Well past 7 one evening in 1988, after the nurses and the office manager had gone home, as he prepared to see the last of his patients and return some phone calls, Dr. Lou Ortenzio stopped by the cupboard where the drug samples were kept. Ortenzio, a 35-year-old family practitioner in Clarksburg, West Virginia, reached for a box of extra-strength Vicodin. The box contained 20 pills, wrapped in foil. Each pill combined 750 milligrams of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, with 7.5 milligrams of hydrocodone, an opioid painkiller. Ortenzio routinely saw patients long after normal office hours ended. Attempting to keep up with the workload on this day, he had grown weary and was suffering from a tension headache; he needed something to keep him going. He unwrapped a pill, a sample left by a drug-company sales rep, certain that no one would ever know he'd taken it. Ortenzio popped the pill in his mouth. "It was a feeling like I'd never felt before," he told me recently. "I'm tense and nervous, and that anxiety is crippling." The pill took the anxiety away. The sense of well-being lasted for four hours, carrying him through the rest of the night's work. Back then, Ortenzio was one of Clarksburg's most beloved physicians, the kind of doctor other doctors sent their own families to see. His patients called him "Doc O." He made time to listen to them as they poured out the details of their lives. "To me, he wasn't like a doctor; he was more like a big brother, somebody I could talk to when I couldn't talk to anybody else," says Phyllis Mills, whose family was among Ortenzio's first patients. When Mills' son was born with a viral brain infection and transferred to a hospital in Morgantown, 40 miles away, Ortenzio called often to check on the infant. Mills never forgot that. As a physician in a small community with limited resources, Ortenzio did a bit of everything: He made rounds in a hospital intensive-care unit and made house calls; he provided obstetric and hospice care. Ortenzio loved his work. But it never seemed to end. He started missing dinners with his wife and children. The long hours and high stress taxed his own health. He had trouble sleeping, and gained weight. It took many years, but what began with that one Vicodin eventually grew into a crippling addiction that cost Ortenzio everything he held dear: his family, his practice, his reputation. The United States is in the midst of the deadliest, most widespread drug epidemic in its history. Unlike epidemics of the past, this one did not start with mafias or street dealers. Some people have blamed quack doctors profiteers running pill mills but rogue physicians wrote no more than a fraction of the opioid prescriptions in America over the past two decades. In fact, the epidemic began because hundreds of thousands of well-meaning doctors overprescribed narcotic painkillers, thinking they were doing the right thing for suffering patients. They had been influenced by pain specialists who said it was the humane thing to do, encouraged by insurance companies that said it was the most cost-effective thing to do, and cajoled by drug companies that said it was a safe thing to do. Opioid painkillers were promoted as a boon for doctors, a quick fix for a complicated problem. By the end of the 1990s, Ortenzio was one of his region's leading prescribers of pain pills. It was a sign of the times that he didn't think there was anything wrong with that. C larksburg sits atop rolling hills in northern West Virginia, halfway between Pittsburgh and Charleston. Lou Ortenzio came here in 1978, a recently married young resident out of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Small-town living seemed so much better than suburban life," he told me as we drove around town one afternoon. "In Clarksburg, every block had something going. We had mom-and-pop grocery stores in every neighborhood. All these houses were occupied by teachers, downtown business owners, and people who worked in glass factories." Coal mining was the state's dominant industry, but in Clarksburg, the glass business boomed. Glass manufacturing had arrived at the turn of the 20th century, drawn by the state's high-quality river sand and rich fields of natural gas. Pittsburgh Plate Glass opened a factory in Clarksburg in 1915 and for years was one of the world's leading plate-glass producers. Anchor Hocking employed 800 people making tumblers, bottles, fruit bowls. The city had family-owned factories too: Rolland Glass, Harvey Glass, and others. Unlike simple resource extraction, glassmaking required sustained technological investment to meet new demands from the marketplace. The mass production of plate glass made skyscrapers possible. Picture windows and sliding-glass doors made small homes look bigger and more luxurious. The industry forged a middle class in Clarksburg and even gave the city a cosmopolitan air. The glass factories attracted artisans from France and Belgium; French was commonly heard on the streets for years. Each neighborhood was a self-contained world, with its own churches, grocery stores, and school; many had a swimming pool. High-school sports rivalries were fierce, and football games drew large crowds. When Victory played Roosevelt-Wilson, or Washington Irving went up against Notre Dame, people knew to arrive early to find a seat. By the late 1970s, Clarksburg's older physicians were retiring. Like many small towns at the time, it had trouble attracting young professionals. Ortenzio was among the few physicians who moved there to fill the void. He and two other young doctors opened a practice in 1982. Almost immediately, Ortenzio was seeing 40 to 50 patients a day. The people who came to see him were mostly older; many had served in World War II. They had the aches and pains to show for a lifetime of hard work in the glass factories or at the gas company, but they had retired with something approaching financial security. They owned homes and cars, had pensions and good health insurance. Ortenzio's patients suffered from the ailments of the old arthritis, diabetes, hypertension and most of them did so stoically. This was partly generational and partly an Appalachian inheritance. One man, Ortenzio remembered, came to him thin and wasted away from cancer. "The disease was advanced, but he put up with it. I said, 'Why didn't you come in earlier?' He said, 'Well, I wouldn't want you to think I was complainy.' That was the Appalachian line 'I wouldn't want you to think I was complainy.' " Ortenzio grew into his adopted city. In 1992, he established a free clinic where Clarksburg's uninsured could get medical care. The county chamber of commerce named him Citizen of the Year for that. He had been trained to treat patients holistically. Most of what a doctor needs to know to make a diagnosis, his professors had taught him, could be learned from taking time to listen to the patient. X-rays and lab tests were mostly to confirm what you gleaned from asking questions and paying attention to the answers. He'd also been trained to help his patients help themselves. Part of his job was to teach them how to take care of their bodies. Pills were a last resort. This careful approach endeared him to his patients, but it lengthened his day. "He would have office hours until 11:30 at night," says Jim Harris, a friend and the director of the free clinic. "People waited until then because he was worth the wait." Drug salesmen visited him weekly. It was a stodgy profession back then. Ortenzio remembers the reps as older men who had grown up and lived locally and who cultivated long-term relationships with doctors. One of the reps for Eli Lilly was a deacon in a local Catholic church. Once a week, he would visit Ortenzio's office in a business suit, with information about the drugs Lilly produced. Like many in his profession in those years, he avoided hard-sell tactics. Ortenzio grew to rely on the salesman's counsel when it came to pharmaceuticals. Once, when the Food and Drug Administration removed a Lilly drug from the market, the rep dropped by Ortenzio's office, embarrassed and apologetic. Before long, Ortenzio and his wife saw Clarksburg as home. They found a two-story, three-bedroom house in the Stealey neighborhood, southwest of downtown and at the foot of a hill. They set off to the bank for a 30-year loan. To their surprise, they were denied. "The house won't keep its value that long," the banker told them. "The best we can give you is a 15-year loan." T he banker was right. It wasn't yet clear, amid the bustle of Main Street and Friday-night football, but the city's prospects were fading. Newer glass technologies required large factories, which meant stretches of flat land rare in West Virginia. Mexico and Japan emerged as competition in glass manufacturing, and plastic and aluminum emerged as alternatives to glass. Pittsburgh Plate Glass had closed in 1974. Anchor Hocking left in 1987. Its hulking concrete plant is slated for demolition, but for now it remains, just off Highway 50. By the mid-1980s, the city was in decline. Glasswork was replaced by telemarketing. Downtown, locally owned stores began to disappear. Homeowners yielded to renters, many relying on Section 8 assistance from the government. The city eventually had to destroy dozens of abandoned homes, leaving streets with toothless gaps. The swimming pools, too, slowly closed; resident associations lacked the money to maintain them. Ortenzio drove me by the massive Robert C. Byrd High School, home of the Eagles. It was built in 1995 to consolidate two smaller high schools in Clarksburg, whose population had receded. Replacing neighborhood schools with one centralized school allowed for better course offerings. But Byrd is far from any student's home. School consolidation extinguished the sports rivalries that had brought people together each week. Without local schools, neighborhoods lost their social centers. Lou Ortenzio began to see people in economic as well as physical pain. Many were depressed, worn out by work or the fruitless search for it. Obesity became a more common problem. Some patients began to ask whether he could get them on workers' compensation or disability. Others left to seek job opportunities in New York, North Carolina, Florida. "I was always calling people out of state telling them how sick their parents or grandparents were," he said. When Ortenzio had opened his practice, he'd tended to see young people only for pregnancies or the occasional broken leg. By the mid-1980s, younger people were showing up in larger numbers. They were coming in with ailments that their parents and grandparents had borne in silence headaches, backaches, the common cold. "The new generation that came in the 1980s, those kids began to have the expectation that life should be pain-free," Ortenzio said. "If you went to your physician and you didn't come away with a prescription, you did not have a successful visit." The shift was not peculiar to Clarksburg. Americans young and old were becoming accustomed to medical miracles that allowed them to avoid the consequences of unhealthy behavior statins for high cholesterol, beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors for hypertension and heart failure, a variety of new treatments for diabetes. Fewer patients showed up for annual physicals or wanted to hear what they could do to improve their wellness. They wanted to be cured of whatever was ailing them and sent on their way. Usually that involved pills. The medical establishment, to a large degree, abetted this shift. In the 1980s, a new cadre of pain specialists began to argue that narcotic pain pills, derived from the opium poppy, ought to be used more aggressively. Many had watched terminal cancer patients die in agony because doctors feared giving them regular doses of addictive narcotics. To them, it was inhumane not to use opioid painkillers. The specialists began to push the idea that the pills were nonaddictive when used to treat pain. Opioids, they said, could be prescribed in large quantities for long periods not just to terminal patients, but to almost anyone in pain. This idea had no scientific support. One author of an influential paper later acknowledged that the literature pain advocates relied on to make their case lacked real evidence. "Because the primary goal was to destigmatize, we often left evidence behind," he said. Nevertheless, an alliance of specialists who saw their medical mission as eradicating pain was soon joined by the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured opioids. Medical institutions the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, hospitals and medical schools across the country bought into this approach as well. By the late 1990s, medical schools, when they taught pain management at all, focused on narcotics. By the early 2000s, doctors were being urged to prescribe the drugs after almost any routine surgery: appendectomy, ACL repair, wisdom-tooth extraction. They also prescribed them for chronic conditions such as arthritis and back pain. Chronic pain had once been treated with a combination of strategies that only sometimes involved narcotics; now it was treated using opioids almost exclusively, as insurance companies cut back on reimbursing patients for long-term pain therapies that did not call on the drugs. The U.S. drug industry, meanwhile, was investing heavily in marketing, hiring legions of young salespeople to convince doctors of their drugs' various miracles. Nationwide, the number of pharmaceutical sales reps ballooned from 38,000 in 1995 to 100,000 a decade later. The old style of drug rep, grounded in medicine or pharmacy, largely passed from the scene. "It went from a dozen [salesmen] a week to a dozen a day," Ortenzio remembered. "If you wrote a lot of scrips, you were high on their call list. You would be marketed to several times a day by the same company with different reps." Most drug companies in America adopted the new sales approach. Among them was Purdue Pharma, which came out with a timed-release opioid painkiller, OxyContin, in 1996. Purdue paid legendary bonuses up to $100,000 a quarter, eight times what other companies were paying. To improve their sales numbers, drug reps offered doctors mugs, fishing hats, luggage tags, all-expenses-paid junkets at desirable resorts. They brought lunch for doctors' staff, knowing that with the staff on their side, the doctors were easier to influence. Once they had the doctor's ear, reps relied on specious and misinterpreted data to sell their product. Purdue salespeople promoted the claim that their pill was effectively nonaddictive because it gradually released an opioid, oxycodone, into the body and thus did not create the extreme highs and lows that led to addiction. The reps were selling more than pills. They were selling time-saving solutions for harried doctors who had been told that an epidemic of pain was afoot but who had little time, or training, to address it. For a while, Ortenzio still suggested exercise, a balanced diet, and quitting smoking, all of which can alleviate chronic pain. But his patients, by and large, didn't want to hear any of this, and he was busy. So he, too, gradually embraced pain pills. Nothing ended an appointment quicker than pulling out a prescription pad. T he number of people on pain pills grew from a tiny fraction of Ortenzio's practice to well over half of his patients by the end of the 1990s. The shift was gradual enough at first that he didn't recognize what was happening. Patients with medical problems unrelated to pain migrated to other doctors. Still, Ortenzio was working 16-hour days, seeing patients who had been scheduled for the afternoon at 9 p.m. The more drugs Ortenzio prescribed, the more he was sought out by patients. Many would use up a month's supply before the month was out; in need of more pills, they were insistent, wheedling, aggressive. Many lied. Some would curse and scream when Ortenzio told them that he couldn't write them a new prescription yet, or that he wanted to lower their dosage. The pills were soon on the streets of Clarksburg as well. They replaced beer and pot at many high-school parties. Phyllis Mills, Ortenzio's longtime patient, had two daughters who abused the pills. Theirs did not come from Ortenzio, at least not directly, but the supply of pills was exploding, due in large part to doctors like him who were overprescribing them. Ortenzio should have noticed what the pills were doing, to his patients and his community, but he was less and less himself. After his late-night encounter with Vicodin in 1988, he had begun his own slide into addiction. By the late 1990s, he was using 20 to 30 pills a day, depleting even the plentiful supply of free samples from the ubiquitous sales reps. Desperate to get his hands on more pills, he found a friend he could trust, a middle-aged accountant and a patient of his. "I'm in some trouble," Ortenzio told him. "If I write you this prescription, can I ask you to fill it and bring it back to me?" "Sure thing," the man said, without asking for an explanation. "If you gotta have it, you gotta have it. You're the doc." Soon a dozen or so trusted patients were helping Ortenzio. He knew he was out of control and needed help even the amount of acetaminophen he was consuming was toxic but he feared that seeking treatment for his addiction might cost him his medical license. Around 1999, he found a new way to get his fix. He began writing prescriptions in his children's names. Ortenzio could plainly see that the claim that these pills were nonaddictive was untrue. He would try to quit and feel the symptoms of withdrawal. "I couldn't be away from my supply," he said. His patients, too, were terrified of going without. One, a nurse at a local hospital suffering from chronic pain as well as depression and anxiety, would approach him in his office parking lot, often bearing gifts of quilts or canned goods, insisting that she needed her pills that morning, that she couldn't wait for her monthly appointment. Ortenzio saw no way to break the cycle the pills had created for the people in his care. He never found a way to get his patients down to lower doses of narcotics. They rebelled when he suggested tapering; just cutting people off made them sick. The area didn't have enough pain clinics or addiction specialists to refer them to, and insurance companies wouldn't reimburse for many pain treatments that did not involve pills. Without good alternatives for his patients, he kept on writing prescriptions. A ddiction and overwork had estranged Ortenzio from his wife and children. As Clarksburg declined, his wife moved the kids to Pittsburgh to find better schools. In 2004, after more than a decade of living in different cities, they divorced. Raised Catholic but without much feeling for the church, Ortenzio joined a Protestant congregation. Ultimately, he found Jesus in his exam room. During an appointment one day, he and a patient, a Baptist, talked of his search for redemption. The patient knelt with Ortenzio on the linoleum floor and prayed for the doctor. Ortenzio marks that moment as his new beginning. He had advantages many addicts don't have: a home and a car, financial resources, generous friends and colleagues, and, later, the support of a second wife. He managed to taper off the drugs. A couple of months later, he was baptized in a deep section of Elk Creek, where baptisms have taken place since the early 1800s. Not long after that, federal agents raided his office. They interrogated his staff and confiscated hundreds of patient records. The investigation dragged on for nearly two years. His children had to testify before a grand jury that they knew nothing about the prescriptions their father had written in their names. In October 2005, prosecutors charged Ortenzio with health-care fraud and fraudulent prescribing. That year, 314 West Virginians died from opioid overdoses, more than double the number of people five years earlier. By 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, physicians were writing 130 opioid prescriptions for every 100 West Virginians. In March 2006, Ortenzio pleaded guilty. His sentencing occurred shortly after a 2005 Supreme Court decision made federal sentencing guidelines nonmandatory and individual sentences up to judges' discretion. Despite what he'd done, Ortenzio was still beloved in Clarksburg. More than 100 people wrote to the judge on his behalf. He received five years of supervised release plus 1,000 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution. He would serve no prison time, but he did lose his medical license. At 53, Ortenzio was unemployed. A temp agency offered him a landscaping job at the Stonewall Resort, where, as a doctor, he had taken his family for Sunday brunch. He'd never worked outdoors in his life, but he took the job. It paid $6.50 an hour. He worked at the resort for a couple of months, then as the janitor at a local community center before returning to Stonewall as a full-time groundskeeper. He also found a night job. Tom Dyer is one of northern West Virginia's leading defense attorneys; Ortenzio had been his client. One night in 2006, Dyer ordered a pizza from Fox's Pizza Den in Bridgeport, a town near Clarksburg. When the doorbell rang, he opened the door and there stood Lou Ortenzio, holding a pie. It took a minute before Dyer realized: Doc O was now a pizza-delivery guy. "I was just speechless," Dyer told me. "I made pizza deliveries where I used to make house calls," Ortenzio said. "I delivered pizzas to people who were former patients. They felt very uncomfortable, felt sorry for me." But, he said, "it didn't bother me. I was in a much better place." Ortenzio eventually left pizza delivery. But the way he told me the story, the job was an important step in his recovery: Every pie he delivered liberated him. He was free of the lies he'd told his colleagues, his family, and himself to hide his addiction. He liked hearing kids screaming, "The pizza guy's here!" when he knocked on the door. "You make people happy," he said. "That was what I liked about being a doctor." T oday, Ortenzio spends his days trying to atone. He does this through constant work. There are places in and around Clarksburg where addicts can get help, and Ortenzio can be found at most of them. The Mission opened in 1969, in Clarksburg's Glen Elk neighborhood, at the time a small red-light district with bars and backroom gambling. The shelter started with a few beds, intended for alcoholics and homeless veterans. A neon-blue jesus saves sign outside has remained illuminated for all the years since, as the shelter has expanded. Today, many of its 120 beds are occupied by opioid addicts. One afternoon, I met Ortenzio in a small, windowless office at the Mission. Now 66, he is thin, gray-haired, and bespectacled; he dresses in a hoodie, blue jeans, and sneakers. He does a bit of everything at the Mission, from helping the addicted find treatment to helping them find a coat, or shoes for their children, or a ride to the probation department. He is a volunteer adviser there, too, and at the county's drug court, where he guides addicts through the criminal-justice system. Ortenzio is also involved with two newer initiatives, which suggest the challenges of repairing the damage done by opioids. A wood-beamed downtown church is home to Celebrate Recovery, a Christian ministry founded in Orange County, California. Celebrate Recovery has grown nationwide due in large part to the opioid epidemic. On the cold Tuesday night I visited, the service featured an electric band singing the kind of fervid new gospel music that is common to nondenominational Christianity: "You are perfect in all of your ways …" Ortenzio is Celebrate Recovery's lay pastor in Clarksburg, running its weekly services. The flock is about 100 or so strong. One evening, a young mother named Sarah stood before the congregation to give her testimony. Sarah's story started with parents who married too young and divorced before she was 3. It featured father figures who were coal miners and truck drivers and a stepfather who molested her repeatedly, beginning when she was 8. Then a life of illicit drugs, marriage, divorce, and addiction to prescription pain pills. Clarksburg's traditional congregations have dwindled along with the city's population; many rely on support from former residents who commute in from elsewhere on Sundays. The place these churches once held in this community has been taken by new churches proclaiming a gospel of prosperity, insisting that God wants us all to be rich. And by ministries such as Celebrate Recovery. Ortenzio coordinates the training of recovery coaches at the church, people who can help addicts as they try to wean themselves from narcotics. Addiction, however, seems as present as ever in Clarksburg. At the Mission one day, I met a group of recovering young drug users. Several of them had started out on heroin but then turned to meth. In Clarksburg and many other parts of the country, meth is coming on strong, poised to be the fourth stage in an epidemic that began with prescribed pills, then moved to heroin, and then to fentanyl. Meth seems to reduce the symptoms of withdrawal from opioids, or maybe it's just a way to get high when anything will do. Whatever the case, like the various forms of opioids before it, meth is now in plentiful supply in Clarksburg. A couple of years ago, Ortenzio decided to open a sober-living house downtown, where recovering addicts could spend six months or more stabilizing their lives. He said God had instructed him to undertake the project, and had told him, in fact, where to do it in a house right around the corner from the duplex where Clarksburg's first resident overdosed on fentanyl. In 2017, more than two West Virginians a day were being claimed by opioids. Recovering addicts needed places where they could maintain sobriety. "We thought, This is going to be great. They'll throw a parade for us ," says Ben Randolph, a businessman whom Ortenzio helped recover from pill addiction. Instead, the idea of a sober-living house outraged many in town. The principals of two local schools were concerned that the house was too close to their campuses. Owners of local businesses worried that the house might further tarnish the city's image. "The property value of the homes around it are going to plummet. You're going to have both drug dealers and recovering addicts in one area, so they'll have a captive market," one resident told The Exponent Telegram . But Ortenzio persisted, and a bank eventually granted him a mortgage. Since July 2017, he has run a six-bed home for men, with daily supervision and no problems no spike in crime nearby, no complaints of loitering reported so far. A similar home for women opened last May. Nevertheless, the episode showed where the city, perhaps even the country, was when it came to addiction: afflicted mightily and wanting it to go away, but not knowing how to make that happen. L ou Ortenzio was the first Clarksburg doctor prosecuted for improperly prescribing pain pills. He was the first person most residents I talked with recall as putting a different face on addiction. He was the first to show that this was a new kind of drug plague, and the first to puncture the idea that the supply came from street dealers. He was also the first to publicly work at his own recovery without shame. He was not, however, alone. In 2005, another local doctor, Brad Hall, gathered with members of the West Virginia State Medical Association concerned about addiction among physicians in a state that cannot afford to lose them. They started the Physician Health Program, which has helped some 230 West Virginia doctors with substance-abuse problems get confidential treatment and retain their license to practice. Many are overworked, as Ortenzio had been. Some were self-treating emotional and physical problems. About a quarter abused opioids. Ortenzio managed to escape drugs, but he's still living with the effects of his addiction. He is working to repair his relationship with his youngest son; Ortenzio didn't attend his wedding and has yet to meet a young grandson. He leans on his faith to keep him going. Many of his encounters with addicts prompt sudden, public prayers, Ortenzio bowing his head as he clasps the person's shoulder. His faith has humbled him, relieving him of a sense of hubris that got him into trouble as a doctor: the idea that he could heal an entire community, if he just kept the office open a few hours longer. Doc O will never practice medicine again. Yet his work at the Mission doesn't seem so different from his routine as a family physician, tending to the needs of one person after another. One morning, he took a resident to a clinic, then talked on the phone with an addicted doctor living in a halfway house. A pastor from the coalfields of southern West Virginia called to ask how to set up a Celebrate Recovery ministry in his large but dying church. A 24-year-old mother of four from a West Virginia mountain town was looking for $225 to pay the utilities for an apartment she was trying to rent. Ortenzio promised to reach out to the Mission's supporters for a donation. As the morning wore on, a gaunt 26-year-old man from North Carolina, a construction worker addicted to heroin and meth, showed up to report that he'd had five of his teeth pulled. The dentist had prescribed a dozen hydrocodone pills. The construction worker couldn't fill the scrip without proper ID, which he didn't possess. Ortenzio sat and listened as the young man, slumped beneath a baseball cap, stared at the floor and insisted on his need for the painkiller. The dentist had probably figured that the fellow had lost a lot of teeth, that a dozen pills weren't many. If that were the case, it would mark a change. Not that long ago, the dentist might have prescribed 20 to 40 pills. Ortenzio offered the construction worker a prayer. The man clearly still wanted the drugs. Ortenzio, who as a doctor had prescribed pills by the hundreds each day, could only give him packets of ibuprofen. "You want to stay away from hydrocodone," he said. Related Video: Health Professionals Charged With Illegal Opioid Distribution (Provided by Newsy)


