Fitness is not always just about exercises; it is also about your diet and nutrition. It is only when exercises and nutrition go hand in hand can you hope to become healthy and have a good physique. Even though most trainers know about nutrition they do not know their legal rights and if they are allowed to share the information.

While trainers can share knowledge about nutrition in general but what determines if it is legal is the certification of the trainer and if they are competent to give health advice to their clients. Trainers should not cross the line when suggesting nutritional changes for medical conditions; that is the prerogative of the registered dietician and general physicians.

As a trainer, you can inform your clients on the importance of adding phytonutrients into their diet and the importance of reducing dairy and relying more on healthy fats; eating more of lean protein.

You can also share recipes. Basically, you can give them the bricks to build the foundation of their diet. Where you tread tricky ground is when you suggest diet solutions to treat diseases. You cannot suggest any meal plans because that is beyond the scope of a trainer in most countries; in many countries, there are no clear-cut laws on this aspect of fitness. In the US, the law varies based on the state and its guidelines.

Final thoughts

Your client looks towards you to give them some guidelines on what to eat and what to avoid and you are well within your rights to suggest the right foods and show them the food pyramid; remember only when their diet corresponds to the exercises can they hope to benefit. Those clients who are into bodybuilding will already be following a dietician’s advice and might even be testosterone pills with a positive avis sur testogen aiding their cause.

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When six senior Italian detectives arrived in Cairo in early February, following the discovery of the brutally battered body of 28-year-old Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni, they faced long odds of solving the mystery of his disappearance and death. Egyptian officials had told reporters that Regeni had probably been hit by a car, but clear signs of torture on his body had raised an alarm in Rome.

The Egyptian authorities guaranteed “full cooperation”, but this was quickly revealed to be a hollow promise. The Italians were allowed to question witnesses – but only for a few minutes, after the Egyptian police had finished their own much longer interrogations, and with the Egyptian police still in the room. The Italians requested the video footage from the metro station where Regeni last used his mobile phone, but the Egyptians allowed several days to elapse, by which time the footage from the day of his disappearance had been taped over. They also refused to share the mobile phone records from the area around Regeni’s home, where he disappeared on 25 January, and the site where his body was found nine days later.

One of the Egyptian chief investigators in charge of the Regeni case, Major General Khaled Shalaby, who told the press that there were no signs of foul play, is a controversial figure. Convicted of kidnapping and torture over a decade ago, he escaped with a suspended sentence.

Who murdered Giulio Regeni? – podcast Read more

The Egyptians may well have hoped that the outside world, with no independent information, would have little choice but to accept their unsatisfying explanation for Regeni’s death. But in the digital age, getting away with murder has become more difficult.

About 10 days after the recovery of Regeni’s body, Italian prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco and a couple of police officers travelled to Regeni’s hometown of Fiumicello, in north-eastern Italy, to attend his funeral. It would be a rare opportunity to question many key witnesses in the case, gathered in one place.

The family had asked guests not to bring cameras, or to carry signs of protest, preferring a simple, sober ceremony. But more than 3,000 mourners attended the service, most of them spilling out of a school gymnasium into the street. The funeral turned the town of less than 5,000 people into a kind of miniature United Nations – a tribute to Regeni’s short but global life.

There were friends from the US, where he had studied during high school; from Latin America, a region he knew well; from the UK, where he had done both university and graduate studies; from Germany and Austria, where he had worked; and from Egypt, where he had lived since November 2015, researching the trade union movement for his Cambridge doctorate. “We put people up in the houses of friends according to which languages they had in common,” said Paola Regeni, Giulio’s mother, who works as a teacher.

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Not only did the police have the chance to question witnesses, they received an unexpected bonus. In a gesture of astonishing openness, Giulio Regeni’s grieving friends and relatives handed over their phones and laptops to the Italian police. As members of the Facebook generation, they were used to living transparently, ceding chunks of their privacy as the price for living in a connected world. If it could shed some light on the circumstances of Giulio’s death, they were prepared to share their personal data.

Regeni’s parents also gave the police his computer, which they had taken from his Cairo apartment after he disappeared. This, together with the mass of emails and text messages collected from his friends, has allowed Italian prosecutors to work around the holes in the evidence provided by the Egyptian government, and to reconstruct Regeni’s world.

The prosecutors also obtained another vital piece of evidence: Regeni’s battered corpse, which, after an extremely thorough autopsy in Italy, has told them volumes about the final nine days of his life, from the time of his disappearance to the time his body was dumped in a concrete channel beside the road from Cairo to Alexandria.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giulio Regeni. Photograph: Facebook

While this evidence will almost certainly not be enough to help Italian investigators identify Regeni’s killers by name, it has allowed them to refute a series of lies from the Egyptian government about Regini’s murder – and keep up pressure on Egypt for hard information about his killing.

Italian prosecutors recently made an important breakthrough: the Egyptian government agreed to hand over mobile phone records from both the area where Regeni was last seen, and the place where his body was found. Perhaps even more important, during a visit to Rome in early September, Egyptian prosecutors admitted for the first time that Regeni had been under police surveillance before his disappearance.

The Egyptian government continues to deny that it had any involvement in Regeni’s death. Over the past eight months, Italian investigators have peeled away layers of false leads, attempted cover-ups, and phony evidence, to build a clearer picture of what happened to Giulio Regeni than at first seemed possible.

“I am going out,” Regeni texted his girlfriend at 7.41pm on 25 January 2016. He was walking from his apartment to the nearby metro, bound for the centre of Cairo. This message is the last trace of him alive.

That Regeni disappeared on 25 January is not coincidental. It is, in fact, a crucial clue to understanding his murder

That Regeni should have disappeared on 25 January is not coincidental. It is, in fact, a crucial clue to understanding his disappearance and murder. It was the fifth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and the massive demonstrations in Tahrir Square that brought the Arab Spring to Egypt and led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak. The date has a totemic significance for the regime of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, for whom it represents a traumatic climbdown – a moment in which the military’s apparently unassailable grip on power seemed to slip. As a result, the army had been forced to accept the trial of Mubarak and the election of Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi, posing a serious threat to its position in Egyptian life. Such a thing could never be allowed to occur again.

When Sisi and the military took control of the government and arrested Morsi in July 2013, Morsi supporters occupied two public squares and staged sit-ins, hoping for a repeat of the peaceful revolution in Tahrir Square. But this time Sisi sent in tanks and soldiers and massacred at least 1,000 people.

Although Sisi came to power himself in the wake of mass demonstrations against Morsi, he seems to live in terror of the crowd. One of his first official acts was to ban any unauthorised assembly of more than 10 people. And each anniversary of the Tahrir Square uprising has brought bloodshed. In 2014, Sisi’s government killed more than 60 protesters around the country at the time of the anniversary. A year later, 25 people were killed, including a woman poet who tried to lay a wreath of flowers in the square.

In the days before his disappearance, computer records show that Regeni had laid low, mostly staying inside his apartment. He probably knew that the Egyptian authorities were working themselves up to a fever pitch in anticipation of the anniversary. Police had reportedly searched 5,000 apartments in Cairo, in an effort to intimidate anyone who might be planning a demonstration. The raids were mostly concentrated in downtown Cairo, and did not include Regeni’s apartment in the Dokki neighbourhood of Giza, a separate city that includes the site of the ancient pyramids.

Although Regeni’s mother had asked him to remain at home, where it was safe, he decided to attend the birthday party of a friend on the evening of 25 January. Downtown Cairo appeared to have returned to normal by nightfall and he and another friend agreed to meet at their usual place, not far from Tahrir Square. And so, Regeni walked into the force field of police activity in central Cairo, at its point of greatest alert.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tahrir Square is almost deserted and heavily policed on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 25 January uprising. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA

On 21 April, Reuters reported that Regeni had been picked up on the night of his disappearance by Egyptian police in downtown Cairo, near the Nasser metro stop. The news agency claimed that he was taken to a local police station for half an hour, then transferred to a Homeland Security compound in the area. The Egyptian government categorically denied the story, insisting that Regeni had never been in police custody. Reuters has stuck by its story, citing six independent but anonymous sources – three in the police and three in the security services. After publishing the report, Reuters’ Cairo bureau chief was threatened with criminal prosecution and left the country. Egyptian police recently detained an Egyptian Reuters reporter for unspecified reasons.

In May of this year, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior accidentally leaked an internal memo proposing a ban on all press coverage of the Regeni case.

It is unclear whether Regeni’s arrest was planned, or the result of a random sweep, but once they had him in custody, Egyptian authorities would have been quick to realise that they already had a file on him. “There is no question that he would have been monitored,” said Marie Duboc, a French scholar who now teaches at the University of Tübingen, in Germany. Like Regeni, she has studied Egyptian labour unions. “Even historical research that would seem harmless to any outsider, is still extremely sensitive in Egypt.”

Duboc lived under surveillance from 2008 to 2010, when she was in Cairo, working on her own PhD. “I would get strange phone calls from the Ministry of Higher Education, asking about my research,” she told me. Later, when she visited Egypt to do follow-up work, she was turned away at the airport and barred from entering the country. Clearly, her name had been placed on a blacklist. (She has subsequently been allowed to return, she said.)

Independent labour unions are a particularly sensitive topic in Egypt under the Sisi government, because unions were seen as a key galvanising force in the 2011 revolution. Traditionally, labour unions were government-run – more a means of controlling workers than representing their interests. The first independent trade union was formed in 2009, but the movement truly took flight after Tahrir Square. A thousand independent labour unions sprouted up after the fall of Mubarak and, within days of the 2011 revolution, the first federation of independent unions was formed. Many democracy advocates in and outside Egypt, including Giulio Regeni and his Cambridge supervisor, the Egyptian political scientist Maha Abdelrahman, regarded the independent trade union movement as a positive development, with the potential to strengthen civil society, democratic participation and workers’ rights – all things that seem threatening to a military regime determined to repress autonomous sources of power.

