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Tag: General News

  • The SF Giants extended Farhan Zaidi, and yes, it was the right move

    SAN FRANCISCO — The most significant news at the Giants’ introduction of Bob Melvin on Wednesday had nothing to do with the new manager.

    After all, we learned that he was coming back to the Bay yesterday.

    No, the most important bit of new information was that the Giants and director of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi have agreed on a new contract.

    That secret extension that’s been talked about for weeks? Well, it’s public now. The Giants have officially doubled down on the Zaidi era.

    For a fanbase that is becoming more radicalized against analytics by the day, extending Zaidi — not a real “baseball man” in so many fans’ eyes — will be treated with scorn.

    But the extension — which, like Melvin’s new deal, will run through the 2026 season — was necessary if San Francisco wants to be competitive this upcoming season.

    You don’t have to like it, but this deal had to be done.

    “We have full confidence in Farhan,” Giants chairman Greg Johnson said Wednesday “And for the stability of the organization, we’ve agreed in principle for a deal for Farhan through ’26, and we’ll announce that shortly.”

    When the Giants’ brass, led by Johnson, decided to let Zaidi fire manager Gabe Kapler on Sept. 29, they made it necessary to extend the team’s chief baseball officer.

    It would have been wholly untenable for Zaidi — entering a lame-duck 2024 — to spearhead not only a managerial search, but also a critical offseason that requires a roster shake-up.

    And even though the Bay area is home to Melvin and the Giants were, as he claimed Wednesday, his dream managerial job, there’s not much chance Melvin would have taken the San Francisco gig if Zaidi were in contractual limbo.

    By extending Zaidi and aligning his contract with Melvin’s, the Giants can show free agents, big and small, that the organization has a unified front.

    If you’re a Giants fan who dreams of landing Shohei Ohtani or any other top players this upcoming offseason, that’s crucial.

    Because if Melvin — who was looking to escape a toxic situation in San Diego — wasn’t going to come to San Francisco without organizational stability, why would a player like Ohtani with no ties to the area and plenty of viable suitors come?

    “I wouldn’t have signed here past him,” Melvin said, referring to Zaidi’s contract situation. “I did not want to go past him.”

    Zaidi told me Wednesday that he knew going into the managerial search that he knew he’d be around for as long as the manager he hired.

    “I would say that, yeah,” Zaidi said.

    “They’ve been going on for a while,” he said of his negotiations with the Giants. “We figured sort of lining it up with this search and announcing them together like we did today made sense for a number of reasons.”

    And while circumstance might have forced the Giants’ hand on this move, that isn’t to say this is bad.

    At least from the baseball side, the Giants’ organization is in a much better situation now than when Zaidi took over.

    Remember, when Zaidi was hired for the job, it was arguably the worst in baseball.

    Now, it has a quality farm system, payroll flexibility, and an outstanding, proven manager.

    This sort of progress cannot be overlooked or downplayed. Zaidi has achieved something in his time in charge.

    Source

  • INVESTIGATION: 9,000 Children Knocked Down In 2 Years As Public Schools Expose Students To Road Dangers

    9000-Children-Knocked-Down-In-2-Years-As-Public-Schools-Expose-Students-To-Road-Dangers

    It was 2 p.m. on Thursday, September 14, and the closing bell had just rung for students of Government Secondary School Garki, Area 8, Abuja. Students of the junior secondary school trooped out and lined the Kalem Salem Road just outside the gate.

    Some entered private vehicles belonging to their parents or hired for them, parked along the road, while some were seen boarding taxis. But dozens of other schoolchildren had to cross the busy road to the other side without anyone helping them. No Federal Road Safety Corps officials. No school security personnel. The students, some barely 11 years old, had to find their way home.

    After waiting for two oncoming vehicles to pass, Vincent Kolawole rushed across the road to avoid a car trying to beat the traffic light. He crossed the road successfully but his 11-year-old brother could not make the dash. He was left on the other side of the road, waiting for the right opportunity to cross.

    Kolawole waited anxiously by the side of the road for his brother to cross the ever-busy road, fear and apprehension in his eyes. He must have waited a while to ensure no vehicle was approaching from his left before launching across the road with his school bag strapped to his back. He crossed the first road, but as he made to cross the other road, a speeding taxi slammed the brakes, and the screeching sound forced other students and pedestrians to look in the boy’s direction. But he had already crossed over!

