: 374

4. Ray Allen: 366

LeBron James, No. 23 of the Los Angeles Lakers, chugs through the fourth quarter against the Miami ... [+]
Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images

Here's where LeBron ranks on the NBA's all-time postseason list:
Made 3-pointers:
In terms of total rebounds, LeBron ranks sixth, behind only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem.

Now, let's talk about his most recent accomplishment.

James took home his fourth NBA championship on Sunday night and was named NBA Finals MVP for the fourth time (second only to Jordan). LeBron is the first player ever to win NBA Finals MVP honors as a member of three different franchises (Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavs, LA Lakers).

In the 2020 Finals, a couple of months shy of his 36th birthday, LeBron averaged 29.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 8.5 assists, while shooting a scorching 59% from the floor and 41.7% from 3-point territory.

In the clinching Game 6, LeBron tallied 28 points, 14 points and ten assists. Incredibly, it was his 11th triple-double in the NBA Finals, which means James has more trip-dubs in the Finals than all other active NBA players combined. It was also LeBron's 12th NBA Finals game with more than 25 points, more than ten rebounds and more than five assists. Nobody in league history has more than four such games (Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan each have four). James has more 25/10/5 games in the Finals than dis Larry Bird, Magic, MJ, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Durant, Bill Russell and Steph Curry combined.

Over the last 15 years, LeBron has advanced to the postseason 14 times. He's made it out of the first round each and every year and has reached the Finals ten times. Over the past decade, there have been 57 games played in the NBA Finals. LeBron James has played in 51 of those 57 contests.

He's never missed a single postseason game (Game 6 was his 260th consecutive contest), while averaging over 42 minutes a night. According to Basketball-Reference, James has been his team's outright leader in points, rebounds and assists in the NBA Finals seven times. Only three other players in league history have accomplished this feat even once (Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan, and Jimmy Butler). Other than LeBron, no player has done so more than once.

As far as the myth of LeBron not being able to deliver in the clutch, that oft-repeated fallacy has long been proven untrue. James has more game-winning buzzer-beaters in the playoffs than any player in history (including more than Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant combined). LeBron also has the NBA's highest career-scoring average in Game 7's (34.9 points per game) and elimination games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, James is 39-11 (.780) in his career in closeout games, the best record by a player in NBA postseason history (min. 25 games).

Of course, LeBron's regular-season numbers are incredible as well. In 2019-20, he was named to the All-NBA First Team for a league-record 13th time after averaging 25.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and a league-leading 10.2 assists. He is just the sixth player with both a scoring title and assist title on his resume. He is only the second player 35 or older to average at least ten assists per game. James leads all active players in scoring and is the first and only player in NBA history with more than 9,000 career points, 9,000 rebounds and 9,000 assists.

LeBron James, who still clearly has plenty of gas left in the tank, already has more career points than Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, more career assists than Isiah Thomas or Gary Payton, more career rebounds than Larry Bird or Willis Reed, more career steals than Allen Iverson and Magic Johnson, more career blocks than Scottie Pippen or Yao Ming, more career 3-pointers than Kevin Durant or Peja Stojaković, and more career triple-doubles than Wilt Chamberlain or James Harden, while posting a higher career FG% than Moses Malone or Michael Jordan.

LeBron James, No. 23 of the Los Angeles Lakers, rejoices after winning the 2020 NBA Championship ... [+]
Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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These Stats Suggest LeBron James Is The Greatest Basketball Player Ever

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Fans, pundits and former players can obviously make a very sound and sensible argument that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player that has ever lived. A convincing, compelling case can also be made for the criminally underrated and underappreciated Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

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Air pollution in China has climbed back to pre-pandemic levels, and scientists say Europe may follow suit.

Air pollution causes at least 8m early deaths a year, and cleaner skies were seen as one of the few silver linings of Covid-19. Experts have called for action to help retain the air quality benefits of lockdowns, and measures taken to date have included expanding cycle lanes and space for walking in cities.

Data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea) shows concentrations of fine particles (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) across China are now at the same levels as one year earlier. At the height of the country's coronavirus response in early March, NO2 levels were down by 38% from 2019 and levels of PM2.5 were down by 34%.

"The rapid rebound in air pollution and coal consumption levels across China is an early warning of what a smokestack industry-led rebound could look like," said Crea's lead analyst, Lauri Myllyvirta. "Highly polluting industries have been faster to recover from the crisis than the rest of the economy. It is essential for policymakers to prioritise clean energy."

The energy consultancy group Wood Mackenzie predicts China's oil demand will recover to near normal levels in the second quarter of 2020.

In Wuhan, the city at the centre of the epidemic, NO2 levels are now just 14% lower than last year, having briefly dropped by almost half. In Shanghai, the latest levels are 9% higher than last year.

European cities have also seen a big dip in air pollution during the virus outbreak. Data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams), which tracks pollution in 50 European cities, shows that 42 of them recorded below-average levels of NO2 in March. London and Paris had 30% reductions in NO2, a pollutant that is mostly produced by diesel vehicles.

"We do expect pollution to rebound, but we have not been able yet to show that," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, the director of Cams. He noted that the Cams data showed average air pollution levels across cities. "Next to a busy road, the effect of traffic reduction will be higher - up to 70% or 80% [reduced pollution] in places," he said.

Distinguishing the pollution changes caused by the lockdowns and their subsequent relaxations from other factors, such as weather and chemical interaction of pollutants, is complex. Spring is the most polluted season in western Europe in normal years, owing to the start of the agriculture cycle which causes ammonia emissions that go on to form particles over cities.

The Cams team is now working with the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre to untangle these factors and produce robust estimates of the coronavirus effect.

Peuch said what happens next to air quality in European cities remained to be seen. "We do not know how people's behaviour will change, for example avoiding public transport and therefore relying more on their own cars, or continuing to work from home."

Gary Fuller, an air pollution expert at Kings College London, said: "Rather than let this time be forgotten, the United Nations and environmental campaigners are urging governments to 'build back better, to invest in the future not the past', to ensure that our global recovery has sustainable legacy."

Air pollution has been linked to heart and lung damage and many other conditions including diabetes and damaged intelligence. It is likely to affect virtually every organ in the body.

There is growing evidence linking exposure to dirty air to increased risk of death from Covid-19, prompting calls to keep air pollution low to help avoid the dangers of a second wave of infection.

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Air pollution in China back to pre-Covid levels and Europe may follow

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Air pollution in China has climbed back to pre-pandemic levels, and scientists say Europe may follow suit. Air pollution causes at least 8m early deaths a year, and cleaner skies were seen as one of the few silver linings of Covid-19.

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The cities of eastern China are regularly wreathed in smog, so for pastoral scenery and fresh air, many Chinese head south-west. Going on holiday is increasingly common for city dwellers, thanks to new airports and a growing motorway network. But this has put a strain on classic destinations such as Guilin (famous for its karst scenery) and lakeside Dali in Yunnan province, which are frequently crowded. The Guizhou region, with its cavernous gorges and ethnic minorities, offers an enticing alternative.

The economic boom enjoyed on China's east coast over the past 30 years has left landlocked Guizhou behind. The upside for travellers is that the province long labelled "China's poorest" remains unspoilt, with a wealth of uncrowded historic sites.

Women of the Buyi minority group. Photograph: Jianan Yu/Reuters/Corbis

But now the Beijing government is trying to tackle wealth disparities across the nation by building transport links. A high-speed rail line opened in 2014 connecting Guizhou's capital, Guiyang, with Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta north of Hong Kong, and more lines are planned to Chongqing, Kunming and Changsha.

Roads have been much improved. As Robert Peston's BBC documentary How China Fooled The World showed, the floodgates were opened to big projects after the 2008 crisis, and since then, £400bn has been invested in infrastructure, wisely or otherwise.

