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De'Vondre Campbell won't be part of the 49ers after his refusal to enter a game, Kyle Shanahan says
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The expanded Big Ten is poised to be a major player in this season's College Football Playoff. The 18-team conference had three of the top-four teams in the AP poll this week — No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 4 Penn State. A one-loss Indiana team is ranked 10th but is still very much a contender to make the playoff, given how many Southeastern Conference teams have three defeats or more. Indiana's rise has been perhaps the Big Ten's biggest story this season. Much of the spotlight was on newcomers Oregon, Southern California, UCLA and Washington, but aside from the top-ranked Ducks, that foursome has struggled to impress. Meanwhile, the Hoosiers won their first 10 games under new coach Curt Cignetti before losing at Ohio State last weekend. Oregon beat Ohio State 32-31 back in October, and if the Buckeyes beat rival Michigan this weekend, they'll earn a rematch with the Ducks for the Big Ten title. And it's entirely possible another matchup between those two teams awaits in the CFP. Dillon Gabriel has quarterbacked Oregon to an unbeaten record, throwing for 3,066 yards and 22 touchdowns in 11 games. But don't overlook Iowa's Kaleb Johnson and his 21 rushing TDs, and quarterback Kurtis Rourke has been a big part of Indiana's improvement. Penn State's Abdul Carter has eight sacks and two forced fumbles and could be one of the top edge rushers drafted this year. Oregon (11-0, 8-0), Ohio State (10-1, 7-1), Penn State (10-1, 7-1), Indiana (10-1, 7-1), Illinois (8-3, 5-3), Iowa (7-4, 5-3), Michigan (6-5, 4-4), Minnesota (6-5, 4-4), Washington (6-5, 4-4), Southern California (6-5, 4-5), Nebraska (6-5, 3-5) and Rutgers (6-5, 3-5) have already reached the six-win mark for bowl eligibility. Michigan State (5-6, 3-5) and Wisconsin (5-6, 3-5) can join them. There may not be many firings in general at the top level of college football. The prospect of sharing revenue with athletes in the future might lead schools to be more judicious about shedding one coach and hiring a new one. Who should be most worried in the Big Ten? Well, Lincoln Riley is struggling to stay above .500 in his third season at USC. Purdue is 1-10, but coach Ryan Walters is only in his second season. Maryland's Mike Locksley has been there six years and his Terrapins are 4-7, but this was his first real step backward after guiding the team to three straight bowl wins. Cignetti has shown it is possible for a coaching change to push a previously moribund program to some impressive heights in a short amount of time — but the improvement has been more incremental at Michigan State following Jonathan Smith's arrival. Sherrone Moore wasn't a completely unknown commodity at Michigan after he won some massive games in place of a suspended Jim Harbaugh last year. But in his first season completely at the helm, the Wolverines have declined significantly following their national title a season ago. The Big Ten is home to one of the most dynamic freshmen in the country in Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith. He has 52 catches for 899 yards and nine touchdowns. Highly touted quarterback Dylan Raiola has teamed up with fellow freshman Jacory Barney (49 catches) to lead Nebraska to bowl eligibility. Ohio State is on track to land the Big Ten's top class, according to 247 Sports, but the big news recently was quarterback Bryce Underwood flipping from LSU to Michigan. If the Wolverines do in fact keep Underwood in his home state, that would be a big development for Moore. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after she 'sustained an injury' from fall on official trip to Luxembourg
Older siblings everywhere could appreciate John Harbaugh’s refusal to concede an inch against his younger brother Jim. Even when his Baltimore Ravens faced fourth down at their 16-yard line in the second quarter, John wasn’t giving up the ball without a fight. The Ravens converted that fourth down and two others on their way to a 30-23 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday night, giving their coach a third victory in three matchups against his brother. It was the first time they’d faced off since Baltimore beat San Francisco — then coached by Jim Harbaugh — in the Super Bowl at the end of the 2012 season. “We grew up in the same room and have always lived our life side by side, but that’s not what the game is about,” John Harbaugh said. “The game really is about the players, and the players are always going to win the game or lose the game or whatever.” On this night, it was Baltimore’s players who shined. Specifically Derrick Henry, who rushed for 140 yards. Lamar Jackson threw a couple of touchdown passes, and the defense was solid, allowing touchdowns on the first and last Los Angeles drives but not much in between. RELATED COVERAGE Malik Nabers says calling the Giants ‘soft’ was wrong but he doesn’t regret speaking out Commanders place kicker Austin Seibert on injured reserve Saquon Barkley is the NFL’s version of Shohei Ohtani: Analysis “I’m proud of our guys,” John Harbaugh said. “I’m proud of the way they came out and responded after the first 10 points — we were down 10-0, and our guys stepped up.” After converting fourth-and-1 at their 16 late in the second quarter, the Ravens scored on a 40-yard pass from Jackson to Rashod Bateman, taking the lead for good at 14-10. Baltimore’s other two fourth-and-1 conversions came on a 14-play touchdown drive that spanned the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth. “We’re just confident that we’ll end up converting on those fourth downs, and we did a great job blocking,” said Henry, who converted the last two of the fourth downs. “All we had to do was make a play, and we did.” The AP Top 25 college football poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . What’s working The Ravens got back to their identity a bit, rushing for 212 yards. And it wasn’t just Henry and Jackson contributing. Justice Hill broke free for a 51-yard touchdown that made it 30-16 in the fourth. “Nobody wants to stand in front of (Derrick Henry) every single play, every single run,” Hill said. “You can do it one time, two times, three times, but when you have to do it 20 to 25 times, it starts to wear down. I’m glad we stuck with the run game this game, and it played out for us.” What needs help There were still too many penalties, with the Ravens flagged nine times for 102 yards. Baltimore played a pretty clean game until the fourth quarter, so several of those flags came after the Ravens had the game reasonably under control, but this is still an area of concern. Stock up With star linebacker Roquan Smith out because of a hamstring injury, Malik Harrison led the Ravens with a dozen tackles. “It’s a lot of people that doubted me coming into this game, so I’m happy I was able to ball out and show them that I can be in this league, and I can play at a high level,” Harrison said. Stock down There was a time when Isaiah Likely seemed as if he might be supplanting Mark Andrews as Baltimore’s top tight end threat, but Likely went without a catch Monday. He did, however, recover the onside kick that effectively ended the game. Injuries Although Smith was out, DT Travis Jones (ankle) and C Tyler Linderbaum (back) were able to start. Key number Jackson has now thrown 22 touchdown passes with no interceptions on Monday nights, with a passer rating of 124.3. Next steps The Ravens have one more game before their open date, and it’s a showdown this weekend against a Philadelphia team that has won seven in a row. Saquon Barkley (1,392) of the Eagles and Henry (1,325) have both surpassed 1,300 yards rushing already. Nobody else in the NFL has more than 1,000. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflT-Works & BITS Pilani join forces to build national security tech
Big Ten could place four teams in playoff, thanks to IU's rise
After three months of rigorous work, a white paper panel on the state of the economy revealed all the fault lines that had formed across Bangladesh during the 15 years of rule under the Awami League government, which held power from 2009 until it was ousted by a mass uprising on August 5 this year. Upon taking office, the interim government issued a gazette notification on August 29, deciding to plumb the depth of corruption and mismanagement of state wealth during Sheikh Hasina's regime. The report, prepared by a 12-member panel of independent experts, was submitted to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on December 1. The white paper laid bare the fragile state of the economy, addressing issues such as the rise of an oligarchy, heightened inequality, data manipulation to present a false narrative of economic growth and rampant money laundering. The committee met 618 times to plan and discuss the task at hand, held 60 consultations with stakeholders, conducted 22 policy-specific consultations, 17 technical consultations, key informant interviews, and three public hearings outside Dhaka to form a clear picture. The leader of the panel, Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), spoke to The Daily Star last week, shedding light on the process of preparing such a massive document. He said the formation of the panel was an obvious decision as the country and the interim government needed a formal document to bring to light all the issues that had been swept under the rug for years. "The whole system was politicised, and there was a narrative of a high-performing economy. But in reality, it was not that. This is why the concept of a white paper was considered," Bhattacharya said. "The idea behind preparing the white paper was to provide insight into the nature of the economy that the interim government had inherited. It had to identify the challenges that the interim government would face as it tried to take the economy forward." In order to understand the situation, a transparency exercise was necessary. "For that transparency exercise, one needs to look at all existing data, including the data that is not publicly available, and also talk to specific stakeholder groups who are knowledgeable in these areas," he said. Bhattacharya also elaborated on the origins of the