On 11 December, six weeks before he disappeared, Regeni attended a public meeting of the independent unions. He was impressed by their combative energy and wrote an enthusiastic article about it, together with a friend, which they published (in Italian) under a pseudonym. But something disconcerting happened at the meeting: although Regeni sat to the side and was not on the roster of speakers, a woman in a headscarf came over and photographed him. Regeni was shaken and told several friends about it. It was the first sign that he might be being watched.

Regeni’s particular area of research was a nascent independent union of street vendors, a large group that was difficult to control and a cause of considerable concern to the government. Egypt has an estimated five million street vendors, who sell everything from snacks and drinks to cheap clothes and kitchen utensils. In a country of 80 to 90 million people, as many as a quarter of Egyptian families depend to some degree on the income of a street vendor.

The Sisi government regards these workers with clear suspicion. Street vendors moved rapidly into Tahrir Square during the massive demonstrations of 2011. Most were simply looking to make a little money, selling food and drink to protesters, but their very presence was viewed by the authorities as aiding and abetting the revolution. Since then, the government has sought unsuccessfully to remove street vendors from the centre of Cairo, using fines, prison sentences and violence.

“After repeated failures to clear Cairo’s city centre of street vendors … the Cairo governorate issued a shrewd decree,” wrote Abdelrahman, in an article she published last year. The decree required store owners to report any street vendors working near their shops, or risk losing their own trading licenses. This served a dual purpose of forcing shopkeepers to keep tabs on street vendors for the government and pushing the vendors into the hands of the police.

In order to remain on the street and avoid police harassment, street vendors were themselves expected to let police know of anything or anyone unusual or suspicious. “One of the things that has happened in Egypt in the past few years, which we didn’t fully recognise, is that the street pedlars are frequently used as police informants,” said one Cambridge scholar, who preferred not to be named. Scattered around the city, present on nearly every block and square, the street vendors form a natural surveillance network.

For his doctorate, Regeni was engaged in what is known as “participatory research” – a method that involves spending substantial amounts of time in the field with one’s subjects. While this is standard practice, a young Arabic-speaking foreigner, hanging out for hours in street markets, and asking about unionisation, future organising plans and attitudes toward the government, is likely to have looked extremely suspicious to most Egyptians – who have been told over and over to be on the lookout for foreign agents.

Regeni’s good intentions may also have blinded him to how his actions could have been interpreted. During the autumn of 2015, he had learned of a grant of up to £10,000 issued by a British foundation to fund a development project. He was interested in applying because he could use the money to support his own PhD research and help the people he was studying. He mentioned his idea to a leader of the independent street vendors’ union, Mohamed Abdallah. Abdallah’s level of interest – in the money, rather than the project – worried Regeni. As a result, Regeni dropped the idea. Still, news of a young well-funded foreigner, ready to finance an internal Egyptian movement, may have struck police as exactly the kind of foreign conspiracy they wanted to stamp out.

Those most familiar with Regeni’s work in Egypt dismiss the idea that he could have discovered anything valuable or threatening to the Egyptian government. “Giulio had been out doing field work, talking to street pedlars, maybe six or seven times,” says one of his close friends in Cairo. “He would have known only a fraction of what any of the Egyptian government’s informants would have been able to tell them.” Even the independent union meeting that he attended and wrote about was a well-publicised event, authorised and monitored by the authorities.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A street vendor near Tahrir Square, in 2013. In recent years, the Egyptian police have recruited some of them as informants. Photograph: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

While the independent unions were certainly regarded by the Sisi regime with extreme suspicion, the government had already gone a long way to rendering them toothless. One of Sisi’s first moves was to make the chief of the federation of independent unions his minister of labour, an appointment intended to co-opt the movement and bring it under government control. Just this summer, in a further threat to their independence, a new measure was introduced, forcing the independents to re-register or risk decertification.

And yet, to a government on constant alert to security threats, there may have been much in the meeting that Regeni attended – and in the article he wrote about it – that the government would have found alarming. One of the proposals was for a “series of regional conferences that lead after a few months to a large national assembly and perhaps a unitary protest (“To Tahrir!” said several of those present.)

Regeni’s article ends with a few sentences that look like fighting words. “In the repressive context of the Sisi government, the fact that there are popular and spontaneous initiatives that break the wall of fear is significant and represent in and of themselves an important push for change.

“To challenge the state of emergency, the government’s appeals to stability and social harmony in the name of the ‘war on terrorism’, means today, even indirectly, to challenge the very basis on which this regime bases its existence and its repression of civil society.”

On 7 January, just a month after the union meeting, Mohamed Abdallah denounced Regeni to the authorities. After Regeni’s death, he told the Arabic-language newspaper Aswat Masriya that he became suspicious of Regeni because his questions “were not about street vendors … and had other intentions … I am not an informant but I believe I am protecting my country.”

The Egyptian government says that as a result of Abdallah’s tip-off, it placed Regeni under investigation, but decided after a few days that his research was of “no interest to national security”.

During the nine days after his disappearance, Regeni’s case became an international cause celebre, inspiring the Twitter hashtag #whereisgiulio? It was also a source of serious concern at the Italian Embassy in Cairo, which was preparing for the visit of a major business delegation, led by the Italian minister of economic development, Federica Guidi. On 3 February, while Guidi was meeting with Sisi and other Egyptian officials, a mini-van driver got a puncture on the road from Cairo to Alexandria. While fixing his flat tyre, he discovered Giulio Regeni’s body.

The Egyptian forensic expert who first examined the corpse initially said that the multiple signs of torture suggested Regeni had suffered a “slow death”. This claim, however, was quickly retracted. The deputy head of criminal investigations in Giza, the city where the body was found, told the Associated Press that initial investigations showed Regeni was killed in a road accident.

Meanwhile, the Regeni case had become a huge story in Italy. In the following days, as pressure mounted, Egyptian officials began floating various theories in the local press: that Regeni was gay and the victim of a crime of passion, that he was involved in a drug deal gone bad, or that he was a foreign spy.

Upon further investigation, these theories fell apart. The digital record in the possession of Italian investigators showed that Regeni had a girlfriend in Ukraine, and there were Skype logs, emails and texts to prove it. His computer, email and bank records showed no trace of contact with any intelligence services. “We had his bank accounts, which showed he had almost no money,” said Alessandra Ballerini, the lawyer for the Regeni family. “This is a boy who wore his father’s old bathing suit and used his mother’s old backpack because he didn’t want to be a financial burden to his family.”

Most important was the rigorous second autopsy carried out in Italy, using Cat scans and tissue analysis. The Egyptian pathologist’s report had said that Regeni was killed by a blow to the head. More detailed analysis in Italy showed that he had been hit repeatedly on the head, but that these blows were not fatal. Blood had coagulated around the points where he had been hit, and other cuts, bruises and abrasions on his body showed different stages of healing. This indicated that Regeni had been tortured more than once – and that days had passed between his initial torture, later sessions, and the moment of his death. He was covered with cuts and burns, and his hands and feet had been broken. Even his teeth were broken. His torturers appear to have carved letters into his flesh, a well-documented practice of the Egyptian police.

The forensic doctors at the University of Rome used a highly accurate technique for determining time of death, which measures potassium levels in the vitreous fluid of the eyes. They established that Regeni died between 10pm on 1 February and 10pm on 2 February. “This is important because it means that he was alive for at least six or seven days and tortured repeatedly during that time,” said one Italian investigator. The cause of death was a broken neck. Regeni’s mother believes that this was the work of professional torturers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giulio Regeni’s mother, Paola, believes he was murdered by professional torturers. Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

The strength of the autopsy evidence forced the Egyptian authorities to abandon the implausible theories of accidental death and begin a new public relations offensive. Sisi suddenly granted an interview to the editor-in-chief of the Rome newspaper La Repubblica, which was published on 16 March and dominated by the Regeni case. As the autopsy evidence implicated the Egyptian police, Sisi seemed to suggest that Regeni’s death was part of an elaborate conspiracy.

“Why was the body found right when the minister of economic development and the Italian delegation were here to strengthen our cooperation?” he asked. Sisi also mentioned the shooting down of a Russian tourist airliner in October 2015. “Russian tourism and Italian tourism [in Egypt] have collapsed to nothing … Fill in the dots of these different episodes and you have a clear picture of an attempt to strike the Egyptian economy and isolate Egypt.”

Just days later, in early March, a witness stepped forward with a new hypothesis. An Egyptian engineer claimed that he had seen Regeni, on the afternoon before his disappearance, having a furious argument with another foreigner near the Italian consulate. The engineer, Mohammed Fawzy, then appeared on a popular Egyptian TV programme to say that he thought that the Italian government knew who killed Regeni, but was hiding the evidence. Echoing Sisi, Fawzy speculated that whoever killed Regeni was trying to sabotage commercial relations between Egypt and Italy.

Relatives of the alleged criminal gang have insisted that its members were killed in cold blood at close range

The engineer’s story collapsed when the Italian prosecutors’ digital archive showed that Regeni had been at home all afternoon on 24 January. He had been on Skype with his girlfriend, chatting as they streamed the same movie and watched it together, 3,500km apart. Mobile phone records also showed that the engineer was not in the neighbourhood of the Italian consulate in Cairo at the time of the alleged quarrel.

And then, suddenly, on 24 March, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior announced a definitive resolution to the case. The ministry announced on its Facebook page that the perpetrators were a gang of four men “specialised in impersonating policemen, kidnapping foreigners and stealing their money”.