Huaxi Park, just to the south of Guiyang. Photograph: Alamy

Guizhou is distinct from much of China, and mountainous Guiyang has a chaotic, lopsided charm, its neighbourhoods bisected by craggy karst outcrops. The Nanming river runs from Bamboo Square to the historic centre. The Jiaxiu Pavilion is Guiyang's must-have photo: dating from 1598, this three-storey Ming masterpiece straddles the river atop the equally beguiling Floating Jade Bridge. Cuiwei Gardens, Longmen Pavilion and the city wall are other Ming-era delights. By contrast, the central business district is home to the Kempinski Hotel's Paulaner Bräuhaus, serving microbrew German beer.

Tourists at the gateway to Qingyan on a national holiday. Photograph: Reuters/Corbis

There's a Sheraton hotel not far from the Jiaxiu Pavilion in downtown Guiyang, and a pleasant YHA Hostel near Huaxi Park, south of the centre.

Inhabited mainly by the Buyi ethnic minority, Zhenshan, 20km from Guiyang, is a bucolic but near-deserted village of wood and stone, where narrow streets lead to a breathtaking panorama of lake and mountains. There are boat rides and lakeside guesthouses.

Not far from Zhenshan, on the 210 bus route from Guiyang, is its principal out-of-town attraction, the 600-year-old garrison town of Qingyan. The first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, established it as a military outpost to oversee a strategic trade route, and Qingyan's ramparts offer a great hike with views of ancestral shrines, temples, and two churches. The Wanshou Palace, a Taoist temple built in 1778, is the most captivating. After seeing the sights, refuel with Qingyan delicacies such as stewed pig's trotters or zhenshan tofu - or brave a pot of mouth-murdering chilli peppers.

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Follow Chinese tourists to Guizhou for breathtaking scenery and historic sites

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The cities of eastern China are regularly wreathed in smog, so for pastoral scenery and fresh air, many Chinese head south-west. Going on holiday is increasingly common for city dwellers, thanks to new airports and a growing motorway network.

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Prosecutor Kate Wilkinson said that, on 15 September last year, the man - known only as LF for legal reasons - cut off his tag, burned documents, ordered a taxi to London, and left his home at 01:00 BST.

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Terror suspect jailed after going on the run

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Prosecutor Kate Wilkinson said that, on 15 September last year, the man - known only as LF for legal reasons - cut off his tag, burned documents, ordered a taxi to London, and left his home at 01:00 BST.

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An Islamist insurgency in north-east Mozambique has driven more than half a million people from their homes in the past year.

Aid agencies are calling it an urgent and forgotten humanitarian crisis. In a world exclusive, a BBC team reached the besieged town of Palma at the heart of the conflict - the first international journalists to do so.
Reporter: BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding Camera and editing: Stuart Phillips Producer: Greg Brosnan

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An Islamist insurgency in north-east Mozambique has driven more than half a million people from their homes in the past year. Aid agencies are calling it an urgent and forgotten humanitarian crisis. In a world exclusive, a BBC team reached the besieged town of Palma at the heart of the conflict - the first international journalists to do so.

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CEO/Founder/Director Training in ASHI- EMEDICS Lanka International at EMEDICS Lanka

Someone once said that Astrology is about as vacant as the space that it worships. Here are some reasons why:

1. The stars in a constellation are sometimes thousands of light-years apart and the connection between them is arbitrary.

2. When you were born your obstetrician had more gravitational effect on you than any planet or star in the universe.

3. There are 13 constellations in the Zodiac (not 12). The 13th is Ophiuchus.

4. The Zodiac was established around 2000 years ago. Since then the Zodiac has shifted one sign along, however the traditional dates for each sign haven't changed. i.e. The Zodiac sign that you were born "under" is meant to be the constellation that the sun was in front-of during your birth. So if you are a Gemini, the chances are that Cancer was actually behind the sun during your birth (due to the 2000 year shift in the Zodiac).

5. The natal planet alignment is futile since the time-of-birth is often arbitrarily chosen (i.e. the doctor/nurses may get the hour right, but not necessarily the minutes).

6. Are all horoscopes done before the discovery of the outermost planets incorrect? Planets get found, demoted and promoted all the time. Pluto was identified and became a planet in 1930. It was demoted to "dwarf planet" in 2006. Ceres was a planet in the 1800s and then demoted to asteroid in the 1850s and has now been promoted to dwarf planet again. Xena was discovered in 2003 and became a planet and in 2006 was demoted to dwarf planet. What's more - Pluto doesn't follow the zodiac path like the other planets (i.e. it will sometimes be in front of non-zodiac constellations.

7.If the planets influence us astrologically why is this influence independent of distance? Mars is sometimes the other side of the sun from us and sometimes it is the same side as us, yet this difference has no astrological effect on us.

8. If distances aren't important in astrology, then where's the astrology of galaxies, quasars, nebulae and black-holes?

9. Why do horoscopes of the same zodiac sign in different newspapers differ so much?

10. Why is the moment of birth, rather than conception, crucial for astrology? Why does a thin layer of flesh and blood protect a baby from the planets/stars/sun/moon...and if not then why do premature babies not have different star-charts than non-prem babies born at the same time on the same day?

Still believe...? There's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.

CEO/Founder/Director Training in ASHI- EMEDICS Lanka International at EMEDICS Lanka

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Someone once said that Astrology is about as vacant as the space that it worships. Here are some reasons why: 1.

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Where Do Zodiac Signs Come From? Here's the True History Behind Your Horoscope

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Astrology is not a science, but there's a real, fascinating history behind humans attaching meaning to the stars. Here's what to know.

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Farah, a 12-year-old Christian girl, says she was taken from her home in Pakistan last summer, shackled, forced to convert to Islam and made to marry her kidnapper. It's a fate estimated to befall hundreds of young Christian, Hindu and Sikh women and children in the country each year.

On 25 June, Farah was at home in Faisalabad, Pakistan's third most populous city, with her grandfather, three brothers and two sisters when they heard knocking on their front door. She remembers her grandfather going to open it. Then three men burst in, grabbed Farah and forced her into a van outside.

They warned the family that if they tried to get her back "they'd make us regret it", says Farah's father, Asif, who was at work at the time.

Asif went to the nearest police station to report the crime - even providing the name of one of the abductors, whom Farah's grandfather had recognised - but he says the officers showed little interest in helping.

"They were very unco-operative and refused to register the crime. Not only that but they pushed me around and verbally abused me."

Despite repeated complaints to the police it was three months before they finally registered the incident. And even then they took no action.

During this time, 12-year-old Farah, who'd been driven 70 miles (110km) to a house in the nearby city of Hafizabad, says she was raped, shackled and treated like a slave.

"I was chained most of the time and ordered to clean the abductor's home as well as take care of the animals in the yard outside. It was terrible," she says.

"They'd put chains on my ankles, and tied me with a rope. I tried to cut the rope and get the chains off, but I couldn't manage it. I prayed every night, saying, 'God, please help me.'"

This crime is committed by many people, and the authorities don't do anything

There were about two million Christians in Pakistan at the time of the last census, just over 1% of the total population.

According to human rights organisations as many as 1,000 Christian, Hindu and Sikh girls are abducted each year. Many of them are forced to convert to Islam, because it is widely believed in Pakistan that marriages under the age of 16 are acceptable under Sharia law if both of those marrying are Muslim. And this is what happened in Farah's case: she was forced to convert, then married by her abductor.

The National Council of Churches in Pakistan (NCCP) says the number of such abductions is increasing.

"It's hundreds, hundreds, many girls, many girls. This crime is committed by many people, and the authorities don't do anything," says the NCCP's general secretary, Bishop Victor Azariah.

Farah's desperately worried father, Asif, sought help from his local church, which then organised legal aid for the family.

In early December, after five months of desperate lobbying for the abductor to be arrested and for Farah to be set free, police finally took action.

"Four police came to the abductor's house and told people there that the court had ordered that I must come with them to a police station," says Farah.

On 5 December, her case came before Faisalabad's District and Sessions Courts and the magistrate sent her to a shelter for women and children, while further investigations were carried out.

But once again there was bad news.

While the family waited for a final decision from the courts, police told Farah's father they were dropping their investigation - because Farah said that she had agreed to both the marriage and the conversion.

Farah then repeated this in court on 23 January. But court officials were suspicious that she may have been coerced into making the statement - and Farah says this was indeed the case.