white paper, saying: "The white paper comes more from British traditions, the British Parliament. When a situation arises which has no immediate or obvious solution, a group of experts is mobilised to analyse the problem and give an opinion. It may be one opinion, it may be more than one opinion, depending on the group, and how they think about or look at the problem." The advantage of a white paper is that it is commissioned by the authority, which may be the parliament or the government, but the authors write it as independent experts. "So, it is commissioned by the government, but it is not the government's report. Although the chief adviser commissioned us to write the white paper, it does not belong to him. It belongs to the authors. The authors are responsible for whatever is said, not the government," Bhattacharya said. Another advantage he pointed out is that the government is not obliged to adopt the solutions given in the paper. "The government has the flexibility to implement whatever it wants, however it wants." However, he highlighted a significant issue: many readers, including journalists, lack sufficient knowledge of economics, leading to confusion when interpreting the data. For example, the white paper said Bangladesh had illicit outflows amounting to $16 billion per year. But some people say it is such a big number, how can it be true? They say the government's annual budget is smaller than that. According to Bhattacharya, the problem is that people who say such things lack understanding. Economists never deal with absolute numbers; they deal with relative numbers. "The amount that we have pointed out is only 2.4 percent of the GDP, which may be a big number to some. But the global average is 3 percent to 4 percent. People have no idea about that. This is an interpretation problem." He also painted a picture that everyone can understand, saying: "We could have had 22 Padma Bridges and 16 metro rails and doubled the current allocation for education. These have all been forgone (due to illicit outflows)." Bhattacharya added that the white paper was a heuristic exercise in the sense that it depended on the critical analysis of existing data. In that sense, the white paper looks at what has happened in the past. At the same time, it also looks at why these things happened. But it focuses less on what needs to be done. "We looked at some of the unpublished documents which were available with the government. We also debriefed some of the critical interlocutors of policies to hear internal stories in order to interpret the issues at hand." However, it was when looking into this data that a pattern of manipulation began to emerge. "The data was the villain of the piece," Bhattacharya said. "For example, you have high growth but very low private investment, high growth but no tax collection, and high growth but very little money going to social protection, health, and education. It was our job to unearth the malice." The development narrative only reflects a deficit in democratic accountability, he added, saying that the past government tried to secure local and global legitimacy through such stories. "We had three elections which were very bad. This eroded the accountability process." Bhattacharya also explained how the lack of democratic pluralism – which meant that nearly all positions of formal political authority could be controlled by one group – had led to a culture of crony capitalism. "Without democratic pluralism, you begin to create a group of preferred businessmen. Those businessmen, after some time, turn into politicians and bureaucrats. These people develop a culture of crony capitalism. Initially, they create a group that will serve the regime. But after some time, they become so powerful that they themselves start running the country. Then they create a kleptocracy, where thieves are the rulers." These "thieves" did not stay confined to just one sector; they were active in the energy, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and banking sectors as well as offshore drilling, private universities, and television channels. "They were like octopuses. They influenced not only the judiciary but also legislation. This system enabled the banking law to be passed in parliament in a split second. It was like an oligarchy." They also took control of the judiciary, so it was hamstrung, he added. Furthermore, civil society did not have any space to raise their voice. "Such an antagonistic contradiction cannot be resolved without revolution." If politics is unsustainable, society will also be unsustainable, he said, adding: "Ten percent of the population is controlling 85 percent of the assets. How is that possible in a modern society? This unequal growth cannot continue." The white paper committee used data from a Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report and Bangladesh Bank data, according to Bhattacharya. "We also looked at the inflation figures as they had been underestimated in different cases. We also looked at energy pricing and a wide range of other issues, including health, education, and poverty. We also looked into the debt burden, both local and foreign." He also took the time