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USA Today
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Big 12 football helmets ranked before the 2025 season
Big 12 football helmets ranked before the 2025 season Where does Colorado's iconic black and gold rank? While other sports treat headwear designs as an afterthought, football is left alone as a sport that puts meaningful thought into the design of its helmets. From the ram horn design worn first by the Los Angeles Rams to the tiger stripes of the Cincinnati Bengals, this effort has created some of the most iconic looks in sports history. The Big 12 Conference is no exception to this rule and carries a strong history of exceptional helmets. So, after we ranked every team's home and away uniform sets, let's dive deeper and rank each of the conference's 16 helmets from worst to first. 16. Baylor Bears Baylor kicks off this list for two reasons: their interlocking lettering logo is boring, and the helmet does nothing to help save it. It's the first of many "this is just a logo on a plain color helmet" looks, which I carry disdain for. Baylor, please bring back the Sailor Bear logo full-time. 15. Houston Cougars Houston has a slightly more interesting interlocking letter logo, which moves them higher than Baylor, but this look is flat-out lame. The white facemask helps, but the program is in desperate need of a uniform refresh to breathe some new life into the football program. 14. West Virginia Mountaineers Another victim of having just their logo on their helmet, West Virginia gets points thanks to their color scheme and more iconic logo. The black facemask throws me for a loop, and the lack of a yellow stripe is disappointing. With so many better looks in their arsenal, like their logo in the state outline, it's just a travesty that the Mountaineers are subjected to this boring helmet. 13. Cincinnati Bearcats Once again, I am begging Cincinnati to do anything with their Bearcat name. While the logo is decent and the all-black look is sleek, this helmet is forgettable as they come. It does the job, but the wasted potential and lack of unique elements mean the Bearcats can't stack up against the rest of the Big 12. 12. Iowa State Cyclones Wow, another monochromatic helmet with just the school's logo, how daring of Iowa State. With as unique a name as Cyclones and the untapped Cardinal logo, looking at this helmet makes me sad. Merely changing the decal would do wonders for this helmet, as Iowa State's color scheme is enjoyable, but this logo isn't it. 11. BYU Cougars BYU has two white center stripes on its helmet, which immediately vaulted it above the rest of the helmets on this list. The bright blue from the shiny helmet and the flat white in the decals work like peanut butter and jelly, a rock-solid look. Much like peanut butter and jelly, though, this helmet isn't anything special, keeping the Cougars lower on the list. 10. Arizona Wildcats Arizona's helmet nails the perfect, most boring helmet of all time. The red, white, and blue work fantastically together, and the two-tone stripes are a welcome addition to match their main logo. The Wildcats fall victim to using their letter logo on the helmet as opposed to a more elaborate design, which they've proven capable of. 9. TCU Horned Frogs The Horned Frogs should be No. 1 on this list; their giant chrome Horned Frog helmet is right up my alley, but their current look is lackluster. The wordmark with the chrome Horned Frog logo is beautiful, but the matte purple helmet and black facemask don't pop and hurt the look overall. Until justice is done for what the school did to its look, nine is as high as this helmet can go. 8. UCF Knights As I said in my home uniform rankings, UCF excels at incorporating its Knights namesake into its uniform. The sword-shaped stripe is the cherry on top of a stellar helmet, which now sports a white UCF logo, giving their helmet a little more pop and definition than most others in the conference. 7. Texas Tech Red Raiders Texas Tech is the gold standard of interlocking logo helmets, with exceptional use of white to accentuate their menacing red and black look. The Red Raiders' use of a shiny black helmet and facemask makes this like the Death Star of Big 12 helmets, it's just cool. 6. Kansas State Wildcats The Wildcats rock a traditional look, which already gets points for being the first helmet on this list that doesn't feature a letter. The color scheme works perfectly to create an iconic and unique look for the school. The Wildcat logo does get a little lost without an outline, and I'll always advocate for more sailor hat logos to return, but this is a great helmet. 