"I said this because the abductor told me that if I didn't he'd first kill me, then murder my father, followed by my brothers and sisters. My whole family. I was really afraid that he'd do this, so I agreed to say what he told me."

Three weeks later on 16 February, nearly eight months after she was taken from her home, judges ruled that Farah's marriage had not been registered properly and was therefore invalid.

She was saved thanks to a technicality - and reunited with her family.

Even when abducted children are rescued, their ordeal is often far from over. In many cases threats are made to abduct them again, or kill family members, and the trauma goes on.

This is what happened in the case of Maria Shahbaz, a 14-year-old Christian girl, who managed to escape after being kidnapped and forced to marry her abductor. She and her family have since been forced to go into hiding following repeated death threats.

In an effort to help Maria, a 12,500-name petition organised by the UK-based charity, Aid to the Church in Need, was recently handed in to the UK government. Signed by more than 30 British parliamentarians, including bishops, peers and MPs, it calls for her to be granted asylum.

Aid to the Church in Need's Spokesman, John Pontifex, says the situation facing many abducted girls and their families in Pakistan has become desperate.

"The trauma these children go through is often compounded by the threats they and their families face after being freed from their abductors. For some, like Maria, asylum in the UK is their only hope of safety."

Pakistan's prime minister, the former cricketer Imran Khan, has ordered an investigation into forced conversion of religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim country.

His special representative on religious harmony, Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, recently stated: "Forced marriages, forced conversion of religion and abduction of underage girls of other religions in the name of marriages, will not be tolerated."

However, Asif's experience with the police suggests that there is a long way to go. He has pledged to continue his efforts to get the three men accused of abducting his daughter prosecuted.

Farah, now 13, is overjoyed to be at home again, and is recovering from the trauma of what happened to her with the aid of a psychologist. She fervently hopes that action will finally be taken to spare other girls the same fate.

"I pray that God will protect all children in Pakistan, that he will watch over them all."

Pictures courtesy of Aid to the Church in Need

Many female doctors in Pakistan drop out of the profession when they start a family. Now there's a new scheme to help them to continue in practice from home using online video clinics - and it's helping poor, remote, communities too.

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Abducted, shackled and forced to marry at 12

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Farah, a 12-year-old Christian girl, says she was taken from her home in Pakistan last summer, shackled, forced to convert to Islam and made to marry her kidnapper. It's a fate estimated to befall hundreds of young Christian, Hindu and Sikh women and children in the country each year.

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The former Durham University student, who is originally from York, was wearing a green rain jacket, navy blue trousers with a white diamond pattern, and turquoise and orange trainers when she went missing.

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Sarah Everard case: Met police faces watchdog investigation

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The former Durham University student, who is originally from York, was wearing a green rain jacket, navy blue trousers with a white diamond pattern, and turquoise and orange trainers when she went missing.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/harry-meghan-interview-latest-oprah-piers-b1815780.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-51047186

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Incarcerated people at the Oklahoma County jail were chained to walls and forced to listen to "Baby Shark" on a loop at loud volumes for up to two hours, according to charges filed Monday.

Two former detention officers-Gregory Cornell Butler Jr. and Christian Charles Miles, both 21-as well as their supervisor, Christopher Raymond Hendershott, 50, were charged with misdemeanor counts of cruelty to a prisoner and conspiracy.

According to investigators, using the song to torture prisoners was "said to be a joke between Miles and Butler," and they worked together to "teach [incarcerated people] a lesson because they felt that disciplinary action within the Detention Center was not working in correcting the behavior of the inmates," the Oklahoman reported on Monday. From November to December 2019, at least four incarcerated people were subjected to the abuse, forced to stand in an attorney visitation room with their hands cuffed behind them and chained to a wall. Investigators called the treatment "inhuman."

"It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario," District Attorney David Prater told the Oklahoman. "I would have preferred filing a felony on this behavior."

The Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that they learned about "allegations of detention officers being cruel to inmates" in early December, and following the launch of an internal investigation, the officers were "immediately removed from having contact with inmates" per the sheriff's orders. "All three detention officers under investigation either quit or resigned from their positions by the end of December 2019."

The supervisor learned of the mistreatment on November 23, 2019, but "took no immediate action to either aid the inmate victim or discipline the Officers," according to the investigator's report. "This appeared to have led to the Officers continuing to mistreat inmates."

The report details a pattern of Butler and Miles removing men from their cells and taking them to the visitation room, removing the furniture from the room, and shackling them to a wall for hours, as seen on surveillance footage of the jail. They never filed Other inmates filed complaints about the officers to their supervisor Hendershott-at one point, 20 handwritten complaints were delivered from inmates to Hendershott-with all of them being ignored.

The wildly popular 2016 song "Baby Shark" was manufactured by Pinkfong, a Korean educational entertainment brand for children, to be as catchy as possible. The official YouTube video has gotten nearly 7 billion views since 2016.

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'Baby Shark' Used as 'Inhuman' Punishment in County Jail, Investigation Finds

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Incarcerated people at the Oklahoma County jail were chained to walls and forced to listen to "Baby Shark" on a loop at loud volumes for up to two hours, according to charges filed Monday. Two former detention officers-Gregory Cornell Butler Jr.

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Iranian cleric says Covid-19 vaccine turns people gay

Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian made the claims on messaging platform Telegram

'Don't go near those who have had the COVID vaccine,' he wrote

Homosexuality is a crime in Iran and is punishable by execution

An Iranian cleric has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine turns people gay.

Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian made the claims on messaging platform Telegram, where he has almost 210,000 followers, The Jerusalem Post reported.

According to the publication, Tabrizian wrote on the platform: 'Don't go near those who have had the COVID vaccine. They have become homosexuals.'

Prominent LGBTQ campaigner Peter Tatchell said the claims were 'demonizing' both the vaccine and the gay community.

'Ayatollah Tabrizian combines scientific ignorance with a crude appeal to homophobia,' he said.

Iranian dissident Sheina Vojoudi said: 'Like other clerics in the regime, also Tabrizian relates all the shortages [shortcomings] to sexuality.

'The clerics in Iran are suffering from lack of knowledge and humanity. Actually, his goal of spreading nonsense is to try to scare people [out] of getting vaccinated, while the leader of the regime and other officials got Pfizer, and they don't provide it for the people with the excuse that they don't trust the West.'

The controversial figure has made several claims about Western medicine. In January last year, video was shared of him burning an American scientific textbook, claiming that Islamic medicine made such books 'irrelevant'.

Homosexuality is punishable by execution in Iran.

It is thought that thousands of gays have been executed in the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In 2019, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javid Zarif told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle: 'Our society has moral principles.

'And we live according to these principles. These are moral principles concerning the behavior of people in general. And that means that the law is respected and the law is obeyed,'

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Iranian cleric says Covid-19 vaccine turns people gay

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Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian made the claims on messaging platform Telegram 'Don't go near those who have had the COVID vaccine,' he wrote Homosexuality is a crime in Iran and is punishable by execution An Iranian cleric has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine turns people gay.

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"Our company advocates traditional family relations, and categorically disagrees with Ms Lakhova. We believe that the rainbow is sunlight after the rain, not the LGBT flag," said Armen Beniaminov, who is vice-president of Chistaya Liniya.

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Russian ice cream in 'gay propaganda' row

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"Our company advocates traditional family relations, and categorically disagrees with Ms Lakhova. We believe that the rainbow is sunlight after the rain, not the LGBT flag," said Armen Beniaminov, who is vice-president of Chistaya Liniya.

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Amid Twitter's Brexit scuffles, Trumpian malfeasance, and observations from smartarse journalists, humblebrag thought leaders and constitutional lawyers, there is an occasional short video clip that delivers momentary joy.

While rooted in the past, it channels the present; the account revels in the downfall and ineptitude of people who demonstrate fallibility and excruciating unfitness for their roles.

Although these characteristics might also be those associated with many in contemporary political life, the sixty second pleasure bombs contained in @Crap90sFootball are a joyride of nostalgia that harken back to distant times.

