On Wednesday, Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that no action will be taken against Patriots owner Robert Kraft unless and until the pending criminal charges against him are resolved. So when will those charges be resolved? The prosecution has been stayed pending appeal of the ruling suppressing the surveillance video from introduction into evidence at trial. In Florida, the appellate system has two steps. As one source with knowledge of the process tells PFT, resolution in the lower level could take at least a year. If/when the case then migrates to the Florida Supreme Court, more time will necessarily pass as briefs are submitted and oral arguments are scheduled and the court considers everything that is submitted and issues a decision in writing. So it could be two years, maybe more, before the appeals courts in Florida provide a final answer as to whether the surveillance video will or won't be available for use at trial. A last-ditch effort to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court would create even more delay. That said, there's a chance that the prosecution could quietly dismiss the case, perhaps after some of the media attention dies down. The question then would become whether the surveillance video would be made public; previously, the presiding judge ruled that if/when the case is dismissed, the surveillance video would be fair game. Kraft's lawyers have since renewed the argument that the video never should be made public, given the finding that the entire surveillance process violated the applicable legal requirements for utilizing such practices. A ruling on that specific request has not been issued. Thus, if the charges are dismissed and the surveillance video is permanently blocked from public view, the league will have limited evidence for determining whether a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy occurred. Ultimately, the only available proof may come from an interview of Kraft, since no other witnesses would fall within the jurisdiction of the league's investigation. If Kraft denies that solicitation of prostitution occurred, how would the league prove that it did? That could be the key question when it comes to determining whether and to what extent the league disciplines Kraft, whenever it is that the criminal case is resolved. Absent a dismissal, it could be a very long time before the criminal case is resolved.


Wolverhampton Wanderers will get their 2019/20 Premier League season underway against Leicester City on Saturday 10 August. In Wolves' second season back in the Premier League, Nuno Espirito Santo's side face Manchester United in their second match (and first at Molineux) before fixtures against Burnley, Everton, Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Watford by the end of September. Wolves fans will have to wait until Saturday 9 November to face Midlands rivals Aston Villa following their promotion from the Championship. Santo's side face two of the 'big six' in their last six games in Chelsea and Arsenal, as they look to build on their strong campaign last year and perhaps finish even higher... Wolverhampton Wanderers 2019/20 Premier League Fixture List: Saturday 10 August - Leicester City (A) Saturday 17 August - Manchester United (H) Saturday 24 August -Burnley (H) Saturday 31 August - Everton (A) Saturday 14 September - Chelsea (H) Saturday 21 September - Crystal Palace (A) Saturday 28 September - Watford (H) Saturday 5 October - Manchester City (A) Saturday 19 October - Southampton (H) Saturday 26 October - Newcastle United (A) Saturday 2 November - Arsenal (A) Saturday 9 November - Aston Villa (H) Saturday 23 November - Bournemouth (A) Saturday 30 November - Sheffield United (H) Tuesday 3 December - West Ham United (H) Saturday 7 December - Brighton and Hove Albion (A) Saturday 14 December - Tottenham Hotspur (H) Saturday 21 December - Norwich City (A) Thursday 26 December - Manchester City (H) Saturday 28 December - Liverpool (A) Wednesday 1 January - Watford (A) Saturday 11 January - Newcastle United (H) Saturday 18 January - Southampton (A) Tuesday 21 January - Liverpool (H) Saturday 1 February - Manchester United (A) Saturday 8 February - Leicester City (H) Saturday 22 February - Norwich City (H) Saturday 29 February - Tottenham Hotspur (A) Saturday 7 March - Brighton and Hove Albion (H) Saturday 14 March - West Ham United (A) Saturday 21 March - Bournemouth (H) Saturday 4 April - Aston Villa (A) Saturday 11 April - Arsenal (H) Saturday 18 April - Sheffield United (A) Saturday 25 April - Everton (H) Saturday 2 May - Burnley (A) Saturday 9 May - Crystal Palace (H) Sunday 17 May - Chelsea (A) Dates are subject to change due to yet to be confirmed TV broadcast scheduling