5. Utah Utes While it uses a letter, Utah's use of its "circle and feather" logo and its ties to the indigenous culture of the Utes keep this helmet ranked high. The use of red, black and white is common in the Big 12 but is done a bit differently here, which helps the helmet stand out above the rest. With the school beginning to lean toward its interlocking "UU" logo for most sports, this look might be gone soon, so let's appreciate it while it's here. 4. Arizona State Sun Devils Why Arizona State has opted to use its secondary pitchfork logo on its helmets continues to boggle my mind. Ditching the iconic look of Sparky the Sun Devil is a monumental mistake and hurts their ranking, but I'm not blind. The eye-catching yellow is still outstanding, and the pitchfork logo does enough to make this look distinct to keep it ranked high. 3. Oklahoma State Cowboys The world is a better place with more script helmets in it, and I appreciate Oklahoma State doing its part. The Cowboys' bright orange pairs beautifully with the western-esque type to create an outstanding helmet that instantly improves any uniform combination. This look pays homage to the past and plays into the culture of Oklahoma, I can't ask for much more. 2. Colorado Buffaloes The Colorado Buffalo logo does much of the heavy lifting for this helmet, but it's such an outstanding look. The shiny gold base allows the interlocking "CU" to shine behind the leaping Buffalo, giving the helmet some forward motion. Describing the helmet feels like poetry, it does everything a football helmet should do and more. 1. Kansas Jayhawks Kansas is one of the only schools in the Big 12 that embraces its goofy, stylized logo and I love this helmet for that reason. The Jayhawk is gigantic and truly one-of-a-kind; the look reminds me of what college sports are all about: passion and fun. Contact/Follow us @BuffaloesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook for ongoing coverage of Colorado news, notes and opinions.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Binghamton Men's Track and Field sends Johnson to NCAA Championships
VESTAL, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – At the collegiate level, one Binghamton Bearcat punched his ticket to the NCAA Championships in the 400 hurdles. Graduate student Marcus Johnson has punched his ticket to Eugene, Oregon, after finishing 7th overall in the NCAA East Region Meet. He ran it in a personal best 49.93. He is also the fifth male Bearcat ever to qualify for an NCAA Division I Track & Field Meet. Johnson had the fastest time of the finishers outside of the top three in their heat and posted the seventh-fastest time overall. He is the first Binghamton men's track & field athlete to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships since 2022. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Age
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Looking for something to read? Here are 10 new books
This week's book reviews range from a fictionalised account of a cult leader and cosy crime, to Tasmania's Indigenous past and a history (and possible future) of artificial intelligence. Happy reading! FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK This Is Not a Game Kelly Mullen Century, $34.99 You already know a book called This Is Not a Game will totally be a game, right? If you're not sleuth enough to work that out, sight unseen, Kelly Mullen's clever murder mystery might not be for you. It's a blackly funny take on the locked-room subgenre – the locked room in this case being a palatial abode on an island on Lake Huron (complete with drawbridge and moat), the guests trapped there in the middle of an epic snowstorm. Lusty, super-rich widow Jane Ireland has invited a diverse company for a charity auction, and she's stabbed to death before the night is out. Two of the guests – crotchety grandmother Mimi, and her granddaughter Addie – transform into an unlikely detective duo, unravelling a sordid web of taboo sex, intrigue and blackmail, sifting through an overabundance of suspects as clues and corpses mount. Mullen has created a ludic play on classic Agatha Christie-style crime fiction, more fun for being gossipy and backbiting and full of witty one-liners. The Bearcat delves into the formative years of notorious cult leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne, who led the Family, a cabal that followed a hodge-podge of Eastern religion and Christianity and believed Anne's claim to be the reincarnation of Jesus. Nonfiction accounts and documentaries have laid bare lurid details of child abuse – Anne illegally adopted children through the 1960s and '70s, dyed their hair peroxide blonde like