As proof, the government displayed a tray of objects that included Regeni’s passport, Italian identity card, a credit card and his ID card from Cambridge University. Not only had the Egyptian police found the culprits, they had already killed them. “In an exchange of fire between police forces and the men,” the ministry explained, “all the gang members were killed.”

However, phone records placed the leader of the gang more than 100km away from Cairo at the time of Regeni’s disappearance. Relatives of the alleged criminal gang have insisted that its members were killed in cold blood at close range, rather than in a shootout. The government’s scenario also made little sense: why would a band of thieves keep Regeni’s identity cards, given that they would provide incriminating evidence that tied them to the crime? Why would they torture a robbery victim for a week without ever asking for ransom money or using his credit card? Egyptian officials have now accepted that it is unlikely the dead men had anything to do with Regeni’s death. In fact, by producing Regeni’s passport and identity cards, the Egyptian police have apparently incriminated themselves.

The string of improbable cover stories was becoming an embarrassment even in Egypt. In a rare public rebuke, Mohammed Abdel-Hadi Allam, the editor-in-chief of al-Ahram, a government-owned newspaper, wrote: “The naive stories about Regeni’s death have hurt Egypt at home and abroad and offered some people grounds to judge what is going on in the country now to be no different from what went on before the 25 January revolution.” He compared the Regeni case to that of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian who had been seized by police in an internet cafe in 2010, and beaten to death. Photographs of Said’s body taken by his brother were posted on Facebook and became an important rallying cry for the protesters who helped bring down Hosni Mubarak.

Despite clear indications of involvement by the nation’s security forces, the Egyptian government is left with what might be called the stupidity defence. As the Egyptian ambassador to Rome put it: “We’re not so naive as to kill a young Italian and throw away his body the day of Minister Guidi’s visit to Cairo.”

“There are two theories,” said Karim Abdelrady, an Egyptian human rights lawyer. “One is that there is a feud between the Egyptian secret services, and one branch dumped the body in order to embarrass the other.” A long, detailed anonymous letter that was sent to the Italian embassy in Bern, Switzerland and published by La Repubblica described complicated machinations within different branches of the Egyptian secret services, and reported that Regeni’s body had been wrapped in an Egyptian army blanket, as if to direct suspicion towards the military police. But Italian investigators say that they have no way to confirm or deny the information in this document.

“The other theory,” explained Abdelrady, “is that the Egyptian police thought they could get away with it by blaming a band of criminals, and that people would not think the Egyptian police would be so stupid as to leave the body where it could be found.”

“This case cannot be understood without understanding the context of generalised paranoia in the country,” said one foreign scholar who has lived in Cairo for many years. “For the last three years, many high-level government officials, including members of the military, have spoken publicly about foreign conspiracies to undermine Egypt. This is bound to seep down to all levels of the police and military.”

The Egyptian government put Giulio Regeni’s possessions on display in an attempt to prove they had found his killers. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

Almost immediately after taking over during the summer of 2013, the Sisi regime seemed anxious to stress that the 2011 revolution was not the result of popular dissatisfaction, but collusion between outside powers and Egyptian subversives.

Since then, the human rights situation in Egypt – which was never good under Mubarak – has continued to deteriorate. There are now an estimated 40,000 political prisoners. Between late January and November 2015, Egypt’s Al Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence documented 281 extrajudicial killings, 119 murders of prisoners in detention, 440 cases of torture in police stations, and 335 forced disappearances. After documenting these cases, the Nadeem Center was forced to shut down, allegedly for violating its charter as a medical organisation.

While in the past, Egypt had tried to avoid trouble with foreigners, it now seemed intent on making public examples of them. “Giulio died like an Egyptian,” says Ballerini, the Regeni family’s lawyer.

The climate of xenophobia and police brutality in Egypt has raised questions for Italian prosecutors as to whether it was appropriate for Cambridge University to allow a young foreign student to go Cairo and undertake field research into such a delicate topic. Regeni’s supervisor, Maha Abdelrahman, is very knowledgeable on this subject: she has been a vocal critic of Egypt’s military governments and has written extensively about the country’s unions and protest movements. In early 2015, she wrote about the tendency of turning ordinary citizens into police informants and the increasing criminalisation of previously harmless activities.

Relations between the Italian investigators and Cambridge University got off to a bad start when Abdelrahman declined to hand over her emails and text messages after the funeral. She also kept the police waiting for three hours, turning up for her interview at the police station at 10pm. Abdelrahman’s reluctance to hand over her personal data is understandable, given her background – she had grown up in Egypt under a military regime, when a person would never have given anything to the police if they could help it. Abdelrahman has chosen not to speak to the press since Regeni’s death, but told colleagues at Cambridge that she cooperated with the Italian police the day of the funeral.

The Italian prosecutors have been keen to find out whose idea it was that Regeni should write his PhD dissertation on independent unions, and the street vendors’ union especially. When detectives asked her whether she had pushed Regeni to pursue his research into that particular topic, or if she had been aware that he might have felt in danger, Abdelrahman felt that she was being treated like a suspect.

The lead prosecutor, Sergio Colaiocco, travelled to England in June, having sent a request to two Cambridge professors for an interview. The university says it received no notification from the Italian government, but learned of the request informally from Cambridge police. The two professors initially agreed to meet with the prosecutor, but then declined to be interviewed. This prompted a brief firestorm, with the Italian deputy foreign minister, Mario Giro, taking to Twitter to shame Cambridge for its lack of cooperation. An Italian professor who teaches at Oxford, Federico Varese, also criticised Cambridge in an interview with La Repubblica: “The university bears some measure of moral responsibility for not protecting [Regeni] and not grasping that the kind of ‘participatory research’ he was doing increased the risk. It seems that their priority is only to protect Cambridge from possible legal responsibility and a request for damages.”

In June, Cambridge’s vice-chancellor and a number of academics signed a letter stating that the university had not received any request for help from the Italian authorities, and that Regeni had no particular reason to be afraid for his safety, since “no foreign student, researcher or academic” had ever been murdered in Egypt. The university subsequently hired an Italian attorney to facilitate relations with the Italian government and has received, and fully complied with, a request for various documents in the Regeni case.

“I think this polemic with Cambridge has been overblown,” said one close friend of Regeni’s in Egypt. He pointed out that Abdelrahman had continued to do the same kind of field research that Regeni was pursuing. “She was not a professor who remained in the library and sent out her students to do field work. The truth about Giulio’s murder is in Egypt, not Cambridge, in the increasing paranoia of the regime.”

In December, 2015, he said, Egyptian police detained a young French scholar who was conducting research on a workers’ movement, keeping her in jail overnight. “These kinds of things had been happening more often – but they go unreported because the scholars don’t say anything, so that they can return to Egypt in the future.”

The Egyptian government’s softer and more cooperative approach in the last few months suggests, however, that it now accepts an urgent need for reputation management. The government and the Regeni family have agreed, in principle, to meet, which the family hopes will push the investigation another few steps closer to the truth.

Regeni’s death is a mystery hiding in plain sight: his seemingly inexplicable, brutal torture and killing reflects the demise of Egyptian democracy, the stripping away of already limited liberties and protections, the brutal crackdown on dissent, the increase in torture and forced disappearances, the tendency to blame the country’s problems on outside conspiracies. In this closed world, Giulio Regeni, with his ability to speak five languages, his mobile phone full of foreign and Egyptian contacts, might look like a spy, and police, in a system with little or no accountability, might make reckless mistakes.

The Egyptian prosecutors seemed unable to understand why their Italian colleagues did not accept the evidence they were given. “The Egyptian authorities seemed shocked that our police kept asking questions after they came up with the ‘gang’ of killers and the tray with Regeni’s documents,” said one Italian investigator. “Their attitude seemed to be: ‘hey, we found the criminals, we have even killed them. This should put an end to it.’” Surely, they thought, concerns of state – the close relations between two nations, billions of dollars of commercial ties – should count more than the life of one person, who had been killed by mistake. They seemed to find it impossible to understand that the Italian government would have to account to public opinion and could not, even if it had wanted to, accept a flimsy, implausible account of Regeni’s death.

“This didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Heba Morayef, an Egyptian human rights advocate, said. “It came after three years of almost constant rising xenophobic propaganda, fed by the security services, encouraging citizens’ arrests of foreigners, and so on … There are so many people in the Egyptian security forces that talk about this foreign conspiracy, that more and more people start to believe it. This is how a deeply paranoid police state operates.”

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In the threadbare upstairs room that passes for an owner's office at the Lakeshore Theater, original LPs from 1960s comedy giants Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl lean against a window.

Chris Ritter, the club's owner, had bought the records in order to have Gregory and Sahl sign them this week, when they were to play his art house comedy club in a converted movie theater on Chicago's North Side.

Instead, along with the broken and plastic-bag-covered urinal in the men's room, they stand as a symbol of what went wrong at the Lakeshore, which hosted some of comedy's most cutting-edge acts and had Robin Williams show up on its stage more than once, but could never live any better than hand to mouth.

Already reeling from a big loss on a Sandra Bernhard show in February, and faced with more five-figure losses in the weeklong stand by Sahl and Gregory that wasn't selling well, Ritter pulled the plug on the Lakeshore on April Fools' Day.

"Stupid, three-legged dog," he says, comparing the 330-seat theater at Broadway and Belmont to "a pet you have to put down that is deformed in some way, has some sort of terminal illness. But she just looks at you with those eyes."

Ritter, 42, was a theatrical producer who fell into comedy not out of some master plan, but because that, he says, is what worked in the room he has held together "with paper clips and rubber bands" for eight years, the last three as a comedy house.

Letting it go, clearly, is difficult. We are talking in the theater, the afternoon before a raucous farewell show featuring many of the local comics the Lakeshore has nurtured. The seats, he points out, need replacing. The running lights along the aisle went out not long ago, a fire code violation.

