Latest news with #Stengel
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
This Date in Baseball - Trevor Hoffman becomes the first major leaguer with 500 career saves
June 6 1918 — Casey Stengel, after being traded by Brooklyn in the offseason, made his return to Ebbets Field a memorable one. In his first at-bat, Stengel called time, stepped out of the batter's box and doffed his cap. A bird flew out and the fans broke into laughter. 1934 — Myril Hoag hit a major league record six singles in the New York Yankees' 15-3 rout of the Boston Red Sox. 1939 — The New York Giants hit five home runs in the fourth inning in a 17-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds at the Polo Grounds. With two out, Harry Danning, Al Demaree, Burgess Whitehead, Manny Salvo and Joe Moore connected as the Giants scored eight runs in the inning. 1945 — In the first game of a doubleheader, Boston's Boo Ferriss scattered 14 hits to beat Philadelphia 5-2. Ferris, 8-0 on the year, tied the AL mark held by Chicago's John Whitehead for wins at the start of a career. 1975 — Cleveland manager Frank Robinson hit two three-run homers in a 7-5 win over the Texas Rangers. 1986 — San Diego Padres manager Steve Boros was ejected before the first pitch of the game with the Atlanta Braves when he tried to give umpire Charlie Williams a videotape of a disputed play in the previous night's 4-2 loss to Atlanta. 1992 — Eddie Murray drove in two runs at Pittsburgh to pass Mickey Mantle (1,509) as the all-time RBI leader among switch-hitters. 1995 — J.D. Drew of Florida State hit a record-setting three homers in his final three at-bats in a 16-11 loss to Southern California in the College World Series. Drew finished 3-for-5 with five RBIs and 12 total bases, also a series record. 1996 — For the second time in major league history and first in the AL, a cycle and a triple play took place in the same game. Boston's John Valentin hit for the cycle, while Chicago turned a triple play in the Red Sox's 7-4 victory. In 1931, Philadelphia's Chuck Klein hit for the cycle in the same game that the Phillies turned a triple play against the Chicago Cubs. 2000 — The Rally Monkey is born, thanks to the Anaheim Angels' video crew playing a clip from the 1994 film Ace Ventura, Pet Detective on the JumboTron. With the words Rally Monkey superimposed over a monkey jumping up and down in the Jim Carrey movie, the crowd goes wild as the Angels score two runs in the bottom of the 9th to beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5. 2003 — Insisting the corked bat, designed to put on home run displays during batting practice, was accidentally used in a game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa is suspended for eight games by Major League Baseball. Bob Watson, baseball's vice president of on-field operations, agrees that the Cubs outfielder's use of an illegal bat was an 'isolated incident,' but one that still deserves a penalty. 2007 — Trevor Hoffman became the first major leaguer with 500 career saves when he closed out the San Diego Padres' 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. 2017 — Scooter Gennett hit four home runs, matching the major league record, and finished with 10 RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds routed the St. Louis Cardinals 13-1. Gennett became the 17th player to homer four times in one game. 2022 — Eduardo Escobar hits for the cycle in an 11-5 win over the Padres; he is the first Mets player to do so since Scott Hairston in 2012, and the first player for any team to accomplish the feat at Petco Park. _____
Express Tribune
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Bobby Shmurda cancels tour amid low ticket sales; booking agent claims only 10 tickets sold per city
Rapper Bobby Shmurda has canceled his 2025 "Still Alive Tour" just a week before it was set to begin, citing internal disputes and poor promotion. The announcement came via Instagram, where the Brooklyn native apologized to fans and said he's taking 'full responsibility,' while also blasting his booking agent, Philip Stengel of Halo Touring. In a heated Instagram post, Shmurda wrote, 'Let this be a life lesson... don't leave nothing in no one hands,' expressing frustration over how the tour was handled. He included screenshots of tense exchanges between Stengel and Sergio 'Go Gwop' Patillo of Oakstreet Media, highlighting their disagreement over promotion efforts. Stengel, however, fired back publicly, asserting that the tour was canceled because of weak demand, not mismanagement. 'Average ticket sales across markets were 10 per city,' he claimed. 'That's not viable under any circumstances.' He added, 'No ads. No promo. But the booking agent gets blamed?' Screenshots shared by Stengel show dismal figures: just five tickets sold for Washington, DC, and none for cities like Denver and Hampton, VA. He maintained that he advised a reschedule, but Shmurda canceled and went public instead. The tour was slated to visit 19 cities, including Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, and Boston. Despite his 2014 breakout hit "Hot N*gga," Shmurda has struggled to replicate that success since his release from prison in 2021. With the cancellation drawing headlines, the artist now faces potential legal disputes and a PR setback in his ongoing attempt to revive his career.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Marco Rubio Brags About Defending Freedom of Speech While Eagerly Undermining It