to again point out the purpose of the paper. "A white paper is not an investigative report. There is a difference between investigative reporting and penning a white paper. It is a research document based on a multidisciplinary multi-methodical approach. These are estimates, not empirical evidence. But you cannot call it a guesstimate. We followed particular methodologies." He also made some suggestions to the interim government, urging it to create a midterm plan to ensure accountability. "The interim government is not here for five years, but the economy and investment cannot run based on day-to-day projections. The projections should be for a two-year term." Bhattacharya also said the country's graduation from the status of a least developed country (LDC) to a developing country must not be delayed. "Reducing export incentives was a good decision. It shows that we started preparing for graduation." He further asked the interim government to negotiate with other countries as graduation would result in the erosion of preferential trade benefits. Additionally, the interim government should hold dialogues with various groups, including traditional development partners like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, special markets such as the EU, Canada, India, and China, and foreign investors, he said. "Debt management is unsustainable; every year it is around one billion. We need to renegotiate loans," he added. Bhattacharya noted that they had received extremely positive responses to the white paper from local and foreign quarters, adding that even the global media had taken note. "Around $2.5 million in consultancy fees would have been required to make this white paper. But not a single taka was taken from the government. It was done free of cost," he said. Why leave such a large sum on the table? "Because this is a unique time to work for the country." After three months of rigorous work, a white paper panel on the state of the economy revealed all the fault lines that had formed across Bangladesh during the 15 years of rule under the Awami League government, which held power from 2009 until it was ousted by a mass uprising on August 5 this year. Upon taking office, the interim government issued a gazette notification on August 29, deciding to plumb the depth of corruption and mismanagement of state wealth during Sheikh Hasina's regime. The report, prepared by a 12-member panel of independent experts, was submitted to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on December 1. The white paper laid bare the fragile state of the economy, addressing issues such as the rise of an oligarchy, heightened inequality, data manipulation to present a false narrative of economic growth and rampant money laundering. The committee met 618 times to plan and discuss the task at hand, held 60 consultations with stakeholders, conducted 22 policy-specific consultations, 17 technical consultations, key informant interviews, and three public hearings outside Dhaka to form a clear picture. The leader of the panel, Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), spoke to The Daily Star last week, shedding light on the process of preparing such a massive document. He said the formation of the panel was an obvious decision as the country and the interim government needed a formal document to bring to light all the issues that had been swept under the rug for years. "The whole system was politicised, and there was a narrative of a high-performing economy. But in reality, it was not that. This is why the concept of a white paper was considered," Bhattacharya said. "The idea behind preparing the white paper was to provide insight into the nature of the economy that the interim government had inherited. It had to identify the challenges that the interim government would face as it tried to take the economy forward." In order to understand the situation, a transparency exercise was necessary. "For that transparency exercise, one needs to look at all existing data, including the data that is not publicly available, and also talk to specific stakeholder groups who are knowledgeable in these areas," he said. Bhattacharya also elaborated on the origins of the white paper, saying: "The white paper comes more from British traditions, the British Parliament. When a situation arises which has no immediate or obvious solution, a group of experts is mobilised to analyse the problem and give an opinion. It may be one opinion, it may be more than one opinion, depending on the group, and how they think about or look at the problem." The advantage of a white paper is that it is commissioned by the authority, which may be the parliament or the government, but the authors write it as independent experts. "So, it is commissioned by the government, but it is not the government's report. Although the chief adviser commissioned us to write the white paper, it does not belong to him. It belongs to the authors. The authors are responsible for whatever is said, not the government," Bhattacharya said. Another advantage he pointed out is that the government is not obliged to adopt the solutions given in the paper. "The government has the flexibility to