"There's just so many mixed feelings," Ritter says, then blinks hard and looks away, down toward the stage where national stars including Jim Jefferies, Demetri Martin, Mike Birbiglia, Maria Bamford, Doug Benson and more found a Chicago home.

Upstairs is the small apartment where Ritter, his wife, Jessica, and son, Joey, now 10, lived for six years. The family hasn't had health insurance for at least three years, and a few months ago, he says, Jessica was found to have breast cancer.

"It really gave me a personal jolt: OK, you've got an artistic mission and you're really dedicated to the place, but what are you really doing with your life?"

He adds: "I know in the core of my heart I'm doing the right thing, for myself and for my family. And I'm utterly convinced that in a month, six months, a year from now, I will have this incredible sense of relief in my life, where I'm not running around, panicked about how I'm gonna cover payroll next week, or whether the plumbing's about to explode.

"What I really want to do is work with artists and do shows. I know that that is going to be my endpoint, so there's a certain comfort in that. But the, uh" — another long pause, another look into the emptiness of a theater in the afternoon — "it's hard."

He repeats the phrase: "Stupid, three-legged dog."

•••

There were final shows Friday and Saturday from Jefferies, the budding Australian superstar whose career arc exemplified Lakeshore's strategy of building an audience for cutting-edge artists. His first show at the theater did $198 in box office in November 2007, and a lot of tickets were given away; his last ones sold out, four shows, some $6,000 per show.

But before Jefferies, on Thursday night, there is "Closing Acts," a hybrid open-mic night/Irish wake/jazz funeral.

For 61/2 hours, two dozen stand-ups take turns eulogizing the Lakeshore, roasting Ritter, taking potshots at the much more conventional Zanies comedy clubs, bemoaning Chicago's busy but undernourished comedy scene and, mostly, because there was a microphone and stage time, doing their own acts.

"Welcome to the end of any hope you ever had," says James Fritz, the night's first emcee, speaking to an audience of mostly comedy insiders.

"I'd be less upset if my parents got a divorce. Honestly, this place means more to me than my blood."

Fritz also suggests that Bert Haas, the executive vice president of Chicago's Zanies outposts, is "dancing a jig" over the closing, the first (and least derogatory) of several mentions of Haas by name.

(Haas, reached by phone, gives it right back. "It's just another venue," he says of the Lakeshore, one whose closing "means there will be other places popping up… I've been with Zanies since 1980. In those 30 years I have seen at least 60 different establishments open, try stand-up comedy and close.")

"Chris Ritter tried to be an artist on top of being a businessman," says Dan Telfer, who runs Chicago Underground Comedy, one of the alternative options that will pick up some Lakeshore slack with local acts. "This place filled a void that the country was lacking, not just Chicago."

At some point the national anthem is sung. After most everyone remaining at 1:30 a.m. gets onstage to sing it again, Roseanne Barr is officially forgiven.

"I called Ritter a couple of weeks ago about opening up for Nick Thune," says the comic Prescott Tolk. "He said, ‘Yes. Do you know anyone who has $200,000?'"

•••

The numbers, actually, were moving in the right direction, Ritter says, bearing out, he believes, the validity of the idea that he and comic Paul Provenza, an adviser, hatched in early 2007: Showcase comedy as an art form (and stop the financial bleeding).

In 2007, the first year as a comedy-only venue, he and his partners lost $404,000, according to Ritter. In 2008, the venue lost $268,000. And last year, as attendance continued to grow and Ritter cut payroll by 55 percent, it actually made a profit, of about $65,000.

But his salary kept shrinking; he took home $30,000 last year, he says. And it seemed there would never be enough to pay down the $200,000 in debt remaining (after his partners covered the bulk of the losses) or give the building the more than $150,000 in repairs he says it needs.

Since the closing announcement, Ritter has been gratified by the support and has come to believe people understood the club's mission in a way he wasn't sure they did while it was running.


OTTAWA — Canada’s democracy would benefit best under an electoral system of proportional representation, a leading authority on voting systems told parliamentarians Monday.

But no matter what Parliament finally decides, it should avoid a referendum on the question and the danger of a vote based on voter confusion and misinformation, Arend Lijphart told a special committee on electoral reform.

“The outcomes of referenda are often highly volatile and unpredictable, often involve a lot of emotionalism and outright lies,” he warned. “The recent Brexit referendum shows how much damage a referendum can do. It’s been a disaster for the whole world.”

Lijphart, research professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, said proportional representation (PR) and the coalition governments the system typically produces, “work better because there is more negotiations, there is more compromise, therefore it builds stronger consensus.”

Years of extensive research, he said, show the most beneficial, statistically significant outcomes that correlates with PR is the quality of the democracies it produces.

“Proportional representations (was) not only slightly better, but a whole lot better, there was simply no comparison between PR and FTTP (first-past-the-post),” the system Canada has always used.

PR systems and consensus democracies also have better records for effective policy-making, he said, though FTTP is often mistakenly considered the best system to represent democratic, majority rule.

But “if you’re a majority government, one-party government, it is based on just between 30 and 40 per cent of the voters. This (type of) government actually struggles constantly with the fact of being a kind of illegitimate majority government,” he told the all-party committee of MPs.

FTTP governments really only represent a large minority

“It may seem ironic or paradoxical that, in fact, you have in PR better majority rule than with so-called majoritarian governments. FTTP governments really only represent a large minority.”

Lijphart acknowledged a legitimate complaint about PR is that parties’ election platforms and promises can be compromised or lost in the negotiations to form a coalition government . Still, in mature multi-party systems, such as in Germany’s, it is often clear prior to an election which parties (and policies) are going to work together in government, he said.

PR models have been adopted by many nations and, with a few exceptions, without holding referendums. Lijphart warned the MPs against doing so in Canada.

“If one can avoid a referendum, please avoid a referendum,” he urged. While changing the electoral system is an important decision, the problem with referenda is that other issues can come to fore, too, “including people just expressing a general dissatisfaction with the government.”

The Conservative party has argued that there may be no better way to test “broad-based support” for a new system than some kind of referendum. Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef has expressed apprehensions.

Lijphart’s criticism of referenda was countered by committee witness Benoit Pelletier, a University of Ottawa constitutional expert on electoral reform and former Liberal Quebec cabinet minister in the Jean Charest government.

“If we want to do a reform of our voting system, it’s normally for the population itself, so that the population has greater faith in its democratic institutions,” he said. “I would have a hard time seeing how we could do a significant electoral reform without calling on Canadians and asking them for their opinion.”

“When you change the electoral system significantly, you change the political culture of a country. It is not just an issue of modalities, it is not a technical issue, it is also a cultural issue, an issue of values. The electoral system is choosing the values that we as a country want to emphasize.”


Would you be alright, he asked me, in a dream. Would you be able to hold it together, he said, a question in his eyes. I lifted my shoulders, maybe shrugging, maybe tucking my head and my neck in my sweater for warmth, as I feel the cold start to seep into my bones. It doesn’t matter now, does it, is the only thing I could reply. It hardly ever matters now.

Everyone Who Left Us

Steven Cramer

Everyone who left us we find everywhere.

It’s easier now to look them in the eyes —

At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.

Of course, we wonder if they think of us.

It’s easier, now, to look them in the eyes,

Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk.

Of course, we wonder if they think of us

When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm.

Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk —

Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness.

When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm,

We think of calling them, leaving messages.

Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness —

No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction.

We think of calling them, leaving messages

Vivid with news we’re sure they’d want to know.

No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction:

We close our eyes in order not to see them.

Vivid with news, we’re sure they’d want to know

We don’t blame them, really. They weren’t cruel.

We close our eyes in order not to see them

Reading, making love, or falling asleep.

We don’t blame them. Really, they weren’t cruel,

Though it hurts every time we think of them:

Reading, making love, or falling asleep,

Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms.

Though it hurts every time we think of them,

Like a taste we can’t swallow, their names stay.

Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms,

Then, they leave us the look of their faces

Like a taste we can’t swallow. Their names stay,

Diminishing our own, getting in the way

At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.

Everyone who left us we find everywhere,

Then they leave us, the look of their faces

Diminishing, our own getting in the way.


Columbus Crew SC, the New York Red Bulls, FC Dallas and the Portland Timbers have all reached the Conference Championship after an arduous 34-game season and at least two Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoff games (three for Portland).

The ways in which they have been able to make it this far are varied. Each have relied on a particular style of play that has defined their season and ability to get this far.

You can see those styles of play in some statistics that these four teams have been able to produce throughout the course of the season. Here's one for each:

Columbus Crew SC: Crosses from Open Play

When you have Kei Kamara on your team, it is no surprise that Crew SC led the league in crosses attempted from open play.

As you can see from the table above, Columbus attempted 115 more crosses from open play than any other team in the league. The difference between Crew SC and the No. 2 ranked Portland Timbers is about the same as the difference between Portland and the No. 12 ranked Toronto FC.

Gregg Berhalter's team wasn't just attempting a ton of crosses but they were completing them at a high rate. Crew SC completed 27.26 percent of their open play crosses, the second highest rate in the league. The only team to complete a higher percentage is FC Dallas (27.46), who attempted almost 400 fewer crosses than Columbus.

New York Red Bulls: Opponent Passing Accuracy in Own Half

When Jesse Marsch was hired as the new head coach of the New York Red Bulls, he built his team to do one thing.

High press.

And they have been successful in that endeavor as the Red Bulls won the Supporters' Shield this season and were able to do so largely because of their style of play.

With their high-press system, the Red Bulls haved allowed their opponents to complete just 84.14 percent passes in their own half. That may not sound all that impressive but consider that is the lowest percentage any team has held their opponents in that statistic since 2010. It was also easily the lowest this season.

Portland Timbers: Shot Conversion Rate

This stat is a bit different as we are only taking a look at portions of the Timbers' season.