Joe Biden plans to call out President Trump as an "existential threat" to the United States, according to prepared remarks shared with CBS News. The bashing by the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and former vice president would come as he and Mr. Trump travel throughout Iowa Tuesday trying to galvanize their supporters. Biden will label Mr. Trump an existential threat to decency, America's standing in the world, and democracy. Biden hopes to draw a "sharp contrast" between himself and the president on several key issues, according to the campaign. Among them: tariffs, climate change and restoring American "values." Throughout his less-than-two-month-old campaign, Biden, 76, has focused his pitch for the Democratic nod on his contention that he is the candidate most likely to beat the president in the general election. Biden will charge that American farmers "have been crushed" by Mr. Trump's "tariff war with China," which Biden call the product of the president's lack of empathy for rural residents, according to the prepared remarks. On his first trip to Iowa in late April, Biden was criticized by some who said he sounded naïve about the potential threats from China when he told an Iowa City crowd in part, "They're not bad folks, folks." "How many sleepless nights do you think Trump has had over what he's doing to America's farmers?" Biden will ask Iowans Tuesday. "Here's the answer: Just as many as he had when he stiffed the construction workers and electricians and plumbers who built his hotels and casinos. Zero." The "cashiers at Target … know more about economics than Trump," Biden will assert. On climate change, Biden is expected to chide the president's previous climate-related comments, saying, "If he was just another rich guy sitting in his gold-plated apartment in Manhattan tweeting about how those pointy-headed scientists don't know anything, it wouldn't matter   but he's president." Beyond policy and international relations, Biden is set to make an emotional appeal about Mr. Trump's "crude language" and "embarrassing behavior," such as his recent name-calling of Bette Midler on Twitter. "What are you going to do when your kids start tweeting like Trump and say, "Well, the president did it," Biden will ask crowds Tuesday.


