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Style Blueprint
21-05-2025
- Style Blueprint
TN's Frozen Head State Park Hosts the World's Hardest Race
Share with your friends! Pinterest LinkedIn Email Flipboard Reddit Most people visit Frozen Head State Park in East Tennessee for the peaceful trails, remote campsites, and sweeping views of the Cumberland Mountains. They have no idea that tucked deep in the misty backcountry is one of the most brutal, elusive, and bizarre ultramarathons on the planet: the Barkley Marathons. And in 2024, something extraordinary happened. The First Woman in History to Complete the Barkley Marathons Jasmin Paris, a 40-year-old mother of two from Great Britain, became the first woman ever to complete the Barkley — all five grueling loops — within the punishing 60-hour time limit. She crossed the finish line in 59:58:21, joining an elite club of 20 finishers in the race's nearly 40-year history, and doing it with just 99 seconds to spare. Pin What Exactly are the Barkley Marathons? The race itself is part myth, part madness. Dreamed up in 1986 by Gary 'Lazarus Lake' Cantrell and his friend Karl 'Raw Dog' Henn, the Barkley began as a darkly comedic response to a failed prison escape. When James Earl Ray — the man who assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — fled the nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in 1977, he only managed about eight-and-a-half miles in nearly 55 hours before being caught. Laz joked he could do at least 100 miles — and so, the Barkley was born. Pin Pin Since then, more than 1,000 people have attempted the race. Most don't make it past the first loop. Why? The Barkley is five loops of unmarked trail over near-impossible terrain with about 60,000 feet of climbing (roughly equivalent to summiting Everest twice). There are no aid stations, no GPS devices allowed, and no cheering crowds. Just a compass, a map, and a touch of madness. To prove they've completed a loop, runners must rip a page from a hidden book at each checkpoint — books planted by Laz in twisted, hard-to-reach places across the forest. Pin Even getting into the race is cryptic. There's no official website or signup form. Hopefuls must figure out the secret application process, pay a $1.60 entry fee, and bring whatever strange item Laz demands that year — from flannel shirts to a pack of Camels. Newcomers must also bring a license plate from their home state or country, which is nailed to the infamous 'Tree of Shame.' Pin Into this strange, punishing world stepped soft-spoken and humble, Jasmin Paris. Who is Jasmin Paris? Paris lives just south of Edinburgh, where she balances a career as a veterinarian while raising two young kids. She grew up between the Peak District in England and the Šumava National Park in Czechia, and didn't take up running seriously until her twenties, when a colleague talked her into a local fell race. Fourteen years later, she's a veteran of some of the most grueling endurance events on earth. In 2019, Paris won the 268-mile Montane Spine Race outright, shattering the course record by over 12 hours. She had given birth just 14 months earlier — and famously stopped during the race to pump milk for her infant daughter. Paris flew under the radar heading into the 2024 Barkley, but that didn't last long. She quietly ticked off each loop, and as the clock wound down on her final lap, a crowd gathered at the yellow gate — the race's iconic finish line — holding their breath. With grit, humility, and just 99 seconds left on the clock, Jasmin Paris didn't just finish the Barkley. She rewrote its story. About Frozen Head State Park Frozen Head State Park spans more than 24,000 acres of pristine, rugged wilderness. It's named for a 3,324-foot peak that's often iced over in the winter, and it's a haven for hikers, campers, and nature lovers. The park offers 50 miles of trails, scenic overlooks, and a sense of raw mountain solitude that feels untouched — the perfect setting for a race that seems designed to break the human spirit. But now, it's also the backdrop of one of the most inspiring feats in ultrarunning history. Pin ********** For a daily dose of Style + Substance, delivered straight to your inbox — subscribe to StyleBlueprint! About the Author Kate Feinberg Kate Feinberg is StyleBlueprint's Associate Editor & Sponsored Content Specialist, based in Nashville. Kate is a plant-based foodie, avid runner, and fantasy reader.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Want Safe Dividend Income in 2025 and Beyond? Invest in the Following 3 Ultra-High-Yield Stocks.