hers and some were administered LSD as part of their indoctrination. Georgia Rose Phillips focuses on Anne – born Evelyn – as a girl and young woman, her own childhood in the 1920s and the traumatic experiences that drew her to harm others later in life. Phillips does have a gift for striking phrases and imagery, but there are gaps and inconsistencies in this reimagining that jar with what we know of the history. As a result, The Bearcat isn't entirely persuasive either as historical fiction or as a psychological portrait, though its subject is a fascinating and deeply disturbing figure. Everything Lost, Everything Found Matthew Hooton 4th Estate, $34.99 Memory rises and ebbs in this poignant novel spanning almost a century. Everything Lost, Everything Found follows Jack through an unusual childhood and seven decades later in old age. As a youth, he's drawn into the Brazilian Amazon during the rubber boom, following his parents to Henry Ford's rubber-tree plantation, where his mother dies in a tragic accident and Jack is forced to find his father in the jungle. Recollections of that time resurface unbidden when he's elderly and living in the rust belt in Michigan, Jack swimming in a surfeit of memories as his wife succumbs to dementia. Hooton's novel is an emotive and richly told tale of grief and loss, of family and the haunted halls of memory. I've spent time in the Brazilian Amazon myself, and the evocation of its wild beauty and perils, and the dark industrial history now half-swallowed by nature, is vivid and accurate, adding an exotic layer to this free-flowing and immersive book. The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran Shida Bazyar (trans. Ruth Martin) Scribe, $29.99 Set over four decades – with sections in 1979, the year of the Iranian Revolution, and every 10 years until the Green Movement protests in 2009 – this novel portrays an Iranian family forced to leave their homeland, capturing a spirit of political resistance as much as the struggle to adapt to life as refugees. It begins with Behsad, an idealistic young communist revolutionary who wants the Shah deposed as much as anyone. He fights for his beliefs and falls in love with the intelligent, equally brave Nahid. Ten years later, Nahid takes up the story from West Germany, having fled when the mullahs seized power. A return to Tehran in 1999 focuses on Nahid's daughter Laleh, her reconnection with a birthplace she misremembers and a family history full of secrets, and finally, there's Laleh's brother, Mo, energised by witnessing the wave of Iranian protests a decade later. Shida Bazyar captures the contradictions of her characters and their predicament with clarity and poise, giving complex and emotionally layered perspectives on exile and return. A Shipwreck in Fiji Nilima Rao Echo, $32.99 A Shipwreck in Fiji is the second in Nilima Rao's series of historical mystery novels set in Fiji in the early 20th century. It follows Sergeant Akal Singh, an unwilling Indian transplant, on his latest adventure. He's been dragooned into investigating reports of Germans – a very long way from the battlefields of World War I – on the island of Ovalau, accompanied by Constable Taviti Tukana, who'll be visiting his uncle, a powerful tribal chief. They're to act as chaperone to two venturesome European sightseers, Mary and Katherine, while checking in on Ovalau's only cop – a teenage recruit with a dramatic temperament. Nothing goes according to plan, and Akal is soon drawn into the apparent murder of a deeply unpopular merchant, and the problem of a group of European sailors held captive by Taviti's uncle. Amid all that clamour, one of the ladies accompanying them has her own agenda to pursue. Rao's novel is a retro delight, with an endearing detective (and sidekick) navigating a web of cultures and trying to resolve island trouble. Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex, Feminism & Body Politics Judith Brett Text, $36.99 She was a motherless child with a 'visceral hunger for love' who grew up to be a political advocate for the body's appetites and pleasures. A woman dogged by physical ailments who struggled with feelings of worthlessness while projecting a public persona of sexual assurance and intellectual independence. As a 'sceptical feminist' who enjoyed feminine glamour, she found herself at odds with the women's liberation movement even as she campaigned for abortion rights and founded the Women's Electoral Lobby in 1972. This nuanced and, at times, poignant biography of Beatrice Faust captures its subject in all her contradictions, illuminating how some of Faust's more perplexing views – on pornography and paedophilia in particular – were shaped by childhood experiences and her supreme sexual confidence. 