    Vincent Kolawole, student of Government Secondary School Garki, Area 8, Abuja, crossing the road.

    Kolawole and his brother come daily to the school from Piow, Jabi area of the city where they live with their parents—a distance of about 4 kilometres. He’s in senior secondary class two student while his brother is in the junior school. He told THE WHISTLER that what happened on the afternoon of September 14 was a regular occurrence because their parents could not afford to send a car to pick them up from school.

    They however get N500 daily for their transportation to and from school, which hardly takes them back home. They will have to trek about 250 metres to Area One roundabout, crossing two busy road intersections, to board a commercial vehicle heading their way. “Every day it’s like that sir,” he said, adding “When we’re coming to school, we also trek some distance before boarding Keke or taxi.”

    Public primary and secondary schools in Abuja have no transportation system for their pupils and students. Many schools have no single bus for students while those that have, have only one 16-seater.

    Kolawole’s school has only one bus which is not for the transportation of students. It’s only used to transport students when they’re going to events in which the school is participating. School administrators and teachers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) required authorization from the school boards to speak to the press on any issue.

    But many principals and teachers who spoke to THE WHISTLER on condition of anonymity lamented the situation, saying the government does not make any provision for transportation of students either to school or from school, stressing that there’s no provision for schools that even have one to maintain them.

    A good example is the Government Secondary School, Tudun Wada, located in Zone 4. It’s one of the largest schools in the FCT, having junior, senior secondary and a primary school. Once the school rings the closing bell by 1.30 pm, the students whose parents could not come to pick them up would troop out of the school and spill themselves on the busy roads passing in front and behind the school.

    Primary school pupils waiting to cross the road in Abuja

    When THE WHISTLER asked a senior teacher why the school had no transportation system for students, he giggled wryly before asking “Bus in a government school in Nigeria?” And while pointing at a rickety coastal bus, he added, “That’s the only bus the school has and it’s not in good condition. We only use it when there’s an important event involving our students.”

    When THE WHISTLER asked how a ten or eleven-year-old pupil registered in the school could come and go back home safely after school, he said the students usually leave in groups to their various locations with the eldest leading the rest. “He will just find a group of students going to your area and follow them, that’s what we encourage our students to do when they close from school because there’s nothing else we can do,” he said, with a tone of regret.

    The lack of a functional school transportation system exposes pupils and students to road dangers. According to data given to THE WHISTLER by the Federal Road Safety Corps, a total of 9,129 school children were involved in road accidents between 2021 and 2022, with the FCT, Kaduna, Bauchi and Jigawa States having the highest figures.

    In 2021, 213 school children were involved in car or keke accidents in Abuja. Five of them died as a result of the accident while the rest nursed different degrees of injuries. In that same year, Kaduna recorded the highest number of victims with 457 children involved out of which 49 were killed. Bauchi came next with 391 kids out of which 32 lost their lives. Bayelsa had the lowest figure for the year with 2 killed out of 8 victims.

    For 2022, Jigawa is highest with 354 victims out of which 27 died. It’s followed by Kaduna with 343 victims and 37 dead. FCT came next with a total of 313 victims of road accidents out of which 12 died. Imo State had the least with 13 victims and no death recorded.

    Road dangers for children do not appear to be a priority for education authorities in the country as no school in the nation’s capital has any arrangement that makes the students safe while coming to or leaving school premises.

    Government officials who spoke off-the-record to THE WHISTLER acknowledged the problem but blamed it on lack of funds. “We plan and work based on budgetary provisions and what is given to us,” said an official of the FCT Education Secretariat, while responding to findings by THE WHISTLER.

    Primary school pupils crossing the road in Abuja

    Patience Ossai, public relations officer of the FCT Universal Basic Education Board declined to comment on why schools have no transport system for students. She said only the chairman of the Board, Prof Abdullahi Mohammed, who was unavailable could speak on the issue.

    However, a member of the board told THE WHISTLER that the admission policy into junior and secondary schools in Abuja prioritized proximity to the residence of applicants. “We always advise parents to choose schools that are closest to their areas of residence to avoid this kind of situation that exposes the children to traffic dangers,” he said, adding that it is the reason that schools were established in all parts of FCT.

    LEA Primary School, Mambolo Street, Zone 6, Abuja, also has a secondary school arm. The school has no bus for students and the gate is thrown open at 1:30 p.m. when the closing bell rings. Parents drive in to pick up their children while some without cars walk in.