The smoking-cessation movement isn't making the rapid progress you might believe it is. Pfizer admittedly became too focused on COVID-19. Now it's making up for lost time, and on the verge of rekindled growth. Realty Income isn't a household name, but someone in your household likely regularly visits one of its properties. Are you looking for more income from your portfolio? Even with bond yields still near multiyear highs, plenty of dividend stocks are worth considering. Not only do some of them offer above-average yields at below-average risk, unlike bonds, their payouts are apt to grow as time marches on. With that as the backdrop, here's a closer look at three high-yielding dividend stocks that might be at home in your portfolio in the near and distant future. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » Just as the name suggests, British American Tobacco (NYSE: BTI) makes tobacco products. It's the parent to familiar international cigarettes brands like Kent, Lucky Strike, and Pall Mall, as well as the name behind Camels sold within the United States. Vaping brand Vuse and heated tobacco brand Glo are also part of the British American Tobacco family. Sure, the war on tobacco and other related vices is finding traction. In tacit acknowledgment of the inevitable, in fact, British American Tobacco is publicly committed to "building a smokeless world" where vaping, smokeless tobacco, and heated-tobacco products are its core business. Given the stalled uptake of these alternatives, though, there may still come a time when this company can no longer fund its long-standing dividend payments. That day is likely to be years and years down the road, however, with plenty of dividend income to be collected between now and then. The numbers: The World Health Organization reports there are still well over 1.2 billion worldwide smokers, down only slightly from 2000's count of 1.36 billion. Meanwhile, although it's not yet a major profit center for the tobacco industry, the National Institutes of Health believes there are 35 million regular users of vaping products. While there's no doubt that the global anti-smoking movement is chipping away at big tobacco's business, it's clearly not happening at a brisk pace. Plenty of consumers are going to continue enjoying their vices for a long time even if they know they are unhealthy vices. Newcomers will be plugging into this stock while its forward-looking dividend yield stands at 7.1%. A stake in British American Tobacco also somewhat sidesteps the hottest part of current trade tariff war, by the way. There's no denying Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) has struggled to offset the wind-down of what was once a booming COVID-19 vaccine business. The drugmaker's revenue is still well below its 2022 peak, for perspective, and as a result, Pfizer shares are still near the decade low reached in early April. Clearly shareholders are as frustrated as the company's management likely is. Largely lost in the upheaval, however, is the fact that there's nothing unusual or permanent about the underlying situation. While one could reasonably argue that Pfizer overcommitted to the development of its COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid as well as the co-development of a COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with BioNTech at the expense of other R&D with longer-term potential, this is a temporary challenge. Pfizer's current pipeline consists of more than 100 drug trials, more than 30 of which are in late-stage (phase 3) testing, and another five of which are now being considered for approval by the FDA. These prospects include Elrexfio (elranatamab) for the treatment of multiple myeloma, along with several other oncology drugs. In the meantime, already-approved cancer-fighting Ibrance is being studied in a handful of additional clinical trials, while sales of heart disease drug Vyndaqel jumped 60% last year as caregivers increasingly embrace this older drug. Blockbuster blood-thinning drug Eliquis, of course, is a reliable workhorse for Pfizer, too. The point is, every pharmaceutical company's business ebbs and flows, including Pfizer's. Although it admittedly dropped the developmental ball because of the coronavirus pandemic, it's made major investments in oncology drugs in the meantime that should start bearing fruit sooner than later. The stock's big pullback from its late-2021 peak not only fails to reflect this bright future, but has pumped its forward-looking dividend yield up to an incredible 7.5%. Finally, add Realty Income (NYSE: O) to your list of safe dividend stocks with unusually high yields. New shareholders will be plugging in while its forward-looking dividend yield stands at just under 5.7%. It's possible you've never heard of it, although it's unlikely you've never stepped foot onto one of its properties. See, this real estate investment trust is landlord to some of the country's leading retailers and convenience store chains including Walmart, 7-Eleven, and Dollar General, as well as the owner of several properties in use by the likes of FedEx and Wynn Resorts. No single tenant accounts for more than 4% of Realty Income's revenue, so it's very well diversified. But aren't most brick-and-mortar and consumer-facing businesses struggling as people embrace online shopping and remote/mobile services? It's a challenge, to be sure. Suggestions that in-person retailing is on its deathbed, however, are greatly exaggerated. The U.S. Census Bureau reports less than 17% of the nation's retail spending during