'She had no trouble saying no, and she didn't always see why other women might.' While clear-sighted about Faust's blind spots and idiosyncrasies, Judith Brett pays tender tribute to the bravery of 'this frail, super-smart woman'. Trouwerner: A Tasmanian Elder's Story of Ancient Wisdom and Hope Aunty Patsy Cameron & Martin Flanagan Magabala Books, $34.99 'Walking through the bush with Patsy is like entering a crowded room when you're a stranger and your companion seems to know everyone.' This classically Flanaganesque observation distils perfectly the spirit of this singular book. Journalist and author Martin Flanagan, a Tasmanian of convict Irish descent, grew up on the myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people were extinct. In a searching tale that wends its way through the rugged landscape of Tasmania's past, Indigenous elder and historian Patsy Cameron is his guide. Woven into their conversation is previous Tasmanian governor Kate Warner and the story of her journey into a fuller understanding of Tasmania's Indigenous heritage. At the centre of this quest is the story of Mannalargenna, the warrior leader of Cameron's clan, and his fraught negotiations with George Robinson, the preacher whose mission forced Aboriginal Tasmanians into exile. After contemplating a portrait of Mannalargenna, Flanagan asks, 'He knows who he is. Who are we?' The Shortest History of AI Toby Walsh Black Inc, $27.99 If your brain tends to seize up with fear or incomprehension at the mention of AI, this concise and entertaining history is for you. Right from the playful opening lines, 'Artificial Intelligence began on 18 June 1956. It was a Monday' you know you are in the hands of an assured storyteller. Toby Walsh, an Australian professor of AI and world-leading researcher, is also a sci-fi nerd who's not afraid to judiciously insert himself into the narrative to add personal commentary and underscore just how recent this history is. He acknowledges Alan Turing as the father of modern computing and AI but also pays due to the 19th-century mathematical whizz Ada Lovelace, who was the world's first computer programmer. This history is delivered through the six key ideas that encapsulate how AI has evolved and where it might be heading. The thinking behind these ideas is made accessible through easy-to-follow examples and some amusing 'conversations' with ChatGPT that highlight both its astonishing range and its capacity for bullshit. For Socrates, the unexamined life was not worth living. Freud insisted that we will always be strangers to ourselves. We are, says historian Mark Lilla, in a constant state of hide and seek, torn between the desire to know and the fear of what we might find. Religious injunctions against rule-breaking and curiosity – Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, for example – enact this inner conflict. 'Like all successful bureaucrats, we have learnt to kick the hard problem upstairs,' says Lilla, whose punchy way with words is integral to the pleasure of this work. While he describes his narrative as a ramble rather than a journey with a fixed destination, he has clear polemical targets, as evident in his caricature of mysticism. Even so, his overall contention that 'the harder the truth, the greater the temptation to escape it' rings powerfully true. By exposing the machinery of this inner tug-of-war, Lilla challenges us to confront these impulses in ourselves. Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight David A. Kessler Text, $36.99 David Kessler has struggled with his weight all his life and is now benefiting from the new anti-obesity drugs. But as a medical practitioner and former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner, he is at pains to stress that these medications are not a silver bullet. They come with side effects, are helpful for only as long as they are being used and do not address underlying causes. Obesity and its attendant health issues, Kessler says, are on the rise because of highly processed foods that have 'quietly commandeered the reward centres of our brains' and encouraged a form of addiction. In this thorough and educative work, he sets out why it is vital for those in the grip of this addiction to employ a range of methods such as a balanced diet, behavioural therapies and physical activity, as well as weight-loss drugs. He also addresses the potentially harmful messaging of the body-positivity movement, which questions the health benefits of weight reduction. Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine is a sensible and sober guide to lasting change.