Writing in The Federalist this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brags that he is protecting freedom of speech by ending his department's misbegotten crusade against "disinformation." Yet Rubio is simultaneously undermining freedom of speech by targeting anti-Israel activists for deportation because he deems their opinions harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests. More generally, Rubio's ringing defense of First Amendment rights is hard to take seriously given all the ways his boss has sought to punish people for speech that offends him, whether through deportation, regulation, litigation, criminal investigations, or executive decrees targeting disfavored lawyers and journalists. Rubio says he is "taking a crucial step toward keeping the president's promise to liberate American speech by abolishing forever the body formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC)." Congress defunded the GEC last year based on concerns that its efforts to combat "disinformation" had targeted constitutionally protected speech. But as Rubio notes, the State Department during the Biden administration sought to keep the program alive under a new name. "We are putting that to an end," Rubio writes. "Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return." That is a welcome development for reasons that Rubio outlines. He notes that President Barack Obama created the GEC by executive order in 2016, renaming the Center for Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications, which was supposed to "monitor the narratives of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and advise the American government on what counterterrorist narratives to use in response." The new name came with a broader mission: The GEC was charged with countering "foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts"—an amorphous goal that eventually entailed attempts to police online speech. The GEC was the brainchild of Richard Stengel, a former journalist who served as Obama's undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. Rubio argues that the GEC's decisions reflected Stengel's partisan understanding of disinformation. Stengel "touted his efforts to protect 'democracy' while redefining it so that 'democracy' came to mean silencing the part of the electorate he doesn't like," Rubio says. He complains that Stengel, in his 2019 book Information Wars, argued that President Donald Trump "employed the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians and much the same scare tactics as ISIS." During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rubio notes, the GEC implied that the lab-leak theory of the virus's origins amounted to "Russian disinformation." It "tarred not only specific claims as foreign propaganda but also specific users," he writes. "It created lists of thousands of accounts that were accused of being foreign propaganda vectors simply for sharing articles or even following certain accounts. These lists were sent to social media companies for 'review,' but nobody was fooled—the purpose of this was to pressure private companies in the direction of more censorship and less free speech." The GEC also participated in the Election Integrity Partnership, which Rubio says "pretty much exclusively singled out accounts and narratives associated with President Trump and his supporters and, in fact, directly flagged President Trump's tweets, along with [those of] his family members and friends of the administration." In addition to "flagging content," he notes, the GEC "funneled grants to organizations around the world dedicated to pushing speech restrictions under the guise of fighting 'disinformation.'" As an example of such taxpayer-supported meddling in the marketplace of ideas, Rubio cites the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British organization that received money from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is funded by the State Department. Among other things, the GDI sought to steer readers and advertisers away from news sources it deemed likely to promote "disinformation" based on opaque and puzzling criteria. According to the GDI, the 10 "riskiest" sites in the United States included Reason, a judgment it said was based on a lack of explicitly stated policies regarding "authorship attribution," fact checking, corrections, and moderation of reader comments. "Every one of those 10 sites was on the political right," Rubio says (somewhat inaccurately, given Reason's inclusion). The GDI's top-10 list also included the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, The Daily Wire, The American Spectator, The American Conservative, and The Federalist, which is why Rubio says "my choice to publish this piece in The Federalist is no coincidence." The U.S. government's support for such seemingly biased anti-"disinformation" efforts, which was first revealed by Washington Examiner reporter Gabe Kaminsky, provoked an outcry from conservatives. In 2023, the NED announced that it would no longer fund the GDI. "Some of the third-party implementers GEC paid to fight so-called disinformation were downright laughable," Rubio writes. "One such implementer, which continued to receive funding even after Congress sunset[ted] GEC, flagged the DOGE Dog as a symbol associated with Nazi SS officers." The problem, Rubio correctly notes, "wasn't that our government picked the wrong people and NGOs to police 'disinformation.' The problem [was] that they were picking anybody to do this at all. The entire 'disinformation' industry, from its very beginnings, has existed to protect the American establishment from the voices of forgotten Americans. Everything it does is the fruit of the poisoned tree: the hoax that Russian interference, misinformation, and 'meddling' is what caused President Trump's victory in 