the fourth quarter of last year was actually done online, which means the rest is still happening in-store. Moreover, while Coresight Research says 7,325 U.S. stores were shuttered last year, there were we also 5,970 new store openings. It's less of a retail apocalypse and more of a thinning of the herd that makes the remaining players stronger as a whole. It's also worth pointing out that most of Realty Income's tenants are higher-quality companies with staying power and the fiscal wherewithal to continue paying their rent. You can find higher-yielding stocks. You won't likely find many other income-producing investments with a comparable dividend profile, though. Not only does Realty Income dish out its dividend on a monthly (rather than quarterly) basis, but the company has raised its annual per-share dividend payout every year for the past 30 years. Indeed, the real estate investment trust has now upped its monthly payment for 110 consecutive quarters, keeping up with inflation in real time. Before you buy stock in Realty Income, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Realty Income wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $607,048!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $668,193!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 880% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 161% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of April 28, 2025 James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends FedEx, Pfizer, Realty Income, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends BioNTech Se and British American Tobacco P.l.c. and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $40 calls on British American Tobacco and short January 2026 $40 puts on British American Tobacco. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Want Safe Dividend Income in 2025 and Beyond? Invest in the Following 3 Ultra-High-Yield Stocks. was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The new leader of the Catholic Church will inherit a financial mess that Pope Francis spent much of his reign trying to fix
Even on his deathbed, Pope Francis didn't pause from pursuing a dogged campaign that distinguished his reign: reforming the Vatican's infamously troubled finances. On February 27, the pontiff's 13th day at Rome's Gemelli Hospital suffering from exhaustion and bronchitis, the pontiff unveiled the formation of a high-level commission assigned to raise donations for helping plug chronic budget deficits. Francis launched the fund-raising enterprise as a gambit aimed at blunting demands by top officials in the Curia, his vast administrative arm, that the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics halt his drive for deep spending cuts. The bureaucrats bristled at the Pope's recent draconian moves: Since 2021, he'd slashed salaries for the Church's 250-odd cardinals three times. In 2023, he nixed the rich housing subsidies for elite staff, and last September for the first time in decades demanded that the Vatican set a rigorous timeline for achieving a 'zero deficit' regime. When Pope Francis passed away at age 88 on Easter Monday in his modest Vatican apartment, his brave campaign had made big strides, but stopped short of the promised land. This writer began covering the Pope's righteous charge right at the creation. In early 2014, I traveled to Rome for a firsthand view of all the new and historic financial guard rails and disciplines Francis was installing, as well as the influx of business experts he'd summoned across the globe to assist him. When Francis took office the previous year, just about everything that involved how the Vatican handled money needed fixing: the huge and ever-rising gap between revenues and expenses; the leadership dominated by clergy lacking expertise in accounting and investing; and a scandal-scarred reputation. The stain of corruption, or at least incompetence, lingered from the Banco Ambrosiano affair of the early 1980s, when financier Roberto Calvi scammed the Institute for Religious Works, a.k.a. the Vatican Bank, in a caper that cost the IOR $250 million and emptied a big portion of its reserves. Days after his institution collapsed, Calvi's body was found hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge; the British courts couldn't determine whether the cause of death was suicide or murder. Calvi's schemes duped his 'buddy' who headed the IOR, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, whom in the mid-1980s I interviewed at the IOR's home in the ninth-century Gothic prison built by Pope Nicholas VI. The six-foot-eight Marcinkus, dubbed the Gorilla, had risen in the Vatican from a power base as Pope John Paul II's bodyguard. During our meeting, he chain-smoked Camels and pontificated for hours about how the IOR was the Vatican's biggest moneymaker courtesy of pocketing the 'spread' between the tiny interest it paid the Jesuits and other religious orders for their deposits, and the much higher rates it garnered re-channeling those funds to European banks. On Ambrosiano, Marcinkus insisted that charges he'd 'guaranteed' the bank's debts on behalf of the IOR was a bum rap, and that the Vatican only repaid the $250 million to safeguard its image. Shortly before, the Italian government had dropped an arrest warrant for Marcinkus that had exiled him for a year to the Vatican grounds, a liberation that perhaps explained his ebullient mood. 