The Ben Hogan GS53 driver may be the company's first new driver in more than a decade, but with its traditional all-titanium design and straightforward construction, company CEO Scott White says he believes consumers have been misled by recent driver technology. "Ben Hogan was famous for his no-nonsense approach to his game and his business," White said in a press release announcing the new driver and companion fairway woods. "We felt the designs and marketing claims in the driver and fairway woods categories had gotten out of control in recent years. We've been working on the GS53 projects for a long time with the simple goal of delivering exceptionally beautiful drivers and fairways woods that provide industry-leading performance. No ridiculous hype, unnecessary technologies, materials or graphics and certainly without the crazy price tags." While many other drivers have pursued lightweight carbon composite or historically thinly cast titanium in the crown to save weight, the Ben Hogan GS53 doesn't specifically tout materials. The GS53 driver features an all-titanium construction with a forged 6-4 titanium face. The variable thickness face creates different thicknesses from toe to heel and crown to sole in order to create a larger "effective hitting area." White said the focus of the design was three-fold: "We took a step back and really focused on a couple key areas: aesthetics, feel and ball speed." The latter two were developed via "our own proprietary face thickness map which increases the spring-like effect across the entire face," he said. The GS53 driver features an adjustable hosel that covers eight settings. It allows for +/- 1 degree of loft with intermediate settings between the maximum "low" and maximum "high" loft settings. There also lie adjustment settings (more upright or more flat). Fans of the original Ben Hogan persimmon woods might recognize the channel in the rear perimeter of the sole of both the GS53 driver and fairway woods as a modern take on the "Speed Slot." It's designed to improve the head's aerodynamics. The driver's smaller shape (445 cubic centimeters) also makes the club more easily manipulated. "We wanted to maximize the MOI while providing a slightly smaller footprint than the traditional brick on a stick," White said. Like all Ben Hogan products , the GS53 driver and fairway woods are available only through the company's direct to consumer website, with prices on the GS53 driver and fairway woods 25 percent or more less than many leading manufacturers' clubs. The GS53 line includes fairways woods with a low-profile design that features a stainless steel body and high-strength C455 maraging steel face. The GS53 driver (9, 10.5 degrees; $300) and G53 fairway woods (14, 16 and 18 degrees; $200) are available with three standard shaft options (Project X HZRDUS Smoke Black for low trajectory, Mitsubishi Tensei CK Blue for mid trajectory and UST Mamiya Helium for high trajectory). See the video.