Sydney Morning Herald
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Looking for something to read? Here are 10 new books
This week's book reviews range from a fictionalised account of a cult leader and cosy crime, to Tasmania's Indigenous past and a history (and possible future) of artificial intelligence. Happy reading! FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK This Is Not a Game Kelly Mullen Century, $34.99 You already know a book called This Is Not a Game will totally be a game, right? If you're not sleuth enough to work that out, sight unseen, Kelly Mullen's clever murder mystery might not be for you. It's a blackly funny take on the locked-room subgenre – the locked room in this case being a palatial abode on an island on Lake Huron (complete with drawbridge and moat), the guests trapped there in the middle of an epic snowstorm. Lusty, super-rich widow Jane Ireland has invited a diverse company for a charity auction, and she's stabbed to death before the night is out. Two of the guests – crotchety grandmother Mimi, and her granddaughter Addie – transform into an unlikely detective duo, unravelling a sordid web of taboo sex, intrigue and blackmail, sifting through an overabundance of suspects as clues and corpses mount. Mullen has created a ludic play on classic Agatha Christie-style crime fiction, more fun for being gossipy and backbiting and full of witty one-liners. The Bearcat delves into the formative years of notorious cult leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne, who led the Family, a cabal that followed a hodge-podge of Eastern religion and Christianity and believed Anne's claim to be the reincarnation of Jesus. Nonfiction accounts and documentaries have laid bare lurid details of child abuse – Anne illegally adopted children through the 1960s and '70s, dyed their hair peroxide blonde like hers and some were administered LSD as part of their indoctrination. Georgia Rose Phillips focuses on Anne – born Evelyn – as a girl and young woman, her own childhood in the 1920s and the traumatic experiences that drew her to harm others later in life. Phillips does have a gift for striking phrases and imagery, but there are gaps and inconsistencies in this reimagining that jar with what we know of the history. As a result, The Bearcat isn't entirely persuasive either as historical fiction or as a psychological portrait, though its subject is a fascinating and deeply disturbing figure. Everything Lost, Everything Found Matthew Hooton 4th Estate, $34.99 Memory rises and ebbs in this poignant novel spanning almost a century. Everything Lost, Everything Found follows Jack through an unusual childhood and seven decades later in old age. As a youth, he's drawn into the Brazilian Amazon during the rubber boom, following his parents to Henry Ford's rubber-tree plantation, where his mother dies in a tragic accident and Jack is forced to find his father in the jungle. Recollections of that time resurface unbidden when he's elderly and living in the rust belt in Michigan, Jack swimming in a surfeit of memories as his wife succumbs to dementia. Hooton's novel is an emotive and richly told tale of grief and loss, of family and the haunted halls of memory. I've spent time in the Brazilian Amazon myself, and the evocation of its wild beauty and perils, and the dark industrial history now half-swallowed by nature, is vivid and accurate, adding an exotic layer to this free-flowing and immersive book. The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran Shida Bazyar (trans. Ruth Martin) Scribe, $29.99 Set over four decades – with sections in 1979, the year of the Iranian Revolution, and every 10 years until the Green Movement protests in 2009 – this novel portrays an Iranian family forced to leave their homeland, capturing a spirit of political resistance as much as the struggle to adapt to life as refugees. It begins with Behsad, an idealistic young communist revolutionary who wants the Shah deposed as much as anyone. He fights for his beliefs and falls in love with the intelligent, equally brave Nahid. Ten years later, Nahid takes up the story from West Germany, having fled when the mullahs seized power. A return to Tehran in 1999 focuses on Nahid's daughter Laleh, her reconnection with a birthplace she misremembers and a family history full of secrets, and finally, there's Laleh's brother, Mo, energised by witnessing the wave of Iranian protests a decade later. Shida Bazyar captures the contradictions of her characters and their predicament with clarity and poise, giving complex and emotionally layered perspectives on exile and return. A Shipwreck in Fiji Nilima Rao Echo, $32.99 A Shipwreck in Fiji is the second in Nilima Rao's series of historical mystery novels set in Fiji in the early 20th century. It follows Sergeant Akal Singh, an unwilling Indian transplant, on his latest adventure. He's