Fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the landmark law banning sex discrimination in education, colleges and universities are circumventing its intent by manipulating athletic rosters to appear more balanced than they are. By packing their women’s teams with extra players who never compete, double- and triple-counting women while undercounting men and even classifying male practice players as women, schools across the nation collectively conjured the illusion of thousands more female athletic opportunities, a USA TODAY investigation found.

At Florida State University, for example, more than half of the 66 women on its indoor track and field team never competed indoors. The school simply counted all its outdoor track athletes twice. The University of Wisconsin claimed to have 165 athletes on its women’s rowing roster even though more than a third of them never raced for the school. Some of the women quit before the regular season even started. In addition to Wisconsin, the University of Alabama, the University of Tennessee and Michigan each reported triple-digit women’s rowing teams. Alabama reported 122 rowers despite its conference championships allowing for 28.

At the University of Michigan, 29 athletes on the 43-player women’s basketball roster were actually men who signed up to practice with the team. Michigan had the highest count of any school in the analysis, reporting 36 practice players across three women's sports. The 29 on its women's basketball team was more than double its number of actual female basketball players.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Michigan women's basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico said the high number ensured her team would never be short practice players because of scheduling conflicts. When Barnes Arico was asked if she knew the athletic department counted the men toward its women’s teams, a school spokesperson, Sarah VanMetre, interrupted and ended the interview.

[link:https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/title-ix-was-intended-to-close-the-gender-gap-in-college-athletics-but-schools-are-rigging-the-numbers/ar-AAXKu2D?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=691d72ba0cab418a81b65b8b19741c65|

While everyone associates Rose Royce with Car Wash, this one has been a big favorite of mine since it was recorded in 1977. Originally offered to Barbra Streisand who turned it down, it appeared for the first time on Rose Royce's second album named In Full Bloom. Has since been covered by a multitude of artists, but IMO nothing matches the original sung by Rose Royce lead singer Gwen Dickey.

This is hopefully a big boost for the midterms, but I'm a little confused by his statement regarding checks.


All this time I thought the loan forgiveness would just be applied to the outstanding balance on the loans held by the Federal government and no money would actually be changing hands. This statement today seems to indicate that $10k checks are going to be sent out soon to everyone who is eligible.

Who are the checks the president referenced going to be sent to? The students who took out the loans?

How do they ensure that the money is actually applied against the loan balance and just not spent on something else? Also, don't understand how they could verify eligibility so quickly for millions of applicants.

I assumed up to now that fraud was going to be negligible because the money could simply be added back into people's outstanding loan balances if it was found they weren't eligible. If they are actually sending out $10k-$20k checks like he said, how would you ever get that money back ?


[link:https://news.yahoo.com/biden-predicts-student-loan-relief-235743682.html|

The lucrative off-season for women’s professional basketball players, when they make the bulk of their income, has dried up this year due to a mix of geopolitical tensions, currency fluctuation and Covid lockdowns.

The median NBA player salary is a little more than $4.3 million for a season spanning eight months, according to ESPN. The WNBA season lasts around four months, and the average base salary is about $130,000 with a max salary of about $228,000. The best players can make up to $700,000 a year through bonuses and sponsorships, according to the WNBA.TV viewership for the WNBA is growing, but it still pales in comparison to the men’s league. The WNBA averaged 379,000 viewers last season, compared with 1.6 million for NBA games.

Cound said a women’s salary in Turkey a few years ago could top out at around $800,000. Now, that number is closer to $350,000 or $400,000. Boris Lelchitski, chief executive officer of Sports International Group, another talent agency, has seen a 30% to 40% reduction in overseas salaries from previous years. Now that many teams with the deepest pockets -- Russia’s Ekaterinburg and the Chinese teams -- are off the table, the next best teams don’t have to haggle as hard for premier players.

“This is driving the market down because the top teams outside of Russia don’t have to pay as much to get the best player or a good player,” Lelchitski said. “They don’t want to negotiate against themselves.” Second-tier teams are struggling to even fill their bench as the war in Ukraine raises food and energy prices across Europe.


The WNBA didn’t discourage players from going overseas this year, not even to Russia, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in an interview. Cound said he knows a couple players who are still going to Russia.





[link:https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/wnba-players-1-million-paydays-vanish-as-off-season-opportunities-dry-up/ar-AA12m2ZJ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=6662c0573cc94c27af1182307ba02bec|

Taking warm air out of the inside of millions of homes and businesses, and expelling the heat into the atmosphere can't be helpful for combating climate change.

If you stand outside behind a unit in use you can feel the amount of heat that is expelled continuously.

Ko Im always thought she would live in New York forever. She knew every corner of Manhattan and had worked hard to build a community of friends. Living in a small apartment, she found her attitude shifting early in the pandemic. After her brother accepted a job in Seattle in the summer of 2020, she decided to move there too.