    Other Children with no one to pick them up are left to cross the busy Mambolo Street road that leads to Abuja Metropolitan Management Office and go home. While going home in groups of two or three pupils, they still have to cross the roads on their own, and at the mercy of motorists who are sometimes reluctant to release their legs from the accelerator.

    The Federal Capital Territory has 199 junior secondary schools and 502 primary schools.

    Source

  • Fact Check: President Joe Biden recently visited his Delaware beach home, but this photo was taken in August

    Rapper 50 Cent recently shared a photo of President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden lounging on the beach paired with an Oct. 20 Daily Mail headline: “Biden hits the beach with Congress in chaos.”

    “Hey Joe get the fvck up, we in trouble man,” 50 Cent wrote in the Oct. 22 post.

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    The Bidens departed The White House Oct. 20 for their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, according to the president’s public schedule. They returned Oct. 23. 

    But the photo in the Instagram post isn’t from that trip. It’s from Aug. 2.

    The Daily Mail caption says it shows the Bidens “reading and taking a nap on the beach during a trip to the shore in August.” 

    Video footage from the recent October trip shows the Bidens walking along the beach. 

    But we rate claims that the photo of the Bidens lounging on the beach was taken in October 2023 False.

     



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  • San Jose Sharks winger Alexander Barabanov out indefinitely

    San Jose Sharks forward Alexander Barabanov is out indefinitely with an upper-body injury, coach David Quinn said Wednesday.

    Barabanov was injured late in the third period of the Sharks’ 3-1 loss to the Florida Panthers. He was hit by a shot from Sharks winger Mike Hoffman in front of the Panthers’ net and knocked down by a Gustav Forsling cross-check to the back before he was landed on by Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

    Barabanov, 29, did not play the rest of the game as the Sharks fell to 0-5-1 on the season, marking the first time in team history that they’ve lost their first six games to start the year.

    “It’ll be a while,” Quinn said of Barabanov’s availability to San Jose Hockey Now in Tampa Bay, where the Sharks will play the Lightning on Thursday. “I don’t have a hard date, but it’ll be a while.”

    Barabanov had not scored a point yet this season but has largely been a top-six forward for the Sharks since he was acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs in April 2021. Prior to this season, he had 93 points in 147 games for San Jose as he averaged over 17 minutes of ice time.

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  • Fintiri Cancels Birthday Celebrations, Blames Economic Hardship

    Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri on Wednesday, said he is not disposed to celebrating his upcoming birthday on 27th October while his people are still facing challenges.

    The Governor said this in a press statement through Humwashi Wonosikou, his Chief Press Secretary, noting that he is sensitive to the hardships faced by the people as they grapple with the economic effects of the policy direction of the federal government.

    He said: “The solution to today’s new and complex challenges requires the strengthening and revitalization of an inclusive governance and policy direction which we are determined to pursue until every community is touched and nobody is left behind.”

    Fintiri therefore added that: “I am not disposed to celebrating while challenges stare the people in the face. I am a Governor who has human feelings and will not leave anything to chance until all Adamawa citizens are comfortable.”

    He rather requested that prayers be said on Friday in Mosques and in Churches on Sunday for peace and harmony in the land amid the challenges of fuel subsidy removal.

    He also cautioned citizens, friends and his associates to avoid lavish ceremonies with the aim of celebrating his birthday.

    Source

  • Fact Check: Guerra de Israel-Hamas: Cómo se esparcieron reportes no corroborados de bebés decapitados

    Nota del Editor: Este artículo contiene referencias y enlaces a imágenes y videos gráficos. 

    Las imágenes de muertes y destrucción en Israel y Gaza son abundantes, perturbadoras y muy reales. Al mismo tiempo, la desinformación sobre la guerra ha prosperado. 

    Han habido reportes verificados de que Hamas, el cual atacó a Israel el 7 de octubre, cometió violencia en contra de niños. Pero en particular una perturbadora declaración — de que militantes del grupo palestino decapitaron a docenas de bebes — ganó prominencia en los días despues de la masacre, y fue amplifacada en los niveles mas altos de los gobiernos estadounidenses e israelies. Este reporte sigue sin ser verificado. 

    Desde el ataque, la declaración ha sido ampliamente repetida por políticos incluyendo al Presidente Joe Biden, la representante republicana de Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, y la representante republicana de Nueva York, Elise Stefanik; medios de comunicación, como CNN, Fox News y el New York Post; oficiales israelíes, incluyendo la oficina del primer ministro; el actor Noah Schnapp y otros usuarios en las redes sociales con un gran número de seguidores.

