Red In many ways, the history of all color starts with red. Archeological discoveries have dated the use of ochre by early humans as far back as 40,000 years. From the painted caves of Altamira, Spain to the pigment-coated bones of the Red Lady of Paviland, the ornamental use of ochre has been ubiquitous throughout early human history.But a more recent discovery finds that the use of ochre goes back further in time than previously thought.Located in a private nature reserve roughly 200 miles outside Cape Town, Blombos Cave's archaeological significance was first discovered during an excavation in the early 1990s. But in 2008, researchers made a pair of ochre-related discoveries that suggested new information about our earliest ancestors. Eight pieces of ochre were found that had been engraved with fine, abstract patterns. These pieces were determined to be between 70,000 and 100,000 years old predating similar European artifacts by tens of thousands of years.The second discovery was that of an ochre making workshop, which included various tools and indications that the pigment was stored in abalone shells. The ability to create the engraved geometric patterns, implement the planning involved with creating a workshop, and understand the chemistry involved with creating the pigment indicate a level of complex cognition that homo sapiens of this time were, previously, not thought to possess.This may be the earliest chapter in the story of humanity's use of color. Orange Around 35 BC, a site in southern France was founded and named Arausio in honor of a Celtic water god. Because of its location, trade from France's southern ports made its way through the region. One of the more notable items being traded was "Chinese apples" or "oranges." At some point, the site once known as Arausio became the Principality of Orange.When the mid-16th-century rolled along, the 11-year-old count of Nassau inherited properties in the Netherlands as well as the title "Prince of Orange." This new Prince of Orange then went on to lead a Dutch (Protestant) Revolt against the Spanish (Catholic) Hapsburgs, a conflict that led to the forming of the Dutch RepublicIt's because of this section of history that the color orange picked up two close associations. The first was that orange became closely associated with the Netherlands. Indeed, while the Dutch flag is red, white, and blue, it's orange that's unofficially the official color of the country. And if you've ever sported gear for the York Mets, New York Knicks, or even the San Francisco (née New York) Giants, your orange adornments are a nod to the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. Blue When ground into a powder, the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli creates a pigment known as ultramarine. It's a very deep, rich shade of blue. And the fact that sources for lapis lazuli were pretty much limited to a few mines in Sar-i Sang, Afghanistan, meant that it was also extremely expensive more valuable than gold especially during the Medieval and Renaissance period. That meant that painters (and the patrons who often footed the bill for the expensive pigment) would reserve ultramarine for only the most esteemed subjects. Often, this meant the raiment of Christ or the Virgin Mary.Or if you were a patron, you could show off just how ridiculously wealthy you were by commissioning a painting that uses a great deal of ultramarine. As was the case with Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who commissioned Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne , a painting that dedicates a third of its massive canvas to the expansive, ultramarine-hued sky. Purple From princes to Prince, purple has long been associated with royalty, Roman Emperors being some of the more notable early adopters. But swanning about the forum in an all-purple toga was less of a sartorial choice and more of a power play.Bronze Age textiles from the Mediterranean would've achieved their rich purple color with a dye made from sea snail secretions. Très chic, n'est-ce pas ? The people of Tyre, a Phoenician city in present-day Lebanon, had mastered the art of making the dye and one truly had to be a master. The process was difficult, smelly, and required thousands upon thousands of snails. So unless you had nobility-style money to throw around you literally couldn't afford to wear "Tyrian purple." White Is there anything that conveys sophistication and artistic mastery as instantly as a stark white marble statue of a human figure? That's what the whole Western world has been conditioned to believe, in any case. The truth is those statues were never meant to be white. They were originally painted vivid colors but the paint wore off over the centuries. So where did this monochromatic view of the ancient world come from?This perception can be traced pretty directly to Cortile del Belvedere, a courtyard in the Vatican Palace. In the 18th-century Johann Winckelmann, an influential art historian and ardent neoclassical Hellenist, was tasked with traveling to Rome and taking down descriptions of such statues as the Belvedere Apollo and the Belvedere Torso . Winckelmann was so taken with what he saw that he'd go on to decide that they represented the absolute height of beauty and then successfully, though erroneously, imposed that ideal on the rest of the western world. But there's a more sinister legacy than what (literally) meets the eye. He was a Eurocentrist who denigrated the work of non-European cultures, connecting their use of vibrant color directly to barbarism whiteness being connected with purity. And in case mere (obvious) symbolism wasn't enough for racists to latch onto, he explicitly wrote that "a beautiful body will be all the more beautiful the whiter it is." Though he was talking about the body as it's depicted in art, it's just a quick hop skip and a jump to unchecked racism. Indeed, this veneration of a blank, white Greco-Roman style (that never even existed) was readily adopted by Hitler and Mussolini as well as contemporary white supremacists. Pink While red and the use of ochre pigment likely accounts for the first use of color by humans, a recent discovery has shed light on what was the first biological color to ever exist . Recently, scientists found rocks in a marine shale deposit under the Sahara Desert, crushed the rocks into powder … and that powder turned out to be bright pink in color. The molecules that were found were from microscopic organisms, predating the existence of animal life (including the dinosaurs). So when you picture some of the earliest known life on Earth (as one is want to do) picture teeny-tiny, microscopic pink specks floating around in the primordial soup.


Tuesday's enormous brawl between the Pirates and the Reds has, unsurprisingly, led to multiple suspensions on both teams. Major League Baseball announced a total of 32 games' worth of suspensions for six players, as well as a six-game suspension for Reds manager David Bell and a two-game ban for Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. All six players will appeal their penalties, while Bell and Hurdle will begin serving their bans immediately. Here is the full list of suspensions issued… Pirates' Keone Kela , 10 games Reds' Amir Garrett , eight games Pirates' Jose Osuna , five games Reds' Jared Hughes , three games Pirates' Kyle Crick , three games Indians' Yasiel Puig (then a member of the Reds), three games Fines were also issued to all six players. Joey Votto , Philip Ervin and Trevor Williams also received fines, as did players on both teams who participated in the fracas despite being on the injured list. Beyond just the brawl that began when Garrett rushed from the mound to go after the Pirates' dugout, the suspensions cover a wide range of incidents during the game. Kela received the harshest punishment both "for his role in instigating the bench-clearing incident," as per the league's official release, and for throwing at Derek Dietrich 's head in the seventh inning. There has been no love lost between the Pirates and Reds this season, as reflected in Hurdle's suspension. The Pittsburgh skipper was cited for not only "his Club's conduct during the incident," but also for "multiple intentional pitches thrown at Dietrich this season." Hurdle still received less punishment than Bell, whose six-game suspension was "for returning to the field following his ejection; escalating the incident with his aggressive actions; his Club's intentional pitch at [Starling] Marte ; and his numerous ejections this season."


