Latest news with #Valenzuela
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Ancient waste shows surprising ‘luxury' food item was not only for Roman elite
On the island of Mallorca, in what was once the ancient Roman city of Pollentia, researchers have unearthed evidence of street food vendors selling an item long believed to be reserved for the elite. The popular on-the-go menu item offered to the masses? A fried songbird. Archaeologists discovered the remains of thrushes in an underground waste disposal system called a cesspit connected to a taberna, or food shop, in Pollentia dating back about 2,100 years, according to a May 26 study published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. Cesspits preserve organic material and provide insights into the diets, health and cultural practices of ancient communities, making them important archaeological artifacts, study author Alejandro Valenzuela said. Before now, historical records indicated that thrushes were 'exclusively a luxury food item for elite banquets' and consumed only by the 'upper echelons of Roman society,' according to Valenzuela. The presence of thrush bones among waste deposits of urban kitchens of shops associated with 'lower and middle-class' residents challenges this view, according to Valenzuela. 'This evidence suggests that thrushes were commonly sold and consumed in Roman urban spaces,' Valenzuela said, adding they were 'part of the everyday diet of urban populations.' Valenzuela said it is likely that the thrushes were pan-fried at the market in Pollentia — a common Roman culinary practice of the time, particularly among street vendors who needed to serve food quickly. Thrushes migrate to Mallorca in the winter, so urban vendors likely took advantage of their seasonal availability to diversify their menus — 'a sophisticated economic strategy,' according to the study. Elite members of society distinguished themselves by breeding thrushes, making them available year-round, according to the of Pollentia began in the early twentieth century, according to experts at Institute of Archaeology of the University of Barcelona. Mallorca is one of Spain's Balearic Islands.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gin Blossoms to push for patients' rights in pre-Congressional Baseball Game concert
The Gin Blossoms are aiming for lawmakers to follow them down the road to health care price transparency with a performance ahead of next week's Congressional Baseball Game. The alternative rockers behind '90s hits such as 'Hey Jealousy' and 'Til I Hear it From You' will take to the stage at the Bullpen in Washington just before first pitch between Democrats and Republicans at Congress's annual charity baseball competition on June 11 at Nationals Park. 'It'll be nice to play this show. It's a good event and it's a worthy cause,' Jesse Valenzuela, the Gin Blossoms' guitarist and singer, said in an interview this week with ITK. The band is performing on behalf of the nonprofit organization, Power to the Patients, which describes itself as a 'bipartisan movement to strengthen healthcare price transparency rules that will protect patients and unleash choice and competition to lower costs.' 'It's sort of a common-sense issue that they really want to get some sort of transparency on medical bills to people so that they don't wind up getting sick and going bankrupt trying to pay all the bills,' Valenzuela said. The 63-year-old songwriter mentioned his mother, who just celebrated a birthday this week: 'She's in her eighties, so she has health issues and concerns. And sometimes it can be difficult for people when there's more bill than she suspected, being on a fixed income.' 'We all make our way through these things, but sometimes, for some people, it can be catastrophic,' the 'Follow You Down' musician said. Power to the Patients has brought a star-studded lineup to the nation's capital over the years to advocate for healthcare price transparency and legislation, including rapper Fat Joe, Foo Fighters and Everclear, among others. A limited number of free tickets to the pre-Congressional Baseball Game festivities are available to the public through the Power to the Patients' website. Valenzuela, who's getting ready to hit the road as part of a nationwide tour this summer with Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors, said he suspects the Gin Blossoms have some fans in Congress. 'I bet there are a few,' he said with a laugh. 'We're certainly of the right age.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Hill
Gin Blossoms to push for patients' rights in pre-Congressional Baseball Game concert
The Gin Blossoms are aiming for lawmakers to follow them down the road to health care price transparency with a performance ahead of next week's Congressional Baseball Game. The alternative rockers behind '90s hits such as 'Hey Jealousy' and 'Til I Hear it From You' will take to the stage at the Bullpen in Washington just before first pitch between Democrats and Republicans at Congress's annual charity baseball competition on June 11 at Nationals Park. 'It'll be nice to play this show. It's a good event and it's a worthy cause,' Jesse Valenzuela, the Gin Blossoms' guitarist and singer, said in an interview this week with ITK. The band is performing on behalf of the nonprofit organization, Power to the Patients, which describes itself as a 'bipartisan movement to strengthen healthcare price transparency rules that will protect patients and unleash choice and competition to lower costs.' 'It's sort of a common-sense issue that they really want to get some sort of transparency on medical bills to people so that they don't wind up getting sick and going bankrupt trying to pay all the bills,' Valenzuela said. The 63-year-old songwriter mentioned his mother, who just celebrated a birthday this week: 'She's in her eighties, so she has health issues and concerns. And sometimes it can be difficult for people when there's more bill than she suspected, being on a fixed income.' 'We all make our way through these things, but sometimes, for some people, it can be catastrophic,' the 'Follow You Down' musician said. Power to the Patients has brought a star-studded lineup to the nation's capital over the years to advocate for healthcare price transparency and legislation, including rapper Fat Joe, Foo Fighters and Everclear, among others. A limited number of free tickets to the pre-Congressional Baseball Game festivities are available to the public through the Power to the Patients' website. Valenzuela, who's getting ready to hit the road as part of a nationwide tour this summer with Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors, said he suspects the Gin Blossoms have some fans in Congress. 'I bet there are a few,' he said with a laugh. 'We're certainly of the right age.'