Fifteen years before the Baltimore police were accused of causing the death of Freddie Gray , the city was taken to court by another black man, one who had been paralyzed from the waist down after being tackled by an officer. The man, Horace Muhammad, claimed that the police had manhandled him and that paramedics had mishandled his care before he got to the hospital. At the trial, the city's lawyers brought out the perfect expert witness to vouch for the paramedics: an internationally renowned surgeon and a revered local celebrity, Dr. Benjamin S. Carson. Sign Up For NYT Now's Morning Briefing Newsletter During two hours on the stand, Dr. Carson held the jury in thrall with careful medical explanations of spinal injuries, a quietly self-assured tone and even one reference to God as he undercut Mr. Muhammad's claims. Only the police had caused Mr. Muhammad's paralysis, Dr. Carson said. The paramedics had not hurt him   they had helped him. "What was done in this case is really quite laudatory in the sense that they were able to get this man from the scene of the injury to the place where the appropriate medications and protocols could be carried out very rapidly," Dr. Carson said in his testimony. "I was actually quite impressed by how fast it happened." Dr. Carson's testimony frustrated Mr. Muhammad's lawyers, who felt that it strayed from the topic it was supposed to be limited to. But Dr. Carson's testimony did its job, helping persuade the jury to deny Mr. Muhammad's claim against the paramedics for millions of dollars. The political world has been surprised by the rise of Dr. Carson , the soft-spoken neurosurgeon who has surged into first place in Iowa polls. But in that courtroom in 2000, his presence and ability to captivate an audience was clear, so much so that even Mr. Muhammad acknowledged being a little in awe. The judge in the case, Clifton J. Gordy Jr., said, "As a judge, it was rare to see that kind of gravitas given to an expert witness." "When Dr. Carson got off the stand, my impression was that the E.M.T.s had absolutely nothing to worry about," said Judge Gordy, who is now retired after more than 20 years on the bench. Dr. Carson's testimony seems intriguingly resonant now, as he campaigns for president in a country shaken by a series of cases in which black men have died after encounters with the police, including Mr. Gray, who died in April of a spinal cord injury sustained in police custody. It also provides a window into Dr. Carson's stature in the community at the time, his understated confidence, and the way he was viewed by African-Americans whose lives were markedly less prosperous and accomplished. The episode involving Mr. Muhammad, a stocky 48-year-old truck driver, began when he showed up near dawn on March 18, 1997, at his fiancée's two-story rowhouse in a west Baltimore neighborhood. She called the police and asked them to make him leave, which he grudgingly did. But when he did not move far enough from the house, an officer, who said Mr. Muhammad had made threats, tackled him. Mr. Muhammad never got back up. Dr. Carson was not a witness for the police, and in his testimony he said Mr. Muhammad's injuries had most likely resulted from being "forcibly taken down" by a police officer, who, like Mr. Muhammad, was black. Dr. Carson was hired by the city to counter Mr. Muhammad's claims that the paramedics had treated him callously and aggravated his condition. While the jury awarded Mr. Muhammad $2 million for the actions of the police officer who tackled him, it did not find that the paramedics made Mr. Muhammad's injuries any worse. "We should have gotten a heck of a lot more," said Allen Eaton, a lawyer for Mr. Muhammad, recalling how Dr. Carson quickly connected with the jury composed largely of black women. "I think he was determinative." Jurors who heard the case agreed that Dr. Carson's presence in the trial had made a lasting impression. One could not recall anything about Mr. Muhammad, but remembered Dr. Carson's appearance. Another said that Dr. Carson's testimony swayed the jury, saying, "They thought he was the cat's meow." Dr. Carson, 49 at the time, was already a best-selling author internationally known for separating twins conjoined at the head. He had been an expert witness in 20 to 30 cases, according to his testimony. Dr. Carson earned $750 an hour for reviewing records, although he testified that he had reduced his rate to $500 to accommodate Baltimore "because this is a city," adding, "I try to be very reasonable in that situation." For his testimony, he received $2,500 for half a day, he said. In an interview last month, Dr. Carson said that the money was "incredibly minor" to him and that he vaguely recalled the case. In general, he said, "I had a very good relationship with anybody who is trying to serve the public," such as the police and paramedics. "By the same token," he said, "I have good relationships with patients and people who have been injured. I have advocated on behalf of whoever is right." Baltimore prosecutors charged Mr. Muhammad with assaulting his fiancée and a police officer, as well as resisting arrest. At the criminal trial, the prosecutor, according to transcripts, portrayed Mr. Muhammad as a crack cocaine user who was belligerent with officers, elbowing one. A jury acquitted him. His lawyers contended that the allegations had been concocted as a cover-up for the brutality that left Mr. Muhammad paralyzed and without full use of his hands. In the civil case, the paramedics said that contrary to Mr. Muhammad's claims, they had properly assessed his condition, responded appropriately to his complaints that he could not feel his legs, and transported him safely to the hospital. Judge Gordy said in the recent interview that the claims against the paramedics were always weaker than the case against the police, but that Dr. Carson "put a nail in the plaintiffs' case against the E.M.T.s." "When he walked into the courtroom, all eyes were on him," Judge Gordy recalled. "And it remained that way throughout his testimony. The jury paid rapt attention to everything he said." Mr. Muhammad and his lawyers knew it, too. "They hired him to do just what he did," recalled Mr. Muhammad, who now lives in North Carolina. Lawyers who represented the city declined to comment on the case. During the case, even Mr. Muhammad's lawyers treated Dr. Carson carefully. For the pretrial deposition, Mr. Eaton met Dr. Carson where he worked, questioning him for just 20 minutes in a Johns Hopkins Hospital suite one evening. "I'll endeavor to be brief and get you out of here," Mr. Eaton said, according to a transcript. "Then you can cut out half of somebody's brain tomorrow." During the brisk deposition, Dr. Carson offered a drop of sarcasm in answering a question about what could worsen a patient's spinal injury. "You could take that patient, twist their head and break them in two," Dr. Carson said. "You could throw them off the Empire State Building. Or you could give them the same kind of jolt that he had in the first place." Three months later, Dr. Carson took the stand in Judge Gordy's Baltimore City Circuit courtroom, smoothly opining on the performance of the paramedics and offering clear answers to technical medical questions   including explaining the function of a "spinal dura." ("Short for duramata, which is a Latin word," Dr. Carson said, it's a "leatherlike covering over the brain and spinal cord.") In discussing the spinal cord, Dr. Carson, a Christian who has strong support among evangelicals, mentioned a higher power. "You know, God created that space nice and capacious so that there would be plenty of fluid surrounding the cord so that when you bend your head, turn your head, twist your head, etc.," he said. Mr. Eaton objected when Dr. Carson strayed from his medical expertise, saying that "having dealt with police and paramedics for a very long time" he considered them unlikely to throw or drop someone in a way that could make the initial injury worse. The judge struck that comment from the record. Occasionally, Dr. Carson sounded smug. Asked about whether he had read a particular emergency medical technicians' book, Dr. Carson responded: "I don't read technician books. I'm a little bit beyond that." Mr. Muhammad, whose lawyers unsuccessfully appealed the verdict for the paramedics, believes that the famous doctor had cost him "a lot of money." But in the courtroom, even he was impressed. Afterward in the hall, Mr. Muhammad, in a wheelchair, approached Dr. Carson to thank him for coming. "I just shook his hand," Mr. Muhammad recalled, "and told him it was an honor to meet him." Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook , Twitter and the First Draft newsletter .


Local and federal authorities are investigating a house explosion on Wednesday as a hate crime after they found racist graffiti painted near the rubble. The interracial couple that lived in the home had been away at the time of the explosion, and were not injured. Fire officials said the suspect or suspects apparently tried to set a fire at the home first on Tuesday by leaving the stove on, but the gas company quickly shut off the gas. Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories. Ohio authorities and the FBI are investigating a house explosion as a hate crime, after finding racist graffiti and a swastika painted on a garage near the charred rubble. The interracial couple that lived in the home were staying at a hotel when the explosion occurred, authorities said. Captain Doug Hunter of the Wayne County Sheriff's office said in a statement that the couple's troubles first began on July 3, when an electrical fire broke out in their home. Though the damage was relatively minor, the couple was unable to live there until repairs were completed, leaving the house vacant for roughly a month, Hunter said. But an odd incident occurred on Tuesday, when workers at the home discovered the smell of natural gas and found that the stove had been left on. Read more : A new study found a link between the number of racist tweets and real-life hate crimes in 100 US cities The Sterling Fire District later released a statement saying "an unknown suspect(s) unsuccessfully attempted to ignite the home by filling it with natural gas and turning the stove burner on." But Hunter said the gas company quickly shut the gas off, averting disaster. 'Why would someone target us?' But early Wednesday morning, an explosion decimated the entire structure, leaving little more than a chimney and one corner of the home standing. Angela Frase, who has lived there with her husband Brad for 23 years, told Fox 8 Cleveland that she threw up twice when she saw the damage. "Total disbelief," she said. "I don't know where this is coming from. Why? Why would someone target us?" Hunter said the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting his office in the investigation, and he called on the public to share any details they might know about the crime, no matter how insignificant. "We are going to spare no expense when it comes to calling in resources to track down the individuals that are accountable for this crime," he said. "It's totally out of character for Wayne County to have racial crimes like this." Hate crimes across the country have been on the rise in recent years, according to FBI statistics , with nearly half of all hate crimes committed in 2017 being motivated by hatred toward African-Americans. Read more: People across the US are on edge after shootings in El Paso and Dayton, with loud noises in public areas sparking mass panic The El Paso shooting suspect wanted to get Russian-developed ammunition that gun bloggers have raved is the 'most lethal' The FBI has been accused of failing to take white nationalist terror seriously, ignoring warnings as long ago as 2009 4 dead, 2 injured in stabbing rampage in Southern California