Portland's late-season surge to the No. 3 West and ultimately the Conference Championship was at least in part sparked by the formation shift to put Darlington Nagbe in the center of midfield.

The main reason they were unable to collect maximum points before this time came down to their inefficient finishing. Despite taking the second-most shots per game in the league, they had the second-fewest goals.

But since the formation switch, all that has changed.

Despite taking fewer shots, the Timbers have actually seen their goals scored per game skyrocket. Their shot conversion rate, which is goals divided by totals shots, has gone from a miserable 6.98 percent to a respectable 17.07 percent.

Timbers Before/After Formation Switch Period Shots/Game Conversion Rate Before 14.32 6.98% After 13.67 17.07%

FC Dallas: Dribbles

Ever since Fabian Castillo joined FC Dallas back in 2011, he has been the most prolific dribbler in MLS. That did not change this season.

Opta defines a dribble as "an attempt by a player to beat an opponent in possession of the ball." Basically it's when a player tries to take on another player in a 1v1 situation.

Like Crew SC, not only did they exceed other teams in a specific area, they also were efficient.

Even though they attempted the most dribbles of any team, they completed those dribbles at a rate of 43.08 percent, good for the fourth highest rate in MLS.

Castillo led the way attempting 265 dribbles just by himself and completed them successfully 43 percent of the time.

Michael Barrios (92), Mauro Diaz (79) and Ryan Hollingshead (62) also attempted more than 50 dribbles individually.


Plenty of industry experts, psychologists and body-positive activists have criticized the big, bad magazine industry for its undying love of Photoshop.

But hearing it from "real women," aka not fashion models, on camera is powerful stuff on its own.

A new video by advocacy T-shirt company FCKH8 showcases women of various ages, races and body types giving Photoshop the middle finger, after unashamedly stripping off the brand's "This Is What a #Feminist Looks Like" shirts and showcasing what real female bodies, untouched by airbrushing, can look like.

Of course, even the models featured in magazines are "real women." But the airbrush that tweaks and tones their bodies, touches up their stray hairs and smooths over their little imperfections contributes to making the bodies we see less real.

"The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don't desire to look like that," is how Kate Winslet so perfectly put it about a decade ago, when her own body was airbrushed to the hilt.

Over 10 years later, the airbrushing has gotten way more subtle and less offensive, but it's still happening all the time. "Things are never, ever as they seem," model Chrissy Teigen told the Cut earlier this year, adding, "Oh, the retouching."

Thanks to that retouching, we end up not seeing quite so many curves, nor many wrinkles.

FCKH8's video calls out Photoshop for that deception and the shame it can cause women (and men) about their own bodies.

Of course, as SheKnows points out, no video campaign is perfect. FCKH8.com is itself guilty of embracing a single body type on its website, showcasing slender white women; it's also a for-profit company, which some have said conflicts with its social justice mission to take on sexism, racism and other injustices.

Still, seeing women flip the bird to beauty standards is pretty damn awesome — especially if it can get other women, those who aren't modeling T-shirts or making viral videos, feeling inspired to do the same.

Watch the full video below.

h/t The Huffington Post


A mural of Kevin Spacey will soon vanish from the side of a building in the northwest England city of Manchester.

Anonymous street artist Akse revealed via Facebook on Friday that he will replace his 2015 piece “as a result of the recent allegations” of sexual misconduct against the Oscar-winning actor.

The decision to remove the mural, which shows Spacey as “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood, was made jointly with the wall’s owners, Akse added.

Akse painted the mural on the building, owned by Nurhbai and Co. Accountants, in May 2015.

“We love it!” the company said via Facebook on its completion:

But as sexual misconduct claims mounted against Spacey, owner Hussain Nurbhai was “adamant” it be replaced, the BBC reported.

Akse has not revealed when or how he will paint over the piece, which formed part of his “Psychopaths” series. HuffPost has reached out for comment.

Bryan Cranston’s “Breaking Bad” character of Walter White, and Christian Bale’s character of Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho,” also are featured in Akse’s project in Manchester.

A post shared by Akse P19 Crew (@akse_p19) on Aug 2, 2017 at 3:11am PDT


This is the same Oklahoma team. The same Sooners that this time last year were on the verge of disaster.

That couldn’t win a big game anymore under coach Bob Stoops. That no longer ruled the Big 12. That was set up for a spectacular fall after an embarrassing 34-point loss in a bowl game to a team playing a backup quarterback.

SN AWARDS: Coach of the year: Dabo Swinney | All-America teams | Freshman All-Americans

Then Baker Mayfield got eligible, Stoops hired a new offensive coordinator (Lincoln Riley) and OU is now the hottest team in the game heading into the College Football Playoff.

The reason is simple: the play of Mayfield, the Sporting News 2015 Player of the Year.

“I don’t think you can overstate how important Baker has been to this team,” Stoops said.

Maybe even the difference between playing for it all and playing out the string – both the season and a spectacular coaching career in Norman for Stoops. Fair or not, Stoops was feeling heat heading into this season, and had made changes to the staff in the offseason to address some glaring problems.

MORE: Best bowl games | Most intriging matchups | Bowl gift guide

At the top of the list was the quarterback spot, where OU had struggled the previous two seasons and where the Sooners hadn’t had a game-changer in the most important position on the field since Sam Bradford won the Heisman Trophy in 2008. Mayfield transferred from Texas Tech last season, and despite OU’s significant efforts with the NCAA, he wasn’t granted an appeal to play immediately.

On the outside looking in, OU’s desperation to get Mayfield eligible seemed strange, especially considering the Sooners were coming off a big win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl – a game where quarterback Trevor Knight played well and gave a hint of big things to come in 2014.

Now we know why OU was so intent on getting Mayfield eligible in 2014: he’s a game-changer. He’s a program-defining player whose spirit, intensity and moxie rub off on others around him, forcing them to perform at his level.

MORE: Follow Oklahoma's path to the playoffs

“I never had an idea of changing the way we do things around here,” Mayfield said. “I just wanted to fit in and do whatever I could to help.”

All he did was make OU a national power again, and lead the Sooners to the College Football Playoff – something that seemed like a pipedream this time last season. Mayfield threw for 35 touchdowns, and rushed for seven more, had 3,383 yards passing and completed nearly 70 percent of his throws.

Last season, with essentially the same two-deep depth chart, Oklahoma’s quarterbacks threw for 17 TDS and 17 INTs and the Sooners lost five games. But the impact of Mayfield goes far beyond numbers.

His magnetic personality and carefree style helped loosen up a team that at times played much too tight over the last two seasons. OU played tight, made mistakes, lost games and lost its mojo.

Mayfield brought it all back, from the way he immediately connected with teammates when he first arrived last season, to how he handled his responsibility after winning the starting job in fall camp – to how he played week after week.

“Football should be fun,” Mayfield said. “We’re playing a game. We can be serious and we can be focused on what we have to do every single play. But the bottom line is we’re having fun playing a game.”

No one played it better in 2015.


St. Lawrence Island (Central Siberian Yupik: Sivuqaq, Russian: Остров Святого Лаврентия) is located west of mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Strait. The village of Gambell, located on the northwest cape of the island, is 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Chukchi Peninsula in the Russian Far East. The island is part of Alaska, but closer to Russia than to the Alaskan mainland. St. Lawrence Island is thought to be one of the last exposed portions of the land bridge that once joined Asia with North America during the Pleistocene period.[1] It is the sixth largest island in the United States and the 113th largest island in the world. It is considered part of the Bering Sea Volcanic Province.[2]

Geography [ edit ]

The United States Census Bureau defines St. Lawrence Island as Block Group 6, Census Tract 1 of Nome Census Area, Alaska. As of the 2000 census there were 1,292 people living on a land area of 1,791.56 sq mi (4,640.1 km2).[3] The island is about 90 miles (140 km) long and 8–22 miles (13–36 km) wide. The island has no trees, and the only woody plants are Arctic willow, standing no more than a foot (30 cm) high.

The island's abundance of seabirds and marine mammals is due largely to the influence of the Anadyr Current, an ocean current which brings cold, nutrient-rich water from the deep waters of the Bering Sea shelf edge.

To the south of the island there was a persistent polynya in 1999, formed when the prevailing winds from the north and east blow the migrating ice away from the coast.[4]

The climate of Gambell is:

January April July October Daily max 12 °F (−11 °C) 20 °F (−7 °C) 50 °F (10 °C) 34 °F (1 °C) Daily min 3 °F (−16 °C) 10 °F (−12 °C) 41 °F (5 °C) 29 °F (−2 °C)

Villages [ edit ]

The island contains two villages: Savoonga and Gambell. The two villages were given title to most of the land on St. Lawrence Island by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. As a result of having title to the land, the Yupik are legally able to sell the fossilized ivory and other artifacts found on St. Lawrence Island.

The island is now inhabited mostly by Siberian Yupik engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding. The St. Lawrence Island Yupik people are also known for their skill in carving, mostly with materials from marine mammals (walrus ivory and whale bone). The Arctic yo-yo may have evolved on the island.

Prehistory [ edit ]

St. Lawrence Island was first occupied around 2,000 to 2,500 years ago by coastal people characterized by artifacts decorated in the Okvik (oogfik) style. Archaeological sites on the Punuk Islands, off the eastern end of St. Lawrence Island, at Kukulik, near Savoonga and on the hill slopes above Gambell have evidence of the Okivik occupation. The Okvik decorative style is zoomorphic and elaborate, executed in a sometimes crude engraving technique, with greater variation than the Old Bering Sea and Punuk styles.

The Okivik occupation is influenced by and may have been coincident with the Old Bering Sea occupation of 2000 years ago to around 700 years ago,[5] characterized by the simpler and more homogeneous Punuk style. Stone artifacts changed from chipped stone to ground slate; carved ivory harpoon heads are smaller and simpler in design.