“It was fine until it wasn’t,” said Im, 36. “The pandemic really changed my mindset about how I wanted to live or how I needed to live."

Eight of the 10 largest cities in the U.S. lost population during the first year of the pandemic, with New York, Los Angeles and Chicago leading the way. Between July 2020 and July 2021, New York lost more than 305,000 people, while Chicago and Los Angeles contracted by 45,000 residents and 40,000 people, respectively.

Although San Francisco's not among the 10 largest cities, almost 55,000 residents left that city, or 6.3% of its 2020 population, the highest percentage of any U.S. city.

[link:https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goodbye-nyc-estimates-show-big-city-losses-sunbelt-gains/ar-AAXJFF8?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=e9d074ea07dd4804a82cc6e48802fcde|

A disturbed repeat offender released without bail after arrests for smearing his own feces on a stranger’s face at a Bronx subway station and attacking a man wearing a yarmukle in Brooklyn has been busted again — and this time he begged police to keep him in jail or face the consequences, prosecutors said Tuesday.

“Don’t let me out again,” Frank Abrokwa warned a cop after his arrest for going berserk on workers at a Washington Heights self storage facility on Saturday, according to court documents. “What I’m going to do next is going to shock the city.” Abrokwa finally got his wish. A judge ordered the 37-year-old homeless man held on $5,000 bail for smashing a window at Treasure Island Self Storage on W. 145th St. and screaming threats at workers there.

On Feb. 28, Abrokwa was arrested for smearing his own feces on a woman at a Bronx train station a week earlier. He was also accused of attacking a Brooklynite on Sept. 9 in Crown Heights.

No bail was set because none of the charges qualified for bail under the state’s bail reform laws. During his arraignment for the foul smear, Abrokwa cursed at the judge and left the courthouse with a wide grin beneath his NBA baseball cap.

[link:https://news.yahoo.com/man-charged-smearing-feces-woman-121300950.html|

Detroit — Police are asking for the public to help track down a woman who reportedly drove a vehicle into a crowd of onlookers during a neighborhood brawl, killing a bystander a split-second after the victim pushed a child out of harm's way.

During a press conference at Public Safety Headquarters Monday, Detroit Police Chief James White identified the victim as Tiffany White, who died Monday morning, hours after she was struck at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

The crossover that was used to kill White was described as a 2020 gray or silver Nissan Murano with a Michigan license plate FDY246. The suspect is an African American woman believed to be in her 30s.

Investigators believe White was one of several people who had gathered near Manning and Crusade on the city's eastside to watch a fight between two factions of beefing neighbors, the chief said.


[link:https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2022/03/21/woman-drove-suv-into-crowd-during-brawl-killing-bystander-detroit-police/9457366002/|

How is it that people who were fired or quit were still allowed computer access to the system for weeks? In at least one instance, an employee fired for approving fraudulent claims for kickbacks, continued to do so for weeks after being fired. First action usually taken when someone leaves a company is to disable their log in access, but not here. And no one has been held accountable.


Unemployment agency didn't ensure background checks for 5,500 staffers. Some had prior crimes, audit says

The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency failed to ensure background checks were conducted for more than 5,500 employees as the agency ramped up its numbers under a wave of new claims at the start of the pandemic.

The audit found 169 workers had prior convictions including financial crimes, and 71 of those 169 were still employed at the time of the review.

The agency also allowed departed workers continued access to the unemployment system, leading in at least one case to about $3.8 million in fraud, according to an audit of the agency's personnel management. The agency has yet to hold the staffing agencies responsible for employees who committed fraud.

A total of 63 of 139 departed workers sampled by the Auditor General's office had continued access to the Michigan Integrated Data Automated System (MiDAS) "to view and make unauthorized changes to claims for an average of 32.6 days after their departure," the audit said.

[link:https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/18/michigan-unemployment-agency-audit-staff-background-checks/7081379001/|

FLINT TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A former township clerk and current county elections supervisor in Michigan has been charged with ballot tampering in the August 2020 primary.

Kathy Funk also is charged with misconduct in office, the Michigan attorney general's office said late Friday. Both charges are felonies punishable by up to five years in prison upon conviction. Funk faces arraignment in Genesee County's 67th District Court.

Funk was Flint Township's clerk when authorities allege she purposely broke a seal on a ballot container, according to the attorney general's office. Under Michigan law, that prevented votes inside the container from being counted in an anticipated recount. No recount was ever performed and Triplett, who was appointed to replace Funk as township clerk in November, told MLive-The Flint Journal that she asked for a recount after the election after having noticed suspicious activity at the township hall in the days surrounding the primary.

“Election officials must uphold the integrity of their positions,” Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said Friday in a release. “Those who abuse that commitment undermine the very foundation of our democracy.”


[link:https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/03/12/kathy-funk-ballot-tampering-election-flint-township/7015942001/|