Save more for retirement by following these simple tips. Boomers: Catch Up on Retirement Savings Listen up, baby boomers. Almost 40 percent of adults 55 and older have less than $50,000 in retirement savings and about one-third have less than $10,000 saved. That means many of you have a lot of catching up to do before you punch the clock for the last time. Some boomers are fortunate to have a job with a pension. People without that guaranteed source of income or any savings will be forced to survive on Social Security benefits or the support of their children. In some cases, baby boomers simply might not be able to retire at all. The good news is, there are actions you can take to boost your retirement savings and catch up. Click through to learn expert tips to catch up on retirement savings . Take Advantage of the Extra Benefits in Your Retirement Plan Adults 50 and older can take advantage of IRS provisions to make catch-up contributions to retirement accounts   an extra $6,000 annually to most types of 401k plans and an extra $1,000 to an IRA. Such contributions are a great way for boomers to save more for retirement if they have fallen behind. But all of the provisions in the world won't help unless you're motivated to save. Because the future is murky, many people find it difficult to get excited about saving for retirement, said Joe Sicchitano, head of wealth planning and advice delivery at SunTrust Bank. It's easy to delay setting aside money today when you don't have a clear picture of how you're going to benefit down the road. Have a Picture of the Retirement You Want Figure out what you want in retirement. Don't just rely on a rule of thumb for how much money you need to set aside or some number from a retirement calculator, as it's difficult to emotionally invest in a number, Sicchitano said. Instead, imagine your retirement lifestyle, the best place for you to retire and then find an actual picture that represents it. Put the picture in your wallet, credit card sleeve or somewhere else where it will be a constant reminder that the more money you spend today, the more difficult it will be to realize your vision of retirement. "The whole point of that is to bring the future into the present to make better decisions today," Sicchitano said. A visual reminder can help you get excited about what's important and motivate you to save more for retirement, he said. Reinforce Your Savings Habit Through Automation Once you find the motivation to save, make it a habit. Don't rely solely on good intentions because life gets busy and it's hard to maintain focus, Sicchitano said. In order to reinforce the savings habit , you need to automate it, he said. Maximize contributions to your 401k or workplace retirement plan. If you don't have access to a workplace plan, save on your own with an IRA or another individual account. Schedule automatic transfers from your checking account on payday so you fund a retirement account before you can spend the money. If you're already contributing to a workplace or individual retirement plan, increase your contribution. "If you get a raise, bank the raise," Sicchitano said. "Take whatever the difference your raise is and send it to a savings or investment account." Set a reminder on your smartphone or scribble a note to yourself right now to automate your savings. Find Room in Your Budget to Save More You can't put more into retirement savings if you don't control spending. "Finding space in your budget is key," Sicchitano said. According to a 2017 GOBankingRates survey , 55 percent of Americans spend most of their money on guilty pleasures, such as fast food, alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Your discretionary spending is the area over which you have the most control, Sicchitano said. When you reduce your spending on guilty pleasures, you can boost your health and accumulate more money to stash in retirement savings. Eliminate Debt ASAP You also should tackle debt before retirement. "Debt is an expensive real problem you have on a monthly basis," said Terry Dunne, senior vice president and managing director at Millennium Trust Company, a financial services company based in Oak Brook, Ill. By eliminating debt quickly , you free up more room in your budget to save for retirement. Plus, you'll need less money in retirement to cover those monthly debt payments. If you need more motivation, think about how much your money would grow if you put it into retirement savings instead of spending it. Sicchitano said he created a spreadsheet for a client to show him that the $1,000 he wanted to spend on a new TV would grow to $3,500 by the time he retired if he invested it. "All of a sudden, that TV doesn't look so good anymore," Sicchitano said. Eliminate These: 5 Debts You Need to Tackle Before You Retire Go Public About Your Savings Goal Need even more motivation to save? Go public with your savings goal, Sicchitano said. You don't have to announce to the