13 Super-Safe Dividend Stocks to Buy Now 13 Super-Safe Dividend Stocks to Buy Now The stock market s major indices are at or near all-time highs, and as stocks go up, dividend yields go down. As a result, many of the best dividend stocks to buy right now sport relatively modest yields. That s OK. Because your focus also should be on dividend safety and payout growth that will enhance your yield over time. Not every stock has been caught up in 2019 s surge to new peaks. GameStop (GME), CenturyLink (CTL), Vodafone (VOD), Pitney Bowes (PBI), L Brands (LB), Deutsche Bank (DB)   all of these well-known companies have either cut or outright suspended their dividends this year. Those moves were a blow to all existing shareholders, but especially those who were relying on the income from these sometimes generous dividend payers to tackle regular expenses in retirement. How do you ensure the dividend stocks you re invested in won t do the same? One way is to monitor the DIVCON system from exchange-traded fund provider Reality Shares. DIVCON s methodology uses a five-tier rating to provide a snapshot of companies  dividend health, where DIVCON 5 indicates the highest probability for a dividend increase , and DIVCON 1 the highest probability for a dividend cut . And within each of these ratings is a composite score determined by cash flow, earnings, stock buybacks and other factors. These are 13 of the safest dividend stocks to buy right now. Each stock has not only achieved a DIVCON 5 score, but a composite score within the top 15 of all stocks that DIVCON has evaluated. This makes them the crème de la crème of dividend safety   and more likely to keep the dividend increases coming going forward. Click through the slideshow to see them. SEE ALSO: 25 Stocks Every Retiree Should Own Nucor Market value: $16.8 billion Dividend yield: 2.9% DIVCON Score: 68.0 Commodity-related companies aren t typically where the mind wanders when it comes to dividend stocks, and especially not as it pertains to consistent dividend payers and hikers. But Nucor (NUE, $55.17) breaks the mold. Nucor is the leading North American producer of structural steel, No. 2 in plate steel and No. 3 in sheet steel. Its products can be found in everything from automobile frames to bridges and dams to hydroelectric power plants to oil rigs. And while the business can certainly ebb and flow   the company went from $21.1 billion in revenues in 2014 to $16.2 billion in 206 but $25.1 billion in 2018   the company excels at wringing profits from those operations and returning it to shareholders. In 2018, Nucor announced its 46th consecutive dividend increase, continuing its membership in the Dividend Aristocrats   companies within the Standard & Poor s 500-stock index that have raised their payouts for at least 25 consecutive years. It s not breakneck dividend growth   NUE s distribution has grown just 8% over the past five years   but it s enough to show the company s dedication to rewarding shareholders. Nucor s dividend is also very safe, representing just 20% of profits. If you care more about cash, levered free cash flow (how much cash companies have left over after they meet all their obligations) is nearly five times what Nucor needs to support its payout. It also boasts a strong Bloomberg dividend health score of 62 (anything over 50 indicates higher potential for dividend growth). Visa Market value: $394.1 billion Dividend yield: 0.6% DIVCON Score: 68.25 Visa (V, $180.33)   the world s largest payment processor at 323 million cardholders   is a prime example of a low yielder that nonetheless finds itself on numerous  top dividend stocks to buy  lists. That s because Visa is very much a growth-and-income play. On the business side, the payment processor has expanded its revenues by 62% over the past five years, and profits have exploded by 83% during the same time frame. That has driven shares to more than triple since 2014, prompting Warren Buffett to lament not having bought it and rival Mastercard (MA) earlier.  I could have bought them as well, and looking back, I should have,  he said earlier this year. That rapid stock growth is most of the reason why Visa yields so little. It s certainly not for lack of dividend growth   its payout has jumped by 150% over the past half-decade, from 10 cents per share to its current 25 cents. And DIVCON s 5 score on the stock bodes well for future hikes going forward. Visa pays out just 19% of its profits as dividends   an extremely low level that gives it room to aggressively hike its payout over time. Indeed, Visa is expected to expand its payout by 18.3% over the next 12 months, compared to median dividend growth of 5.6% for the 1,200 largest dividend payers by market capitalization in the U.S. Fundamentals are strong, too   levered free cash flow is a whopping 5.6 times dividends, and earnings continue to boom. Also, the stock-repurchases-to-dividends ratio is high at 3.6   that means in difficult times, Visa s management could reallocate cash that it typically spends on buybacks to fund or even continue raising the dividend. SEE ALSO: 7 Double-Threat Dividend Stocks in Tech TD Ameritrade Market value: $28.2 billion Dividend yield: 2.4% DIVCON Score: 68.25 TD Ameritrade (AMTD, $50.97) is a popular broker that allows people to invest via its online trading platform. However, it hasn t been terribly popular with investors this year   shares are up only about 4% in 2019 to underperform the markets, helped in part by earnings reported in April that merely matched analysts  expectations. But there s nothing wrong with the dividend. AMTD announced a generous 43% bump in its payout last October to its current 30 cents per share   150% better than where the dividend sat in 2014. Even after that improvement, TD Ameritrade still only pays out less than 30% of its earnings as dividends, and its LFCF is 10.4 times what it needs to support the distribution. Other positives that DIVCON has identified include expected 27.5% dividend growth over the next 12 months (well above the median), rapid earnings growth and a solid buybacks-to-dividends ratio of 1.4, providing a cushion for sustainable expansion in AMTD s dividend. Home Depot Market value: $240.1 billion Dividend yield: 2.5% DIVCON Score: 68.25 While outstanding total returns have made Home Depot (HD, $218.23) one of the best dividend stocks to buy for some time, no one envies the company s PR department right now. Some shoppers   furious at a recent report that retired co-founder Bernie Marcus is expected to donate to President Donald Trump s 2020 re-election campaign   have threatened to boycott Home Depot, in theory driving foot traffic to rival Lowe s (LOW). The boycott itself sparked its own backlash, including tweets by the president himself. Shareholders might not notice. The do-it-yourself home-improvement retailer has climbed 27% a little bit past 2019 s halfway point and is one of the hedge fund community s favorite blue-chip stocks . Home Depot also is significantly improving its dividend   the year s first payout of $1.36 per share was 32% better than it was in 2018, and nearly 190% richer than the 2014 dividend. The company s roughly 45% earnings payout ratio isn t tiny, but still gives the dividend plenty of room to grow; so does levered free cash flow that s 2.7 times its regular payments. And grow it should: Analysts on average expect a 23.1% bump higher on Home Depot s next go-around. DIVCON also likes a high buybacks-to-dividends ratio of 2.0 for additional support in leaner times. SEE ALSO: 57 Dividend Stocks You Can Count On in 2019 Fastenal Market value: $17.7 billion Dividend yield: 2.8% DIVCON Score: 68.25 Fastenal (FAST, $30.95) is a large industrial company that excels in a very specific niche: fasteners. You can buy plenty of products on its site, from electronics and batteries to hydraulics to adhesives. But fasteners are its bread  n  butter. Indeed, it s largest fastener supplier in North America, at $1.5 billion in annual fastener sales across 60,000 monthly manufacturing customers. It s not the most scintillating business, but Fastenal has ridden it to years of uninterrupted growth, including a standout 2018 that saw revenues increase by 13% year-over-year and profits jump by almost 30%. The business also has powered a growing dividend, and in fact, Fastenal has actually put its foot on that pedal of late. That is, after years of annual hikes, FAST has delivered two payout increases per year in 2019 and 2018. Its most recent improvement, to 22 cents per share, has Fastenal paying out 76% more than it did at the start of 2014. The analyst consensus for Fastenal s dividend is roughly 32% growth over the next year. That seems a bit aggressive given a good-but-not-great payout ratio of 60%, and LFCF that s 1.3 times its current distribution. Still, they re solid metrics that at least speak to a safe dividend with a little growth potential. Also, Fastenal s Altman Z-score   which uses five factors to measure a company s credit strength   is a massive 12.65, compared to a median score of 3.85 for the largest 1,200 dividend payers by market cap. (Any score above 3 indicates a low likelihood of bankruptcy). Booz Allen Hamilton Market value: $9.6 billion Dividend yield: 1.3% DIVCON Score: 68.75 Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH, $68.82) is an international IT consulting, analysis and engineering firm with a heavy focus on governmental and defense customers. And business has been good. BAH shares have more than doubled the market s performance with a roughly 53% run so far in 2019. That came thanks in part to a top- and bottom-line beat when it announced its quarterly earnings in late May; profits were 23% better than the year-ago quarter. Better still, the analyst community sees good things ahead: 7% to 8% revenue growth this year and next, leading to double-digit profit expansion in both years. Strong fundamentals have driven a 130% swelling in the dividend since 2014, and those fundamentals remain   Morgan Stanley s Matthew Sharpe, who rates the stock Overweight (equivalent of Buy), says it has  one of the best balance sheets in the space.  LFCF is 2.9 times what Booz Allen needs to make its payout, and it uses just 27% of its profits to fund its dividend. That, and a high 2.2 buybacks-to-dividends ratio, support continued dividend growth going forward. SEE ALSO: Cheap CEFs: 7 Closed-End Funds With Unusually Low Fees Steel Dynamics Market value: $6.7 billion Dividend yield: 3.2% DIVCON Score: 69.5 This list of safe dividend stocks to buy surprisingly includes not one but two steel companies   the previously mentioned Nucor, and also Steel Dynamics (STLD, $30.11). Steel Dynamics is America s third largest producer of carbon steel products; flat-rolled steel makes up 61% of its product mix, but it also produces structural, rail, merchant bar and other types of steel products. STLD and NUE share something else in common: They make steel products by melting down scrap, allowing them to sell at lower costs, which has cut into the traditional steelmaking business for years. That said, the steel industry as a whole has been hobbled over the past year despite tariffs and a Brazilian mining disaster that should have improved prices. Instead, weak demand has weighed on the space. Steel Dynamics shares have lost nearly a third of their value since this point in 2018. That said, STLD now trades at less than 10 times future earnings estimates, and it now yields more than 3%, putting it among the highest payouts on this list of safe dividend stocks. And despite its issues, Steel Dynamics still is paying out just 15% of its profits as dividends and has nearly seven times the levered free cash flow it needs to maintain its current payout, contributing to its DIVCON 5 rating . A 3.1 buybacks-to-dividends ratio is especially important given the boom-and-bust cycles that steelmakers can go through. And despite its problems, Wall Street is at least cautiously optimistic about the stock. Over the past three months, STLD has earned four Buy calls and three Holds, with no Sells. Chemed Market value: $6.1 billion Dividend yield: 0.3% DIVCON Score: 69.5 Chemed (CHE, $382.22) has one of the best dividend-safety profiles of any stock on this list, thanks to extremely conservative payout management. Right now, the company s 30-cent quarterly dividend represents just about 10% of the company s profits, and roughly the same percentage of its levered free cash flow. Translation: Chemed, which has grown its payout by 50% in the past half-decade, has all the headroom in the world to keep doling out more cash to shareholders. So, what is Chemed? This is an odd company made up of two disparate subsidiaries: Vitas Healthcare, which provides hospice-care services in 14 states and the District of Columbia, and … Roto-Rooter. Yes, that Roto-Rooter, which provides home and business plumbing and water cleanup services. It s a low-and-slow grower, but one that has been able to squeeze increasingly more profits out of its operations. In 2014, it made $99.3 million in profits on $1.5 billion in revenues; in 2018, it took sales of $1.8 billion and turned it into $205.5 million in earnings. Analysts see mid-single-digit revenue and profit expansion over the next couple years, too. CHE also excels on a worst-case-scenario basis, too. Its Altman Z-score of 15.09 is numerous times better than the 3-score level that indicates no risk of bankruptcy. Brady Market value: $2.7 billion Dividend yield: 1.7% DIVCON Score: 69.5 Brady (BRC, $50.56) won t show up on many  best dividend stocks  lists, or many stock lists in general. In fact, many investors probably have never heard of it. But it s possible that you ve come across its products at work or while out shopping. In short, Brady is in the identification business. That is, Brady makes all sorts of products   from labels, tape and signs to printers and even software   that helps businesses identify … well, anything. For instance, the company creates barcode labels, floor-marking tape and even  Slippery While Wet  signs. It also boasts a few other products, such as padlocks, lockouts and absorbents. It s not much of a growth business, but BRC has managed to eke out market-beating stock performance over most significant time periods regardless. This isn t an eye-popping dividend-growth story, either; its payout has only improved by a little less than 10% over the past half-decade. But the company has been upping its dividend through thick and thin, announcing its 33rd consecutive hike in September 2018. In addition to a modest 35% payout ratio, DIVCON likes Brady s 2.8 LFCF-to-dividend ratio and a high Bloomberg dividend health score of 78. SEE ALSO: The 19 Best Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 Zoetis Market value: $54.2 billion Dividend yield: 0.6% DIVCON Score: 70.0 Zoetis (ZTS, $113.31) is among the best dividend stocks to buy right now because of its positioning in one of the most interesting growth stories on Wall Street today: pets. Zoetis is the world s top maker of medicines targeting pets and livestock, and actually existed as a Pfizer (PFE) subsidiary until a 2013 spinoff. Its products   which include vaccines, parasiticides, medicinal feed additives, sedation pharmaceuticals and more   are sold in more than 100 countries. It s a play on a world that s increasingly happy to spend money buying, feeding and caring for animals. The global animal health care market alone is expected to grow by 5.9% annually through 2026, when it should reach roughly $70 billion. Zoetis  payout has exploded by 152% since the spinoff, including a generous 30% boost for 2019 s first dividend. Even still, only a fifth of its profits are going toward maintaining that distribution, and levered free cash flow is more than 11 times what the company needs to keep writing those quarterly checks. No surprise, then, that analysts expect the dividend to keep growing, modeling 30.2% payout growth by this time next year. ZTS has been a winner for shareholders, too, rocketing 247% higher in the past five years, versus 52% gains for the market … and 42% gains for Pfizer. Kiplinger Executive Editor Anne Smith calls it a stock to buy for the rest of 2019, too . Mastercard Market value: $285.5 billion Dividend yield: 0.5% DIVCON Score: 70.5 Mastercard (MA, $279.54) is the world s second-largest payment processor behind only rival Visa, and thus enjoys many of the same drivers that have propelled Visa s shares and dividend. That is, the world is increasingly moving away from cash and toward either the physical plastic of credit cards, or digital payments that still are routed through cards produced by V, MA and similar companies. And Deutsche Bank s Bryan Keane recently raised his price target on MA from $267 per share to $330 because he thinks investors don t appreciate other growth drivers, such as international money transfers and small business payroll. Mastercard has benefited slightly more from these various drivers over the past five years, climbing 257% to Visa s 225%. Shareholders have simply chased the stock higher in response to roughly 60% growth in revenues and 80% expansion in profits over that same time period. But the dividend has outstripped them all. Mastercard is one of the best dividend growth stocks of the past few years, juicing its payout by 450% since 2014   that s 6 cents then to a current 33-cent payout. That s not backloaded, either. Its most recent payout increase, in the second half of last year, was a rich 32% improvement from its previous distribution. Going forward, analysts expect much better dividend growth from Mastercard (18.1%) over the next 12 months versus the median average of the 1,200 largest dividend payers. Also, levered free cash flow is 6.4 times dividends, and profits are roughly seven times more than what s necessary to keep the payout afloat. SEE ALSO: 14 Stocks With Special Dividends to Watch Landstar System Market value: $4.4 billion Dividend yield: 0.6% DIVCON Score: 70.75 Landstar System (LSTR, $109.05)   a transportation services firm   is among the best dividend stocks to buy as far as pure payout support goes. It has more than 11 times the levered free cash flow it needs to finance its dividend, and the company s payout ratio of just 10% is meager and provides headroom for significant hikes in the future. Landstar itself is a third-party transportation logistics provider that helps customers in the U.S., as well as Canada and Mexico, ship its goods from here to there. While it can assist in transport via ground, sea and air, its strength is in trucking; the company s more than 1,200 agents can help companies access more than 58,000 truck capacity providers and other equipment. It also provides freight management, warehousing and other services. Growth hasn t been perfectly consistent in recent history, but the past few years have been explosive. The company went from revenues of $3.2 billion and profits of $3.25 per share in 2016 to sales of $4.62 billion and earnings of $6.18 per share in 2018. That justified a pair of payout increases in 2018   a 50% bump from 10 cents per share to 15 cents, then another 10% increase to its current 16.5 cents per share. All told, the payout has rocketed by 175% since 2014. DIVCON has singled out LSTR for its excellent dividend coverage, mentioned above, as well as a sky-high 8.4 buybacks-to-dividends ratio and an equally lofty Bloomberg dividend health score of 86. Heico Market value: $18.2 billion Dividend yield: 0.1% DIVCON Score: 71.25 The best dividend stock for payout safety, according to DIVCON's system, is one of Kiplinger's top-rated mid-cap stocks at the moment. Heico (HEI, $136.01) designs, manufacturers and repairs parts for the aerospace, defense, industrial and electronics industries. Its niche is replacements: It's the world's top independent provider of FAA-approved aircraft replacement parts, and it also provide repair and overhaul services to the industry. It's boastful about its customers, too, which it considers "most of the world's airlines, airmotives, satellite manufacturers, defense equipment producers, medical equipment manufacturers, government agencies, telecommunications equipment suppliers and others." It's also the best-performing stock on this list by a mile. Share gains of 75% in 2019 have extended its five-year run to about 420%. That follows impressive operational results   58% improvement in revenues, and 114% profit growth, since 2014. Wall Street is expecting another strong year in 2019, forecasting a 13% jump in revenues and 18% more profits than last year. Only a sliver of those profits is going toward the dividend, by the way. For perspective's sake: Given the company's skinflint 6% earnings payout ratio, Heico could increase its dividend by five-fold tomorrow, and analysts still would see a sky-high ceiling for future dividend growth. The same is true by levered free cash flow standards   Heico has 14.3 times the LFCF it needs to keep paying its dividend. The fact that analysts expect just 18.5% dividend growth between now and next year, then, feels conservative   but that's still more than three times the pace expected across the 1,200 dividend stocks DIVCON surveys. SEE ALSO: The Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio: All 48 Buffett Stocks