implement whatever it wants, however it wants." However, he highlighted a significant issue: many readers, including journalists, lack sufficient knowledge of economics, leading to confusion when interpreting the data. For example, the white paper said Bangladesh had illicit outflows amounting to $16 billion per year. But some people say it is such a big number, how can it be true? They say the government's annual budget is smaller than that. According to Bhattacharya, the problem is that people who say such things lack understanding. Economists never deal with absolute numbers; they deal with relative numbers. "The amount that we have pointed out is only 2.4 percent of the GDP, which may be a big number to some. But the global average is 3 percent to 4 percent. People have no idea about that. This is an interpretation problem." He also painted a picture that everyone can understand, saying: "We could have had 22 Padma Bridges and 16 metro rails and doubled the current allocation for education. These have all been forgone (due to illicit outflows)." Bhattacharya added that the white paper was a heuristic exercise in the sense that it depended on the critical analysis of existing data. In that sense, the white paper looks at what has happened in the past. At the same time, it also looks at why these things happened. But it focuses less on what needs to be done. "We looked at some of the unpublished documents which were available with the government. We also debriefed some of the critical interlocutors of policies to hear internal stories in order to interpret the issues at hand." However, it was when looking into this data that a pattern of manipulation began to emerge. "The data was the villain of the piece," Bhattacharya said. "For example, you have high growth but very low private investment, high growth but no tax collection, and high growth but very little money going to social protection, health, and education. It was our job to unearth the malice." The development narrative only reflects a deficit in democratic accountability, he added, saying that the past government tried to secure local and global legitimacy through such stories. "We had three elections which were very bad. This eroded the accountability process." Bhattacharya also explained how the lack of democratic pluralism – which meant that nearly all positions of formal political authority could be controlled by one group – had led to a culture of crony capitalism. "Without democratic pluralism, you begin to create a group of preferred businessmen. Those businessmen, after some time, turn into politicians and bureaucrats. These people develop a culture of crony capitalism. Initially, they create a group that will serve the regime. But after some time, they become so powerful that they themselves start running the country. Then they create a kleptocracy, where thieves are the rulers." These "thieves" did not stay confined to just one sector; they were active in the energy, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and banking sectors as well as offshore drilling, private universities, and television channels. "They were like octopuses. They influenced not only the judiciary but also legislation. This system enabled the banking law to be passed in parliament in a split second. It was like an oligarchy." They also took control of the judiciary, so it was hamstrung, he added. Furthermore, civil society did not have any space to raise their voice. "Such an antagonistic contradiction cannot be resolved without revolution." If politics is unsustainable, society will also be unsustainable, he said, adding: "Ten percent of the population is controlling 85 percent of the assets. How is that possible in a modern society? This unequal growth cannot continue." The white paper committee used data from a Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report and Bangladesh Bank data, according to Bhattacharya. "We also looked at the inflation figures as they had been underestimated in different cases. We also looked at energy pricing and a wide range of other issues, including health, education, and poverty. We also looked into the debt burden, both local and foreign." He also took the time to again point out the purpose of the paper. "A white paper is not an investigative report. There is a difference between investigative reporting and penning a white paper. It is a research document based on a multidisciplinary multi-methodical approach. These are estimates, not empirical evidence. But you cannot call it a guesstimate. We followed particular methodologies." He also made some suggestions to the interim government, urging it to create a midterm plan to ensure accountability. "The interim government is not here for five years, but the economy and investment cannot run based on day-to-day projections. The projections should be for a two-year term." Bhattacharya also said the country's graduation from the status of a least developed country (LDC) to a developing country must not be delayed. "Reducing export incentives was a good decision. It shows that we started preparing for graduation." He further asked the interim government to negotiate with other countries