San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
How St. Mary's baseball marched to second-ever NCAA regional with zero NIL money
St. Mary's baseball, a program whose history dates to 1872 when it was introduced as the school's first sport, has never played under the lights at home. It isn't a figure of speech. There are literally no lights at Louis Guisto Field. Gaels home games begin no later than 2 p.m. — and 3 p.m. after Daylight Saving Time. When winning seasons became the norm during Eric Valenzuela's first stint at the helm from 2014-19, opposing teams would occasionally make full use of their offensive timeouts, to which the St. Mary's dugout relentlessly exclaimed, 'We don't have lights!' Whether it was a tactic to draw the game past sundown or simply coincidental, Athletics starting pitcher and Gaels alumnus Ken Waldichuk remembers well how the team's favorite chirp emerged as the calling card for good baseball in Moraga. 'We embraced it, honestly,' Waldichuk said. 'Not having lights and being in that situation kind of brought guys together.' Valenzuela left for Long Beach State following the 2019 season after having led St. Mary's to four straight 30-win seasons, by far the most in school history, during a stretch that included the program's first NCAA regional appearance in 2016. Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes and MLB All-Star Tony Gonsolin were starting pitchers for that famed group of Gaels, whose legacy was finally matched last weekend. St. Mary's won the West Coast Conference tournament to automatically qualify for the program's second regional appearance, again under the leadership of Valenzuela, who returned as head coach in the summer of 2023 after four seasons in Long Beach. The feat seems more impressive this time around. In 2016, pay-for-play name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and a practically no-holds-barred transfer portal would not be implemented for another half decade. In 2025, success in college athletics is afforded to those with the deepest pockets. More than half of the NCAA tourney's field of 64 is made up of Power 4 teams (34). St. Mary's is one of a select group of mid-major teams included for winning its conference championship. As a result, Valenzuela and company find themselves as a four seed in a Corvallis, Ore., regional that features No. 8 national seed Oregon State, USC (Big Ten) and TCU (Big 12). It's safe to say all three programs have various levels of NIL backing. The NIL money spread across St. Mary's current roster? A whopping total of $0, Valenzuela told the Chronicle. 'There's absolutely no NIL with this current team at all,' Valenzuela said. 'We're not going to have the luxury of a lot of these programs, even in our conference, that have NIL and have a ton of it. … We're not there just yet.' All told, Valenzuela lost six of nine starters from a 2024 lineup that brought the program back above .500 last season at 34-22 (16-8 WCC) after consecutive campaigns with records of 25-26, 25-30 and 23-28 in his absence. Roster turnover heading into this season was inevitable from what was a senior-heavy team. But the Gaels also failed to retain catcher Bear Harrison (Texas A&M), who started 42 games with a .322 batting average and eight home runs as a freshman, outfielder Dalton Mashore (South Carolina), an All-WCC second-team selection, and 6-foot-11 pitcher Jason Reitz (Oregon), whom Valenzuela said would've likely been a weekend starter. Valenzuela cited internal conversations about potentially establishing an NIL budget and funding more baseball scholarships when the allowable number by the NCAA expectedly increases from 11.7 to 34 as part of the House v. NCAA settlement. What steps may be taken, while valuable, are also unlikely to make St. Mary's baseball competitive in the NIL marketplace overnight. Valenzuela knows any high school, junior college or transfer recruits who land with the Gaels won't be the ones chasing money. 'The times have totally changed,' Valenzuela said. 'You never know what a Tony Gonsolin or a Ken Waldichuk or a Corbin Burnes would have done if they were in this era.' For what it's worth, Waldichuk said he thinks he would've stayed. The development he received in three years at St. Mary's after joining as a preferred walk-on in 2017 was well worth it once the New York Yankees spent a 2019 fifth-round pick on him following his junior season. He said his cost of tuition was almost entirely covered once he was put on a partial athletic scholarship after posting a 2.00 ERA as a true freshman reliever. In his final two years, Waldichuk said he had to pay about $1,000 per semester. Every St. Mary's baseball player pays some portion of tuition, according to Valenzuela, who acknowledged maybe one or two are close to attending the school for free but that 'a lot of them are paying the majority.' Meanwhile, some starters at Power 4 programs, especially in the SEC, not only have their tuition covered — they regularly net money off of NIL deals. The independent variable in Valenzuela's success has been his staff. Associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Daniel Costanza has coached alongside Valenzuela for 12 years. And under hitting coach Jack Meggs, who was retained from the program's previous staff, the Gaels boast a top-50 batting average in the country (.301). Fueling that are All-WCC first-team first baseman Eddie Madrigal, whose average is a team-best .372 with 21 home runs and 77 RBIs, and outfielder Aiden Taurek, who is batting .336 with 10 homers and 45 RBIs in his first year as a starter. 