been dragooned into investigating reports of Germans – a very long way from the battlefields of World War I – on the island of Ovalau, accompanied by Constable Taviti Tukana, who'll be visiting his uncle, a powerful tribal chief. They're to act as chaperone to two venturesome European sightseers, Mary and Katherine, while checking in on Ovalau's only cop – a teenage recruit with a dramatic temperament. Nothing goes according to plan, and Akal is soon drawn into the apparent murder of a deeply unpopular merchant, and the problem of a group of European sailors held captive by Taviti's uncle. Amid all that clamour, one of the ladies accompanying them has her own agenda to pursue. Rao's novel is a retro delight, with an endearing detective (and sidekick) navigating a web of cultures and trying to resolve island trouble. Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex, Feminism & Body Politics Judith Brett Text, $36.99 She was a motherless child with a 'visceral hunger for love' who grew up to be a political advocate for the body's appetites and pleasures. A woman dogged by physical ailments who struggled with feelings of worthlessness while projecting a public persona of sexual assurance and intellectual independence. As a 'sceptical feminist' who enjoyed feminine glamour, she found herself at odds with the women's liberation movement even as she campaigned for abortion rights and founded the Women's Electoral Lobby in 1972. This nuanced and, at times, poignant biography of Beatrice Faust captures its subject in all her contradictions, illuminating how some of Faust's more perplexing views – on pornography and paedophilia in particular – were shaped by childhood experiences and her supreme sexual confidence. 'She had no trouble saying no, and she didn't always see why other women might.' While clear-sighted about Faust's blind spots and idiosyncrasies, Judith Brett pays tender tribute to the bravery of 'this frail, super-smart woman'. Trouwerner: A Tasmanian Elder's Story of Ancient Wisdom and Hope Aunty Patsy Cameron & Martin Flanagan Magabala Books, $34.99 'Walking through the bush with Patsy is like entering a crowded room when you're a stranger and your companion seems to know everyone.' This classically Flanaganesque observation distils perfectly the spirit of this singular book. Journalist and author Martin Flanagan, a Tasmanian of convict Irish descent, grew up on the myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people were extinct. In a searching tale that wends its way through the rugged landscape of Tasmania's past, Indigenous elder and historian Patsy Cameron is his guide. Woven into their conversation is previous Tasmanian governor Kate Warner and the story of her journey into a fuller understanding of Tasmania's Indigenous heritage. At the centre of this quest is the story of Mannalargenna, the warrior leader of Cameron's clan, and his fraught negotiations with George Robinson, the preacher whose mission forced Aboriginal Tasmanians into exile. After contemplating a portrait of Mannalargenna, Flanagan asks, 'He knows who he is. Who are we?' The Shortest History of AI Toby Walsh Black Inc, $27.99 If your brain tends to seize up with fear or incomprehension at the mention of AI, this concise and entertaining history is for you. Right from the playful opening lines, 'Artificial Intelligence began on 18 June 1956. It was a Monday' you know you are in the hands of an assured storyteller. Toby Walsh, an Australian professor of AI and world-leading researcher, is also a sci-fi nerd who's not afraid to judiciously insert himself into the narrative to add personal commentary and underscore just how recent this history is. He acknowledges Alan Turing as the father of modern computing and AI but also pays due to the 19th-century mathematical whizz Ada Lovelace, who was the world's first computer programmer. This history is delivered through the six key ideas that encapsulate how AI has evolved and where it might be heading. The thinking behind these ideas is made accessible through easy-to-follow examples and some amusing 'conversations' with ChatGPT that highlight both its astonishing range and its capacity for bullshit. For Socrates, the unexamined life was not worth living. Freud insisted that we will always be strangers to ourselves. We are, says historian Mark Lilla, in a constant state of hide and seek, torn between the desire to know and the fear of what we might find. Religious injunctions against rule-breaking and curiosity – Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, for example – enact this inner conflict. 