as graduation would result in the erosion of preferential trade benefits. Additionally, the interim government should hold dialogues with various groups, including traditional development partners like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, special markets such as the EU, Canada, India, and China, and foreign investors, he said. "Debt management is unsustainable; every year it is around one billion. We need to renegotiate loans," he added. Bhattacharya noted that they had received extremely positive responses to the white paper from local and foreign quarters, adding that even the global media had taken note. "Around $2.5 million in consultancy fees would have been required to make this white paper. But not a single taka was taken from the government. It was done free of cost," he said. Why leave such a large sum on the table? "Because this is a unique time to work for the country."“Wanted” posters with the names and faces of health care executives have been popping up on the streets of New York. Hit lists with images of bullets are circulating online with warnings that industry leaders should be afraid. The apparent targeted killing of and the menacing threats that followed have sent a shudder through corporate America and the health care industry in particular, leading to for executives and some workers. In the week since the , health insurers have removed information about their top executives from company websites, canceled in-person meetings with shareholders and advised all employees to work from home temporarily. An internal New York Police Department bulletin warned this week that the online vitriol that followed the shooting could signal an immediate “elevated threat.” Police fear that the Dec. 4 shooting could “inspire a variety of extremists and grievance-driven malicious actors to violence,” according to the bulletin, which was obtained by The Associated Press. “Wanted” posters pasted to parking meters and construction site fences in Manhattan included photos of health care executives and the words “Deny, defend, depose” — similar to a phrase scrawled on bullets found near Thompson’s body and echoing those used by . Thompson’s wife, Paulette, told NBC News last week that he told her some people had been threatening him and suggested the threats may have involved issues with insurance coverage. Investigators believe the shooting suspect, , may have been motivated by hostility toward health insurers. They are studying his writings about a previous back injury, and his disdain for corporate America and the U.S. health care system. Mangione’s lawyer has cautioned against prejudging the case. Mangione, 26, has remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was . Manhattan prosecutors are working to bring him to New York to face a murder charge. UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, said this week it was working with law enforcement to ensure a safe work environment and to reinforce security guidelines and building access policies, a spokesperson said. The company has taken down photos, names and biographies for its top executives from its websites, a spokesperson said. Other organizations, including CVS, the parent company for insurance giant Aetna, have taken similar actions. Government health insurance provider Centene Corp. has announced that its investor day will be held online, rather than in-person as originally planned. Medica, a Minnesota-based nonprofit health care firm, said last week it was temporarily closing its six offices for security reasons and would have its employees work from home. Heightened security measures likely will make health care companies and their leaders more inaccessible to their policyholders, said former Cigna executive Wendell Potter. “And understandably so, with this act of violence. There’s no assurance that this won’t happen again,” said Potter, who’s now an advocate for health care reform. Private security firms and consultants have been in high demand, fielding calls almost immediately after the shooting from companies across a range of industries, including manufacturing and finance. Companies have long faced security risks and grappled with how far to take precautions for high-profile executives. But these recent threats sparked by Thompson’s killing should not be ignored, said Dave Komendat, a former security chief for Boeing who now heads his own risk-management company. “The is different. The social reaction to this tragedy is different. And so I think that people need to take this seriously,” Komendat said. Just over a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 reported spending money to and top executives. Of those, the median payment for personal security doubled over the last three years to just under $100,000. Hours after the shooting, Komendat was on a call with dozens of chief security officers from big corporations, and there have been many similar meetings since, hosted by security groups or law enforcement agencies assessing the threats, he said. “It just takes one person who is motivated by a poster — who may have experienced something in their life through one of these companies that was harmful,” Komendat said.