Yes, there was football before the Premier League (yes, even before the Premiership, and some of it was, really, really atrocious. That's the joy of @Crap90sFootball, a time capsule of grainy VHS clips that brilliantly captures an era of flat-footed cloggers wearing strips that look like hand-me-downs from older siblings.

Created by James Richardson, a local government worker in Hull, @Crap90sFootball started as a YouTube channel with digitised footage from VHS tapes of Hull City games that Richardson and his friend had recorded and which were collecting dust.

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On the tapes were round-ups from Yorkshire TV news shows of games involving local teams. There was one, in particular, that Richardson recalls. "It was before the redevelopment of Molineux and there was a crumbling terrace, a pitch that looked like it had been plowed before the game and this donkey centre-half got his feet in a muddle and put it in the back of his own net," he says of a game at the home of Wolverhampton Wanderers. "There were three or four goals back-to-back like this and I thought 'this needs a showcase - it would be a pity to lose it as all my friends grew up watching this stuff'."

The 34-year-old started the Twitter account - which now has 84,000 followers - in 2016. Scroll through the gratifyingly imperfect footage and you'll find an archive of deficiency and self-immolation: shots looping over crossbars, Keystone Cops defending as balls bobble around penalty boxes as slick as chocolate ganache with limbs making half connections, ruinous back-passes that force flummoxed goalkeepers to scramble across their penalty box with the grace of newborn giraffes.

Often what is most joyful about the clips is the sheer amount of galvanised full-body commitment demonstrated by players whose purpose is resolute yet whose timing is inexact. The pleasure of the clips is often in direct proportion to the determination and sincerity of intent when a shot is shanked or a clearance is bungled.

"When football became fashionable in the mid-nineties, broadcasters decided to start showing games," Richardson says, "but the quality simply wasn't there until 2003 to 2005."

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The feed's endless scroll of players hitting the deck as they trip over the ball in innocuous circumstances and penalty boxes defined by muddle and discomposure retains many of the elements of physical comedy, and feels like relief from the modern-day thoroughbreds at the elite clubs - pedigree virtuosos decoupled from the biomechanics that constrain the rest of us.

But this, obviously, is where we are now. As Big Tech companies increasingly see 'content' as a key differentiator that will enable to them to attract customers to their platforms, so the Premier League - with its practiced dramaturgy and able stagecraft becomes a property like The Simpsons or Friends - it's a commodity to get punters through the door and deeper into the value chain. Prospects are upsold from torrid end-of-season struggles to duels between sovereign wealth fund-backed clubs to sapless competitions hosted in countries with a questionable human rights record.

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The Premier League has matured into an oligopoly baying for magnums of vintage Krug from its well-padded booth in a Mayfair nightclub - the bore that corrals you while it flicks through its iPhone 11 Max Pro to show you Instagram images of its new, hot, Qatari conquest.

@Crap90sFootball reminds us that most football is played on terrible pitches by fallible people, and of a time before we were fully platformised, leveraged and monetised. An era when there were fans not customers, supporters not sources of revenue. Days when players were only just beginning to live lives divorced from the hugger-mugger concerns of the paying supporters, before clubs had official partners with expertise in data protection and hybrid cloud storage.

And, even at this time of goodwill to all people, nothing beats the giddy jubilance of watching an authentically calamitous back pass trickle into an empty net.
Obsessions is a semi-regular column in which WIRED staffers share their current internet preoccupations. Read about our obsession with ridiculously complex wedding spreadsheets here.
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Why I'm obsessed with watching rubbish '90s football on Twitter

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Amid Twitter's Brexit scuffles, Trumpian malfeasance, and observations from smartarse journalists, humblebrag thought leaders and constitutional lawyers, there is an occasional short video clip that delivers momentary joy. While rooted in the past, it channels the present; the account revels in the downfall and ineptitude of people who demonstrate fallibility and excruciating unfitness for their roles.

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Scott Faust is a big fan of footballer Luis Suárez. "I was playing Fantasy Premier League when Suárez was still at Liverpool," he says. At the time, if you didn't captain him, you weren't smart." But with everyone selecting the same players and with limited ways to score fantasy points, Faust soon became bored.

How data analytics killed the Premier League's long ball game

As a keen player of the more in-depth fantasy NFL games, Faust saw an opportunity. "I realised I could combine the proven mechanics of fantasy NFL with the game I love: Premier League football." In 2014, Faust launched Togga, a free-to-play fantasy football game that uses data from Premier League statistician Opta to rate players on 18 actions, from key passes to interceptions and tackles won.

As well as detailed scoring, Togga also introduced a "draft" to fantasy football fans, in which every participant in a league takes turns to select players, who can then be traded throughout the season. "It's a lot more fun. But there's a lot going on under the hood," says Faust. "Every time a player updates, you've got to push out that data so it updates in real time."

Picking your team? Here are some 2016/2017 stats to consider

Most key passes

111 (Christian Eriksen)

Most aerial duels won

315 (Christian Benteke)

Most shots on target

58 (Harry Kane)

With little marketing spend, Togga has attracted 150,000 players from more than 100 countries - 60 per cent in the US, 25 per cent in the UK and the rest scattered around the world. The startup, based in Austin, Texas, employs just four full-time staff and has raised $1.5 million (£1.1m) in seed funding.

For the 2017/2018 season, Togga is introducing paid-for features for the first time, giving participants more options over how players can pick up points. A premium dashboard will also make stats easier to digest. "Our goal is to get millions of users," says Faust. "The goal is big."

This article was first published in the September 2017 issue of WIRED magazine

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This is the Premier League fantasy game you should be playing

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Scott Faust is a big fan of footballer Luis Suárez. "I was playing Fantasy Premier League when Suárez was still at Liverpool," he says. At the time, if you didn't captain him, you weren't smart." But with everyone selecting the same players and with limited ways to score fantasy points, Faust soon became bored.

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2nd article

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A vigil to make streets and other public spaces safer for women has been organised for this weekend after Sarah Everard's disappearance in south London.

The vigil, titled "Reclaim these streets", will take place on Clapham Common bandstand at 6pm on Saturday, near where Everard was last seen as she made her way home to Brixton last week.

The 33-year-old marketing executive vanished after leaving a friend's house in Clapham at about 9pm last Wednesday and beginning a 50-minute walk home.

A serving Metropolitan police officer has been arrested for her suspected kidnap and murder, and investigators searching for her found human remains in woodland in Ashford, Kent. The remains have not yet been identified. A woman was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Since Everard went missing, social media has been flooded with women sharing their own experiences of constant safety fears when out in public, particularly at night, as well as advice for men on ways to help prevent this.

The event's Facebook page states that the vigil is for and about all women who have felt unsafe, and is open to all. Attenders are invited to "bring a light to remember those we've lost".

Organisers said: "It's wrong that the response to violence against women requires women to behave differently. Women are not the problem.

"We've all been following the tragic case of Sarah Everard over the last week. This is a vigil for Sarah, but also for all women who feel unsafe, who go missing from our streets and who face violence every day."

Attenders are told they must observe social distancing and wear a mask, and are also encouraged to use the NHS contact-tracing app.

A silent vigil was held outside New Scotland Yard on Wednesday as police gave an update on the investigation.

Everard's disappearance has felt overwhelmingly close to home for many women, who have shared their own personal experiences of sexual harassment, abuse and being made to feel scared and unsafe in public spaces.

Many have pointed out that this was often despite them having gone out of their way to be hyper-vigilant and avoid potentially unsafe situations, employing measures instilled in them since childhood. This includes updating friends when they have made it home, taking lengthy detours and sticking to well-lit streets, talking on the phone as a deterrent, clutching their keys, and wearing comfortable shoes in case they need to run.

It has spurred a conversation online about what men can do to be more effective allies to women, which prompted tips being shared on how men can change their behaviour so their presence does not make women feel uncomfortable.

Being active bystanders and intervening if someone looks uncomfortable, giving space and crossing the road, not blocking paths, and calling out problematic behaviour from their friends were among the suggestions for what men could do to help.