'I may be a lousy banker,' once told a close friend of his whom I interviewed for my story, 'but at least I'm not in jail.' Francis quickly showed that in money matters, he was a new kind of leader My sources were all business leaders newly appointed to aid in the Pope's offensive. On background, they related a dramatic meeting in the summer of 2013 where Francis first addressed a dimension of his domain that he deemed crucial—its chronically stumbling role as a commercial enterprise. The pontiff spun the globe to appoint a team of seven business leaders to a committee. Its task: pinpointing the problems and recommending specifics for a broad overhaul. They included the French executive heading asset management for U.S. mutual fund giant Invesco, the CEO of German insurer ERGO, the chief of Malta's largest bank, and the former prime minister of Singapore. Instead of holding the confab at the Apostolic Palace, the Renaissance showplace where pontiffs traditionally greeted visitors in high style, Francis ushered the distinguished guests into a nondescript conference room at the Casa Santa Marta, a five-story limestone guesthouse on the sub-luxury scale of a four-star hotel where the pontiff resided in a second-floor one-bedroom suite. No religious art or objects adorned the walls. Attired in a simple white cossack and metal cross, the Pope took the kind of highly managerial 'I'm the boss' approach his invitees might have recognized from addressing their own lieutenants. Speaking fluent Italian, pausing frequently so that a translator could repeat his words in English, the former cardinal of Buenos Aires stated that for his spiritual message to be credible, the Vatican's finances had to be credible as well. The Vatican hadn't overcome the practices formed by centuries of secrecy and intrigue to either manage its money efficiently, or issue a coherent accounting on where the funds came from and where they were spent. His primary mission, the new Pope stressed, was helping the poor and underprivileged. The Vatican budget careening from small surpluses to yawning deficits undermined that goal by inhibiting charity. 'When the administration's fat it's unhealthy,' he declared, adding that he wanted a far leaner and efficient organization that would prove 'self-sustaining.' Getting there would require strict rules and protocols. It particularly incensed the pontiff that the managers kept paying overruns on fixed price contracts, when the businesses should have eaten the excess billings. From now on, he admonished, when the Vatican gets a bill for a project where it's the contractor who is legally responsible for the extra costs: 'We don't pay!' Like a great CEO, the Pope charted a clear strategy. As one participant characterized the command: 'Let's make money for the poor.' Francis finished by intoning, 'I trust you. You're the experts. I want solutions to these problems.' Pope Francis wasn't a micromanager who'd study balance sheets, but he was a born leader expert at establishing clear objectives and choosing specialists needed to meet them—he'd rely on real bankers not amateurs in the Marcinkus mold. Then, without taking questions or extending pleasantries, he left the room. On finances, Pope Francis proved the greatest of all holy reformers. But the Vatican's budget woes persist to this day Following the meeting, that prestigious board helped design a radically new architecture directed not by the religious leaders who'd run the machine for centuries, but seasoned managers and consultants from around the world. The new regime hired KMPG to install internationally accepted accounting principles replacing the old crazy quilt of standards, EY to scrutinize the books of the tiny nation's stores and utilities, and Deloitte & Touche and Spencer Stuart to respectively audit the P&L and recruit fresh talent at the Vatican Bank. Pope Francis also established a new body called the Secretariat of the Economy that for the first time centralized all authority under a single agency and leader. Today, the top official is an MIT grad who has spent a long career in management positions for Catholic universities and prominent institutions of the church. Tighter oversight brought new discipline to runaway spending and boosted investment returns, but didn't end the Vatican's long history of headline-grabbing misdeeds. In 2014, the cardinal who served as second-ranking official in the Secretariat of State schemed with still another shady Italian magnate to purchase shares in a London building; the Secretariat subsequently took full control of the property for the highly inflated price of roughly $400 million, then sold it a few years later at a $150 million loss. An investigation launched in 2019 discovered that many millions of Euros disappeared in kickbacks and self-dealing. But this time, the authorities imposed tough justice. The Vatican courts sent eight people including the cardinal to jail, and levied fines on two others. Shortly after taking power, Pope Francis ordered a hiring freeze that remains in force to this day. Indeed, his strategy of shrinking the workforce through attrition has succeeded. But the Vatican is still haunted by the burden of the way-underfunded pension plans that he inherited. The Vatican's financial world is divided into two parts. The first is the City State, the 110-acre sovereign country that generally runs a budget on the scale of a midsize municipality, employs the ceremonial Swiss guards and 'gendarme' police force, and generally generates an operating surplus due to big revenues from the Vatican museum, the world's second most visited museum behind the Louvre, and the likes of sales of souvenir coins. The second is the Holy See