The dollar's surge in purchasing power has been pushing travelers to take that Eurozone trip before winter settles in. But while the strong dollar buys 22.5 percent more euros than it did around this time in 2014, many vacation spots outside of the European Union will yield even better savings. Savings often come at the price of safety. For example, though a U.S. dollar buys 75.4 percent more Russian rubles than it did in early August 2014, the U.S. State Department warns of continuing terrorist attacks, high crime rates, and potentially violent demonstrations in the popular tourist destinations of St. Petersburg and Moscow. But for now, the strong dollar can let you benefit from cheaper vacations on nearly every continent without skimping on personal security. Check out these dollar-friendly countries. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden The currencies of the Eurozone's northern neighbors have fallen a bit further in value than the euro, relative to the dollar. In Norway, a dollar buys 31.7 percent more kroner than it did in early August 2014. The dollar's value has likewise increased by 26.3 percent relative to the Swedish krona and 22.6 percent relative to the Danish krone. In Scandinavia, you can use the exchange rate savings to tour cities such as Stockholm and Copenhagen, go skiing and try to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights in Norway or take the kids to Legoland in Denmark. Australia and New Zealand Head down under, where the strong dollar now buys 26.5 percent more Australian dollars and 29 percent more New Zealand dollars than it did a year ago. In Australia, splurge on a show at the iconic Sydney Opera House, a snorkeling trip to the Great Barrier Reef or explore one of the country's many sprawling state parks. With summer coming to New Zealand, relax on one of the nation's numerous beaches, hike the dramatic landscapes where "The Lord of the Rings" films were shot or take a dip in the natural hot springs of Rotorua. Brazil Worth 2.26 reals in August 2014, the dollar now buys 3.5 reals a 53 percent increase in just one year. Use your savings to take samba lessons in Rio de Janeiro, delve into the rich history of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil's first colonial capital, or voyage up the Amazon River. Mexico The Mexican peso has seen a drop in value relative to the dollar similar to that of the euro: 22.5 percent over the past year. The country's Mayan Riviera, the stretch of Caribbean cost on the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula, is lined with couple- and family-friendly beach resorts. For a break from the sun and sand, use strong dollar savings for a full day at one of the Xcaret eco parks between Cancun and Playa del Carmen or visit the fortified Mayan city of Tulum. Madagascar and Tanzania Many African nations including Morocco, Ghana and South Africa, all major travel destinations have seen their currencies dive relative to the dollar. But the savings in Tanzania and Madagascar trump them all: the dollar now buys 32.7 percent more Malagasy ariaries and 27.1 percent more Tanzanian shillings than it did in August 2014. That makes this the year to climb Mount Klilimanjaro or go on safari in one of Tanzania's national parks, like the Serengeti or Lake Manyara. Madagascar's national parks are a wonder of exotic wildlife; world-class beaches abound on islands like Nosy Be and Ile de Sainte Marie.   Lydia O'Neal More from Consumer Reports: Best laptops and tablets for back-to-school Do it yourself TV packages that save you money 8 sweet reward-card deals Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2015 Consumers Union of U.S.


Former FBI Director James Comey is still curious about whether President Trump taped their private conversations in the Oval Office. During a lengthy interview with a Los Angeles radio station, Comey was asked what he would say to Trump if they ever had another private conversation. "I would ask, 'Did you tape me? Are there tapes?' Because that tweet, that I better hope there aren't tapes, which he tweeted at me shortly after I was fired, didn't strike me as an accident," Comey said on KNX 1070 AM on Friday. "So I'm interested to know whether that is real." Comey was fired from the FBI nearly two years ago, on May 9, 2017. Three days later, the president tweeted : "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Comey documented his meetings with the president in memos that were leaked to the press, including one alleging that Trump asked him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In congressional testimony in June of 2016, Comey said he leaked the memos to prompt the appointment of a special counsel. Robert Mueller was appointed to lead the federal Russia investigation after the New York Times reported the existence of the memo about the Flynn request. During that same hearing Comey reacted to Trump's tweet, saying, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes."


Rangers outfielder Joey Gallo 's right wrist injury is "likely" to lead to a stint on the IL, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports. The extent of the injury isn't yet clear, but there's concern within the team that Gallo fractured the hamate bone in his hand, per Grant. If so, he'll need surgery. Already amid a tailspin, a significant injury to their best player is the last thing the Rangers need. The club has surprisingly been in the playoff hunt for most of the season, but after losing nine of 10, it's at .500 (51-51) and 6 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. The fact that Texas has been in the hunt for most of the year is a tribute to Gallo, who has been one of the majors' top players in 2019. Gallo missed time earlier in the season because of an oblique injury, but he has still slashed .253/.389/.598 (146 wRC+) with 22 home runs in 297 plate appearances. Factoring in his work in the field (4 Defensive Runs Saves, 5.5 Ultimate Zone Rating), Gallo has posted a career-high 3.3 fWAR. If Gallo heads to the IL for the second time this year, the Rangers will recall Willie Calhoun from Triple-A Nashville to replace him, according to Grant. The Rangers demoted Calhoun a week ago, to his chagrin.


Haas will not design its 2020 Formula 1 car to "fit the tyres" despite its struggles this season, because Pirelli 'promised' next year's compounds will have a wider working window. The American team progressed well after entering F1 in 2016, and finished fifth in the constructors' championship last season, but is only ninth in this year's standings. That poor performance comes despite having a car that has been fourth-fastest on several occasions this season, only to be let down by inferior race pace. 's main problem is rooted in not getting Pirelli's 2019 tyres to work but it will not fundamentally change its design to alleviate that problem as it expects the tyres to change. Read Also: Haas concedes VF19 "absolutely the worst" with tyres Tyres influence "not the right thing" for F1 - Steiner "We cannot make the car to fit the tyres," said team boss Gunther Steiner. "Then the tyre changes next year and you're back to square one." Asked by Motorsport.com how much of a concern its lack of solution for its tyre struggles were for the 2020 design, Steiner added: "We got the promise from Pirelli that next year's tyres will have a wider window. "That is what they are working to, that's what they are committed to. Hopefully that works. What you learn this year will help next year as well. "I don't know if it will be ultimately conclusive to make it work all the time. We will have a better understanding at the end of the year for next year." Haas scored 29 points in its debut season, improving to 47 in 2017 and 93 points last year. However, it has just 16 points to its name in 2019, despite raw car performance like setting the fifth-fastest time in qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix. Steiner said "we knew this [kind of struggle] was coming at some stage" even though the disconnect between one-lap pace and results is "frustrating". "I said at some point we would make a step backwards," said Steiner. "It's normal in competition. You cannot keep going up, up and up. "The strange thing is we don't have a bad car. It's more about how we react. "Now the challenge is to keep everybody focused and working in the right direction and being part of the solution not part of the problem. Then we will get out of it." Steiner admitted it is "difficult" for staff members during a spell like Haas in enduring, as success is the ultimate motivating factor. "Some people maybe don't get the confidence and do something different," said Steiner. "But we have to live with that. "Normally if you're up front with people and tell them what is actually happening, and that this is an opportunity, they are OK with that. "There is no better motivator than success and we all know that. Not having success, you have to put the work in to keep them motivated. "Having success like last year we didn't need to motivate, they motivated themselves."


Citywide Missed the the most recent top news in San Francisco? Read on for everything you need to know. 14-year-old boy pulled from water after drowning at Crissy Field A 14-year-old boy who went underneath water for about an hour and 20 minutes has died from drowning, San Francisco Fire Department confirms. Read the full story on KTVU Fox 2 . Severed head of elderly man found in San Francisco refrigerator, court documents state As a daughter and son-in-law faced homicide charges for the first time in San Francisco this week, new details about the gruesome death of a 73-year-old father emerged in court documents. Read the full story on KTVU Fox 2 . Engineers: San Francisco transit terminal safe to reopen Engineers say a $2 billion transit terminal in San Francisco that shut down six weeks after opening last year is safe to reopen   but it could takes a few more weeks. Read the full story on KCRA . As San Francisco Giants ponder the future, rotation concerns come into focus It's unlikely Madison Bumgarner will pitch in San Francisco beyond this season, so how will the Giants replace his production? Read the full story on East Bay Times . When is San Francisco Pride? Everything you need to know about the 2019 celebration Here's everything you need to know about the 2019 Pride Parade in San Francisco, including the time, date, location, weather, and how to get there. Read the full story on Houston Chronicle . This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle , then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.