Brad Keselowski is on the pole for the Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 on Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Does the 2012 champion merit a spot in your Fantasy Live lineup? We've dissected the numbers to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration. PLAY NOW: Set your lineup | How the game works | Tips to set your lineup RJ Kraft's Fantasy Live lineup for race day at New Hampshire: 1. Brad Keselowski 2. Kyle Busch 3. Martin Truex Jr. 4. Erik Jones 5. Ryan Blaney Garage: Kurt Busch RELATED: Odds for Kentucky | 10-lap averages | Weekend preview Analysis: Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Truex have been pretty strong here in recent years. That trio anchored my initial lineup and I've seen nothing to move away from that. Jones and Blaney have been particularly impressive this weekend   each topping the second and third practices (as well as the 10-lap board in those sessions), respectively. Jones is in a great spot for stage points and Blaney has been a bit under the radar after a quiet two months or so. My garage pick is going to be a move to ride the hot hand of Kurt Busch. He won last week, qualified third, had the seventh-best 10-lap average in final practice and helps me break up my glut of Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske cars. With only two uses left (and waiting to make sure I have him for Bristol), we'll start him in the garage. But if he uses his starting spot to score some stage points, I'll evaluate where he stacks up against the rest of my lineup around the end of Stage 2. My other garage considerations were Aric Almirola, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Kyle Larson. I stayed away from those coming from the back   mainly because this is a shorter race so I feel like a start at the back is a huge disadvantage for Stage 1 stage points. Of the group coming from the back due to practice or qualifying incidents   Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman, Alex Bowman, William Byron and Larson   Larson would be my pick to play from that group. I'm holding Kevin Harvick back at two uses left   earmarked for Michigan and Darlington. I'm going with Keselowski in Stage 1 followed by Kyle Busch in Stage 2 and for the win. Each week in this space, we'll also highlight two Props Challenge items for players. MORE: Need Props help? The Action Network has you covered | Play the Props Challenge today 1. O/U 138.5 total points for Hendrick Motorsports. Maybe this seems like low hanging fruit given that two of their four-car group will be coming from the back   Byron and Bowman, but they seem a little down on speed as an organization at New Hampshire compared to others. With two in the back, that in theory limits how much Hendrick can get in stage points and for this number to be hit, someone would likely have to strike big in stage points. Chase Elliott   starting 12th could   he did last year, but I'm playing the odds that this is a no, so UNDER for me on this one. 2. Kyle Larson's career average finish at New Hampshire is 10.7. Does he finish in the top 10? Larson has top-10 speed based on final practice, but he will be coming from the back. I like the three runner-up finishes he has had here and I also like the recent strong runs he has had this season, so I'm saying YES to a top 10. ]]>