Prehistoric and early historic occupations of St. Lawrence Island were never permanent, with periods of abandonment and reoccupation depending on resource availability and changes in weather patterns. Famine was common, as evidenced by Harris lines and enamel hypoplasia in human skeletons. Travel to and from the mainland was common during calm weather, so the island was used as a hunting base, and occupation sites were re-used periodically rather than permanently occupied.

Major archaeology sites at Gambell and Savoonga (Kukulik) were excavated by Otto Geist and Ivar Skarland of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Collections from these excavations are curated at the University of Alaska Museum on the UAF campus.

History [ edit ]

False color NASA Landsat image of St. Lawrence Island

The island was called Sivuqaq by the Yupik who lived there. It was visited by Russian/Danish explorer Vitus Bering on St. Lawrence's Day, August 10, 1728, and named after the day of his visit. The island was the first place in Alaska known to have been visited by European explorers.

There were about 4,000 Central Alaskan Yupik and Siberian Yupik living in several villages on the island in the mid-19th century. They subsisted by hunting walrus and whale and by fishing. A famine in 1878–1880 caused many to starve and many others to leave, decimating the island's population. A revenue cutter visited the island in 1880 and estimated that out of 700 inhabitants, 500 were found dead of starvation. Reports of the day put the blame on traders' supplying the people with liquor causing the people to ″neglect laying up their usual supply of provisions″.[6] Nearly all the residents remaining were Siberian Yupik.

Reindeer were introduced on the island in 1900 in an attempt to bolster the economy. The reindeer herd grew to about 10,000 animals by 1917, but has since declined. Reindeer are herded as a source of subsistence meat to this day. In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt established a reindeer reservation on the island.[7] This caused legal issues in the indigenous land claim process to acquire surface and subsurface rights to their land, under the section 19 of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) as they had to prove that the reindeer reserve was set up to support the indigenous people rather than to protect the reindeer themselves.[8]

World War II [ edit ]

During World War II, islanders served in the Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG). Following disbandment of the ATG in 1947, and with the construction of Northeast Cape Air Force Station in 1952, many islanders joined the Alaska National Guard to provide for the defense of the island and station.

Cold War [ edit ]

The former Northeast Cape Air Force Station at St. Lawrence Island

On June 22, 1955, during the Cold War, a US Navy P2V Neptune with a crew of 11 was attacked by two Soviet Air Forces fighter aircraft along the International Date Line in international waters over the Bering Straits, between Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska. The P2V crashed on the island's northwest cape, near the village of Gambell. Villagers rescued the crew, 3 of whom were wounded by Soviet fire and 4 of whom were injured in the crash. The Soviet government, in response to a US diplomatic protest, was unusually conciliatory, stating that:

There was an exchange of shots after a Soviet fighter advised the US plane that it was over Soviet territory and should leave (the US denied that the US plane fired at all). The incident took place under heavy cloud cover and poor visibility, although the alleged violation of Soviet airspace could be the responsibility of US commanders not interested in preventing such violations.

The Soviet military was under strict orders to "avoid any action beyond the limits of the Soviet state frontiers."

The Soviet government "expressed regret in regard to the incident," and, "taking into account... conditions which do not exclude the possibility of a mistake from one side or the other," was willing to compensate the US for 50% of damages sustained—the first such offer ever made by the Soviets for any Cold War shoot-down incident.

The US government stated that it was satisfied with the Soviet expression of regret and the offer of partial compensation, although it said that the Soviet statement also fell short of what the available information indicated.[9]

Northeast Cape Air Force Station, at the island's other end, was a United States Air Force facility consisting of an Aircraft Control and Warning[10] (AC&W) radar site, a United States Air Force Security Service listening post; and a White Alice Communications System (WACS) site that operated from about 1952 to about 1972. The area surrounding the Northeast Cape base site had been a traditional camp site for several Yupik families for centuries. After the base closed down in the 1970s, many of these people started to experience health problems. Even today, people who grew up at Northeast Cape have high rates of cancer and other diseases, possibly due to PCB exposure around the site.[11] According to the State of Alaska, those elevated cancer rates have been shown to be comparable to the rates of other Alaskan and non-Alaskan arctic natives who were not exposed to a similar Air Force facility.[12] In any event, the majority of the facility was removed in a $10.5 million cleanup program in 2003. Monitoring of the site will continue into the future.[13]

Transportation [ edit ]

The airports are Gambell Airport and Savoonga Airport.

Bibliography [ edit ]

Notes

References


Expectations for Netflix's third quarter couldn't have been higher, but the company still managed to wow Wall Street Monday -- and shares jumped 10% as a result.

Netflix cynics have been waiting for the company's stock bubble to pop: Netflix shares are up a shocking 440% in the past 12 months, and analysts expected third-quarter earnings nearly to quadruple over the year.

But Netflix (NFLX) delivered. The company reported third-quarter earnings of 52 cents a share, well above the 49 cents that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting.

Sales came in at $1.1 billion, in line with estimates.

Netflix expects more happy news for the current quarter. The company predicted earnings of 47 cents to 73 cents per share. That's an extremely wide range -- common for Netflix -- but it's far above the 46 cents a share that Wall Street expected.

Shares of Netflix jumped 10% after-hours immediately after the news and continued their run in premarket trading on Tuesday.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings isn't comfortable with the huge stock run-up, however. On a post-earnings conference call with analysts, he said Netflix thinks "momentum investors" are "driving the price more than we like normally" -- but that it's out of the company's control.

Subscriber growth and original content: Hastings was happier with Netflix's third-quarter subscriber growth, which also impressed. Netflix added nearly 1.3 million new American subscribers during the third quarter, near the top range of the 690,000-1.49 million range the company predicted in July.

International subscriber growth was even more striking: 1.44 million new overseas streaming customers. That pushed Netflix above the 40 million subscriber mark for the first time. But Netflix warned of a surge in free-trial signups in Latin America that artificially boosted the international additions figure.

In order to continue that user-base growth, Netflix has spent years transforming itself into not only a purveyor of other studios' content, but a creator of original content as well.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and other company executives have repeatedly said Netflix "wants to become HBO faster than HBO can become Netflix." (HBO is owned by CNNMoney parent company Time Warner (TWX).)

Related story: RIP television, hello mobile gaming

That original-content strategy has included a new season of "Arrested Development," a U.S. remake of "House of Cards," and -- most notably -- the new series "Orange is the New Black." Netflix called the comedy-drama "one of the most critically well received TV shows of 2013" and said it will end the year as Netflix's most watched original series to date.

Three of those original series netted Netflix a total of 14 Emmy nominations and three wins (all for "Cards") this year, but some analysts are still concerned about Netflix's mounting costs. The company reportedly spent $100 million producing and shooting two seasons of "House of Cards," the first of which was released in February.

Netflix appears unfazed by that criticism. The company said it expects to double its spending on original content in 2014. Content chief Ted Sarandos said on the earnings call that the company is actively looking for documentaries to debut on Netflix and will keep an open mind about feature films -- but Netflix still isn't interested in airing sports.

Meanwhile, the content licensing side of Netflix's business is also expensive. Studios have demanded more money for their content as rival services proliferate: Amazon (AMZN), Hulu and Redbox (OUTR) are only a handful of the competitors. Premium channels like HBO and CBS' (CBS) Showtime are also expanding their streaming offerings.


Baton-wielding and helmeted police have clashed with tens of thousands of protesters taking part in a demonstration against Monday's inauguration of Vladimir Putin, Russia's president-elect, arresting at least 400 in Moscow.

Those arrested on Sunday included Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption crusader, liberal leader Boris Nemtsov and ultra-left wing activist Sergei Udaltsov.

The three men are key leaders of the nascent protest movement against Putin, who served as president and prime minister before he was re-elected in March.

Police said they detained the protesters after they threw stones and water bottles at officers and blamed the violence on opposition leaders who attempted to stage a sit-in protest in the middle of the crowd.

Earlier, reports said at least 20,000 opposition protesters took part in the demonstration, which had been billed as a "March of Millions".

The protesters marched shouting "enough lies" while helmeted police, using batons, beat back dozens of mostly young protesters at the event across the river from the Kremlin.

The turnout appeared smaller than most of the winter's unprecedented wave of protests, some of which attracted crowds estimated at 100,000 or more.

National parliamentary elections were marred by fraud, but Putin won the vote easily and another round in March, returning to the Kremlin seat he held in 2000-2008.

Some of the demonstrators acknowledged that Putin's election win and his inauguration have been a blow to morale.

"It's true that some have been disappointed," said Yuri Baranov, a 46-year-old information technology specialist. But "the most important thing is that people have awakened".

Others admitted some doubts about whether the protests would spur any long-term change.

"I would like to think that our voice will be heard, but I am not totally sure of this," said Yelena Karpsova, 47, who came to the rally from Tula, about 200km south of Moscow.

Rival demonstrations

Supporters of the ex-KGB spy meanwhile planned to hold a gathering with some 50,000 people.

A senior city official said Putin's group did not need permission to bring out such large numbers onto a public square because "what they will be having is not a rally or a march or a protest".

"It will be a mass cultural event," Alexei Mayarov, a Moscow regional security department head, told Russian news agencies.

"What is important is there is still a constituency, and the most modernised constituency in Russia, that does not see Putin as a desired president" - Maria Lipman, political analyst

Organisers said the demonstration along a main Moscow thoroughfare towards Bolotnaya Square opposite the river from the Kremlin was to conclude with a meeting that city authorities officially limited to 5,000 people.

"It's called the march of millions and I suspect they wish they had not named it that name because it's going to be interesting to see just how many people do turn up to this protest," Al Jazeera's Sue Turton reported from Bolotnaya Square.