    La devastación de la guerra se ha intensificado en los días subsecuentes. The Associated Press reportó el 20 de octubre que en Gaza, las autoridades de salud palestinas dijeron que al menos de 4,137 personas han sido asesinadas y más de 13,200 heridas — incluyendo más de 500 muertes en una explosión de un hospital. (Un informe de inteligencia estadounidense del 20 de octubre estimó la muerte de entre 100 a 300 personas en la explosion del hospital en Gaza).

    En Israel, al menos 1,400 personas han sido asesinadas y 4,500 heridas a la fecha del 20 de octubre. El número de muertos incluye a 32 estadounidenses. Y Hamas tomó a más de 200 personas como rehenes, reportó NBC News. 

    La violencia confirmada ya es lo suficientemente horrible. Así que, ¿por qué una declaración proveniente de una fuente dudosa sobre la decapitación de 40 bebés viajó a lo largo y ancho?

    Expertos en desinformación y el Medio Oriente señalaron la respuesta emocional provocada por la violencia contra niños, junto con la falta de confirmación por fuentes oficiales.

    “Porque es una declaración impactante … ha obtenido atención significativa así como también intentos de apoyo o refuta”, dijo Osamah Khalil, un profesor de historia en la Syracuse University especializándose en el Medio Oriente moderno y las políticas exteriores de Estados Unidos. 

    PolitiFact examinó el origen de la declaración y documentó cómo los políticos estadounidenses e israelíes y los medios la repitieron y luego se retractaron. 

    La declaración se originó con un reporte de campo

    La declaración de que Hamas decapitó a 40 bebés se remonta a los comentarios al aire de una reportera israeli.

    El 10 de octubre, tres días después del ataque de Hamas en el kibutz o comuna de Kfar Aza en el sur de Israel, las Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel, el ejército de la nación, permitió a medios de comunicación reportar desde el sitio devastado. La reportera Nicole Zedeck de i24 News, un canal de noticias israeli, dijo que soldados israelíes le dijeron que infantes habían sido asesinados en el ataque. 

    “El ejército israeli sigue diciendo que ellos no tienen un número claro (de las víctimas), pero estoy hablando con algunos de los soldados, y ellos dicen que lo que han presenciado es, ellos han estado caminando por las diferentes casas, estas diferentes comunidades — bebés, con sus cabezas cortadas. Eso es lo que ellos dijeron”, dijo Zedeck durante su transmisión en inglés desde Kfar Aza.

    También el 10 de octubre, Zedeck publicó en X que “uno de los comandantes me dijo que vieron cabezas de bebés cortadas”. Treinta y cinco minutos después, ella publicó de nuevo, diciendo “soldados me dijeron que ellos creen que 40 bebés/niños fueron asesinados”.

    Ella no dijo que Hamas decapitó a 40 bebés, pero varias publicaciones en las redes sociales tergiversaron esos informes.

    El 11 de octubre, medios de comunicación en los Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido, incluyendo The Independent, The Daily Mail, CNN, Fox News y el New York Post, repitieron las declaraciones de que Hamas había decapitado bebés, citando a medios israelíes o la oficina del primer ministro como fuentes. 

    En Telegram el 11 de octubre, Hamas desestimó “las declaraciones falsas promovidas por algunos medios de comunicación occidentales, como los palestinos luchadores por la libertad asesinando niños y atacando a civiles”, sin mencionar específicamente decapitaciones.

    Sin embargo, la evidencia cuestiona la amplia refutación de Hamas: mujeres, niños y adultos mayores estaban entre los miles asesinados o heridos en el ataque sorpresa del grupo militante, reportaron ABC News y The New York Times. Múltiples medios de comunicación reportaron que mujeres estaban entre las personas secuestradas por Hamas. 

    El grupo militante “ha dicho repetidamente que ellos no atacan o asesinan intencionalmente a mujeres y niños”, a pesar de la evidencia abrumadora contradiciendo estas declaraciones, dijo Khalil. 

    Oficiales israelíes y estadounidenses repitieron la declaración, después se distanciaron

    Líderes políticos, primero en Israel, y después en Estados Unidos, le dieron credibilidad a las declaraciones de decapitación tempranamente. Pero oficiales después enmendaron sus declaraciones, lo que incrementó la confusión.  