Better educating men and boys on these experiences was deemed significant if societal attitudes toward women's safety are to change. One woman tweeted: "Sarah Everard did everything we, as women, are 'meant' to do. It's stuff that we have to think about, but shouldn't - main roads, bright clothes, calling loved ones. And it didn't work, because we aren't the issue."

Another said: "The fact that basically every woman on here is freaked out because we all feel like we could have easily been Sarah Everard says it all really."

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Sarah Everard: London vigil organised to 'reclaim' city's streets

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A vigil to make streets and other public spaces safer for women has been organised for this weekend after Sarah Everard's disappearance in south London. The vigil, titled "Reclaim these streets", will take place on Clapham Common bandstand at 6pm on Saturday, near where Everard was last seen as she made her way home to Brixton last week.

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*Updated 2018

The current era of soccer is dominated by two giants: Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona's Lionel Messi. The two nemeses have scooped every individual award over the past decade, and despite their advanced ages (33 and 30, respectively), they show no signs of slowing down. As there can be only one, which of them is it? The phenomenal Portuguese Ronaldo or the one-team man Lionel Messi?

Here are three arguments for each side:
Advanced statistics proves Messi is better
Both Ronaldo and Messi have impressive stats, but a closer look at them proves Messi make decisions better and, more importantly, brings greater value to his team. Using a framework that was originally developed for baseball, The Economist rated Messi and Ronaldo goals based on their context and importance. These stats, called Expected Points Added (EPA), rate goals by their added win probability. Meaning, a winning goal in the last minute of the game is rated higher than the fourth goal scored in a 4-0 win. Messi's EPA stands at 59.5 while Ronaldo's is 50.4.

Moreover, Messi makes better decisions. Using a complex algorithm, a company called GoodCall values a player's decision-making and Efficiency Per Match (EPM). This entails valuing each pass, shot, chance created or a dribble made by players, and then rating the player's decision-making and efficiency. Messi's EPM is 238, and he makes good decisions 0.63% of the time. Ronaldo's EPM is 118 and his decision making rate stands only on 0.43%.
Messi is a better team player
Messi is not only an incredible scorer and gifted playmaker, he also makes everyone around him a better player. A true leader, he brings his team together. Not only does he have more assists and key passes than Ronaldo, he is always using his phenomenal vision to keep his teammates involved. He has great tactical intelligence, finding free spaces to move into, receiving the ball and then laying it off to a team-mate, to build attacks.

While Ronaldo is a more of an executor, who plays high up the pitch and scores great goals when given the chance, Messi, who can do that just as well, but is also comfortable dropping deep and keeping possession of the ball with his team. From these positions, he can send his colleagues on dangerous runs with pin-point passes. This versatility makes him that much better than Ronaldo.
Messi's magic
Messi and Ronaldo differ mostly in their style. Ronaldo is a machine. He is an explosive player, with abnormal physical abilities and a huge amount of talent. Tall and strong and certainly one of the greatest players, Ronaldo doesn't possess Messi's magic.

The Argentine is a greater natural talent. He is a virtuoso, a magician. His dribbling is considered to be the best the game has ever seen, and he passes and shoots the ball with theprecision of a brain surgeon. He makes eye-popping moves that leave people speechless and overwhelmed. Seeing him weave his way through a team's defense and then put the ball past the keeper is just something special.

Team Ronaldo:
Ronaldo is more advanced player
Nowadays, soccer is more dynamic and athletic than ever. The game has become faster, stronger and more demanding in most aspects of physicality. While Messi might have more talent, Ronaldo's combination of physical and technical abilities just makes him better. He is 6''1 of pure Portuguese muscle. This means he's very hard to push off the ball and, combined with his NBA star-like jumping ability, makes his headers a serious threat. Ronaldo's combination of dizzying pace, great dribbling and powerful shooting with either foot terrorizes defenses.

He is simply a better fit for today's game. His athleticism is second to none; he combines dizzying pace with powerful shooting and a jumping ability of an NBA star, which makes his headers a serious threat to the opposition. Ronaldo, more than Messi, is the ideal model of the next generation of players.
Messi has a better supporting cast
Messi has won more titles since he plays for a better team, not because he is a better player than Ronaldo. Throughout his entire career, Messi played for arguably the best side to ever play the game. Unlike Ronaldo's team experiences, Messi's Barcelona teammates know each other blindly, since most of them have played together since they were 10 years old, always the same style and formation.

This is not to say that Ronaldo's teammates were bad. They were great, but just not as great as Messi's. For example, Messi has played with Xavi Hernandez and Andrés Iniesta, two of the most dominating center-midfielders of our era. While Messi has the added value of an unforgettable team, Ronaldo is the driving factor of his. Messi is like Tim Duncan of the Spurs, while Ronaldo is like LeBron James in Cleveland.
The international paradigm:
Ronaldo's international career puts him on a higher level than Messi. In fact, Messi has never won an international trophy. He lost finals in both the Copa America (the South America championship) and the World Cup. Meanwhile, Ronaldo led his Portugal side to win the 2016 European Championship. Even if Messi ever leads Argentina to win the Copa America, Ronaldo's international achievements will be considered greater. Unlike other sports, international trophies in soccer are the ultimate glory. His three World Cup trophies fixed Pele's stature as the best player ever, and Diego Maradona winning it for Argentina puts him before Messi. Only a victory at the 2018 World Cup in Russia could change that.

The Bottom Lines: Ronaldo or Messi? On one side, Messi is a better team player and simply more talented. On the other hand, Ronaldo is more complete with a better international career. Still undecided? Check out this detailed infographic, breaking down the stats of one the most intriguing rivalry in sports history, and let us know you stand, Team Messi or Team Ronaldo?

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Messi or Ronaldo - who is truly the best?

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The current era of soccer is dominated by two giants: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The two nemeses have scooped every individual award over the past decade, and despite their advanced ages, they show no signs of slowing down. As there can be only one, which of them is it?

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This article talks about the world class footballer Lionel Messi and the struggles that he went through to get to the top

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Lionel Messi-probably the best player in the world today. He is one of the finest and most exciting footballing talents in the world. He had this never ending comparison with the former Manchester United Winger Cristiano Ronaldo but he kind of shrugged off it by helping his team defeat Manchester United convincingly in the UEFA Champions League finals at Rome 2009.

How did he attain this place at the top of the world? At cloud nine?

Messi's performances in the 2005-06 season earned him rave reviews and a place in Argentina's World Cup squad.

A forward or attacking midfielder, Messi is blessed with outstanding ball control and pace and has the potential to become one of the finest players the game has seen.

Barcelona is reaping the benefits of his growing maturity on the highest stage and at home in Argentina he has become the latest player to earn the moniker of 'the new Maradona'. That is a difficult tag to carry, but so far he has borne it well.

Yet, Messi's story could have ended before it begun had Barca not taken him under its wing at an early age. Messi was born in Rosario, Argentina, and showed a great aptitude for football as a child. He played at a club called Grandoli, which was coached by his father, from the age of five and later moved to Newell's Old Boys.

He showed all the signs of having a promising footballing career ahead of him but at the age of 11 he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency that required expensive treatment.

His parents could not afford it but after some tentative signs of awareness in Messi's talent from Barcelona, they decided to move to Spain. Messi tried out for Barca and the club was so impressed it agreed to pay for his medical treatment.

Barca is now receiving enormous return on its investment after Messi rose through the youth ranks to the very top. He was in the first team by 17 and a full international the following year.

He shone even in a Barcelona team boasting the ilk of Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o but missed the successful conclusion to Barca's UEFA Champions League run having had his season ended prematurely by a thigh injury.

He also missed three months of the following season with a broken metatarsal but the second half of the 2006-07 campaign was when he truly came of age. He became the youngest Barca player ever to score a hat trick against its fiercest rival Real Madrid in 'El Clasisco' and netted 11 goals in the last 13 games of the season.

Barca fell short in its title defence in 2007 and has lost even more ground to Real Madrid in what has been a difficult 2007-08 campaign. Yet, through it all Messi, despite another lengthy spell out injured, has been the star.