or Curia, the Pope's sprawling bureaucracy that does everything from detective work to naming new saints to operating the equivalent of embassies in three dozen countries to operating nine cabinet-like 'congregations.' It's perpetually in deficit—once again, largely via what it owes its legions of retirees. In recent years, the Curia has been spending around $800 to $900 million a year, and running structural deficits of well over $50 million. And that's after allocating for operating expenses tens of millions of dollars in "Peter's Pence." That's money gathered in the collection baskets passed through church aisles in from Sydney to Warsaw on the Sunday marking the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul in late June. It's one time the world's faithful, rich and poor alike, send funds to the Vatican en masse. The late pontiff always wanted to steer Peter's Pence solely to its original purpose of supporting the impoverished. It was a goal he cherished but didn't live to achieve. Still, Pope Francis worked a near miracle bringing transparency, competence, and integrity to perhaps the most notoriously byzantine corner of the financial world. From his hospital bed in his final days, the pontiff kept fighting the Vatican establishment for reform that elevated sound money management as a tool for filling the role of his model and namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century Italian friar devoted to raising the downtrodden. Only if his successor shares Francis's rare knack for business strategy will the job be finished. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The new leader of the Catholic Church will inherit a financial mess that Pope Francis spent much of his reign trying to fix
Even on his deathbed, Pope Francis didn't pause from pursuing a dogged campaign that distinguished his reign: reforming the Vatican's infamously troubled finances. On February 27, the pontiff's 13th day at Rome's Gemelli Hospital suffering from exhaustion and bronchitis, the pontiff unveiled the formation of a high-level commission assigned to raise donations for helping plug chronic budget deficits. Francis launched the fund-raising enterprise as a gambit aimed at blunting demands by top officials in the Curia, his vast administrative arm, that the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics halt his drive for deep spending cuts. The bureaucrats bristled at the Pope's recent draconian moves: Since 2021, he'd slashed salaries for the Church's 250-odd cardinals three times. In 2023, he nixed the rich housing subsidies for elite staff, and last September for the first time in decades demanded that the Vatican set a rigorous timeline for achieving a 'zero deficit' regime. When Pope Francis passed away at age 88 on Easter Monday in his modest Vatican apartment, his brave campaign had made big strides, but stopped short of the promised land. This writer began covering the Pope's righteous charge right at the creation. In early 2014, I traveled to Rome for a firsthand view of all the new and historic financial guard rails and disciplines Francis was installing, as well as the influx of business experts he'd summoned across the globe to assist him. When Francis took office the previous year, just about everything that involved how the Vatican handled money needed fixing: the huge and ever-rising gap between revenues and expenses; the leadership dominated by clergy lacking expertise in accounting and investing; and a scandal-scarred reputation. The stain of corruption, or at least incompetence, lingered from the Banco Ambrosiano affair of the early 1980s, when financier Roberto Calvi scammed the Institute for Religious Works, a.k.a. the Vatican Bank, in a caper that cost the IOR $250 million and emptied a big portion of its reserves. Days after his institution collapsed, Calvi's body was found hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge; the British courts couldn't determine whether the cause of death was suicide or murder. Calvi's schemes duped his 'buddy' who headed the IOR, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, whom in the mid-1980s I interviewed at the IOR's home in the ninth-century Gothic prison built by Pope Nicholas VI. The six-foot-eight Marcinkus, dubbed the Gorilla, had risen in the Vatican from a power base as Pope John Paul II's bodyguard. During our meeting, he chain-smoked Camels and pontificated for hours about how the IOR was the Vatican's biggest moneymaker courtesy of pocketing the 'spread' between the tiny interest it paid the Jesuits and other religious orders for their deposits, and the much higher rates it garnered re-channeling those funds to European banks. On Ambrosiano, Marcinkus insisted that charges he'd 'guaranteed' the bank's debts on behalf of the IOR was a bum rap, and that the Vatican only repaid the $250 million to safeguard its image. Shortly before, the Italian government had dropped an arrest warrant for Marcinkus that had exiled him for a year to the Vatican grounds, a liberation that perhaps explained his ebullient mood. 