    El 11 de octubre, un vocero del primer ministro israeli, Benjamin Netanyahu le dijo a CNN que bebes y niños fueron encontrados en Kfar Aza con sus “cabezas decapitadas”. La siguiente mañana, CNN reportó que el gobierno israeli no podía confirmar la declaración de que Hamas decapitó bebés, contradiciendo la declaración anterior de la oficina del primer ministro. 

    Biden también repitió la declaración durante una mesa redonda el 11 de octubre con líderes judios, diciendo, “Yo nunca pensé que iba a ver y a confirmar imágenes de terroristas decapitando a niños”.

    Pero Biden no había visto, ni recibido confirmación de que Hamas decapitó a bebés o niños, le dijo más tarde la Casa Blanca a CNN. Biden se estaba refiriendo a los comentarios públicos de medios de comunicación y oficiales israelíes. 

    Biden fue más cuidadoso en sus comentarios del 18 de octubre en Israel: “Niños masacrados. Bebés masacrados. Familias enteras masacradas. Violación, decapitaciones, cuerpos quemados vivos”.

    Netanyahu dijo durante las visitas del Secretario de Estado Antony Blinken y Biden a Israel que Hamas decapitó a personas, pero Netanyahu no dijo si las víctimas eran infantes. 

    La oficina del primer ministro israeli compartio el 12 de octubre fotos de bebés que dijo que fueron “asesinados y quemados” por Hamas. La publicación no mostró decapitaciones. 

    Blinken dijo que le mostraron documentación de “un infante acribillado con balas, soldados decapitados, y personas jóvenes quemadas vivas”, durante su visita del 12 de octubre. 

    Cuando le preguntaron sobre la autenticidad de las imágenes de los niños muertos que Netanyahu compartió, el vocero del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional de la Casa Blanca John Kirby dijo el 12 de octubre, “Yo no pienso que estamos en el negocio de tener que validar o aprobar esos tipos de imágenes. Estas son del primer ministro de Israel y no tenemos razón de dudar de su autenticidad”. 

    La reportera de i24 dijo que la declaración vino de soldados israelíes, pero las Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel no habían confirmado cuántos bebés o niños fueron asesinados o si alguno fue decapitado. El 12 de octubre, un vocero de la Fuerza de Defensa de Israel le dijo a PolitiFact que el ataque en Kfar Aza fue “una masacre en la cual mujeres, niños, y niños pequeños y ancianos fueron brutalmente masacrados en una forma de acción de ISIS”. 

    Como la declaración se volvió tan omnipresente

    La velocidad a la que la información fue compartida siguiendo los ataques de Hamas, ampliamente superaron la habilidad de los periodistas e investigadores de verificar o hacer preguntas sobre lo que sucedió. 

    “Está todo atado a la falta de información confiable certificada”, dijo Dina Sadek, Mideast research fellow para el laboratorio de investigación forense digital del Atlantic Council. “(Le) deja a las personas especular y creer un montón de cosas que ellos están viendo en el Internet antes de esperar por una confirmación oficial”.

    La declaración de las decapitaciones se rastrea a una reportera que dijo que ella estaba transmitiendo relatos de primera mano de los soldados. Pero otros periodistas en Kfar Aza, incluyendo Oren Ziv de +972 Magazine, la cual cubre a Israel y Palestina, y Samuel Forey del medio de comunicación francés, Le Monde, dijeron que sus reportes no corroboran este informe. 

    Durante el tour a través de Kfar Aza, Ziv dijo que él no vio evidencia de que Hamas había decapitado a bebés, “y un portavoz del ejército y comandantes tampoco mencionaron esos incidentes”, el público en X. Ziv dijo que periodistas en Kfar Aza estaban permitidos a hablar con cientos de soldados sin supervisión del equipo de comunicación de las Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel.

    Similarmente, Forey dijo, “Nadie me dijo sobre las decapitaciones, mucho menos de niños decapitados, ni mucho menos de 40 niños decapitados”. Forey dijo que el personal de servicios de emergencia con quien él habló, no habían visto cuerpos decapitados. (Las publicaciones de Forey en X fueron traducidas del francés al español).

    Dada la pesadez y polarización de este tema, Khalil, el profesor de la Syracuse University, advirtió que “todas las declaraciones y negaciones deberían ser tratadas con escepticismo y verificadas lo más posible”. 

    Este artículo fue escrito originalmente en inglés y traducido por Maria Briceño.

    Read this article in English.