'Like all successful bureaucrats, we have learnt to kick the hard problem upstairs,' says Lilla, whose punchy way with words is integral to the pleasure of this work. While he describes his narrative as a ramble rather than a journey with a fixed destination, he has clear polemical targets, as evident in his caricature of mysticism. Even so, his overall contention that 'the harder the truth, the greater the temptation to escape it' rings powerfully true. By exposing the machinery of this inner tug-of-war, Lilla challenges us to confront these impulses in ourselves. Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight David A. Kessler Text, $36.99 David Kessler has struggled with his weight all his life and is now benefiting from the new anti-obesity drugs. But as a medical practitioner and former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner, he is at pains to stress that these medications are not a silver bullet. They come with side effects, are helpful for only as long as they are being used and do not address underlying causes. Obesity and its attendant health issues, Kessler says, are on the rise because of highly processed foods that have 'quietly commandeered the reward centres of our brains' and encouraged a form of addiction. In this thorough and educative work, he sets out why it is vital for those in the grip of this addiction to employ a range of methods such as a balanced diet, behavioural therapies and physical activity, as well as weight-loss drugs. He also addresses the potentially harmful messaging of the body-positivity movement, which questions the health benefits of weight reduction. Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine is a sensible and sober guide to lasting change.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
New armored vehicle provides cover for Haywood's deputies
May 14—A new piece of equipment at the Haywood County Sheriff's Office helps protect deputies during intense situations. The Bearcat is an armored vehicle that the sheriff's office can deploy during a standoff. "It's a big safety net," Capt. David Greathouse said. "We used to do it like a bunch of cowboys and jump in the back of a pickup truck or in a tin van and just drive up and jump out and hope for the best. With this, we can take a calculated risk, sit, give commands and give the opportunity for somebody to surrender." Greathouse said the vehicle is an ideal tool for de-escalation, despite its intimidating appearance. "We're in a bullet-resistant box for whatever," he said. "Everyone looks at it as a crazy tank, but it truly allows us to make an attempt to de-escalate by being there, talking over the PA, being present, but at the same time still being safe. People look at it as this aggressive thing, but its true essence is de-escalation." The sheriff's office was given the go-ahead to purchase the vehicle back in May 2022 at the price of $179,725. Of that money, just under $80,000 came from drug forfeiture money, $84,000 came from grant funding from the NC Department of Public Safety, $5,000 came from donations and $11,000 from the sheriff's office's budget in 2022. Lenco, the company behind the Bearcat, takes an old Department of Energy truck and refurbishes it into the armored vehicle it becomes. This one spent most of its original life running patrols at a nuclear facility in Maryland. The vehicle got a total remodel to turn into what it is today. "They strip it completely down. New engine, new everything but the drive train, new tires, new wheels, new paint," Greathouse said. That new engine is even newer. The sheriff's office received the Bearcat about a year ago and had some troubles out of the box. "We had some mechanical difficulties," Greathouse said. "The remanufactured engine blew up when we got it. It was all completely under warranty, so we basically had a new engine built and put it in." Since getting into operation, the Bearcat has been deployed once, to a standoff with a fugitive wanted out of Tennessee. During that standoff, tear gas was deployed. "We deploy gas manually as an agency," Greathouse said. "We still get up in the turret and we'll shoot something through the window to break the window and then deploy the gas through the broken window." But the Bearcat offers another option, as well. The front arm can punch a hole in the side of a house and launch gas in that way. "Ultimately, you're fully shielded at that point," Greathouse said. The vehicle can also be used for rescue missions. The front arm has a push plate that can move vehicles out of the way if needed. The heavy frame and off-road capabilities also make it a candidate for rescues in flooded areas. "It won't float," Greathouse said. The vehicle can also comfortably cruise at highway speeds. No matter where it's needed, the Bearcat can be there quickly. It has also been used for community outreach events, such as visits to Junaluska and Hazelwood Elementary. "They got their picture made with it. They thought that was the coolest thing ever," said Gina Zachary, sheriff's office public information officer. "A lot of the kids wrote notes and they tried to draw this. It was great."