2016, rather than a winning political message that only he was offering. This travesty has gone on long enough." Notwithstanding Rubio's predictably partisan spin, his point is valid. The vague and highly contested category of "disinformation" invites value judgments that tend to reflect the political and ideological biases of whoever is flagging content or assessing the trustworthiness of sources. In a free society, the government has no business making such judgments or subsidizing organizations that try to steer public debate in the direction they prefer. "Our Founding Fathers took the bold step of believing that ordinary citizens can sift through information, decide which policies and candidates are best, and vote accordingly," Rubio writes. "Our 'disinformation experts' reject this thesis and, in the process, reject our democratic republic itself." He rightly decries "the weaponization of America's own government to silence, censor, and suppress the free speech of ordinary Americans." Rubio is on shakier ground when he claims "the Trump administration rejects this anti-American attitude," adding that "this administration will fight false narratives with true narratives, not with heavy-handed threats decreeing that only one 'truth' be visible online." Rubio's boss, after all, is quite keen on "heavy-handed threats," which he regularly deploys against speech he does not like. The deportation crusade against students whom Trump describes as antisemitic "terrorist sympathizers" epitomizes the president's casual disregard for freedom of speech. The legal basis for deporting people he thinks fall into that category is a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives Rubio sweeping authority to deem noncitizens "subject to removal" when he unilaterally decides that their "presence or activities" could "have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." Rubio notes that fear of malign foreigners drove the State Department's campaign against "disinformation," which he sees as plainly inconsistent with the First Amendment. Yet he deploys the same fear in defending speech-based deportations. Rubio rightly complains that "disinformation" is a dangerously vague concept as a justification for government attempts to suppress online speech. But he sees no problem with ejecting people from the United States based on the equally vague assertion that allowing them to remain here "would have potentially adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest." Specifically, Rubio says, activists such as former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil undermine the government's interest in "combat[ting] anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States." Even if Khalil openly praised Hamas or expressed hatred of Jews (positions he disavows), those opinions would be protected by the First Amendment. Rubio implicitly acknowledges that point in his Federalist essay, which criticizes Stengel for writing "an entire article about 'why America needs a hate speech law.'" In that 2019 Washington Post op-ed piece, Stengel suggested that states "experiment with their own version of hate speech statutes to penalize speech that deliberately insults people based on religion, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation." He argued that the First Amendment "should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another." The Supreme Court has unambiguously rejected that argument. In the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court overturned the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who was charged with advocating "criminal syndicalism" based on a racist and antisemitic rant in which he said "it's possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken" if "our president, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race." Even advocacy of criminal conduct, the Court unanimously held, is protected by the First Amendment unless it is both "directed" at inciting "imminent lawless action" and "likely" to do so. In the 2011 case Snyder v. Phelps, the Supreme Court overturned a civil judgment against members of the Westboro Baptist Church based on their picketing at soldiers' funerals. "The picket signs reflected the church's view that the United States is overly tolerant of sin [in particular, homosexuality] and that God kills American soldiers as punishment," Chief Justice John Roberts noted in the majority opinion. "The question presented is whether the First Amendment shields the church members from tort liability for their speech in this case." The answer, eight justices agreed, was yes. "Speech is powerful," Roberts wrote. "It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate." Rubio recognizes that danger, which is why he cites Stengel's support for criminalizing "hate speech" as evidence of his hostility to freedom of expression. Yet Rubio's justification for deporting Khalil, a legal permanent resident, hinges on the allegation that he engaged in "hate speech"—specifically, the antisemitism that Rubio claims Khalil promoted by participating in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. Rubio is keen to defend "the free speech of ordinary Americans," even when they are accused of promoting disinformation or bigotry. But his concern extends only to U.S. citizens. If you are living in the United States on a student visa, or even if you have started the process of becoming a citizen by obtaining a green card, he argues, you cannot claim the First Amendment's protection when you are threatened with deportation based on "past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful." As Khalil's lawyers