It's hard to gauge improvements on an NFL roster just based on offseason workouts. However, the upgraded 49ers defense is already showing flashes of why it's poised to be better in 2019. Head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters after the team's final mini-camp Wednesday that the defense has an added swagger that didn't exist a season ago. "Yeah, you can tell their confidence is different. You can tell that they know that they can be good," Shanahan said according to a transcript distributed by the team. "You always believe you can, but you can tell that they look around and they feel confident as individuals, but you can see them kind of feed off each other and know that they've got some players to play with. Some of the guys we brought in, some of the rookies we added, some of the guys that have been here and gone through stuff and just how much better they've come back this year compared to how they were in January. "I can feel a confidence from their whole group, really, and just how they walk and how they talk, that they kind of expect what we expect they're going to do this year." This is an important step for a young defense that took a lot of lumps last season. Injuries and on-field struggles forced the 49ers to make a ton of changes on that side of the ball. The response wasn't a positive one as San Francisco fielded one of the league's most porous defenses a year ago. It's obviously still early in the process of succeeding this season. The pads have yet to come on and a bevy of players sat out offseason work with injuries. On the other hand, the upgrades on defense are already apparent to the offense they've been lining up against. "There's a lot of speed. They've got some speed out there now, for sure," quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo told reporters. "On the edges, the linebackers are flying around and everything. They've made some good improvements this offseason and everything. Like I said before, I think they're moving in the right direction, same as the offense." San Francisco's quarterback still hasn't participated in 11-on-11 drills, but he's been present for all the practices and seen how the defense moves. It'll be impossible to accurately assess the new defense until camp, and it may not even be possible until they see regular-season action. Still, the 49ers needed to get better on defense if they're going to contend for a Super Bowl in 2019, and the important thing is they passed the first test of the year in OTAs and mini-camp. "At the end of the day, you want to keep improving," Garoppolo said. "You're either getting better or worse and we want to keep getting better." MORE: Drake's reaction to Kevin Durant's injury is now an NBA Twitter meme David Bakhtiari excited to see more from Packers rookie Rashan Gary NBA trade rumor rankings: Rockets on the move? Why the Patriots trading Nick Caserio isn't out of the question Michael Roberts trade completes Lions' much-needed overhaul at TE


New York's legislators are deciding on whether or not to legalize marijuana in the state, and two former Knicks decided to make their way up to the state capital of Albany to help push for legalization. Al Harrington, who has been an advocate and distributor of medical marijuana products, and JR Smith spoke in favor of legalizing marijuana. Harrington told Bernadette Hogan and Ebony Bowden of the New York Post he and Smith have "expertise" in medical and recreational weed and wanted to see the black community taken care of with potential new legislation. Harrington operates the cannabis brand Viola, which he hopes to one day sell for $1 billion. Smith was suspended five games in 2013, reportedly for testing positive for marijuana . So both provide unique views on the topic. If lawmakers don't agree to new legislation by June 19, there is expectation this current version of the bill will not become law. But, Smith and Harrington's voices may make a difference, and Smith could get to spend all summer 2019 celebrating marijuana legalization like he celebrated after the 2016 championship: shirtless.


You've probably heard the phrase "engage your core" once or twice or maybe, you know, a hundred times. Not Getting the Abs You Want? You Need This Game-Changing Trainer Trick You've probably heard the phrase "engage your core" once or twice or maybe, you know, a hundred times. (If not, here's a quick refresher on what it means.) That's an important trick to keep in mind during ab workouts, but it's also not everything. If you're still not seeing or feeling the results you want in your abs, you're going to want to take it one step further. "The most important thing is to learn how to get tension into your abdominals, no matter what you're doing," said Ryan Johnson, NSCA, personal trainer and cofounder of Homage Fitness . The way to do that, he explained, is by "pulling" your ribs down. "Think about if your hands were on your ribs and you kind of had to pull your ribs down to protect your internal organs. That's a way that your core can actually activate." One of the best ways to learn how to feel this tension and start to sculpt strong, tight abs, is a classic: the plank . You want to pull your rib cage down, Ryan said, and try to get a slight tuck to your hips so that your body is fully in line. Eric Johnson, an NSCA-certified trainer and fellow cofounder of Homage Fitness, told POPSUGAR that to get full tension and results from your ab workouts, "You want to start off with those exercises that actually don't flex or rotate the spine." Along with planks, click through the slideshow above for his recommendations. It's all about holding tension through the whole exercise and resisting any extra movement. For example, Ryan said that in a dead bug exercise, "your back's going to want to come off the ground. So you want to keep trying to push that down and resist any rotation, and that's really teaching your core how to integrate." "A lot of people think that they really have to burn out the core with high reps," Eric said. But if you do a plank while forcing tension through your whole body, Ryan explained, "You can't actually hold that position longer than about 60 seconds." Maintaining a hold for a short amount of time, or performing a lower number of a similarly high-tension move, is going to be much more beneficial "than trying to power your way through these massive reps core routines." Elbow Plank Balance on your forearms and toes with the body in one straight line, elbows underneath the shoulders. Hold for one minute, keeping tension in your core throughout. Side Plank Sit on your left side with your legs slightly bent and your feet stacked. Place your left hand about 12 inches from your pelvis. Push your hand into the ground and straighten your legs as you lift your pelvis off the ground. If you have trouble balancing, stagger your feet so the top leg is in front. Hold for 30-60 seconds and switch sides. Hollow Hold Begin on your back with your legs straight and your arms extended overhead. Actively press your lower back into the floor and draw your belly button into your spine. Inhale to slowly lift your shoulders, arms, and legs off the floor. Keep your hands and heels as low to the ground as possible, while still pressing your lower back into the floor. Maintain tight abs and glutes. It's OK to bend your knees if straight legs are too challenging. Hold for five to 30 seconds to complete one rep. For an extra challenge, try a hollow body rock instead. Dead Bug Lie on your back with a neutral spine and your hips and knees at right angles with your palms pressed into your thighs just above your knees. Pull your abs to your spine, keeping your ribs and pelvis still as you lengthen your right arm and leg out until they are almost parallel to the floor. Keep your torso and spine completely stable as the arm and leg move. Return to the starting position, and repeat on the left side to complete one rep. Do six to 12 reps for a total of two to three sets. Pallof Press Lower the carriage of a cable machine so that it's about chest height, and attach a D-handle to the pulley. Adjust the weight so that it's at 10 pounds. If this is too heavy or too light, feel free to change the weight. Standing with the left side of your body closest to the machine, grab the handle with both hands and take two or three steps out so that there's tension on the cable. Hold your hands at your sternum, and make sure that your body is square. If you feel like you're getting pulled to the left, this is an indicator that you should lighten the weight. On an exhale, press the cable straight out in front of your body. Be sure not to rotate towards the machine. Hold for two seconds before returning to the starting position. This counts as one rep. Complete two to three sets of six to 12 reps on each side.


Kyler Murray's height has come back into question after a photo made the Arizona Cardinals quarterback look particularly small. Murray, the No. 1 overall pick in 2019, got a front-row spot for a photo at the NFL Players Association's rookie premiere . He stood next to his former Sooners teammate and current Ravens receiver Marquise Brown. But Murray looked shorter than Brown, who is listed at 5-foot-9 . Murray, meanwhile, measured in at 5-foot-10 at the 2019 NFL Combine. That measurement helped galvanize his status as a top draft pick. Here's a look at the photo. For what it's worth, #Ravens WR Marquise Brown [number 15] is listed as 5-9. #Cardinals QB Kyler Murray is listed at 5-10. pic.twitter.com/svKpBDivtt - Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) May 18, 2019 Because of the angle of the photo, it's tough to say with certainty that Brown is taller than Murray. To overanalyze it, Murray's posture looks a little hunched, and he also seems to be a step in front Brown. The hunch would make him shorter (of course), but the step forward should make him look taller. Perhaps we've got some sort of optical illusion. Still, the photo could feed speculation that Murray isn't actually 5-foot-10. An anonymous scout told "The Dan Patrick Show" in March that he was convinced Murray had found a way to inflate his height. How? It's not totally clear. ( Though, there are ways. ) It is notable, however, that Murray skipped his height measurement during his Pro Day. On one hand, why should he keep showing he's the same height? On the other hand, why can't he show again that he's 5-foot-10? At that point, no one could argue. Teams have been informed that Kyler Murray won't be measured for height at the Oklahoma Pro Day. But weighing 205 is a win for him. - Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 13, 2019 Because he just publicly measured his height once, he has apparently opened the door to speculation. And thus, when folks saw this photo, they wondered whether Murray's 5-foot-10 listing was genuine. pic.twitter.com/rPUMpm63kM - rooster (@mikeymstewy) May 18, 2019 Kyler murray is literally 5'8 mans got gifted 2 inches smdh - Julio20K (@some_hispanic) May 18, 2019 In addition to the perspective issue mentioned by others, Murray is slouching. Head and shoulders are loose and down. Brown is standing tall like he's getting his height measured. - no cap (@endtrevor) May 19, 2019 Someone's been taking notes pic.twitter.com/XnvU3mpvDS - Mark E (@FFMarkEss) May 18, 2019 I think so tbh - (@MannyDouglas419) May 18, 2019 MORE: Clint Bowyer furiously punched Ryan Newman after NASCAR's All-Star Race NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players Did the Raiders steal the best fullback in the 2019 NFL draft? Tracy Walker is set up to be the next Lions' breakout star Kyle Rudolph could be a late offseason acquisition Cowboys need