When it comes to activity level, size and health, the breeds below are the best dogs for folks deciding to bring home a dog in this next life stage. Pembroke Welsh Corgi Life expectancy: 11 to 13 years Size: Up to 30 lbs. Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II is obsessed with corgis, so naturally, we are, too. These dogs are short, stout logs of affection with smiles plastered on their faces most of the time. Pembroke Welsh corgis love being surrounded by their people and are great with (grand) kids. Yes, they shed a ton, but their chill demeanor and snuggle factor makes vacuuming worth it. Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Life expectancy: 9 to 14 years Size: 13 to 15 lbs. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are incredibly adaptable, which means whether their owners live in beach houses with yards or assisted living facilities with long halls, they'll make themselves at home. Their playful attitude toward life is infectious, without being needy. These pups are also great for anyone who lives alone or is highly sensitive to surroundings. Honestly, is there anything this dog can't do? Miniature Schnauzer Life expectancy: 12 to 15 years Size: 11 to 20 lbs. These goofballs are super friendly, obedient dogs ideal for families. Yes, their double coats require weekly brushing dates to keep skin healthy, but they hardly shed and are generally healthy. As with the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, the miniature schnauzer adapts well to both apartments and large homes (which also makes any transition from one to the other a lot easier). Poodle (Toy, Miniature and Standard) Life expectancies: 12 to 15 years Size(s): Anywhere from 6 lbs. to 70 lbs. Poodles are smart. Like, super smart, which makes training simple. No matter the size, all poodles are also hypoallergenic and steadfastly loyal. Frequent visits to the groomer may be in order, depending on the dog's coat and the owner's style. They also adore games of fetch, which means they'll do all the running necessary for exercise (though keep in mind, a brisk walk for a dog means effective exercise for an owner, too). West Highland White Terrier Life expectancy: 13 to 15 years Size: 15 to 20 lbs. There are several cute little dogs on this list, and for good reason. These types of pups, including the West Highland white terrier, are typically enthusiastic and calm (aka they love trotting behind you everywhere you go, and are ready to fall asleep on you at a moment's notice). What makes this breed stand out is its independent streak. This means a little more time and patience is required during training. But the result is rewarding, faithful companionship. Pug Life expectancy: 13 to 15 years Size: 14 to 18 lbs. The gentle pug is all about basking in and sharing the love. This is another adaptable breed; kids and adults, big homes and small apartments, other dogs and strangers are all welcome in the eyes of a pug. One bad habit to avoid is overfeeding. Pugs get thick real quick (as anyone with a dwindling metabolism can appreciate), so a healthy diet and regular walks are imperative. Irish Wolfhound Life expectancy: 6 to 8 years Size: 100 to 125 lbs. Easily the largest breed on this list, the Irish wolfhound is a gentle canine eager to demonstrate his loyalty. The American Kennel Club labels them dignified dogs, though they can definitely be destructive as puppies if left alone too long. However, as adults, they are incredibly calm and even well-suited to be around children. Cocker Spaniel Life expectancy: 12 to 15 years Size: 20 to 30 lbs. Any retiree looking for constant companionship should consider a cocker spaniel. These lovable, highly trainable pups start to miss their humans the moment they leave the house, so be sure to set aside plenty of time for playing and cuddling. Aside from needing their long coats brushed regularly, cocker spaniels are healthy and low maintenance. Scottish Terrier Life expectancy: 11 to 13 years Size: 18 to 22 lbs. Another hypoallergenic breed on our list, the Scottish terrier is a sensible dog. Scotties enjoy walks, not runs. They'll train but can be stubborn (treats help). Excellent watchdogs, Scotties also enjoy playtime. They aren't needy, but they aren't afraid to show affection. The only high-maintenance aspect about them seems to be their finicky coat, which requires regular brushing (and ideally, hand-shedding). Maltese Life expectancy: 15 to 18 years Size: 4 to 7 lbs. The word "dog" itself brings to mind a Maltese. Why? Oh, let's see: affectionate, playful pups intelligent enough to learn tons of commands but sweet enough to love napping on your lap?! That's why. Maltese pups also adapt easily, which is great for anyone planning to travel or move around a lot with their canine BFF. Border Terrier Life expectancy: 12 to 15 years Size: 11 to 15 lbs. Border terriers also make great travel companions. Their zest for life makes roaming new scenes a favorite pastime, though their loyal nature keeps them focused on commands. These generally happy and healthy dogs are perfect for older residents in just about any environment. Adopted dogs It's worth considering adopting a dog rather than buying a young puppy. Puppies require tons of extra work that adult dogs do not (house breaking, teaching commands, hours of playtime, to name a few). Older dogs are often overlooked at shelters, so there's likely a greater need and more opportunity to adopt these animals. Retired dogs Hey, you re not the only one transitioning into a new phase of life. There are many incredible programs for highly trained dogs who are retired from their old gigs or looking for a career change  Seeing Eye dogs who didn t necessarily make the cut, for one, or racing track greyhounds that need a loving owner. (Greyhounds usually need lots of exercise, so they re best for someone who can take them on long walks.)


A Mississippi campground facility has fired a white employee accused of pulling a gun on a black couple trying to find a picnic site. Franklin and Jessica Richardson said they were looking for a spot for a picnic and a possible cabin Sunday at Oktibbeha County Lake, near Starkville. When they arrived at the location with their dog, a woman wearing a yellow Kampgrounds of America shirt -- the company that runs the site -- asked them to leave because they didn't have a reservation, the couple told CNN affiliate WCBI. The Richardsons said they were not doing anything that would be considered a threat to anyone. In a video of the confrontation captured by the couple and widely shared on Facebook, Jessica Richardson described the incident as racism. "This lady literally just pulled a gun because we out here and didn't have reservations for a lake we didn't even know we had to have reservations for," Jessica Richardson said in the video. "The only thing you had to do was tell us to leave, we would have left, you did not have to pull a gun." CNN has reached out to the couple. Information on the unidentified employee was not immediately available. Employee puts gun back into her pocket In the video, the unidentified woman asked the couple to leave before she put the gun back into her pocket. "Well I'm just telling you you need to leave because it's under private ownership," she said. "You can't be out here." The couple said as they left the facility, they talked to another employee who happened to be the woman's husband, and he told them they did not need a reservation to be at the lake. Kampgrounds of America said it's aware of the incident and has reached out to the parties involved. It said it does not condone the use of a firearm on its properties or those owned and operated by its franchisees, and the employee involved has been relieved of her duties. "The incident involved a campground employee and two persons seeking to access a lake via the campground's private property. Unfortunately, the campground employee felt it necessary to display a firearm during the interaction with the two individuals and their dog," the company said. Kampgrounds of America describes itself as the world's largest system of "open-to-the-public campgrounds." It operates more than 500 sites in the United States and Canada.


DULUTH -- Ideal weather Saturday morning led to a repeat victory by Kenyan Panuel Mkungo and a significant personal-best performance by Minnesotan Katy German in the 29th Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon. A field of 9,237 was greeted with a partly sunny, 54-degree day along the North Shore, with an northeast 8 mph tailwind. Mkungo, 25, who grew up in Mombasa and trains in Eldoret, ran nearly the entire 13.1 miles alone to win in 1 hour, 2 minutes, 37 seconds. Katy Jermann, 27, an Iowa native now living in Burnsville, led the women's field in 1:10:27, crushing her previous best of 1:12:11. Each won $3,000 from a prize money purse of $21,600. Jermann's husband of one year, Tyler, was fourth in the men's race in 1:03:31. Mkugo is the first repeat men's winner since Ryan Meissen of River Falls, Wis., in 2004 and 2005. Katy Jermann is the first Minnesota resident women's winner since Katie McGregor of Savage in 2011. The 43rd Grandma's Marathon followed the half marathon on the course.     ©2019 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Visit the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) at www.startribune.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.