note, several federal courts have disagreed, holding that "the First Amendment protects noncitizens who are detained and threatened with deportation as a result of their protected speech." The Supreme Court has not definitively resolved that question. But in the 1945 case Bridges v. Wixon, it held that "freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country." That case involved a longtime legal resident from Australia who was deemed deportable based on the allegation that he had been affiliated with the Communist Party. At the height of the Red Scare in 1952, the Supreme Court nevertheless rejected the First Amendment claims of several immigrants who were threatened with deportation because they had been members of the Communist Party. But that decision in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy was based on an understanding of the First Amendment that the Court repudiated in Brandenburg. Under that earlier, narrower view, the Court had ruled that Communists, including U.S. citizens, could be criminally punished for their political affiliations. Since Rubio plainly does not favor reviving that approach to the First Amendment, it is hard to see how he can insist that his deportation campaign is "not about free speech." Yet that is the only way to reconcile his avowed principles with his actions. The post Marco Rubio Brags About Defending Freedom of Speech While Eagerly Undermining It appeared first on
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Check out how women have blown past men on 3 measures of entrepreneurship
Women-owned businesses are growing faster than men-owned ones, says a recent Wells Fargo report. Women face barriers in raising capital but benefit from digital platforms and education. Black women-owned firms grew rapidly after the BLM movement in 2020, but growth has since slowed. Women entrepreneurs are outpacing men, according to Wells Fargo's latest report on the impact of women-owned businesses. Although corporate America is still predominantly led by men, the number of women-owned businesses has grown faster than those owned by men in the past five years. Small businesses helmed by women have also seen faster employment and revenue growth over that period, based on Wells Fargo's analysis of Census data. "Women see a real opportunity in entrepreneurship to do things on their own," said Geri Stengel, the president of Ventureneer, a market research firm that co-published the report with Wells Fargo. "They've hit the wall in corporate America." While there are still significant barriers for women raising the capital needed to start a business, the report notes that solopreneurs have risen with the advent of digital platforms that democratize business opportunities. Women, in particular, have continued to flourish after federal stimulus packages aimed at supporting small businesses during the pandemic. Education is a factor as well, Stengel added. Currently women are attending and graduating from college at higher rates than men. Despite the strong recent growth in women's entrepreneurship, they're still underrepresented at the top of the corporate ladder. Women-owned companies only make up 2.4% of businesses that earn more than $20 million a year in revenue compared to men-owned businesses that make up 22.5%, according to the Wells Fargo study. The remaining balance represents companies owned by multiple people, or large corporations. Overall the gender gap between the revenue earned by all women-owned businesses is gradually closing and if the current trend continues, the study projects that it would take 120 years before women would reach equal parity with men. The study goes on to highlight that Black women-owned employer firms have experienced a growth rate three times all women-owned businesses — in part supported by diversity programs and movements like Buy Black, according to their findings. "There was a concerted effort to support Black/African American businesses and communities after the killing of George Floyd," read the report's key statistics on Black women. In 2020, activists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement called on consumers to close the revenue gap for Black entrepreneurs by spending their dollars at Black-owned businesses. "The growth of Black/African American women-owned employers surged between 2019 and 2024, at 51.2%, compared to all women, at 17.2%." But the report also noted that the growth for Black and Latino employers has cooled, with more recent political changes potentially adding to that slowdown. "That wave has diminished to a large extent," Stengel said of the support for Black-owned businesses that exploded during the pandemic. "And we're not going to really see it right now because of the DEI executive orders." Trump's administration has called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prioritizing opportunities for underrepresented groups, "radical and wasteful." Businesses like Target and Amazon have also pulled back on DEI initiatives since the presidential election. This month, the US Small Business Administration announced agency-wide job cuts and priority shifts under the Trump administration. "The agency has veered off track — doubling in size and turning into a sprawling leviathan plagued by mission creep, financial mismanagement, and waste," said SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler in a press release. Several grants are being terminated including the Community Navigator Pilot Program that awarded funding to small businesses in underserved areas. "Just like the small business owners we support, we must do more with less," Loeffler continued. Read the original article on Business Insider