Illinois may become the latest state in the nation to legalize marijuana today, as legislators consider a bid to make recreational pot the law of the land, part of a flurry of last-minute proposals being debated in the Illinois House of Representatives today. Passage of would make the Land of Lincoln the 11th state in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana The state senate passed the bill, House Bill 1438 , Wednesday, 38-17, giving the lower house until the end of the day today, Friday, May 31, to pass. Governor J.B. Pritzker campaigned in support of legalization and is expected to promptly sign any bill that makes it through the legislature. "Illinois is poised to become the first state in the nation that put equity and criminal justice reform at the heart of its approach to legalizing cannabis, and I'm grateful that the Senate has taken this important step with a bipartisan vote," Pritzker said in a statement Wednesday. "I encourage the House to take decisive action to make Illinois a national leader in equity and criminal justice reform." Here's what passage of the bill, which wouldn't go into effect until January 2020, may mean for the state and for Chicago. What can I buy if the bill passes? The bill would allow Illinois residents over 21 years of age to purchase and possess 30 grams of cannabis, 5 grams of cannabis concentrate, as well as cannabis-infused products, such as gummies or baked goods, with no more than 500 milligrams of THC. Nonresidents would be able to purchase half of those amounts. Where can I buy marijuana in Illinois? The bill would authorize the licensing and regulation of cannabis suppliers and businesses, creating a system for those interested in starting businesses to begin applying for permits. In addition, it allows for on-site consumption anywhere marijuana is sold. The latest version of the bill includes a provision that allows local government to prohibit cannabis businesses in their communities and enact zoning regulations to control their location, potentially setting up the same contentious debates taking place in Los Angeles . What about medical marijuana? Illinois already has laws governing the medical use of marijuana . Medical patients would, if this new bill passes, also be able to buy marijuana seeds and grow plants at home. Personal growers would be limited to 5 plants per household. How do I open a marijuana business in Illinois? Potential business owners and entrepreneurs will, under the proposed law, need to pay a $100,000 application fee. Future dispensaries would pay a Cannabis Business Development Fee, either 5 percent of total annual sales of a flat $750,000, but no less than $250,000. The bill also provides loan assistance to helps start cannabis-related businesses, aimed at communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis-related criminal convictions. What does this mean for those convicted of marijuana-related offenses? Certain individuals convicted of cannabis related crimes, which disproportionately impact communities of color, would become eligible for pardons. Those convicted of crimes involving 30 grams of less would receive pardons from the Governor. If someone was convicted of an offense that involved possession of 500 grams or less, state's attorneys or those individuals would be able to petition an Illinois court to vacate the conviction. The Marijuana Policy Project believes more than more than 750,000 cannabis-related cases will be eligible for expungement under this measure. Will this help Illinois balance its budget? State Senator Heather Steans told the Chicago Tribune that said legalizing marijuana via this legislation could be expected to generate $57 million in general revenue in the coming budget year. Can I smoke at work? Not a great idea. The law include a stipulation that allows any workplace to maintain a zero-tolerance policy regarding marijuana use. In addition, the state also has a law that finds those driving while high guilty of driving under the influence .


When you book a flight through travel booking sites like Vayama or Google Flights, you hope you're getting the best deal, but here's the catch: Many low-cost carriers airlines prevent their flights from showing up on some of these third-party travel websites. Jetblue flights , for instance, won't show up on booking sites like Vayama or SmartFare.com. Meanwhile, Southwest flights generally won't show up on any third-party travel site, meaning you could be losing out on a cheaper option or just a destination you'd prefer to go if it were an available option. If you want a chance to view all local departures, try using FlightsFrom.com  a website that compiles direct flights departing from all over the world. By selecting an airport, you can check every departure flight leaving there on a given day (and up to nine months from now); it's especially useful when booking from obscure destinations that rely on regional airlines, as recommended in this week's Recomendo newsletter . Using FlightsFrom.com to find tickets from Hagfors, Sweden, for example, two results appear by a regional airline departing on July 1; meanwhile a search via Google Flights for the same date comes up empty. Part of its appeal is that it just makes trips easier to plan; you see the departure times of every non-stop flight in a list and without sponsored ads. If you want to leave at a particular time of day and don't have a destination in mind, FlightsFrom.com is also a useful tool as it organizes its entire list based on departure times. On the other hand, for as helpful as it is, FlightsFrom.com doesn't account for fare pricing. So be sure to compare your results to those you find on other sites. ( Skyscanner is another good resource, though they have ads.) For more from Lifehacker, be sure to follow us on Instagram @lifehackerdotcom .


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. At least six Democratic candidates would defeat President Trump if the election were held today and he's struggling even in Texas, a pollster claims . Sen. Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former vice president Joe Biden would trounce Trump by anywhere from five to 13 percentage points nationwide, the poll says. Another poll said Biden and Sanders had 12-point leads over Trump in Michigan. Media outlets such as Axios claim that Trump has a " re-election crisis ": Everywhere he looks, President Trump can see flashing warnings that his re-election is in serious peril, a week ahead of his official campaign launch next Tuesday in Orlando. ... Trump is betting polls will swing when it's a choice between him and someone he can lampoon as a dumb socialist. But, but, but: Even the self-avowed socialists are beating him   Bernie Sanders is up 12 in Michigan. Nearly a year and a half before the 2020 election, no one knows what will happen. Perhaps Axios' Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen and their fellow tut-tutting DC journalists are correct that Sanders really could defeat Trump in a historic nine-point landslide win. In a more reasonable and less histrionic world than the one DC journalists inhabit, however, the truth is that Trump is a favorite to be re-elected. The polls are what the polls are, as they were in 2015 and 2016, when they showed Trump having little to no chance of winning the presidency. (Spoiler alert: he won.) One major difference from that era is a poll of Wall Street insiders showing that more than 70 percent expect Trump to win re-election. A Goldman Sachs analysis also sees Trump's re-election as more likely than not . These projections absolutely could be wrong, but firms such as Goldman Sachs are deeply concerned about making money for the corporation and its clients by making accurate predictions about likely future events. One doubts that journalists crowing about Trump's peril would take the under on a 9-point spread for Sanders over Trump, if they were betting men. The real-world situation of Trump being a favorite is not complicated. Approval records notwithstanding, the country has a strong economy, and is in an era of peace and prosperity. Incumbents tend not to be thrown out of office in such situations. So what explains the rash of stories about Trump's certain doom in 2020? There's a method behind the false narrative, and one relates to the fact that the media and other members of the Resistance are invested in Trump's destruction. In the years since Trump did the unthinkable and won, they've been monomaniacally focused on overturning the election or otherwise making sure, in the words of one Democratic politician, it's a one-term aberration . For Democrats, the media, and NeverTrump Republicans, the current situation is much worse than they anticipated when their Resistance effort began. One shared goal was to drive a wedge in the Republican Party with elected officials splitting from the president. While the Resistance counts some top Republicans in its ranks, the ones that have tested their anti-Trump message publicly with voters instead of just privately with reporters and colleagues   such as Sens. Jeff Flake and Bob Corker   have been run out of politics. The Resistance also helped perpetuate the delusional Russia collusion conspiracy theory that gripped Washington and her institutions for the better part of two years. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe served a powerful function. For reasons he hasn't explained, he declined to notify the American public that there was no Russia collusion until months after the 2018 election, even though investigators chatted in May 2017 with their colleagues about the lack of substance to the charge. As a result of the ensuing hysteria and false reporting of supposed "bombshells," many took the claims seriously, ginning up suspicion and hostility against Trump that helped propel Democrats' takeover of the House of Representatives. But it wasn't enough to take the Senate. That meant that the Senate confirmed the formidable and capable William Barr as attorney general   his second time in the position following his first stint in the George H.W. Bush administration. Mueller was unable to deliver the goods in his Russia probe, ending with not a single indictment of any American or treasonous collusion with Russia. Barr, meanwhile, says he seeks to restore the credibility of the FBI and Department of Justice by getting answers about the unprecedented probe of the Trump campaign by intelligence officials. The efforts against Trump affiliates included national security letters, wiretaps, and the use of overseas intelligence assets. The New York Times reported yesterday that CIA officials are nervous about being asked questions about their role against the Trump campaign. After years of using the false allegation that Trump was a traitor to undermine him and his administration, the media, Democratic operatives, bureaucratic resisters, and NeverTrump holdouts are now on the defensive. The Resistance was certain that Trump would be subject to a party primary, and some worked very hard to find a legitimate candidate to primary him. A primary opponent would allow NeverTrump Republicans months or even a year of time to work with media allies in opposing Trump. Instead of a legitimate candidate, they have found Bill Weld, a former Massachusetts governor and the 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee. Everyone knows that his candidacy is not serious, and certainly not a serious threat. Nothing has turned out the way the Resistance had hoped. Far from their fever dreams of global chaos and economic catastrophe, the Trump agenda is turning out to be surprisingly successful, whether in economic invigoration or repositioning with China. The Republican Party is, despite all the best efforts of its fervent opponents, united. The media do not want to report these fundamental issues, choosing instead to claim, as per usual, that Trump is in "crisis." Just because Trump is a favorite to win re-election does not mean it is automatic. Much matters on who the Democrats nominate. But there, too, they face a tough situation. They need to tap into party excitement to win, but the excitement is on the far left of the party. The current front-runner Biden may be too much like 1996 Bob Dole or 2012 Mitt Romney, neither of whom had the energy needed to unseat vulnerable incumbents. The theory in 2012 was that dislike of Barack Obama would be sufficient for Romney to win. It was not. Alternately, Democrats could go the riskier route and nominate someone who taps into the energy of the leftist base, such as Warren or Sanders. But then there's a question of whether Trump would throttle them and their unpopular positions in a general election match-up. Rather than assess the race honestly, including that Trump is overseeing a healthy domestic and global situation and is currently a favorite to win re-election, the media and other Resistance members need to keep up the illusion that Trump is an aberration and in dire trouble, a narrative they would like to run through the fall of next year in the hope that 2020 will reward their efforts to influence voters in a way 2016 did not.