It was chiefly through his form that the Catalan club reached the Champions League semifinals after a domestic title challenge had long since fizzled out.

2007-2008 was "so near yet so far" for Messi and Barca. They missed out of the La Liga title to Real and were defeated by a single goal in the UEFA Champions league semifinals by Manchester United

Then came Pep Guardiola. Messi took his game to the next level. He raised the bar. He scored 38 Goals in all competitions helping his team win the Treble- The Spanish Cup, La Liga and the UEFA Champions League. They defeated their Rivals Real Madrid 6-1 in the El Classico at the Bernabeu and took revenge over Manchester United by defeating then in the UEFA Champions league finals. In both the occasions-Messi Scored.

Messi is a Spanish citizen but chose to represent Argentina. He overcame injury to feature in the 2006 World Cup and helped his team reach the Copa America final last year.

Messi is said to be dating an Argentinian teenager called Maracena Lemos, an aspiring model whom he met during a period of recuperation from injury. It is said she was only 14 when they met.

No injury is ever likely to faze Messi after coming through his childhood difficulties, but he does seem to have had some bad ones. He tore a thigh in a Champions League tie against Chelsea in 2006 before breaking his foot the following season. He was sidelined for six weeks again after tearing a thigh muscle this March against Celtic. He left the field in tears.
Moment to remember
Comparisons with Diego Maradona seemed apt when Messi scored a stunning goal in a Copa del Rey game against Getafe in April 2007. Messi ran more than half the length of the field and beat six players before slotting the ball into the net from a tight angle. It was highly reminiscent of Maradona's famous goal-as opposed to the infamous one-against England in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals.
Moment to forget
Messi endured a miserable debut for Argentina when he was sent off against Hungary in Budapest just two minutes after coming off the bench. He was adjudged to have elbowed Vilmos Vanczak and left the field in tears.

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The Lionel Messi Story: How Did He Get To The Top Of The World?

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Lionel Messi-probably the best player in the world today. He is one of the finest and most exciting footballing talents in the world. He had this never ending comparison with the former Manchester United Winger Cristiano Ronaldo but he kind of shrugged off it by helping his team defeat Manchester United convincingly in the UEFA Champions League finals at Rome 2009.

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"Don't make it about the mustache!"

As New Girl hurtled toward the end of its sixth-season-and, at the time, the possible series conclusion-its last seconds showed Jessica Day and Nick Miller yelling, "Stay right there!" as they frantically raced toward each other. They didn't stay put, though, and that's how they ended up in each others' arms, kissing passionately as the elevator doors open, right there in the building where they first met.

They didn't stay put; they didn't "stay right there." They ran toward each other. Staying put isn't what people do, and it's not what stories do. New Girl has kept moving, and so have its characters. In the three-year time jump since season six, Cece and Schmidt have been raising their daughter, Ruth Bader Parekh Schmidt. Cece's business has grown, and Schmidt has become a stay-at-home dad. Winston and Aly have married and Aly is pregnant with their child. Nick is a successful author, just returned from his book tour for the sequel that " Magatween magazine is calling 'this year's longest Pepperwood,' and Jess has left education and joined him in his world travels. Winston has moved on from bird shirts to fish shirts.

"About Three Years Later"

"About Three Years Later"

Along with these big changes, "About Three Years Later" doesn't shy from some shameless fake-outs, as silly and small as the low end of the Winston Bishop Prank Sinatra scale. The previously-on refresher of Nick and Jess' season-ending elevator kiss cuts to the season's cold open: another elevator door sliding open to reveal Jess and a strange man, arms linked, announcing their love for each other. But these feints are as harmless and as sweet as Winston Bishop himself, and they don't tease the viewers for long. A beat later, it's clear that this stranger is the husband of Nick's publisher, and the four of them have bonded over their six-month European tour.

The three-year gap means missing some milestones. Winston and Aly's wedding joins New Girl's list of unseen but often referenced celebrations (we'll never know what happened to the candy on Halloween 2004 or how the whole gang took peyote on Thanksgiving 0f 2015, and we were never meant to), going down as the group's new benchmark for drunken mayhem. Schmidt quitting his marketing career, Cece's pregnancy, the birth and infancy of Ruth Bader Parekh Schmidt (played adorably, maybe even , by Danielle and Rhiannon Rockoff)-all these developments and moments of growth are swallowed up in the time jump.

Speaking of "moments of growth": Schmidt's mustache.

As Schmidt interrogates him about why, exactly, he hates the mustache, Nick insists, "There's no deeper level!" But there's always a deeper level, in-story and out. For Nick, Schmidt's mustache means that even after he comes home, there's a part of his long-missed friend that's still under wraps. It's a symbol of the time they've spent apart. Happy time! Productive time! Joyful time! But time apart nonetheless.

Schmidt's mustache-which I think we can all agree is more of a moustache-is a metaphor for time passing, and for time lost. New Girl's characters have made big changes, and those changes are more than visible; they're a little jarring. "European Jess," who is more fun than state's witness Jess, has a tousled style, a botched neck tattoo, and a "big mistake" of a nose piercing. Successful-author Nick is crisper and more refined looking than any incarnation of Nick we've ever seen. This Nick doesn't need to envy Russell's home office, his "chair sweater," or his shiny smartphone. This Nick has the resources, the financial security, and most of all the confidence to acquire those things for himself. (Even if he says the office is an exact copy of Russell's, it isn't; it's unmistakably Nick's own space.)

But under the superficial differences, this is the same bunch of goofballs they always were, and no amount of success, distance, or upper-lip hair can disquise that. Schmidt may have given up marketing to stay at home with their daughter, but he's chanelled the same drive, passion, and knack for terrible puns ("Poca-hummus," anyone?) into parenting. Free-spirit Jess and high-powered Cece fall right into their comfortable old banter. Even as he breaks out an insultingly accurate impression of their friend, Winston remains the peacemaker, roleplaying to help Nick practice his reaction to the mustache. ("Nnnnnnyick, do you favor my mousse-tache?")

The fake-outs continue. "What's on Mama's finger" turns out not to be an engagement ring, but Jess' cast from a Vespa accident. A sudden cut to Cece and Winston, gleaming and gasping with exertion as they fall back on a bed, is just the two of them hastily turning a mattress while Aly is distracted. Nick's carefully orchestrated proposal as he and Jess return to the loft-where this all started-is interrupted again and again: by Russell bursting in to repeat his job offer, by Cece and Schmidt arriving with child and cake in arms because "someone stole all our knives" ("And the nightstand!"), by Winston showing up to swoon over Aly's breakthrough. But Nick doesn't let the interruptions sidetrack him, and soon he's face-to-face with Jess, heirloom ring in the package in her hands, their closest friends looking on. And that's when Jess herself derails Nick's plan with her reassurances that nothing needs to change.

This whole segment, with its repeated interruptions and postponements, returns to the farce that drives "Three Cheers For Beezus"-no accident, since "About Three Years Later" is also directed by executive producer Erin O'Malley. New Girl staff writer Berkley Johnson, who's credited with episodes like "Spiderhunt" and "Goosebumps Walkaway," captures the energy of the sixth-season finale in this closing scene. In the show's final season, as in the then-presumptive series finale, there's little tension in the will-they/won't-they; all the show's energy has to come from the how.

It was never Liz Meriwether's intention to end this series "with everybody in a relationship," but the show's creator knows as well as anyone that characters don't stay put. They develop while you're not looking, and sometimes those developments are unexpectedly felicitous-as felicitous as all these pairings have proven to be. In its seventh season, New Girl has earned my trust: I fully expect the cast and crew to make the eight episodes of this shortened final season a tumult of misunderstandings, fumbles, and wacky mishaps suffused with the antic joy and love that has fueled the show from the start, and to end with the same joyous folly on which it's always thrived. As Nick promises Bob Day, "This thing has been ten years in the making, and everything about the proposal has to be perfect. And I'll know when the time is right."