"They have got permission for 5,000 people to congregate in Bolotnaya Square, but the march starts further across Moscow and then they will walk here and then congregate and later on ... move to another square next to the Kremlin and have some sort of sit in overnight until the inauguration.

"Now we don't even know how many people would contemplate doing that. There has definitely been a wane in the momentum of the protest movement," she said.

Maria Lipman, a political analyst from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Al Jazeera from Moscow: "The rally that has been authorised implies that 5,000 will take part. Maybe more can be expected, however not the many tens of thousands that we saw in Moscow streets and squares in December, February and March."

Protests 'on decline'

"The mass protests are maybe losing momentum and may be on decline, however what is important is there is still a constituency, and the most modernised constituency in Russia, that does not see Putin as a desired president.

"I think that part of society will not reconcile to the fact that Putin holds power for the next six years, and we may see more eruptions of discontent in the following years over various kinds of developments," she said.

Putin's return to the presidency will technically give him greater powers than he previously wielded as prime minister.

He has dismissed the allegations that widespread fraud helped him win the presidential election and secured victory for his United Russia party in a parliamentary poll in December.

The inauguration ceremony will include a booming 30-gun salute and a special blessing from Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill.


School crossing patrollers, public toilets, community centres and libraries are all under threat in a savage council savings plan that has caused a senior Tory councillor to quit the party.

Speyside Glenlivet member and planning committee chairman Walter Wilson dramatically walked away from the party yesterday following a row with colleagues.

The shock departure came as it emerged that council chiefs are looking at mothballing every community centre and public toilet in Moray, along with every library other than Elgin.

It is understood that the ruling group is also examining plans to axe every lollipop man and woman at schools.

Councillor Wilson branded his former allies “right wing extremists” as he accused them of sacrificing public safety in the penny-pinching drive.

But last night the Tories fired back, saying Mr Wilson had balked at making tough decisions and questioned whether he belonged in politics.

Mr Wilson said: “I am no longer a Conservative, which was a tough decision to make.

“But I couldn’t just sit there and listen to extreme right-wing views, and it all came to a head when my colleagues were discussing what they wanted to cut.

“It felt like Speyside Glenlivet was going to be badly affected, and it led to a big argument and some irreconcilable differences.

“I just said that was it, I couldn’t vote for a budget like that.

“There are a core of right-wing extremists who have made life difficult for some of the Conservatives in the group and the Independent members of the administration.”

Mr Wilson was one of eight Conservatives elected in May’s council elections, who later formed a coalition administration with six independent members.

Local authority leader George Alexander last night confirmed that a series of “unpalatable” cuts is expected to be made public next month.

The independent councillor said: “None of these cuts have been decided but we will make our proposals public in December and I don’t think that will be a nice Christmas present for people.

“Mr Wilson is the first councillor to balk at having to do this, but we were all aware of how unpleasant a task balancing the budget would be.”

Mr Wilson said he was horrified when colleagues suggested ward constituents affected by a change in road gritting “could just move house”.

He added: “Those are the kind of views I was trying to go up against.”

Conservative councillor for Fochabers Lhanbryde, Marc Macrae, said the remark in question was a “flippant” one which Mr Wilson had overreacted to.

He added: “It has started to get hot and Mr Wilson has left the kitchen, you need to have a thick skin in politics.

“This will be a tough budget for Moray, but no ward will be disproportionately affected and we will consult on the proposed cuts.

“I’m disappointed in Mr Wilson, I would question whether politics is for him.”

Mr Wilson – who is still owed thousands after his former employer went bust – will suffer a £10,000 pay cut as a result.

He said he hoped to continue as an independent but would “listen to constituents if they feel that I should resign my position”.

Moray MSP Richard Lochhead said Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson should launch an inquiry into the group.

The SNP representative said: “The extraordinary resignation of a councillor due to the repugnant and extremist views of his colleagues lifts the lid on the ugly politics at the heart of Moray Conservative Party

“Many local people will be troubled that some of the elected representatives who run Moray Council are deemed to be extremists by a colleague who sat in meeting after meeting with them behind closed doors and has now decided he simply can’t stomach their vile views any longer.”


Large lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada

For the lake in Alberta, Canada, see Lesser Slave Lake

The Great Slave Lake (French: Grand lac des Esclaves) is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada (after Great Bear Lake), the deepest lake in North America at 614 metres (336 fathoms; 2,014 ft),[1] and the tenth-largest lake in the world. It is 469 km (291 mi) long and 20 to 203 km (12 to 126 mi) wide.[2] It covers an area of 27,200 km2 (10,502 sq mi)[1] in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from 1,070 km3 (260 cu mi)[4] to 1,580 km3 (380 cu mi)[1] and up to 2,088 km3 (501 cu mi)[5] making it the 10th or 12th largest.

The lake shares its name with the First Nations peoples called Slavey of the Dene family by their enemies the Cree. Towns situated on the lake include Yellowknife, Hay River, Behchokǫ̀, Fort Resolution, Łutselk'e, Hay River Reserve, Dettah, and Ndilǫ. The only community in the East Arm is Łutselk'e, a hamlet of about 350 people, largely Chipewyan Indigenous peoples of the Dene Nation and the now abandoned winter camp/Hudson's Bay Company post, Fort Reliance. Along the south shore, east of Hay River is the abandoned Pine Point Mine and the company town of Pine Point.

History [ edit ]

Indigenous peoples were the first settlers around the lake after the retreat of glacial ice. Archaeological evidence has revealed several different periods of cultural history, including: Northern Plano Paleoindian tradition (8,000 years before present), Shield Archaic (6,500 years), Arctic small tool tradition (3,500 years), and the Taltheilei Shale Tradition (2,500 years before present). Each culture has left a distinct mark in the archaeological record based on type or size of lithic tools.[6]

Great Slave Lake was put on European maps during the emergence of the fur trade towards the northwest from Hudson Bay in the mid 18th century. The name 'Great Slave' came from the Slavey Indians, one of the Athapaskan tribes living on its southern shores at that time. The name was influenced by Cree disdain for this rival tribe, with whom they shared a sordid history. As the French explorers dealt directly with the Cree traders, the large lake was referred to as "Grand lac des Esclaves" which was eventually translated into English as "Great Slave Lake".[7]

British fur trader Samuel Hearne explored Great Slave Lake in 1771 and crossed the frozen lake, which he named Lake Athapuscow. In 1897-1898, the American frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones traveled to the Arctic Circle, where his party wintered in a cabin that they had constructed near the Great Slave Lake. Jones's exploits of how he and his party shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near Great Slave Lake was verified in 1907 by Ernest Thompson Seton and Edward Alexander Preble when they discovered the remains of the animals near the long abandoned cabin.[8]

In the 1930s, gold was discovered on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake, leading to the establishment of Yellowknife which would become the capital of the NWT. In 1960, an all-season highway was built around the west side of the lake, originally an extension of the Mackenzie Highway but now known as Yellowknife Highway or Highway 3. On January 24, 1978, a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, named Kosmos 954, built with an onboard nuclear reactor fell from orbit and disintegrated. Pieces of the nuclear core fell in the vicinity of Great Slave Lake. 90% of the nuclear debris was recovered by a joint Canadian Armed Forces and United States Armed Forces military operation called Operation Morning Light.[9]

Geography and natural history [ edit ]

Mackenzie River drainage basin showing Great Slave Lake's position in the Western Canadian Arctic

The Hay, Slave, Lockhart, and Taltson Rivers are its chief tributaries. It is drained by the Mackenzie River. Though the western shore is forested, the east shore and northern arm are tundra-like. The southern and eastern shores reach the edge of the Canadian Shield. Along with other lakes such as the Great Bear and Athabasca, it is a remnant of the vast glacial Lake McConnell.

The lake has a very irregular shoreline. The East Arm of Great Slave Lake is filled with islands, and the area is within the proposed Thaydene Nene National Park Reserve. The Pethei Peninsula separates the East Arm into McLeod Bay in the north and Christie Bay in the south. The lake is at least partially frozen during an average of eight months of the year.

The main western portion of the lake forms a moderately deep bowl with a surface area of 18,500 km2 (7,100 sq mi) and a volume of 596 km3 (143 cu mi). This main portion has a maximum depth of 187.7 m (616 ft) and a mean depth of 32.2 m (106 ft).[10] To the east, McLeod Bay ( ) and Christie Bay ( ) are much deeper, with a maximum recorded depth in Christie Bay of 614 m (2,014 ft)[1]

On some of the plains surrounding Great Slave Lake, climax polygonal bogs have formed, the early successional stage to which often consists of pioneer black spruce.[11]

South of Great Slave Lake, in a remote corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, is the Whooping Crane Summer Range, a nesting site of a remnant flock of whooping cranes, discovered in 1954.[12]

Bodies of water and tributaries [ edit ]

Rivers that flow into Great Slave Lake include (going clockwise from the community of Behchokǫ̀);[13][14]

Emile River

Snare River

Wecho River

Stagg River

Yellowknife River

Beaulieu River

Waldron River

Hoarfrost River

Lockhart River

Snowdrift River

La Loche River

Thubun River

Terhul River

Taltson River

Slave River

Little Buffalo River

Buffalo River

Hay River

Mosquito Creek

Duport River

Marian Lake

North Arm

Yellowknife Bay

Resolution Bay

Deep Bay

McLeod Bay

Christie Bay

Sulphur Cove

Presqu'ile Cove

Rocher River

Frank Channel

Ice road [ edit ]

Great Slave Lake has one ice road known as the Dettah ice road. It is a 6.5 km (4.0 mi) road that connects the Northwest Territories capital of Yellowknife to Dettah, a small First Nations fishing community also in the Northwest Territories. To reach the community in summer the drive is 27 km (17 mi) via the Ingraham Trail.