'If I'm a coach at a Power (4) school, I'm looking at schools like ours who found ways to be successful with limited resources — I'm going to try to hire those guys,' Valenzuela said. The deeper the Gaels go this postseason as the Bay Area's only chance at a College World Series berth in Omaha, Neb., the farther they'll be from home. But their future on the grounds of Louis Guisto Field at Brother Ronald Gallagher Stadium will only brighten in the years to come. The town of Moraga recently approved outdoor light fixtures to be installed at the ballpark. Gone are the days of an afternoon first pitch thrown against the backdrop of bleachers marked by the handful of parents who could get off of work early. Valenzuela said he always has believed night games could increase exposure for the program across the broader Lamorinda area, ripe with young baseball talent. To enlighten those who have been in the dark: Since 1967, St. Mary's baseball has fielded 12 teams that won at least 30 games, including the past six coached by Valenzuela. 'If you compare Coach V to probably any other coach in the country, he gets more out of what he has than just about anybody,' St. Mary's president Roger Thompson said.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How AI agents are transforming work—and why human talent still matters
Good morning. AI-powered digital labor is fundamentally changing the way work is accomplished. 'We have jobs today within our own organization that didn't exist 60 days ago,' Andy Valenzuela, EVP and COO of employee success at Salesforce, said during the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit last week. The future of work is increasingly collaborative and dynamic, and will be augmented by tools like AI agents—autonomous programs that perform tasks on behalf of users, Valenzuela explained. That requires companies to rethink existing jobs, invest in talent, and maintain organizational flexibility to accommodate agents, he said. In four years, automation for frontline workers has ramped up, said Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and cofounder of Phenom, an HR technology company, during the session. The use of automation among knowledge workers is catching up, he added. Change management may be a factor for many companies as they structure ways to deploy AI agents. However, many AI agents are already on the job. PwC's May survey of 300 senior executives found that 88% say their team or business function plans to increase AI-related budgets in the next 12 months due to agentic AI. Likewise, 79% say AI agents already are being adopted in their companies and, of those, two-thirds report that they're increasing productivity. As companies determine the best use cases to integrate AI agents into their operations, some leaders are grappling with a fundamental question: What should be automated, and what still requires a human touch? Bayireddi offered this analogy: 'Agents are like ants.' Just as ants efficiently handle repetitive, essential tasks, AI agents can take on the routine work that often drains employee energy and engagement. You have to continually evaluate where AI agents can create efficiencies and allow human talent to focus on higher-value opportunities, Valenzuela said. He offered the example of Salesforce launching a pay planning system: 'We actually built an agent that did the entire enablement for those 11,000 people,' he said. Every manager could engage with this agent to learn the new system. Instead of his team focusing on the enablement piece, they could focus on more strategic work. The primary reason for deploying AI agents is to achieve autonomy, Bayireddi said. He explained three types to consider: operational autonomy (automating specific tasks), functional autonomy (automating processes within business units), and hierarchical autonomy (how agents fit within organizational power structures). Deploying agents among knowledge workers requires careful attention to hierarchy and decision-making authority, as organizational structure greatly influences where and how agents should operate, Bayireddi said. At Salesforce, they're building scorecards to balance workloads between agents and humans, Valenzuela said. Managers must learn how to manage both agents and humans, he said. However, deploying teams of agents in very complex, revenue-driving, regulated industries can be concerning for some. It's about balancing innovation with compliance, ensuring agents are integrated thoughtfully into existing structures, and maintaining trust through transparency and strong governance, Bayireddi said. Sheryl This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