Stray observations

The closing credit sequence of Nick shaving Schmidt's mustache brings us back to the central love story of New Girl, long before Nick and Jess: the love story of Nick and Schmidt, two polar-opposite weirdos who love each other fiercely, often furiously, and without reserve.

Aly's rage at being coddled during her pregnancy is bested only by her dawning outrage at how casually the world has treated the miracle of life. "What are you doing just sitting there? Get a chair, help me get off my feet!"

Welcome back to New Girl coverage for its seventh and final season! Like Schmidt, if it's anything less than perfect, I am going to call a professional samurai to chop me in half. (That seems proportional.) And as always, thank you for reading.

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New Girl leaps into its final season with a time jump and a pregnant pause

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"Don't make it about the mustache!" As New Girl hurtled toward the end of its sixth-season-and, at the time, the possible series conclusion-its last seconds showed Jessica Day and Nick Miller yelling, "Stay right there!" as they frantically raced toward each other.

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1st article

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"I Care A Lot" is a stinging indictment of neoliberal "girlboss" feminism

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In an early scene in Netflix's "I Care A Lot," Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike), a professional legal guardian, sits behind her desk while mafia lawyer Dean Ericson (Chris Messina) not-so-subtly threatens her. Messina's character wears three-piece suits and looks culled from the pages of GQ, albeit with a couple day's too much stubble for a male model.

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A look at twenty years of South Park through the recent Vaccination Special Episode. Chatty, informal, and fairly nerdy.

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Reviews
South Park's Vaccination Special is a surprisingly cathartic celebration of the ending of a very bad year.

Photo: Comedy Central

This South Park Vaccination Special review contains spoilers.
The coronavirus pandemic has no official start date. Beginning in early 2020 (but really late 2019), the virus spread to different parts of the globe gradually. In the U.S., states dealt with its arrival on a case-by-case basis. The closest we'll come to an anniversary, however, is likely March 11.

March 11 was the day that the NBA suspended its season and the day that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson revealed that they had both tested positive. Perhaps it's fitting then, that the South Park Vaccination Special (styled as the South Parq Vaccination Special, which we won't be indulging here) falls one day short of arriving a full year after that fateful day.

Of course, the South Park Pandemic Special already aired amid the throes of the pandemic on September 30. But with some 100 million Americans already vaccinated and the end of this awful thing approaching, the Vaccination Special allows South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to really take a step back and reflect on the very strange year that was. Their conclusion? That shit really sucked, man.

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There aren't many tangible ways to measure this, but it does feel that amid quarantine, nostalgia has reigned supreme. When the present is boring and the future is murky, the past is all we have. At least I think that's the case because me and countless other older millennials with disposable income have driven the Pokémon cards of our past to near extinction.

The plot of Vaccination Special is convoluted and bizarre as any other latter-year South Park episode. Parker, Stone, and their team of writers clearly view the writing process as exploratory, and follow the whims of the story to wherever it wants to go. In this case, the story takes South Park from Walgreens as the hottest club in town, to Cartman humiliating their teacher, to Mr. Garrison returning, to the whole town getting swept up in a war between the Kommunity Kids and the QAnon-tutored Q'Ties. Of course, Garrison faces down Hollywood's shadowy elite, and Mr. White turns into a penis but that's the long and the short of it.

While some (or most, if you're feeling uncharitable) of South Park's recent plots feel exhaustively convoluted, this one does not. Amid all the insanity, the show never loses focus of the four boys at its center. Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny have all dealt with the ennui of being together for 25 years before, but something about their dissatisfaction this time feels more acute...and more adult.

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The quartet spend the entire episode with one another and their strange dynamic takes center stage. Cartman is always the one to make something happen, in this case the plan to cheer everyone up with a cruel prank that horrifically backfires. Kyle is always the one to oppose Cartman's plan. Then Stan is always the one who must field Kyle and Cartman's complaints and requests to keep the other in check. Meanwhile, Kenny is the wide-eyed innocent stuck in the middle of it all.

This dynamic is exciting and fresh to see onscreen again after the show has spent so much time sidelining the core four. But you can also appreciate just how exhausting it is for the kids. The scene in which they accept their "divorce" and begin the process of divvying up time with Kenny is strangely affecting (either that, or we've all been inside far too long). Despite displaying a newfound interest in serialization, South Park's breaking up of its main characters seems unlikely to stick in its 24th season. For now at least, it's a tender examination of what one full year of sustained stress can do to our most important relationships.

While the dissolution of the Kommunity Kids' union is novel ground for the show to tread, the rest of this special is positively bursting with callbacks and nostalgia. Of course, the most prominent bit of past reclamation comes in the form of Mr. Garrison.

"Oh yes, I've got a lot of baggage," Garrison happily explains to the bus driver upon arriving back in South Park following his stint as the literal President of the United States.

Garrison breaks down his hero's journey to PC Principal and to any audience member who may have forgotten. First he was a caustic elementary school teacher with a finger puppet fixation. Then he was gay. Then he was a woman. Then he was Donald Trump. Now he's back and can't we all just get back to normal? Hopefully as quick as possible?

It's hard not to see Garrison's journey to reclaim his past self as commentary. Even if it can't fully articulate it, South Park wants to get back to something, whether that be its own golden era or merely a world without a virus rampaging through it. There is a truly astonishing amount of past characters who pop up in this Vaccination Special, even if for only a moment. Scenes frequently feature comic book style flash page art with dozens of characters from South Park's past. I wasn't able to pause it to get a full accounting but I do recall seeing Al Gore, Cthulhu, and Najix, the Talking Taco Who Poops Ice Cream. Hell, even mad scientist Alphonse Mephisto from season one gets a speaking role this time around.

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Given the subject of this particular episode, and the catharsis of all our impending vaccinations, a lot of these callbacks and cameos really do feel earned, rather than just an ancient show playing the hits. It certainly helps that a lot of these callbacks are funny. One in particular that caught my eye is a notecard reading "Whale on moon?" on Mr. White's Q conspiracy corkboard. Who could forget the fate of poor killer whale Willzyx? Seeing Parker and Stone in their Basketball attire as part of the Hollywood Elite on the corkboard is good for a chuckle too.

In fact, much of this episode is perfectly pleasantly funny, if infrequently laugh-out-loud. The presence of Garrison's Mr. Slave replacement, Mr. Service, is hilarious. Naturally, the sight gag of White as an enormous, barely sentient dick is a winner as well. Much of the third-wall breaking is amusing, even if it culminates with shadowy Hollywood powers being connected to the Israelis.

Not everything works in Vaccination Special. South Park doesn't know what to do with QAnon, but to be fair: who does? Some of the boys' plans once they secure vaccines are unclear or don't really follow.

But still, by the end of the episode's extended running time, it's actually quite cathartic to see the people of South Park riotously celebrating, unmasked. That's certainly partially due to the context surrounding the episode (after all, Pandemic Special featured a similar ending that wasn't nearly as pleasant), but it also speaks to the work that the episode puts in with its characters.

For now, at least, the Vaccination Special works on its own as a nostalgia-drenched bright spot at the tail end of a very long year.

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TV Editor at Den of Geek and Television Critics Association member. Based in Cleveland, Ohio. Very upset about various sporting events.

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South Park Vaccination Special Review | Den of Geek

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Reviews South Park's Vaccination Special is a surprisingly cathartic celebration of the ending of a very bad year. This South Park Vaccination Special review contains spoilers. The coronavirus pandemic has no official start date. Beginning in early 2020 (but really late 2019), the virus spread to different parts of the globe gradually.

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Solid article about the last fifteen seasons of the Simpsons and the shows' inability to reflect the world as it currently is.

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This week, as the US plunges itself into further chaos and rancour, I will have my own reckoning. I will confront an ominous shadow that has long hung over me, and in so doing will seek to embiggen my spirit. This week, I will be watching ... new episodes of The Simpsons.