Knicks fans tend to glorify the tough guy image of an early '90s team that mostly came from nowhere and damn near climbed to the top of the NBA heap because they were hard as hell and wanted it more than the other guy. No Knick, other than maybe John Starks, embodied that fantasy more than Anthony Mason. Now that he's gone -- taken from us far too soon at the age of 48 -- you're going to hear many tales of the undersized, glowering badass with the black socks and crazy shaved head. It is an image that is woefully one-dimensional, not suited for a player of Mason's caliber. True, Mase was never handed anything in his NBA career. He was taken in the third round of the 1988 draft -- a round which no longer exists -- out of Tennessee State. He played in Turkey, Venezuela and the old CBA before catching on with the Knicks. He was an ironman for New York, appearing in 395 of 410 regular-season games during his five-year stint with the orange and blue. He led the league in minutes per game twice in his career, once with New York and once with Charlotte. But the guy did far more than merely show up and bust heads during those five years at MSG. He was arguably the greatest sixth man in club history between 1991 and 1995. Each of those four seasons ranks in the top 20 all-time in terms of win shares for a New York reserve. In 1994-95, when he was named Sixth Man of the Year, Mason racked up an incredible 8.6 win shares. To put that into perspective, only four Knicks starters have put up a higher total in a single season since 2001: Carmelo Anthony , Tyson Chandler , David Lee and Stephon Marbury . Mason's greatest strength may have been his passing. Now that they're running the Triangle, the Knicks can only dream of having a big with his court vision. Look at the top 20 seasons by a Knicks forward in terms of assist percentage. You see multiple entries from three players of the almost mythically unselfish dynasty years: Dave DeBusschere, Jerry Lucas and Bill Bradley. The only other forward to appear more than once is our man Mase. Anthony Mason, like Starks, Ewing and Oakley, belonged to the Knicks of my youth. I learned basketball by watching them, and they influence my writing to this day. This gig is my passion, my dream, and I fight every damn day to turn that dream into a reality. Anthony Mason is a part of that dream. If I make it in the end, I have heroes like him to thank. So, please, do not cheapen the memory of this player by bringing his name up the next time you see some Knick getting into a fight or rocking a crazy haircut. Hold onto the hope that one day this club will once again employ a forward who can defend, run the break and drop dimes with gusto. And on that great and glorious day, please share with a friend or a loved one the real story of Anthony Mason.


NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- As purchases with dollar bills give way more and more to digital transactions, are the country's banks at risk of experiencing the same fate as the vinyl-record stores of the 1970s and video-rental chains of the 1990s? That was the question U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry posed Wednesday -- and answered firmly in the negative. The head of an office that oversees more than 1,600 banks with $10.9 trillion in assets, Currry argued that established U.S. banks will keep their competitive edge against online platforms such as PayPal and digital currencies like Bitcoin. Brick-and-mortar shops like Bank of America , JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo can rest easy, he said. "There is no question that depository institutions occupy a very important place in today's larger payments universe," he said. "But that begs the question of how important will banks be in tomorrow's payment systems. We hear it all the time that banks are unable to compete with aggressive newcomers for market share. But we've heard that before." Although traditional banking may seem outmoded, people forget how agile the seemingly entrenched giants have been in adapting to technological breakthroughs, Curry said. "The tendency to underestimate the dynamism of the banking system should be resisted, because banks have been the source of so many of the innovative products and technologies of recent years," he said. "Consider, for example, the way banks embraced, and in some cases developed, automated teller machines, Internet banking, mobile applications and more." In fact, JPMorgan Chase and its peers are seeing mobile banking boom across platforms. More than 20 million active users are tapping into its services on devices, up 22% year-over-year, while the numbers of device users at Wells Fargo and Bank of America have popped 19% to 15 million and 13% to 17 million, respectively. The adaptability of large banks is also evidenced in the financing of organizations like the Bank Innovators Council, which hosts workshops and lab days worldwide, connecting executives with leaders in emerging technology. The next event will be New York's "Next Bank USA" conference, sponsored by IBM and centering on the "startup challenge." "Banks of all sizes are playing important roles as pioneers and partners in the development and adaptation of emerging payments technologies," Curry said. "Their partners are some of the biggest names in technology -- Apple, Google , and Microsoft come to mind -- but also some of the smallest, as banks seek out promising start-ups." In fact, the big U.S. banks have outperformed the rest of the market in the past year. JPMorgan Chase jumped 20.5%, while the broader S&P 500 Index gained just 9.8%. Bank of America and Wells Fargo both rose 11.4%, and Citigroup climbed 15.8%. Customers still turn in droves to mainstream banks to handle their deposits because of name recognition and trust, Curry said, especially as hacking and fraud cases increase. The steady drumbeat of reports about massive thefts of personal data from organizations as varied as Target and the IRS heighten those concerns. "I believe banks have an advantage over many of their non-bank competitors in the cybersecurity and anti-money laundering arenas, in part because of the regulatory regime that they operate in and the industry's collective interest in protecting the security of the payments system," he said.


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. The resounding victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition in India's federal election represents a key marker in the modern history of India. It was the most extensive and probably most expensive election campaign in the country's history, with 900 million voters casting their votes in one million polling stations over 38 days. Some 83 million Indians were first-time voters, with 15 million of them aged 18 and 19. The great Indian festival of democracy as the elections are often called is seen as the most challenging exercise in making all Indians feel they have a say in the running of the government. And the return of Narendra Modi as prime minister is both an opportunity and challenge for the country. The 2019 parliamentary elections were the most "presidential" since the era of prime minister Indira Gandhi four decades ago, with a focus more on the personality of one leader (and his track record) than the candidates standing for office and their respective parties. I travelled across India to the hustings in as many as 50 parliamentary constituencies and witnessed firsthand the "Modi phenomenon." In constituency after constituency, BJP candidates evoked Modi's name and displayed his image every opportunity they could. Modi's larger-than-life presence Modi was projected as the only leader who would revive the great Indian civilisation and save the country from the powerful elites and corrupt politicians who made up what the BJP deemed the "anti-national" opposition. At times in the campaign, his personality assumed almost mythological proportions. The defining image was of the Indian leader shedding his regal robes and retreating to a bare cave in the Himalayas , close to one of the important centres of Hindu pilgrimage, where he meditated in a monastic saffron shawl. This reinforced his popular image as a puritanical and incorruptible leader whose first choice in life was to be a monk . In contrast to this imagery, the opposition parties ran lazy, tired campaigns that failed to have much impact. The Congress party, the country's once-dominant political party, did not improve much on its devastating results from the 2014 election. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the sister of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, tried hard to mobilise voters with rousing speeches and campaign events, but these were just brief moments in the longest campaign in Indian electoral history. The Congress party's traditional hubris showed little signs of abating as it abandoned any chance of building potentially winning coalitions that could have countered the Modi juggernaut. The only real resistance to the BJP-led coalition came from India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh, where two strong regional parties suspended their traditional rivalry to establish an alliance . The Modi campaign succeeded not just in appealing to nostalgia for India's greatness or in the ultra-nationalism that peaked after airstrikes against what India viewed as terrorist camps in Pakistan in February. It was actual delivery on the ground. The social welfare schemes built around providing lavatories , cooking gas, and direct cash transfers to India's poorest have had tremendous impact across the country. Surprisingly, even the more woolly-headed schemes of the Modi government, such as his chaotic demonetisation decision in 2016 and a poorly implemented introduction of GST , were perceived by many voters as policies that were well-intentioned, but badly executed by the toxic bureaucracy seeking to undermine Modi. In part due to these social welfare schemes, the BJP expanded its presence in states where it has traditionally had little previous success, including Bengal, Odisha, and many parts of southern India. What Modi's win means for India So, what can Indians expect from a BJP-led government for the next five years? Based on what we have seen since 2014, the government will be centralised and driven primarily from Modi's office. Fortunately, the messiness of Indian democracy and the strengths of the constitution will prevent the country from leaning towards authoritarianism, so that should not be a concern. The previous Modi government has shown it was possible to take a pragmatic approach to social and economic policies. There are many key challenges that will require a fine balancing act. These include a further liberalising of the economy , with the structural changes needed to make it easier to do business in India and attract more foreign investment. Creating jobs and skills training for the vast numbers of young Indians remains a formidable challenge, as does India's struggling agrarian sector, which has reached a crisis point . It remains to be seen if the activism of the BJP's rank-and-file members, as well as the party's supporters in the Hindu nationalist movement , can be managed without compromising on key policies that India needs for social cohesion and to continue growing the economy. It will also fall to Modi to reassure ethnic and religious minorities  many of whom have fallen victim to Hindu mob attacks that they are part of an inclusive vision for the country. In terms of foreign policy, Modi has demonstrated deftness in New Delhi's relations with powers like China and the US, as well as other countries in the region. There are sure to be new challenges with Pakistan, in particular, as well as an increasingly belligerent China, but Modi has already shown he has a unique ability to build a personal rapport with other leaders. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article . We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com .