'I may be a lousy banker,' he told me not-for-quotation; 'but at least I'm not in jail.' Francis quickly showed that in money matters, he was a new kind of leader My sources were all business leaders newly appointed to aid in the Pope's offensive. On background, they related a dramatic meeting in the summer of 2013 where Francis first addressed a dimension of his domain that he deemed crucial—its chronically stumbling role as a commercial enterprise. The pontiff had appointed a team of seven business leaders from around the world as a committee to pinpoint the problems and recommend specifics for a broad overhaul. They included the French executive heading asset management for U.S. mutual fund giant Invesco, the CEO of German insurer ERGO, the chief of Malta's largest bank, and the former prime minister of Singapore. Instead of holding the confab at the Apostolic Palace, the Renaissance showplace where pontiffs traditionally greeted visitors in high style, Francis ushered the distinguished guests into a nondescript conference room at the Casa Santa Marta, a five-story limestone guesthouse on the sub-luxury scale of a four-star hotel where the pontiff resided in a second-floor one-bedroom suite. No religious art or objects adorned the walls. Attired in a simple white cossack and metal cross, the Pope took the kind of highly managerial 'I'm the boss' approach his invitees might have recognized from addressing their own lieutenants. Speaking fluent Italian, pausing frequently so that a translator could repeat his words in English, the former cardinal of Buenos Aires stated that for his spiritual message to be credible, the Vatican's finances had to be credible as well. The Vatican hadn't overcome the practices formed by centuries of secrecy and intrigue to either manage its money efficiently, or issue a coherent accounting on where the money came from and where it was spent. His primary mission, the new Pope stressed, was helping the poor and underprivileged. The Vatican budget careening from small surpluses to yawning deficits undermined that goal by inhibiting charity. 'When the administration's fat it's unhealthy,' he declared, adding that he wanted a far leaner and efficient organization that would prove 'self-sustaining.' Getting there would require strict rules and protocols. It particularly incensed the pontiff that the managers kept paying overruns on fixed price contracts, when the businesses should have eaten the excess billings. From now on, he admonished, when the Vatican gets a bill for a project where it's the contractor who is legally responsible for the extra costs: 'We don't pay!' Like a great CEO, the Pope charted a clear strategy. As one participant characterized the command: 'Let's make money for the poor.' Francis finished by intoning, 'I trust you. You're the experts. I want solutions to these problems.' Pope Francis wasn't a micromanager who'd study balance sheets, but he was a born leader expert at establishing clear objectives and choosing specialists needed to meet them—he'd rely on real bankers not amateurs in the Marcinkus mold. Then, without taking questions or extending pleasantries, he left the room. On finances, Pope Francis proved the greatest of all holy reformers. But the Vatican's budget woes persist to this day Following the meeting, that prestigious board helped design a radically new architecture directed not by the religious leaders who'd run the machine for centuries, but seasoned managers and consultants from around the world. The new regime hired KMPG to install internationally accepted accounting principles replacing the old crazy quilt of standards, EY to scrutinize the books of the tiny nation's stores and utilities, and Deloitte & Touche and Spencer Stuart to respectively audit the P&L and recruit fresh talent at the Vatican Bank. Pope Francis also established a new body called the Secretariat of the Economy that for the first time centralized all authority under a single agency and leader. Today, the top official is an MIT grad who has spent a long career in management positions for Catholic universities and prominent institutions of the church. Tighter oversight brought new discipline to runaway spending and boosted investment returns, but didn't end the Vatican's long history of headline-grabbing misdeeds. In 2014, the cardinal who served as second-ranking official in the Secretariat of State schemed with still another shady Italian magnate to purchase shares in a London building; the Secretariat subsequently took full control of the property for the highly inflated price of roughly $400 million, then sold it a few years later at a $150 million loss. An investigation launched in 2019 discovered that many millions of Euros disappeared in kickbacks and self-dealing. But this time, the authorities imposed tough justice. The Vatican courts sent eight people including the cardinal to jail, and levied fines on two others. Shortly after taking power, Pope Francis ordered a hiring freeze that remains in force to this day. Indeed, his strategy of shrinking the workforce through attrition has succeeded. But the Vatican is still haunted by the burden of the way-underfunded pension plans that he inherited. The Vatican's financial world is divided into two parts. The first is the City State, the 110-acre sovereign country that generally runs a budget on the scale of a midsize municipality, employs the ceremonial Swiss guards and 'gendarme' police force, and generally generates an operating surplus due to big revenues from the Vatican museum, the world's second most visited museum behind the Louvre, and the likes of sales of souvenir coins. The second is the Holy See or Curia, the Pope's sprawling bureaucracy that does everything from detective work to naming new saints to operating the equivalent of embassies in three dozen countries to operating nine cabinet-like 'congregations.' It's perpetually in deficit—once again, largely via what it owes its legions of retirees. In recent years, the Curia has been spending around $800 to $900 million a year, and running