While most of the attention surrounding Jim Harbaugh at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday and Friday were about his comments on Tim Kawakami's podcast about Urban Meyer being a controversial figure , it looks like there's a new controversy taking place in the aftermath. During his 15 minutes on the dais at the Hilton Chicago, Harbaugh was asked about transfer Oliver Martin, who departed Michigan to return home to Iowa City this offseason. The question directed towards Michigan's coach asked if he would do anything to help guide the NCAA in terms of granting Martin immediate eligibility. Harbaugh demurred, saying he doesn't have a say there, but he took it a step further, suggesting to the NCAA that it grant one-time exceptions for immediate eligibility for every student-athlete. "Your second question, part of the question was, would I allow him to play right away, which is I have nothing to do with that," Harbaugh said. "The compliance office has discussed that and ultimately that decision is made by the NCAA. There's a misconception on how you phrased that. I have nothing to do with his ability to play right away. My opinion on it, which I could give you, is that it should be clear to what the rules are for youngsters when they transfer. My opinion is that every student-athlete should have a one-time ability to transfer and not have to sit out a year, and then if they were to transfer a second time, then the previous rule that we had, where you had to sit out a year of eligibility, and with that, I would also keep the graduate transfer rule that we have in place right now, where you can graduate and transfer and become immediately eligible. You have one time where you can transfer, be immediately eligible. A second time you'd have to sit out a year, while still having the graduate transfer rule. It would be good to just have a clear, concise, where everybody understands what the ramifications are. I think that would be a fair way to proceed." Harbaugh later appeared at his hour-long podium session, where his final question was quite similar to the one about Martin, whether or not he would assist in helping a transfer gain immediate playing ability, but this time about Cincinnati transfer James Hudson, who departed Michigan during the season, citing mental health reasons. Again, Harbaugh said he has nothing to do with that process, point to compliance departments as being the ones that handle such affairs. "To be clear, as a coach, I don't have any say in that," Harbaugh said. "Not any involvement. Compliance departments talk. They talk to each other through statements and counter-statements and statements. Then the NCAA decides, but as a coach, I'm not involved in it." But, just before he took to his podium session, Harbaugh appeared on ESPN U on SiriusXM radio, and was asked yet another similar question. However, when asked that time around, he made mention of how student-athletes claiming 'mental health issues' could abuse the system as it currently stands. Via Nick Baumgardner and the Detroit Free Press : "And the other piece that bothers me about it is, the youngster that says 'this is a mental health issue, I'm suffering from depression.' Or that's a reason to get eligible. And once that's known that 'hey, say this or say that' to get eligible. The problem I see in that is you're going to have guys that are 'OK, yeah, I'm depressed.' "Say what they've got to say. But down the road I don't see that helping them if it's not a legitimate thing. But nobody would know. But what are you going to say? Ten years down the road 'I just had to say what I had to say?' And I think you're putting them in a position that's unfair, not right. And, as you said, you're saying it just to say it. And that's not truthful. That's not necessarily truthful. It's not something we should be promoting at the college level. Telling the truth matters. Especially at a college. "You can't have experiments that aren't truthful. You can't lie about equations. Shouldn't be lying in football. That's a message that we should be teaching. I got a little long-winded there. But I think that would help all concerned." After that, Harbaugh made it clear that he isn't eschewing those who are legitimately affected by mental health issues, and that he empathizes with said student-athletes. "And can I add, please don't write a bunch of letters," he said. "I care very deeply about mental health. I'm not saying everybody's lying about that. Just saying 'OK, this is America. You started at this school, you didn't like it and for whatever the reason is, you're freely allowed to transfer to any other school like any other human being would have a right to do.' That's really the bottom line." Well, that seemed to resonate with one person: James Hudson's mother. Glenda Hudson was upset when she heard Jim Harbaugh's comments on mental health today. Her son, James, left Michigan and claims the NCAA is blocking his immediate eligibility at Cincinnati because he never reported issues at Michigan. For the first time, she's speaking out: pic.twitter.com/9nTjTbs8wP - Jordan Strack (@JordanStrack) July 20, 2019 WTOL sports anchor Jordan Strack caught up with Hudson's mother, Glenda Hudson, after Harbaugh's comments on Friday, who explained that she's not just struck by what her son's former head coach said on the radio as a parent, but also as someone who works in mental health from a professional standpoint. "Not just as a mom, but as a professional that deals in mental health, this is why people don't come out and say these things, because people don't believe them," Hudson told Strack. "So, it upsets me because, athletes, of all people - and there's a lot of athletes that suffer from depression that I'm sure don't say things - but again, hearing these types of things, they won't! They will not do it in the future because you get: 'Oh, he's lying!' You get blamed for feeling the way that you feel. "When I went into the meeting with Coach Harbaugh, I'm telling him: 'He's down! He's depressed. He's disheartened.' Because - I feel like he felt like this was a lie from the beginning. It's bigger than just playing time. Like I said, I think he didn't know what to call it. He's an athlete. He's a male. He's an African American male. Stigma, all the way around with mental health issues! He's never dealt with that before, so he probably didn't know what to call it." Since Harbaugh's radio comments, there's been a large faction on social media who have taken umbrage with what he had to say about transfers and mental health. MORE: Is Tacko Fall an NBA player? 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Video by TicToc Editor's note: The opinions in this article are the author's, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft. "I know it's hard for you to understand even short sentences, I guess, but please don't take my words out of context." It was June of 2018, and they were fighting again, the White House press secretary and the White House press. This time , Sarah Huckabee Sanders was sparring with CNN's Jim Acosta. This time, the subject at hand was the Trump administration's newly implemented "zero tolerance" policy when it came to immigration a policy that had led, in practice, to the separation of thousands of migrant families at the U.S. border. Tempers flared that hot summer day in the White House's hermetic press room, and the anger was broadcast, as it so often will be, on cable news. "The attorney general, earlier today, said that somehow there's a justification for this in the Bible," Acosta said to Sanders. "Where does it say in the Bible that it's moral to take children away from their mothers?" "I'm not aware of the attorney general's comments or what he would be referencing," Sanders replied. "I can't " "Is it a moral policy, in your view?" Acosta asked. "I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law," Sanders replied. "That is, actually, repeated a number of times throughout the Bible. However, this " "But where in the Bible does it say ," Acosta began. "Hold on, Jim. If you'll let me finish." " it's okay to take children away from their parents?" "Again, I'm not going to comment on the Attorney's specific comments that I haven't seen." "You just said it's in the Bible to follow the law." "That's not what I said." A degree of antagonism is an integral element of the White House press secretary role as currently configured; what Sanders brought to the public-facing aspect of the job, however, was an antagonism that was sharpened by the demands of political theater . Sanders, who announced her resignation today (the president hinted that she might next run for governor of her home state, Arkansas), had all but stopped giving televised press briefings by the end of her 23-month tenure. When she did provide briefings, however, she conducted those events as spectacles of partisanship and wearying demonstrations of gladiatorial ennui. I know it's hard for you to understand even short sentences , Sanders told the reporter, on that heated day last June, and it wasn't an attack on his intelligence so much as an attack on the intelligence of the whole system he is part of. It was a comment that made the entire exercise the exchange of information, the performance of democracy that is played out in the White House briefing room seem silly and pointless and sad. And it was a comment that made the very, very big thing in this case, the separation of migrant families, the relocation of children to cages seem, for the viewers who watched the exchange, like something decidedly small. [ Read: The world burns. Sarah Sanders says this is fine. ] The White House press secretary the office, if not the person is an outgrowth of the idea that, in a democracy, information matters, and facts matter, and while politicians and the press may tangle and tussle, they are ultimately on the same team. Sanders, who ascended to the press secretary role in July of 2017, after the brief and peevish tenure of Sean Spicer, publicly rejected that idea. To watch a Sanders press conference, or to watch her representing the White House on cable news, is to be confronted with a vision of America that is guided by political Darwinism an environment in which everything is a competition, with the winner determined by who can shout the loudest, who can distract the most effectively, who can get in the best insult before the time for questioning is over. Here is some of the misinformation Sanders has spread on behalf of the White House: She has insisted that her boss had never "promoted or encouraged violence," although Trump, among many other such promotions, said of a protester who'd been ejected from a 2016 rally, "I'd like to punch him in the face." She has outright dismissed the stories of the multiple women who have accused Trump of sexual abuse as lies . She has told reporters that she'd heard from "countless" FBI agents who were happy that Trump had fired James Comey in 2017; she would later characterize that, to Robert Mueller, as a mere "slip of the tongue." Her broader legacy, though, is an acquiescence to the idea that facts themselves have a political bias. The agent of a president who has transformed "fake news" from an off-handed insult into a democratic anxiety, Sanders has used her powerful pulpit to promote the " fake news awards ," her boss's carnivalesque attempt to institutionalize his mockery of the American media. She has accused reporters of "purposefully misleading the American people." She has deflected; she has belittled; she has eye-rolled; she has condescended; she has obfuscated; she has misled; she has lied . And she has treated it all as a battle to be won. So many of the public interactions Sanders has conducted with reporters, whether Acosta or April Ryan or Jim Sciutto or Brian Karem or the many other members of the press who are charged with reporting on the daily doings of the White House, have been wars in miniature. And, day by day, the martial logic lurking in the way Americans talk about their politics the campaign and the press corps , the war room  has been made ever more literal. What is true about the world we all navigate, together? That becomes a less important question than who is winning in it. Sanders has stood behind the lectern of the White House briefing room, the ground zero of American democracy, doing what every press secretary will: articulating an idea of what the country is and of what the administration who is guiding the nation most readily prioritizes and most wholeheartedly believes. Her tenure serves as a reminder of what happens when partisanship, aided by the power of the presidency, is allowed to subsume everything else: traditions, norms, truth, people's lives. In 2018, at a " Women Rule" event with Politico , the reporter Eliana Johnson asked Sanders what she hoped her White House legacy would be, when the time came to have one. "I hope that it will be that I showed up every day and I did the very best job that I could to put forward the president's message," Sanders replied. By bringing into existence the particular cynicisms of the post-truth press conference, that is precisely what she did. Related slideshow: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is out   here are all the casualties of the Trump administration so far (Business Insider)


Bilal Powell is back with the Jets. Powell, a running back who has spent his entire eight-year career with the Jets, was expected to leave in free agency, but after going three months without signing, he has now returned. The team announced his signing today. Last year Powell suffered a season-ending neck injury, but he said recently he has been cleared to return. The Jets' backfield is more crowded this year, with Le'Veon Bell as the starter, but Powell will compete with Ty Montgomery , Elijah McGuire and Trenton Cannon for backup work. For his career, Powell has 791 carries for 3,446 yards and 204 catches for 1,567 yards.


CHICAGO   Early one morning in June, 40 months after stepping off a football field for the final time as a player, Peyton Manning climbed into the back of a black SUV outside his Chicago hotel. At 43, smiling and trim and wearing a blue striped polo and pressed khaki shorts, Manning looked exactly like he did late in his career not a pound heavier or lighter. This was the start of another day in his current but not permanent job as a TV host. At the beginning of it, he wanted to make one thing clear. "I do not like the 'R' word." "Retirement?" I said. "Right," he said. "Because I'm not." The car merged into light traffic, headed for Wrigley Field. Manning was in town for one of the last days of taping for "Peyton's Places," the 30-episode series on pro football history set to debut on ESPN+ (the cable outlet's streaming subscription service) on July 29. Four episodes will drop that day, then one will be released per week through the end of the football season. I'll explain how Manning is getting into this project with the verve he used to be one of the best quarterbacks ever, because it's still a significant part of his ethos. But a few words first about why I'm opening my second season with NBC writing this Football Morning in America column with Peyton Manning and a TV show. With the NFL embarking on the 100th season of professional football, you're going to get hit over the head with history and momentousness in NFL storytelling a lot this year. I thought a piece on the league's most ambitious project in the 100th-season celebration was in order, and this is it. During the course of the year, I'll get into some history stories as well including naming my all-time top 100 players later in the year without, I hope, overwhelming you with it. I realize history is cool, but the present is more of why you read this column. And mostly, the present is what this column will be this season, and there's plenty of the present (the 18-game season, CBA negotiations, the reviewable pass-interference conundrum) for you to read today. But back to the car with Manning, headed for the Bears' home of a half-century, Wrigley Field. "This has been a journey for me," said Manning, who is also the executive producer of the series. "I've learned a lot about 100 years of football. I thought I knew a lot. There's been a ton that I did not know. There's been fascinating stuff. In 1929, when the stock market crashed, a guy named Bert Bell basically lost his tail and what does he do? He goes out and buys a football team for $50,000. Which at the time, is probably the worst investment you could make. A bunch of guys in leather helmets running into each other. That's what he does. That team, the Frankford Yellowjackets, turns into the Philadelphia Eagles. Bert Bell starts the draft. He gets them to play on Sundays. He puts the blackout rule in. He was kind of a founding pioneer of the NFL." Manning sounds like he sounded so many times in his career, telling a story in intricate detail about why a play worked or what was said in the huddle. I try to think of others who could have done this series, players or former players with cache and a name. Michael Strahan, maybe. Cris Collinsworth. Maybe Tony Romo. But whoever did it would have to be all-in, the way Manning sounds this morning. "I don't think anyone else could have done this," said Neil Zender, honchoing the project for NFL Films. "Peyton's been interested in every detail of every shoot." Read more from Football Morning in America here


If New York Yankees first baseman Luke Voit isn't the toughest guy in baseball, I'd love to hear who you have ahead of him. If virtually any major league player took a pitch to the face they'd be writhing on the ground in pain and most likely exit the game. Not Voit. A Chad Bettis pitch ran up and in on Voit and clipped him in the mouth, looking like an extremely painful moment that could possibly have resulted in a lengthy IL stint for the first baseman. As for the victim himself? He barely looked phased. Luke Voit just got hit in the face with a 91 MPH pitch and it didn't leave a mark. Voit not human confirmed pic.twitter.com/rkq7VXZkcE   Kyle ⚾ (@KyleNYY) July 20, 2019 Well, when you're as tough as Voit, a baseball to the face won't keep you out long, if at all. Not only did Voit stay on his feet, he actually took his base and remained in the ball game, where he scored shortly after from third base on a Gleyber Torres single. Related slideshow: 2019 MLB season (provided by imagn)