Euronews
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
From the gulag to the rolling hills of Tuscany: 100 Years of Karl Stengel
ADVERTISEMENT Marking a hundred years since his birth, exhibitions across 2025 are shining a light on the life and work of Karl Stengel, a Hungarian artist whose works – ranging from abstract expressionist canvases to surreal drawings – have only recently gained the recognition they deserve. The artist's remarkable legacy and story is now being commemorated by the Stengel Collection in Florence , whose centenary exhibition (running until 11 April) presents more than 45 paintings, works on paper and mixed-media compositions – all against the backdrop of the Renaissance-era Palazzo Rosselli del Turco. Karl Stengel, Untitled 24, 1987. Acrylic on canvas and oil pastel, 67 x 95 cm. Courtesy of the Stengel Collection. Beyond Tuscany, Italy, where Stengel spent his later years, international exhibitions include one at London's Oxo Tower (21-30 May) and another currently running at the MACQ Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Querétaro in Mexico until 27 April. Stengel's story is a poignant one. His journey as an artist began under the most unlikely of circumstances: while imprisoned in a Soviet gulag after WWII, he picked up a stone and began drawing one of his guards on a cement bag. Vito Abba, director of the Stengel Collection, recalls the significance of that moment, describing it as "a symbol of his lifelong determination to create art, no matter the circumstances." Upon his release, Stengel continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest , but after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he was forced to flee, eventually finding refuge in Munich, where he completed his artistic training in 1961. Karl Stengel, Untitled 34, ND. Acrilyc on canvas, 80 x 120 cm. Courtesy of the Stengel Collection. Throughout his career, Stengel's work was heavily influenced by a range of artistic forms, including music, poetry, and literature. As Abba explains, 'Stengel's art is richly layered with artistic references, which reflect his lifelong love of other creative forms such as music, theatre, literature and poetry." He often painted on books and music sheets, connecting his visual works to the sounds of composers like Béla Bartók and Beethoven , as well as poets like Federico García Lorca. This cross-pollination of artistic media was a hallmark of Stengel's work, adding an extra level of depth to his expressive style. One of the most exciting aspects of the centenary exhibition in Florence is the opportunity to explore Stengel's "diaries" – a collection of smaller works in which the artist experimented with new ideas and methods. These diaries, which I don white gloves to pore over, include intricate drawings on book pages and music sheets, offering a personal glimpse into his creative process. 'They're often a visual record of what he was reading or listening to at the time,' says Abba. These pieces are not just visual records but also a reflection of Stengel's broad cultural interests and his spontaneous responses to the world around him. Karl Stengel, Untitled I - Hamlet, ND. Oil pastel on paper, 100 x 120 cm. Courtesy of the Stengel Collection. Though a significant proportion are abstract in feel, many of Stengel's pieces are filled with recurring motifs such as heads, silhouettes, and doorways – symbols that suggest themes of exile and trauma, deeply tied to his own experiences. Abba notes that "his life and work is deeply rooted in the 20th century," with echoes of German Expressionism, Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism evident in his art. At the same time, his works remain universal, speaking to themes of human suffering, resilience, and the search for meaning in a – still – fractured world. Despite the emotional depth and sheer multitude and versatility of his works, Stengel never sought fame or recognition. As Abba tells Euronews Culture, 'freedom was more important than recognition." His commitment to artistic freedom often led him to resist the pressures of the art market , instead pursuing what he believed to be true to his vision. This focus on personal integrity rather than commercial success likely contributed to the fact that Stengel's work did not gain widespread recognition during his lifetime. It was only in the years following his death in 2017 that his art began to receive international attention. Karl Stengel, Dreiklang, 1990. Acrylic on canvas, 105 x 80.5 cm. Courtesy of the Stengel Collection. The exhibitions celebrating Stengel's centenary, organisers hope, will bring his work to new audiences. The upcoming exhibition at the Oxo Tower in London , scheduled for May, for instance, marks the first time his works will be shown to a British public. Abba believes that Stengel's story – of resilience, exile, and the enduring power of art – will resonate with contemporary audiences around the world. 'There is no doubt that many of the circumstances that affected Karl during his life, and the political climate of the 20th century, unfortunately have parallels in today's world,' Abba explains. 'I think it has brought a new kind of resonance and relevance to his work.' Karl Stengel. Courtesy of the Stengel Collection. In spite of its sobering themes, Stengel's work remains a powerful, encouraging testament to the transformative potential of art. 'This is a positive and hopeful narrative,' says Abba. 'It says something about the human impulse to create, and of the power of art to make meaning out of experiences.' Find out more about the Stengel Collection here .