structural deficits of well over $50 million. And that's after allocating for operating expenses tens of millions of dollars in "Peter's Pence." That's money gathered in the collection baskets passed through church aisles in from Sydney to Warsaw on the Sunday marking the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul in late June. It's one time the world's faithful, rich and poor alike, send funds to the Vatican en masse. The late pontiff always wanted to steer Peter's Pence solely to its original purpose of supporting the impoverished. It was a goal he cherished but didn't live to achieve. Still, Pope Francis worked a near miracle bringing transparency, competence, and integrity to perhaps the most notoriously byzantine corner of the financial world. From his hospital bed in his final days, the pontiff kept fighting the Vatican establishment for reform that elevated sound money management as a tool for filling the role of his model and namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century Italian friar devoted to raising the downtrodden. Only if his successor shares Francis's rare knack for business strategy will the job be finished. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Fox Sports
09-04-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
John Andrzejek won a national title with Florida to start the week. Now he's Campbell's head coach
Associated Press BUIES CREEK, N.C. (AP) — John Andrzejek is finally done with juggling coaching duties. Andrzejek spent nearly three weeks fitting in work as the newly named head coach at Campbell between his duties as an assistant at Florida. Now, less than 48 hours after Andrzejek made a beeline toward midcourt at the horn to celebrate the Gators' run to the national championship in San Antonio, he can finally focus solely on building the foundation for his own program. 'It's been a whirlwind,' Andrzejek told reporters Wednesday at his introductory campus news conference. "I mean, when that buzzer went off, I was just sprinting on the court looking for people to hug. "It was a long celebration, it was seven or eight hours of hugging people. We did the Riverwalk in San Antonio, had Gator fans cheering everywhere. Came back to my phone to 700 unread texts. But quickly since we got back, I've transitioned to being the head coach here full-time and I couldn't be more excited for this opportunity." Florida beat Houston 65-63 on Monday night, then Andrzejek joined the Gators back to Gainesville for the team's campus celebration Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, he was taking a charter flight to North Carolina to arrive at Campbell, a Coastal Athletic Association program at a private university of about 5,100 students. The Camels have one NCAA Tournament bid in their history, a 1992 first-round loss to Duke on the way to a repeat championship. But on Wednesday, at least, they added another tie to March Madness: their 32-year-old coach, who came armed with a strand of the clipped-down net from the title game that he held up as proof he understands what it takes to build a successful program. The school announced Andrzejek's hiring March 20, the day before the Gators' NCAA Tournament opener in North Carolina's capital city of Raleigh. But the sides planned to wait for Andrzejek to finish the ride with the Gators for him to take over the Camels. Florida went on to reach college basketball's biggest stage at the Final Four. That meant lots of hours switching between finishing scouting work for the Gators, then taking calls from recruits or potential staff hires with the Camels, then back to breaking down film or other tasks in Florida's title push. It helped that he was able to hire Landry Kosmalski, a former head coach at Division III Swarthmore, to assist from afar. Kosmalski said that included Andrzejek forwarding him names of recruits to more fully research as they put together their roster-building board. Yet as Andrzejek noted from the Florida locker room in the Alamodome, the Camels' sales pitch to recruits and fans got stronger with every win by the Gators. 'It's created a lot of energy on our campus, and a lot of support and anticipation of him coming," Campbell athletic director Hannah Bazemore said Wednesday. "And at that point, a lot of Camels turned Gators in really wanting him to be successful. I think it also helped from a recruiting standpoint for him, being able to get out there now say you've got a national championship coach calling you. "It was something we couldn't have dreamed up any better, we couldn't have written a script any better. I think it benefitted him and it benefitted us in a tremendous way." It has gotten the attention of the Camels players he's inheriting, too. 'It makes me excited," guard Tasos Cook said. 'I want to play just how those guys were playing. It looked like they were having fun playing on court, playing together.' Andrzejek also leaned in on Campbell's small-town vibe in Buies Creek, located about 45 minutes south of Raleigh. He talked of growing up and baling hay in a rural town in upstate New York, describing a comfort with living here instead of "a Raleigh suburb.' And that included saying his staffers would immerse themselves in the community by being around campus, at Camels sporting events and tailgates, or at church. He was finally clear to call it home. 'Come say hi and introduce yourselves,' Andrzejek said, promising: 'We're going to make some great memories here together too.' ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college basketball: and recommended