The United States got lucky against Spain . They didn't score from open play and their second penalty was very soft   if it was a penalty at all. I watched the replay in the broadcasting booth over and over again, and none of us could see if Rose Lavelle was touched or not. Spain's quality should not have been a surprise. If you'd been properly prepared and watched their recent games   and then re-watched their games   you would know that this team was going to cause the US trouble, and could beat them. Related: USA relish 'a total circus' as they set up France World Cup showdown Spain have a quality team, and Jorge Vilda is an excellent coach. He has demanded the team have fantastic fitness levels and even though they play possession-oriented soccer they know when to go direct. They were organized on set pieces which is often the US's strength. Their youth teams have an impressive recent record: they were runners-up in the last Under-20 Women's World Cup and won the 2018 Under-17 Women's World Cup. The development of Spanish women's soccer has accelerated so much in the past four years. It shows what the outcomes can be if you invest in women's football. It is amazing to see and I think they can win the World Cup in 2023. Already playing against a great team, you never want to see a goalkeeper make the type of error that Alyssa Naeher made in the build up to Spain's goal. So many goalkeepers have the right attributes to make game-winning saves but the position is also much more about decision-making. That ability is what sets great goalkeepers apart and it requires a whole different level of goalkeeping. What makes the position so tough is being able to read the game and make the right decisions under pressure. Alyssa has power and ability in the air but her decision-making needs to improve. The challenge for her is that decision-making often comes from experience and the ability to read the game. People often overlook how long it can take to get confident in your decision-making or to even change that aspect of one's game. Megan Rapinoe did very well to convert her penalties under pressure but I didn't understand why Alex Morgan was about to take the second penalty and then walked away from it after the VAR delay. That showed she was off her game. Spain put her on the floor a few times early in the match and she didn't overcome that. For her to be considered one of the best forwards she needs to step up and put that penalty away when she had the opportunity. Alex needs to score when it matters. What will add to Friday's quarter-final is that no one knows what to expect   from France or the US. The USA can't prepare anything radical for France in just three days so on Friday they will give us what they've got. Without a doubt, Lindsey Horan needs to return to midfield. She can control the tempo of the game and helps keep possession. It seems Jill Ellis left Lindsey out against Spain to protect her from getting another yellow card and missing the quarter-final, but to me that was a little arrogant. Putting Lindsey on in the 89th minute seemed a little bizarre: she is either being protected or she isn't. Video by Yahoo! Sports The US defense is going to be what it is, so against France, Tobin Heath and Lavelle will need to add to their list of great games. Rapinoe will have to be at her best and I want to see Christen Press and Carli Lloyd come on earlier if they don't start. There is so much depth on that team that should be used   and not in the final minutes of the game. It's to the US's advantage that France are coming off an emotional and exhausting game against Brazil. I'm not sure France were the better team in that game and I'm not sure they have another victory in them, even though I chose France as my favorite to win the tournament. It is so hard to overcome the emotions from games like the one they played against Brazil so I hope they haven't given us all they have. As the host nation, they have the weight of their country on their shoulders. We don't yet know if that expectation is going to be an extra player for France   or the US. Related slideshow: Best of the Women's World Cup (Provided by imagn)


(Bloomberg) -- India deployed airforce helicopters and teams from its navy to rescue passengers stranded aboard a train stalled by heavy rainfall and floods about 60 kilometers east of Mumbai. The Mumbai-Kolhapur Mahalaxmi Express was held up since 3 a.m. local time with 700 passengers on board, India Today reported, citing a spokesman for the railway services. By 3 p.m., all had been evacuated, according to the Maharashtra state government. "Following the incessant rains over the last 24 hours in Mumbai and adjoining areas, eight flood rescue teams from the Indian navy, including three diving teams," were mobilized with rescue material such as inflatable boats and life jackets, the naval service's spokesperson tweeted earlier. The train left Mumbai on Friday night but had to stop when torrential rains flooded the tracks. Parts of the state received their "heaviest downpours during recent times," which will continue through Saturday and increase on Monday after a brief respite, according to the private Skymet weather forecaster. Eleven flights were canceled from Mumbai airport on Saturday morning and nine diverted, the Press Trust of India reported. India's financial hub recorded about 17 centimeters of rain through the night, according to Skymet, with more forecast. Flooded streets revived memories of July 2005 when, almost to the day, about 95 centimeters of rainfall over 24 hours killed more than 1,000 people and brought the city to a standstill. The government's weather office on Saturday issued an "orange alert," the second-highest warning, which directs authorities to prepare for a severe situation. To contact the reporter on this story: Jeanette Rodrigues in Mumbai at jrodrigues26@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Mamudi at smamudi@bloomberg.net, Jeanette Rodrigues, Shamim Adam For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.


Leave it to Steve Spurrier to make sure he won't be topped. The hall of fame player and coach made a living letting everyone know how he felt and he would rarely back away from letting you know your best just doesn't stack up to what the head ball coach can do. This is especially true on the golf course. Florida head coach Dan Mullen said he called the former Gators coaching icon to let Spurrier know about a hole-in-one Mullen had shot. Naturally, so it would seem, Spurrier quickly one-upped Mullen. In fact, he five-upped the current Florida coach on the spot. #Gators coach Dan Mullen on his hole in one this summer: "I called and told Coach Spurrier, and he said, I've had six of those." 😂😂   Matt Hayes (@MattHayesCFB) July 15, 2019 Spurrier does like to get on the golf courses, and I'm sure he has a terrific story to share about each of his hole-in-one experiences from over the years. In 2017, Spurrier discussed his favorite hole-in-one , just before his first signing day as head coach of the Florida Gators, in a story published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He also drained a hole-in-one at Augusta in 2008 . 1 of 2 @ESPNMag says Steve Spurrier aced Augusta National's No. 7 during 2008 Masters week. Assume from member tees (330 yards vs. 450) …   Mike O'Malley (@GD_MikeO) September 1, 2014 So not only is Mullen looking to live up to the success Spurrier had as a head coach in Gainesville, but he's also now trying to catch up to the head ball coach in career hole-in-one shots on the golf course. Follow @KevinOnCFB


Want the dirt on Seattle's most happening local spots? We took a data-driven look at the question, using Yelp to analyze which local businesses have been in the limelight this month. To find out who made the list, we looked at Seattle businesses on Yelp by category and counted how many reviews each received. Rather than compare them based on the number of reviews alone, we calculated a percentage increase in reviews over the past month and tracked businesses that consistently increase their volume of reviews to identify statistically significant outliers compared to past performance. Read on to see which spots are getting plenty of attention, right now. Watson's Counter Open since March, this Korean breakfast, brunch and lunch spot, which also offers coffee, tea and more, is trending compared to other businesses categorized as "Breakfast & Brunch" on Yelp. Citywide, breakfast and brunch spots saw a median 1.7 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, but Watson's Counter saw a 44 percent increase, with a slight downward trend from a five-star rating a month ago to 4.5 stars today. It's not the only trending outlier in the breakfast and brunch category: The Juicy Cafe has seen a 21.7 percent increase in reviews, and Retreat has seen an 11.1 percent bump. Located at 6201 15th Ave. NW (between 62nd and 63rd streets) in Ballard, Watson's Counter offers a full espresso bar and breakfast, brunch and lunch bites with a Korean influence. Try the Loco Moco, which is a fresh ground house-blend of chuck, brisket and pork belly over a bed of rice and topped with housemade gravy and a fried egg. BB's Teriyaki Grill Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about the University District's BB's Teriyaki Grill , the Japanese and Asian fusion spot, which offers salads and more, is a hot topic according to Yelp review data. While businesses categorized as "Japanese" on Yelp saw a median 2.7 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, BB's Teriyaki Grill bagged a 15.1 percent increase in new reviews within that timeframe, maintaining a sound four-star rating. It significantly outperformed the previous month by gaining 5.5 times more reviews than expected based on its past performance. There's more that's trending on Seattle's Japanese scene: Katsu Burger - Capitol Hill has seen a 4.4 percent increase in reviews. Open at 4221 University Way NE (between 42nd and 43rd streets) since July 2017, BB's Teriyaki Grill offers customizable Japanese bowls. Start by choosing a trio of bases (white rice, brown rice, yakisoba, cabbage salad, broccoli, mixed greens) before deciding on proteins (chicken, pork, brisket) and sauces (spicy or regular). BB's also provides catering services. Pablo y Pablo Wallingford's Pablo y Pablo is the city's buzziest cocktail bar by the numbers. The cocktail bar and Mexican spot, which opened at 1605 N. 34th St. (between North Densmore and North Woodlawn avenues) in August 2017, increased its new review count by 9.5 percent over the past month, an outlier when compared to the median new review count of 2 percent for the Yelp category "Cocktail Bars." It outperformed the previous month by gaining 3.0 times more reviews than expected based on past performance while holding a 3.5-star rating. It's not the only trending outlier in the cocktail bar category: 2120 has seen a 5.2 percent increase in reviews. Pablo y Pablo offers brunch, lunch, dinner and happy hour menus. Grab some breakfast tacos, nachos or huevos rancheros in the morning or early afternoon. At dinnertime, look for favorites like chipotle braised chicken enchiladas or traditional pork carnitas. Make sure to top off your meal with a specialty cocktail. Ma'ono Fried Chicken Open since April 2018, this chicken shop, which offers sandwiches and more, is trending compared to other businesses categorized as "Sandwiches" on Yelp. Citywide, businesses tagged "Sandwiches" saw a median 1.7 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, but Ma'ono Fried Chicken saw a 5.3 percent increase, maintaining a sound four-star rating throughout. It gained 5.5 times more reviews than expected based on past performance, significantly outperforming the previous month. Located at 4626 26th Ave. NE in Ravenna, Ma'ono Fried Chicken serves up fried chicken sandwiches, fingers and drumsticks, as well as sides like fries, potato mac salad and cucumber poke. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.