    Lea más reportes de PolitiFact en Español aquí.

    _______________________________________________

    Debido a limitaciones técnicas, partes de nuestra página web aparecen en inglés. Estamos trabajando en mejorar la presentación.



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  • Bob Melvin introduced as SF Giants’ manager: ‘A surreal moment’

    SAN FRANCISCO — In Gabe Kapler’s four years here, he came to enjoy nights when the moon was full. From his perch in the third-base dugout, its glow would slowly rise over the brick wall in right field, catching the attention of the former Giants manager. It’s a vantage point inaccessible from the visitor’s dugout along the first base line, so Bob Melvin was always left to his imagination.

    And, yes, the Menlo Park-raised, Berkeley-educated former Giants catcher admitted Wednesday morning, it did cross his imagination. He thought about the possibility of one day occupying the home dugout as he ran the stadium stairs before the first game of his teams’ series here. He slid down the slide in the Coca Cola bottle beyond left field, at least until they roped it off, dreaming about the chance to do it 81 times a year.

    “At least once every time I was here,” Melvin said, taking in that view beyond the right field wall from the suite level above third base, McCovey Cove’s blue waters glistening under the morning sun. He could admit it now because on Wednesday it became a reality. The 61-year-old Bay Area native was introduced by president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and chairman Greg Johnson as the club’s 39th manager, the 17th in its San Francisco-era history.

    “It’s kind of a surreal moment for me,” he said. “Talk about full circle. To me this isn’t something as a kid I could even dream of.”

    Melvin signed a three-year contract, pairing him through 2026 with Zaidi, whose contract that was set to expire after 2024 was extended for two more years. He was the top choice all along. They interviewed only five candidates, speaking informally to a few others, Zaidi said. Melvin had one year left on his contract in San Diego and only met with Zaidi for the first time last week, after the Padres granted permission, which Zaidi said the Giants weren’t sure would come.

    “Obviously we were following Bob’s situation from afar,” Zaidi said, noting that it took “a couple productive conversations” with Padres general manager A.J. Preller last week to hammer out the details. Ultimately, the Padres requested no compensation from the Giants.

    Zaidi described Melvin as a “natural fit” and “the perfect manager and the perfect leader for this organization right now,” citing their existing relationship from four years together in Oakland as “so secondary” to Melvin’s 20 years of managerial experience and his sterling reputation among players.

    A three-time manager of the year, Melvin arrives with a 1,517-1,425 (.516) managerial record between Seattle, Arizona, Oakland and San Diego. But in 2023, his second season with the Padres, the star-studded roster missed the postseason and needed to win 14 of its final 16 games to finish a game above .500.

    While thanking the Padres for being “flexible and accommodating,” Zaidi said that “Bob’s track record as a manager speaks for itself. … When you’re going through this process, you’re looking at the totality of someone’s career, their leadership, their characteristics. You’re not looking at recency bias or what happened over one season.”

    Melvin, who was reported to be feuding with Preller, said he “didn’t want to get too much into the San Diego situation.”

    “I really enjoyed my time there. Some things transpired last year in a difficult year for the team with high expectations,” he said. “There was a narrative at the end that probably wasn’t going to go away with me being on the last year of my contract. … It was time to move on.”

    Despite that, Melvin said, the Giants job “was probably the only (opportunity) I would have listened to.”

    Growing up in Menlo Park, where he was a two-sport star at Menlo-Atherton, Melvin fell in love with Bay Area sports. He rooted on the Giants and the A’s, the 49ers and the Raiders, Cal and Stanford, and the Warriors. “I was into it all,” he said. Turning pro in 1981, his playing career eventually brought him back home, where he was a backup catcher for Roger Craig’s “Humm Baby” clubs for three years, from 1986-88.

    Melvin joked that he “didn’t play a ton and was in the bullpen quite a bit” but said that Craig, who died earlier this year year at the age of 93, “was the guy who made me watch the game like a manager.” Along the way, Melvin picked up old-school instincts from Phil Garner, the manager who gave him his first job on a major-league coaching staff, as the Brewers’ bench coach in 1999, and Sal Bando, the reason why Melvin wears No. 6 (and, sorry Casey Schmitt, will continue to in San Francisco).

    Zaidi previously acknowledged that the Giants would have to “rethink everything,” but that doesn’t mean discarding analytics or matchup-based baseball, which Zaidi pointed out has been on display in the postseason. Melvin gained an appreciation for blending numbers with feel in Oakland, where he first met Zaidi and, to the chagrin of his new boss, named Billy Beane as one of his biggest influences in helping him evolve into a modern manager.