April 28, 2012 on Yellowknife Bay. The surface melt begins to make transportation more difficult to and from the houseboats near Jolliffe Island.

Ice Lake Rebels [ edit ]

From 2014 to 2016, Animal Planet aired a documentary series called Ice Lake Rebels. It takes place on Great Slave Lake, and details the lives of houseboaters on the lake.[15]

Gallery [ edit ]

Dettah ice road on Great Slave Lake

Utsingi Point (East Arm) on the eastern edge of the proposed Thaydene Nene National Park

Northern Bay, Great Slave Lake

Hay River, one of the tributaries of Great Slave Lake

Forest fires in northern Canada, southeast of Great Slave Lake

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

Canada. (1981). Sailing directions, Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River . Ottawa: Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans. ISBN 0-660-11022-9

. Ottawa: Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans. ISBN 0-660-11022-9 Gibson, J. J., Prowse, T. D., & Peters, D. L. (2006). "Partitioning impacts of climate and regulation on water level variability in Great Slave Lake." Journal of Hydrology . 329 (1), 196.

. 329 (1), 196. Hicks, F., Chen, X., & Andres, D. (1995). "Effects of ice on the hydraulics of Mackenzie River at the outlet of Great Slave Lake, N.W.T.: A case study." Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering . Revue Canadienne De G̐ưenie Civil. 22 (1), 43.

. Revue Canadienne De G̐ưenie Civil. 22 (1), 43. Kasten, H. (2004). The captain's course secrets of Great Slave Lake . Edmonton: H. Kasten. ISBN 0-9736641-0-X

. Edmonton: H. Kasten. ISBN 0-9736641-0-X Jenness, R. (1963). Great Slave Lake fishing industry . Ottawa: Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre. Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources.

. Ottawa: Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre. Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Keleher, J. J. (1972). Supplementary information regarding exploitation of Great Slave Lake salmonid community . Winnipeg: Fisheries Research Board, Freshwater Institute.

. Winnipeg: Fisheries Research Board, Freshwater Institute. Mason, J. A. (1946). Notes on the Indians of the Great Slave Lake area . New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology, Yale University Press.

. New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology, Yale University Press. Sirois, J., Fournier, M. A., & Kay, M. F. (1995). The colonial waterbirds of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories an annotated atlas. Ottawa, Ont: Canadian Wildlife Service. ISBN 0-662-23884-2


New Delhi: Noted jurist Ram Jethmalani, 94 on Saturday announced his retirement from over seven-decade-long career as advocate. He referred to the present status of governance as "calamity and said he would continue to fight corrupt politicians.

"I am here just to tell you I am retiring from the profession but I am taking on a new role as long as I am alive. I wish to combat the corrupt politicians that have been brought into the position of power and I hope the condition of India will take good shape," Jethmalani said.

Jethmalani alleged that the present NDA government has "let down" the nation like the previous UPA dispensation.

He was speaking at a function organised by apex bar body, the Bar Council of India, to felicitate new Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra.

"The country is not in a good shape. The previous and the current governments, both have let down the nation very badly. "It is the duty of the members of the bar and all good citizens to rise to this great calamity," he said adding that they should do their best to see that those in positions of power are shown the exit door as soon as possible.

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Saturday December 12, 2015

East Carolina: Duke offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery will be the next head coach at ECU, per Bruce Feldman.

East Carolina: Brady Hoke and Everett Withers were widely reported to be interviewing again today and we mentioned that there were whispers of a third potential candidate. We hear that Duke offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery is still be involved in the process.

Hanover College (D-III – IN): Franklin College offensive coordinator Matt Theobald has been named head coach at his alma mater.

Penn State: Fordham head coach Joe Moorhead will be Penn State’s offensive coordinator according to multiple reports.

Texas: Texas has officially announced Sterlin Gilbert as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach and Matt Mattox as offensive line coach/run game coordinator. Gilbert will earn $850,000 per year over a three-year contract; Mattox will make $550,000 a year over his three-year contract. Shawn Watson and Joe Wickline will not have their contracts renewed.

Tulsa: Quality control assistant/assistant offensive line coach Matt Bloesch has been promoted to offensive line coach. The Hurricane’s other open position will be filled after the Dec. 26 Independence Bowl.

Virginia: Bronco Mendenhall has added Ruffin McNeill as assistant head coach / inside linebackers. To recap, UVA retained Marques Hagans as receivers, added Ruffin and is bringing six assistants from BYU: Robert Anae (OC), Mark Atuaia (RBs), Jason Beck (QBs), Garret Tujague (OL), Nick Howell (DC) and Kelly Poppinga (STC).

Oklahoma State: We continue to hear that Gundy will fill Robby Discher’s special teams role in the same capacity. The hire is expected to be a grad assistant, not one of the nine full-time positions.

Georgia: Sources confirmed to us Pitt offensive coordinator Jim Chaney will be the offensive coordinator at Georgia. Sources also now have confirmed Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman will join him at Georgia.

Texas: It took the President of the University, the AD, the head football coach and others to go to Tulsa last night; but UT wound up getting their guys. Sterlin Gilbert is coming as offensive coordinator and Matt Mattox will be the new offensive line coach at UT.

Jackson State (FCS – MS): If Mississippi State’s Tony Hughes can’t get a deal done, sources tell FootballScoop that North Carolina Central head coach Jerry Mack could have further discussions with JSU.


Rep. David Schweikert David SchweikertThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race House Dems release 2020 GOP 'retirements to watch' for Ethics committee expanding investigation into GOP rep over finance questions MORE (R-Ariz.) on Thursday suggested that a lack of rhetorical discipline may be responsible for any appearance that President Trump attempted to obstruct a federal investigation.

"I'm at the point where we also have to be real careful from the standpoint that we have a president that's not from the political class," Schweikert said on NPR's "Morning Edition."

"The learning of the disciplined use of language and what certain words mean in our context — if you're not from this world, you may not have developed that discipline," he added.

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Schweikert's comments came after The Washington Post reported Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, signaling a major change in the federal investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

At issue is Trump's reported requests to top intelligence officials to downplay or shut down investigations involving his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

In a February meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, the president reportedly told the law enforcement official, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go." Trump abruptly fired Comey early last month amid the Russia probe.

Trump also reportedly pressed Dan Coats Daniel (Dan) Ray Coats58 ex-national security officials rebuke Trump over emergency declaration DNC unveils new security checklist to protect campaigns from cyberattacks Overnight Defense: Trump to leave 200 troops in Syria | Trump, Kim plan one-on-one meeting | Pentagon asks DHS to justify moving funds for border wall MORE, the director of national intelligence, and Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to publicly deny the existence of evidence suggesting collusion between his campaign and Russia.


Ed Davis was a popular player on some truly terrible Toronto Raptors teams from 2010 to 2013. An athletic big man that could rebound, block shots and finish around the rim, but wasn’t changing the fact his team couldn’t win. Traded away in a last ditch effort to save then President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo’s job, Davis has bounced from Memphis to the Lakers and is expected to decline his NBA minimum salary player option for next season to become an unrestricted free agent for the second time. So, should the rebounding challenged Raptors attempt to bring him back?

There are a lot of free agent big men available this year and Toronto has to make decisions on Amir Johnson, Tyler Hansbrough, Chuck Hayes and Greg Stiemsma before looking at the numerous possibilities available.

The issue with Davis in Toronto and elsewhere hasn’t been his production. His per 36 minute numbers have averaged right around 12.1 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 0.9 steals in each of his five NBA seasons with three different teams and his average minutes bouncing between 15 and 24. This past season in Los Angeles was his best season and the analytics looked good, but it really wasn’t out of line with what he’s done in the past and the old hard to shake ‘soft’ label continued to follow him.

SB Nation, Silver Screen and Roll, Free Agent Forecast: Ed Davis raises some all too familiar observations:

Jameson Miller: Davis has had a great year in limited minutes on an awful team, so valuing him accurately comes with all sorts of potential pitfalls and caveats. Trevor Lane: He is a fantastic player but his shortcomings limit his usefulness. His slim frame kills his effectiveness as a center by making it tough for him to stand his ground defensively against bigger players, while his complete lack of a jump shot makes it difficult to play him at power forward.

Davis has looked at his best on bad teams that were willing to give him minutes. What should concern his next team looking to invest more than the NBA minimum contract the Lakers handed to him is what happened in Memphis. The Grizzlies gave him a good look, but after January 2014 he only averaged 11 minutes per game interspersed with numerous DNPs. Then Memphis let him walk as a free agent at the end of the season.

The soon-to-be 26-year-old did average 8.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 1.2 blocks and 23.3 minutes while shooting an impressive 60.1 percent from the field with the Lakers – although 96 percent of his shots were within 10 feet of the rim. Davis has done enough to be noticed in a crowded field of free agent big men this summer and could be a nice addition off the bench in the right situation.

Toronto might be that situation – maybe. Ideally Davis would be playing beside a stretch-four/five with the physical presence needed to not get pushed around in the paint by bigger players, someone like the Raptors Patrick Patterson or Amir Johnson. It isn’t an easy call and Toronto may be able to find better options, but if Davis can convince Head coach Dwane Casey that he could help the Raptors rebound better, then there could be a role for him on the roster.

Davis should attract a little more attention in free agency this summer than he did in 2014 when he had little choice but to accept the Lakers minimal offer, but he really didn’t show any more potential this past season than he did when he was in Toronto. Davis’ agent still has a sales job to do in order to get his client a better deal. In the end it may come down to choosing between more money and a smaller role in a better/winning situation.

Stephen Brotherston covers the Toronto Raptors and visiting NBA teams at the Air Canada Centre and is a member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association.