I say "new", but really I am talking about everything after Season 15, when I finally gave up on the show. In general, The Simpsons can be split into four epochs: The Beginning (Seasons 1-3), where the family look like they have been drawn by the elderly Spanish woman who "fixed" the Jesus fresco; The Golden Age (Seasons 4-8), where every episode is perfection; The Descent (Seasons 9-14) when the show loses its way with shark-jumping plotlines (Principal Skinner is actually a fraud who stole an army colleague's identity); and finally, the darkest era: The New Simpsons (Season 15 onwards), where most fans reach their limit of mediocrity and turn back to the warm embrace of reruns from season 4.

All long-running shows will go stale, but most will finish after two or three years once they have hit that point. Let's say Season 15 is the moment The Simpsons went stale (although arguably it happened long before) - that was 17 years ago. The 32nd season started airing last week; there have been 371 new episodes since the beginning of Season 15. It will not die, marching onwards relentlessly like a Treehouse of Horror III zombie, softly d'ohing and imploring the audience to eat its shorts.

Well this week, I will eat those shorts, by watching three episodes from each season from season 15 onwards. In doing so, I plan to answer the ultimate question: is The Simpsons still cromulent in the 21st century?

Monday morning

I start with season 15, and The Simpsons' trip to London (where special guest star Tony Blair attempted to distract everyone from the war in Iraq by turning up in a jetpack and delivering a half-joke about the white cliffs of Dover). The show is immediately weird in a way that I can't put my finger on: it is like watching home movies but someone has slightly switched around the furniture, or replaced your family with clones who are 25% taller.

The storylines are familiar yet frantic: one episode starts with Maggie trapped in a bathroom, but then that's immediately dropped in favour of the revelation that Santa's Little Helper has sired puppies (again), which is then itself immediately dropped in favour of the revelation that Krusty the Clown isn't actually Jewish and needs to have a Barmitzvah. Why? New Simpsons does not care for "why". Nothing has to make sense any more; all it has to do is last 22 minutes, have three spaces for adverts, and possibly star some kind of guest who will be problematic by 2020 (step forward JK Rowling).

By the end of The President Wore Pearls, a deeply confusing musical episode where Lisa becomes school president while ripping off several songs from Evita, I have become a paranoid curmudgeon, hissing at the screen: " My Lisa would never sell out her fellow students for the chance to sing Don't Cry For Me Argentinafrom the back of the schoolbus. GIVE ME BACK MY LISA!"

Monday evening

I have been banned from watching The Simpsons in the main TV room any more. Now I am watching on my phone in the spare room. Fair enough.

Tuesday

In season 17, I start to recognise some of the plots from classic Simpsons. Homer's mother returns and is then immediately chased away again by Mr Burns; Selma wants a family; after a thoughtless act by her husband, Marge is tempted to have an affair with another man, etc. The recurring storylines give the show a nightmarish quality: the family seem totally oblivious to the fact that they are repeating these storylines, that these setups have happened before and will happen again.

What's more, the show needs to have a twist to these storylines to make them just different enough from the old episodes: like Homer wants to win back Lisa's love, so he inexplicably dresses up like a salamander and runs for mayor; or Marge is tempted into an affair with another man ... but the man is obsessed with manatees (why? Because season 17, that's why). That only adds to the sense of unease: there are more logical solutions to the problems The Simpsons get themselves into, but they can't be used because classic Simpsons already did it. There's a giant Stampy in the room and none of the characters can see it or address it.

I can feel myself becoming bitter and grumpier. I am aware that it is pretty pathetic to begrudge the writers for reusing some old concepts after 350 episodes. But then, to quote Principal Skinner, I'm a small man in some ways. A small, petty man.

Wednesday morning

OK, how old is Bart? He is supposed to be 10, but I just watched an episode where he gets a driving licence (yes, yes: a rehash of season 7's Bart on the Road) and drives to Utah in an attempt to marry his pregnant 15-year-old girlfriend. I don't want to go full Helen "won't someone please think of the children" Lovejoy, but if Bart is 10, this is disgusting and I want someone to wipe it from my brain.

Except, of course, Bart isn't really 10. He's a 10-year-old who has been 10 for 18 years, so really he's 28. And driving to Utah and marrying a pregnant 15-year-old at 28 is ... probably just as disgusting, but for a very different reason.

So when was Bart born? In season 1 he would have been born in 1979 - so he's a Generation Xer - but, as the show goes on, that year moves later and later, and by season 10 he's technically born in 1989, the year the first episode of The Simpsons aired. By season 18, he would have been born in 1997, making this Bart part of Generation Z. Feel free to send me sarcastic Simpson quotes mocking my pedantry ("Why would a man whose Twitter bio claims he writes for the Guardian spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?"), but there is a point here: in a show that deals with conflict between generations, what does it mean if our characters keep switching generations?

A 10-year-old in 1990 will be fundamentally different to a 10-year-old in 2008, or 2020, so the question is: which is the real Bart? Can these multiple Barts really all exist at the same time? How can one person live multiple childhoods in multiple eras and not be driven mad? WHO ARE YOU, BART?

Wednesday evening

I have been banished to the kitchen to watch the rest of these episodes. Again, can't really complain.

Thursday

New Simpsons is still The Simpsons, and that means occasionally, out of nowhere, the show can be exhilaratingly good. I watch Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind from Season 19 and it is almost like a return to the Golden Age: a high-concept premise (Homer has to piece together what happened over the last 24 hours when he wakes up with no memory and his family gone), with a good mix of genuine warmth and very silly gags. It is like watching a 40-year-old champion tennis player, well past their prime, suddenly turn on the old magic and make shots like they are 23 again. I can feel my bitterness subside; maybe I was wrong to say that The Simpsons should have stopped 15 years ago. Maybe I was just peer-pressured into hating it by my friends who made fun of me for sticking by it while they moved on to South Park and Family Guy. Maybe this show is still good.

Friday

I watch that episode where the show tries to answer the accusations of racist stereotyping of Apu by literally having Lisa turn to the camera and say: "What can you do?" I was wrong, this show is not still good.

Saturday morning

During a (completely fine) season 24 episode where Marge wants to have another baby, I suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of horror at her plight. She is constantly trying to improve Homer, to make Bart grow up, to connect with Lisa, but she is always rebuffed: Homer is too stubborn, Bart too mischievous, Lisa too intelligent. Any moment she is able to get through to them is fleeting: when the credits roll and the Gracie woman shushes the other people at the cinema, you know that next week everyone will have reset to their old roles and Marge will be left alone, isolated and unhappy, tearing her hair out about Bart's pranks as if she hasn't been spending the last 24 years of her life doing the same thing.

I spend the rest of the day imagining what her life would have been if she had run off with the manatee guy from season 17. I think she would have been happy.

Saturday afternoon

Just found out from a season 24 episode that Carl is actually Icelandic. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

Sunday

The writer and philosopher Tom Whyman, who has written extensively on The Simpsons, made the point that the show doesn't exist in a specific time; because none of the children age, time cannot truly pass, so they are all trapped in an ambiguous and general "present". This works fine for the first 10 seasons, but as the show goes deeper into the violence and discord of the 21st century, it struggles to remain relevant. The Simpsons froze time for so long that it shattered entirely, leaving its characters stranded, unable to authentically relate to its audience, so instead they cling desperately to an old world that no longer exists, just repeating the same things they have always done, having the same wacky adventures because that's all they know how to do.
The Simpsons: the five greatest episodes in the iconic show's history
In that sense, I realise as I reach the summit of season 30 with more than 50 episodes of New Simpsons under my belt, the show is a truer reflection of our world under lockdown right now than it ever has been. I am New Simpsons, you are New Simpsons, we are all New Simpsons: trapped in the same routine every day, having the same furious arguments that we've had for years previously; still harbouring the same Marge-like hope for a moment of progress and feeling that same sense of cynical disappointment when it doesn't come to pass; still trying to hold on to a pre-Covid world that we know is dead. At this moment, we are all Lisa, turning to the camera and sighing. What can you do? What can you do?
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Ay caramba! I watched 50 hours of new Simpsons so you don't have to

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This week, as the US plunges itself into further chaos and rancour, I will have my own reckoning. I will confront an ominous shadow that has long hung over me, and in so doing will seek to embiggen my spirit. This week, I will be watching ... new episodes of The Simpsons.