    Zaidi said Melvin “has my complete trust” in managing relationships and strategies. And while there is a desire within the organization to add more star power and stability to the lineup, Melvin played the matchups with the A’s and experienced managing against the platoon-oriented Giants first-hand the past two seasons as a foe in the NL West.

    “When I set up my lineup card every day, it usually takes around 45 minutes or so,” Melvin said. “It always took over an hour to set it up against the Giants.

    “I think the personnel here is terrific. I know we’re talking about making some moves and enhancing the team. But a couple years ago, this was a team that won 107 games and it’s operating the way it did then.”

    On the subject of enhancing the team, the Giants are counting on Melvin to be what Zaidi deemed an “effective recruiter.”

    The Giants should have about $80 million at their disposal before they hit the first luxury tax threshold. Asked about exceeding the $237 million limit, which comes with financial and draft penalties, Johnson, the club chairman, scoffed at the idea of exceeding it for more than an occasional year.

    With Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jung-hoo Lee headlining the free-agent class, Melvin touted his past experience with Pacific Rim players, which includes Ichiro Suzuki, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Shigatoshi Hasagawa with the Mariners, Hideki Matsui with the A’s, and Yu Darvish and Ha-Seong Kim with the Padres.

    Melvin has also managed some of the top domestic players in the free-agent class, including left-hander Blake Snell and third baseman Matt Chapman.

    Source

  • DSS Frees Bawa After Spending 134 Days In Custody

    Abdulrasheed-Bawa

    The Department of State Services has freed the embattled ex-Economic and Financial Crimes Commission boss, Abdulrasheed Bawa, after exactly 134 days spent in the custody of the secret police.

    Bawa was released from the national headquarters of the secret police, in Abuja, on Wednesday night.

    He was arrested and detained by the DSS on June 14, 2023, following an invite over undisclosed reasons, after he visited President Bola Tinubu earlier on the same day.

    Following Bawa’s arrest on June 14, 2023, he was being probed for alleged financial impropriety during his active years in the anti-graft agency.

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  • Fact Check: Wisconsin’s abortion restrictions may have role in decline in applications to OB-GYN programs

    Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin leaders made waves in mid-September when they announced that the organization would resume abortion services. 

    Abortions had been unavailable in Wisconsin since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, reverting the state back to an 1849 law that was widely interpreted as banning the procedure in nearly all cases. 

    This past July, a Dane County judge signaled that she did not believe the 1849 law referred to consensual abortions, but instead to feticide, in which a non-consensual act causes a fetus to die. Planned Parenthood, which provides a variety of sexual and reproductive health care services, pointed to that as evidence that Wisconsin does not have an enforceable abortion ban. 

    Groups that support abortion rights were quick to praise Planned Parenthood’s decision. That included Opportunity Wisconsin, which describes itself as a coalition of Wisconsin residents fighting for economic equity. 

    In a Sept. 14, 2023 press release, the group applauded the access Wisconsinites will once again have to abortion and focused on the health impacts of the past year-plus, when that access was limited. 

    “The repeal of Roe v. Wade has exacerbated the state’s OB-GYN shortage as residency programs report a decline in enrollment due to the inability of residents to receive training in-state,” the release stated. 

    Is the decline in enrollment a direct consequence of Wisconsin’s abortion restrictions? And has it exacerbated the shortage?

    Let’s dig in.

    Wisconsin’s OB-GYN residency applications did dip in last cycle 

    We’ll break things down step by step, starting with the first portion of the claim. 

    First, Wisconsin does have a documented shortage of doctors that specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, particularly in rural areas – a trend that existed prior to Roe’s overturn. Forty-four percent of the state’s rural hospitals don’t provide obstetric services, according to a 2019 report from the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health. 

    And the state’s OB-GYN residency programs did report a recent decline in enrollment. An April 13, 2023 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Research and Action Institute found that Wisconsin’s OB-GYN residency programs saw a 7.8% decrease in 2022-23 from the previous application cycle. 

    The report found that the decrease in OB-GYN applicants was highest in states with complete abortion bans (a decline of 10.5%) and lowest in states without abortion restrictions (a decline of about 5.3%). 

    There are three places in Wisconsin that have OB-GYN residencies: UW Health in Madison, and Aurora Sinai Medical Center and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. 