Boston police and emergency medical personnel responded Thursday morning to the North End after a woman was hit and injured by falling debris. A woman in her 30s was hurt in the area of 85 Atlantic Ave., which is just north of Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, police reported. Her injuries are described as life-threatening. Officers said the falling debris is believed to be a piece of metal. Images from the scene show a portion of a railing around the roof of a building is missing. According to a witness, the woman was walking past the building when that section of the railing fell on her. A crane was at work in the area, lifting materials up to the roof of the 5-story building. The contractor, who was not named, is cooperating with the investigation, said Dion Irish, Boston's commissioner of Inspectional Services. They had a permit for roofing work on the building, Irish said. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is joining local authorities in the investigation. READ MORE: Woman hit by falling debris suffers life-threatening injuries, police say CHECK OUT WCVB: Get the latest Boston news, weather and sports online, anytime. Stay in the know with Boston's news leader   WCVB.


In a neighbourhood bar on a cobbled square in Lisbon's historic working-class Alfama district, an eclectic mix of punters pull up little wooden stools around a dozen intimately lit tables. On the walls hang guitars and an old piano stands ready to accompany that evening's music, be it fado, Cape Verde morna, Brazilian bossa nova or a delirious fusion of all of these and more. Unassuming it may be in appearance but the Tejo Bar is a rich musical melting pot, each day infused with a different style and atmosphere depending on the musicians who pass by. So instrumental has it become on the Lisbon music scene that US superstar Madonna counts among its fans, crediting the little bar in her adopted home city for setting the stage for her upcoming, new album. "Inspiration for my new record all started here in Lisbon, at Tejo Bar," the 60-year-old queen of pop said on Instagram, of her "Madame X" album, set for release on June 14. - 'Inspired' - Madonna moved to the Portuguese capital in 2017 so that her son David Banda -- one of four children adopted in Malawi -- could attend the Benfica football academy, where he remains enrolled. It did not start particularly well. "I thought it was going to be super fun and adventurous, but then I found myself just going to school, picking up kids, and going to soccer matches and really being 'Netty-No-Mates', and I got a little bit depressed," Madonna told the MTV music channel. Things changed though after she began meeting artists and musicians in Lisbon -- the capital of a vast former colonial empire including Brazil -- and then discovered the Tejo Bar. "Lisbon is a melting pot of cultures... musically, from Angola to Guinea-Bissau, to Spain, to Brazil, to France, to Cape Verde," the singer, who has six children, told MTV. "I had the pleasure and honour to meet musicians from all these places and be inspired by their music and let it influence me. "And that's how all these songs came to be" on the "Madame X" album, she added. - Playing for Madonna - Co-owner Mira Fragoso, a Brazilian former actress, is proud of the Tejo Bar's creative force, in what was once a traditional district and is now increasingly popular among foreigners and tourists. "Offering a space that inspires artists like Madonna fills me with joy," she told AFP. Customers also include locals, writers, painters and students, while musicians describe improbable musical encounters such as a pianist playing a Jacques Brel song with an Austrian violinist or a Japanese guitarist accompanying a Portuguese singer. Madonna met 33-year-old Brazilian pianist Joao Ventura through the Tejo Bar. "She was sitting in a corner that evening," Ventura recalled. At the request of a friend, he sat down at the piano and played a bossa nova piece interlaced with strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata". "The next day, she called me to say she liked it, and proposed performing with me in New York," he said, telling AFP how, at first, he could not quite believe he was talking to Madonna. He said that the pair met three times to rehearse at Madonna's house in Lisbon, before he played piano for her on three songs performed on stage at the 2018 Met Gala. - 'Cultural diversity is everywhere' - Portuguese singer Dino D'Santiago, who is of Cape Verdean origin and performs in both Portuguese and Creole, has guided Madonna around Alfama's narrow streets. "The cultural diversity here is not just in the ghettos. It's everywhere," the 36-year-old told AFP. He also introduced the superstar to his batucadeira orchestra of Cape Verdean singers and percussionists, some of whom will accompany Madonna on her tour that kicks off in September and includes a concert in Lisbon in January. And D'Santiago brought together Madonna and Kimi Djabate, an Afrobeat musician from another former Portuguese colony, Guinea-Bissau. He recorded a bonus song for her album titled "Ciao Bella". One evening at the B.Leza African club in Lisbon, Madonna met singer-dancer Blaya. The tattoo-covered artist said that she believed Madonna's children had introduced the superstar to Blaya's hit song "Faz Gostoso" and the pop diva herself has recorded a cover of it in a duo with Brazil's Anitta for her new album. - The Madonna effect - Fado singer Vania Duarte, 34, also benefited from the Madonna effect after singing for the star at her fado hall, the Casa de Linhares. Madonna said on Instagram that she found her style inspiring. Madonna's presence has not been without controversy, notably when the city council was accused of giving her special treatment by renting her a 15-spot car park in the packed capital, provoking anger across the political spectrum. And in the western Sintra suburb, her production team was barred from staging a scene with a horse at a 19th-century manor. "There are some things money cannot buy," Expresso weekly newspaper quoted Sintra mayor Basilio Horta as saying at the time. But the benefits to tourism and the city's image are not lost on the country's Socialist government. State Secretary for Tourism Ana Mendes Godinho told public radio Antena 1 in 2017 that Madonna was a sort of "business card" she used when promoting Portugal abroad. And sources say that the US pop diva has been granted a special residency permit reserved for foreigners whose presence is deemed in the "public interest".


Japanese police on Wednesday searched the home of the man behind a stabbing rampage in the town of Kawasaki a day earlier that killed two people, including a child. The 51-year-old attacker, identified by police as Ryuichi Iwasaki, died after stabbing himself during the rampage, and his motives for the horrifying assault remain unclear. On Wednesday morning, police searched his home, not far from the scene of the morning attack, seizing unspecified material, public broadcaster NHK reported. Local media said Iwasaki was living with relatives in their 80s, but gave no further details. His occupation was unknown. Police had no comment on the investigation and declined to offer any further details about the attacker. The rampage in the town south of Tokyo on Tuesday morning killed two people -- 11-year-old schoolgirl Hanako Kuribayashi and a 39-year-old parent, identified as government official Satoshi Oyama, a Myanmar specialist. Seventeen more people, mainly young children, were injured, according to authorities. Iwasaki crept silently up behind pupils of the Caritas Gakuen (school) as they waited for their school bus and began slashing randomly at them armed with knives in both hands, before fatally stabbing himself in the neck. Local media citing police sources said Wednesday that the attack took less than 20 seconds to unfold and that two additional knives were discovered inside the attacker's backpack, which he had left at a nearby convenience store. Motive still unclear But there were few other details about the attacker and his motive for the assault, with neighbours telling local media that they knew little about the man. A female neighbour told Kyodo news agency that Iwasaki had said good morning to her 40 minutes before carrying out the attack, an interaction she described as unusual. The news agency said Iwasaki was believed to have gone to local schools, but there was no confirmation. A man who identified himself as having taught Iwasaki in junior high school, when the suspect was around 14, told NHK he was "not the kind of child who stands out". "He and his friends would shove each other playfully, but he didn't attack anyone violently," the teacher said. In the wake of the attack, Japan's government said it would review measures to ensure the safety of children travelling to and from school. Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world, and it is common for even young children to take public transport alone to get to and from school. "The whole government will work in unison to ensure the children's safety," government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters after a ministerial meeting on the issue. The attack shocked Japan, where violent crime is vanishingly rare, in part because of strict regulations on gun ownership. On Wednesday morning, people were still arriving at the scene of the attack to lay flowers and other tributes to those killed. Mourners in Japan sometimes bring drinks or food that the deceased enjoyed to their gravesites, and bottles of soda and juice could be seen Wednesday at the scene of the attack. The Caritas school will be closed for the rest of the week, and officials said on Tuesday that they would offer students mental health support after the attack.


ARLINGTON, Va.   This is not your typical summer sleepaway camp. Bonfires and archery? Try Insecure Direct Object References and A1-Injections. The dozen or so teenagers staring at computers in a Marymount University classroom here on a recent day were learning   thanks to a new National Security Agency cybersecurity program that reaches down into the ranks of American high school and middle school students   the entry-level art of cracking encrypted passwords. "We basically tried a dictionary attack," Ben Winiger, 16, of Johnson City, Tenn., said as he typed a new command into John The Ripper, a software tool that helps test and break passwords. "Now we're trying a brute-force attack." Others in the room stumbled through the exercise more slowly, getting help from faculty instructors who had prepped them with a lecture on the ethics of hacking. In other words, they were effectively told, do not try this at home. "Now, I don't want anybody getting in trouble now that you know how to use this puppy," Darrell Andrews, one of the camp's instructors, warned loudly. "Right? Right?" he added with emphasis. As campers around the country sleep under the stars and dive into mountain lakes, 1,400 youths have packed their overnight bags or lunchboxes for a very different experience. They are attending dozens of free overnight and day camps across the country supported by the N.S.A., better known for its bulk collection of Americans' phone records and its spying on foreign leaders. Like the C.I.A. and other elite intelligence agencies, the N.S.A. has for decades recruited on college campuses and run collegiate programs, but this summer the agency is making sure that middle- and high-school-age students   and some teachers, too   are learning how to hack, crack and defend in cyberspace. The goal of GenCyber, as the summer camp program is called, is to catch the attention of potential cybersecurity recruits and seed interest in an exploding field as more and more of the nation's critical transactions, from warfare to banking, move into the realm of cyberspace. N.S.A. officials say building the next generation's cyberspace work force is a matter of national security, as a string of massive breaches at the federal Office of Personnel Management and private companies have highlighted. S tudies anticipate the need to fill hundreds of thousands of new cybersecurity jobs in coming years. That includes jobs with the N.S.A., which has its own worries about filling recruitment quotas these days because of increased competition from higher-paying private companies and bad publicity after Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A contractor, leaked a trove of classified documents showing the agency's surveillance programs as far more extensive than most Americans knew. "These kids are the ones that are going to building the next products that we all rely on, the things we can't even imagine will exist in the future," Steven LaFountain, the head of the N.S.A.'s in-house College of Cyber and the leader of the camp program, said in an interview at the N.S.A.'s heavily fortified headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. "If they have just a little bit more understanding of security when they're doing that," he said, "I think it will make the products that much better." With the help of a seed grant from the National Science Foundation, the agency started a small pilot program under Mr. LaFountain's direction last year, sponsoring six camps at colleges and universities. This summer it has expanded to 43 camps, and about half of the 1,400 students are girls. Mr. LaFountain hopes the program will grow to 200 camps in all 50 states by 2020. So far there has been strong interest, he said, given the long waiting lists for the camps this year. The N.S.A. gives each camp loose guidelines, but largely leaves it up to the colleges and universities and the instructors running them to decide which topics and exercises to cover. Unlike other popular programming and engineering camps, though, the N.S.A. also mandates that GenCyber camps be offered free of charge. At California State San Bernardino, an N.S.A. camp open only to local Girl Scouts, campers will build, program and fly drones. Campers at Norwich University in Vermont will put together their own computers. And here at Marymount, where campers are staying in college dorms for their two-week stay, visits to the N.S.A. and a security operations center break up classroom time. The idea   and the challenge   of the camp, according to its head, Diana Murphy, a professor of information technology at Marymount, is to first teach students how to hack, so they can understand and defend against attackers they might encounter in cyberspace. "It's a fine balance for me as a teacher, because you have to teach them some of the hacking techniques, and layer that in with an ethical discussion," Ms. Murphy said in an interview before camp began. "They are most interested in the attacking things." A packed schedule of activities   lectures on network forensics, student presentations on protecting private accounts, and what turned out to be a high-volume debate on the ethics of Mr. Snowden and WikiLeaks   drive critical points home. "One of the things you have to discuss   since you are going to rule the world in a couple years   is, is this good or bad?" Ms. Murphy said she repeatedly tells campers. Mr. LaFountain said the agency would not make sales pitches to campers, but hoped that the work of the agency would be enough to lure them into the field. "We're not trying to make these camps something to make people pro-N.S.A. or to try to make ourselves look good," he said. "I think we'll look good naturally just because we're doing something that I think will benefit a lot of students and eventually the country as a whole." Back at Marymount, a group of campers crowded around a lunch table did not seem all that concerned about the spy agency's reputation. They said they were just happy to get to stay on a college campus with other tech-savvy students their own age while learning skills their high schools back home were not ready to teach. "I'd definitely take this camp over a basketball camp," Garvan Vines, 15, of Bowie, Md., said as he finished a bite of a sub sandwich. He said he was trying to decide between a career in cybersecurity and one in programming, so he hoped that the camp, his second GenCyber camp of the summer, would offer a good sampling of those alternate paths. Besides, he said, "at basketball camp they are mostly just giving you the same instructions over and over. "This is like, progressive." Andy Lieu, 17, of Denver, picked up where his lunchmate left off. "At a basketball camp, everyone's trying to better themselves," he said. "Here you have to collaborate and work as a group." Others around the table nodded in agreement, including Allyssia Dela Cruz, 15, who was in her second year at cybercamp. "To be honest, if you were to ask," she said, "I think most people here spend more time on the computer than playing sports anyway."


ROGERS, Ark. (AP) -- Sung Hyun Park birdied the final two holes for an 8-under 63 and a share of lead with Carlota Ciganda on Saturday after the second round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. Park, the second-ranked South Korean star who won the HSBC Women's World Championship in Singapore in early March for her sixth LPGA Tour title, is coming off a second-place finish last week in Minnesota in the major KPMG Women's PGA Championship. RELATED: NW Arkansas Championship leaderboard "I only have one win this season, but overall I think I have been doing a good job," Park said through a translator. "Last week I did pretty well, too. Tomorrow, I hope to focus on each shot." Ciganda shot a 66 in hot conditions to match Park at 13-under 129 at Pinnacle Country Club. The Spanish player chipped in from 60 yards for eagle on the par-4 first hole and closed with a birdie on the par-5 18th. "There's still lots of golf to play tomorrow and it can go very low here," Ciganda said. "I think it's nice to be up there, but I think there are some great players there." Park rebounded from a bogey on the par-4 16th with the closing birdies. "I wasn't really worried when I made that bogey," Park said. "I like the 17th and 18th holes, and I made a birdie on the last hole yesterday, too, so I knew that I won't have to worry after that bogey." First-round leader Inbee Park was tied for third at 11 under, following her opening 62 with a 69. Top-ranked Hyo Joo Kim (64) also was 11 under with Danielle Kang (63), Linnea Strom(65), Brittany Altomare (65) and Daniela Darquea(65). "I feel good, but it was definitely a hot round," Kang said. "This golf course is very score-able, so all I need to do is keep giving myself opportunities. We were just matching birdies back and forth, so it was a lot of fun."


Manchester United are said to be ahead of Paris Saint-Germain in the race to sign star goalkeeper Jan Oblak this summer should existing number one David de Gea be sold, with the Slovenian stopper thought to 'want to leave' Atletico Madrid after 'broken promises'. United's goalkeeping situation is threatening to become messy again as De Gea has been unable to agree a new contract at Old Trafford and has just one season left on his existing deal. It has led to speculation of an imminent PSG bid in the wake of Gianlugi Buffon's departure from the French capital. And while United have previously been reported to be unwilling to sell the Spaniard, a new report from The Sun now alleges that they will accept an offer between £60m and £75m, and could even pay De Gea himself a 'golden handshake' of £20m to go now. Were he not to accept a transfer this year, De Gea could go for free next summer, and so in this particular version of events, United would still ultimately pocket at least £40m from a sale, even after handing over an enormous pay out to the player. Attention would then turn to potential replacements. United obviously already have Sergio Romero on the books at Old Trafford, while homegrown starlet Dean Henderson has just enjoyed an outstanding season on loan as Sheffield United earned Championship promotion. Jan Oblak is one name that has been linked with United for the last few years already in the expectancy that De Gea will one day move on. A report from ESPN suggests that time for that handover could be now after claiming that the four-time Zamora Trophy winner - handed to La Liga's best goalkeeper each season - wants to leave Atletico Madrid over 'broken promises' after voicing concerns over the club's ambition. Los Rojiblancos have already seen Lucas Hernandez agree a move to Bayern Munich, while Diego Godin is set to join Inter after confirming his departure. Antoine Griezmann has also seen fit to call time on his five-year spell with the club in what is becoming an exodus of star names. ESPN alleges that Oblak, described as a 'boyhood Manchester United fan', would favour a summer move to Old Trafford over PSG, even without Champions League football on offer. The media outlet also cites one its own reports from earlier this year claiming United are at least considering triggering the €120m (£107m) buyout clause in Oblak's contract. That would make the 26-year-old the most expensive goalkeeper in history, shattering the current £72m record set when Chelsea bought Kepa Arrizabalaga from last summer. There is, however, a bit of an endless loop of impossibility attached to this, in that United won't be in the market for a new goalkeeper unless De Gea leaves - and because PSG appears the most likely destination, they wouldn't actually be competing with PSG for Oblak's attention. The only way that United would feasibly be directly competing with PSG to sign Oblak is if another club were to come in for De Gea. That could be Juventus, for example.


Cornerback Morris Claiborne remains a free agent and his unavailability for the first weeks of the regular season may have something to do with his inability to land a job. NFL Media reports that Claiborne is facing a four-game suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy. Claiborne is appealing the ban and the report indicates that the number of games could be reduced, although it's not clear when that decision will be made. Claiborne entered the NFL as the sixth overall pick of the 2012 draft. The Cowboys picked him, but Claiborne's five years in Dallas didn't turn out as hoped as injuries kept him off the field for long stretches. He's been healthier the last two year   100 tackles and three interceptions in 30 starts for the Jets   but there's now a new obstacle in Claiborne's way.


Josh McCown got in a few starts during the 2018 season, but his biggest job last year was mentoring Jets rookie quarterback Sam Darnold . McCown won't be back in that role this year. He's retired from the NFL and jokes that will lead to Darnold getting "lost on the way to the dry cleaners" as he navigates life without McCown by his side in 2019. McCown doesn't believe that Darnold will struggle on the field without him, however. He said head coach Adam Gase, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains and backup Trevor Siemian will provide Darnold with plenty of support, although he also noted that he's willing to pitch in should Darnold need another voice. "I tried to empty the clip with him and give him everything I could ," McCown said, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. "He'll be just fine. Adam and Dowell will do a great job with him, and Trevor has played a lot of football. It's a good room. Those guys will support him. I root for those guys, and I want to see Sam have a lot of success. Now he has to make it happen. If he needs me, I'm only a phone call away." McCown said "playing fast and smart on the early downs" would be the fastest way for Darnold to improve in his second season and he'll be keeping tabs on Darnold's progress from his new job at ESPN.