    A UW Health spokesperson reported a roughly 2.5% decline in applicants to their program in 2023. An Aurora spokesperson declined to share their applicant trend, and spokespeople for the residencies at the Medical College of Wisconsin did not respond to a request for the information.

    What’s the connection between OB-GYN residency programs and abortion? Those programs are required to teach students how to perform a procedure commonly known as a D&C, which is used to diagnose and treat certain uterine conditions or to clear the uterine lining after a miscarriage or an abortion. Not providing that training could cause the programs to lose accreditation.

    Last year, the Journal Sentinel reported that OB-GYN residents at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Aurora Sinai Medical Center would travel out of state to receive training on the procedure because Wisconsin had halted abortions. 

    Link between abortion restrictions and application decline isn’t fleshed out

    But can we explicitly draw the connection between the state’s abortion ban and a decline in applicants to its OB-GYN residency programs? That’s where things get murky. 

    Fears from OB-GYNs and residency program directors nationwide on this issue are well-documented – in fact, when asked for evidence of the claim, an Opportunity Wisconsin spokesperson sent a litany of examples. 

    On Wisconsin Public Radio last October, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said it was “a real worry” to not be able to recruit and retain physicians in a state that doesn’t provide abortions. 

    A Medical College of Wisconsin doctor told PBS Wisconsin in August that “it’s nearly impossible to find doctors who are willing to go to states that have such hostile bans,” and that Wisconsin’s physician shortage could get worse because of that. 

    And a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in February surveyed more than 2,000 current and future physicians on social media and found that more than three-quarters of respondents “would not even apply to states with legal consequences for providing abortion care.” 

    Although signs seem to point to the claim being accurate, causation is harder to tease out – that is, that the decline in residency applications is a direct consequence of Wisconsin’s abortion rules. 

    In fact, the UW Health spokesperson said the hospital isn’t certain if its decrease in applications is an indication of a trend – though she noted that some applicants have asked about the 1849 law in their interviews. 

    Dr. Ellen Hartenbach, chair of the OB-GYN department at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, also told Wisconsin Health News in May that the university is uncertain if abortion restrictions caused this year’s decrease in applicants. 

    It’s worth noting that the report from the Association of American Medical Colleges’ think tank report found that the number of medical school graduates who applied to residency positions during the 2022-23 application cycle decreased by about 2% from the previous year. So there was a small overall decrease, regardless of what states’ laws were regarding abortion.

    And since Roe’s overturn happened just over a year ago, there may need to be more years of documented decreases in residency applications to suss out a trend that can be explicitly linked to abortion restrictions, or one that directly results in worsening Wisconsin’s OB-GYN shortage.

    Our ruling 

    Opportunity Wisconsin claimed that Roe’s overturn – and the subsequent halt of abortions in Wisconsin – exacerbated the state’s OB-GYN shortage by driving medical school graduates away from residencies in the state. 

    Though the number of OB-GYN residents did decline, and there’s been significant speculation that abortion restrictions could have caused it, it doesn’t appear that the direct link is settled yet like Opportunity Wisconsin framed it. 

    And if there could be other reasons for the dip, that means it’s not yet clear whether the repeal of Roe exacerbated the shortage. It’s likely that more years of data will be needed to draw a conclusion. 

    Our definition of Half True is a statement that is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. 

    That fits here. 

     



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  • Auto workers and Ford reach tentative labor agreement

    By Vanessa Yurkevich and Chris Isidore | CNN

    Ford and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative labor deal, according to a person familiar with the matter. It is an important first step in ending the union’s unprecedented strike against three major US automakers.

    Neither Ford nor the UAW had an official announcement, but word of the deal is expected shortly.

    The agreement will not go into effect until the 57,000 UAW rank-and-file members at Ford ratify the deal, a process that is likely to take more than a week. And it will not mean an end to the strike at rivals General Motors and Stellantis. But it will step up pressure on those two automakers to reach their own deal with the union.

    The union has been on strike against all three automakers since September 15, the first time in its history that it has staged a simultaneous strike against the nation’s three unionized automakers. But it has not shut down all the operations of any of the automakers, instead staging targeted strikes against specific plants at all three.

    There are currently 16,600 UAW members on strike at three Ford assembly plants, including its largest, the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville. It is possible they could all stay on strike during the ratification process, or it is possible that the union could return to work while they vote on the deal.

    This is a developing story. It will be updated.

    Source