world that you're trying to save a certain amount. But if you challenge a few friends or family members to see who can squirrel away the most cash each month, the competition might motivate you to save more for retirement. In other words, add a little fun to the otherwise boring task of setting aside money for the future. "Saving is like eating Brussels sprouts," Sicchitano said. "Even Brussels sprouts are delicious if smothered in butter and bacon." Turning saving into a game not only makes it more enticing but also makes you accountable to others. "If you're public about it, that pressure can be positive," Sicchitano said. "You feel the pressure to deliver on what you've gone public about." Use These: 10 Psychological Tricks to Get You to Save Money Downsize Before You Retire Don't wait to downsize to a smaller home in retirement . Of course, selling your house isn't the simplest way to catch up on retirement savings, but it can have a big impact on the amount you set aside over the next several years. You might even find that life actually gets simpler after moving. Dunne, who is in his early sixties, said he and his wife moved from a four-bedroom home into a smaller townhouse. The townhouse is about three-fourths the size of his old home, but their property taxes dropped by two-thirds and insurance costs were cut in half, according to Dunne. They also donated a lot of furniture because they didn't need it for the smaller space. The donation earned them a charitable tax deduction . Dunne said he still plans to work for several years, but he's benefiting from the reduction in housing costs now. Plus, it's a new home, so there aren't frequent maintenance costs and he doesn't have to take care of a big yard. "I thought it was a great event when I gave away my lawnmower," he said. Limit the Impact of Taxes on Your Retirement Savings Another way to catch up on retirement savings is to spread your money across different types of accounts to reduce the tax hit when you withdraw it. Withdrawals from various types of accounts are taxed at different rates. "Why throw that money away in taxes if you don't have to?" said Neal Ringquist, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Retirement Clearinghouse, a provider of retirement savings services in Charlotte, N.C. Contributions to a 401k offer an upfront tax benefit because the money comes out of your paycheck before taxes, which reduces your taxable income. If you're behind on retirement savings, don't bypass this tax benefit. "You're compounding dollars that would otherwise be taxed," Ringquist said. "You need every dollar you can get." Know Your Retirement Plan Options Withdrawals from a 401k in retirement are taxed at your income tax rate. You might be able to reduce your tax bill if you stash some savings in other types of accounts, such as a Roth IRA or a taxable brokerage account, Ringquist said. You can't deduct contributions to a Roth IRA, but withdrawals can be tax-free in retirement. And investments in a brokerage account are taxed at the long-term capital gains tax rate   which was 0, 15 and 20 percent for 2017   as long as you hold them for at least one year. Saving some of your retirement money in these types of accounts can reduce the tax hit when you withdraw it, which means you get to keep more of the money you worked to save . Delay Your Retirement Some boomers will find there is only so much catching up they can do. The better option for these folks might be to work a few more years. "There certainly isn't anything set in stone that they have to retire at 62, 65 or 70," Dunne said. Delaying retirement offers two benefits. For starters, it gives you more time to build a nest egg. It also reduces the period of time you'll need to rely on retirement savings. "It delays the day where you're actually pulling money out of the portfolio," Sicchitano said. "Every year you delay it, your portfolio grows." Delaying retirement might not seem ideal. But it's better than not having enough money to get through retirement and being forced back into the job market at an age when it might be tough to get hired. Click through to learn about retirement planning steps you should take right now . More on Retirement Planning 42 Easy Ways to Save for Retirement 17 Expert Tips to Manage Your Money Better How to Retire With at Least $1,000,000


DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday will announce an increase in uranium enrichment to 5%, a concentration above the limit set by its 2015 nuclear deal, an Iranian official told Reuters, in a move signaling a deepening challenge to escalating U.S. sanctions pressure. The declaration comes at a time of sharply increased U.S.-Iranian confrontation, a year after Washington quit the pact and reimposed sanctions that had been lifted under the accord in exchange for Tehran curbing its nuclear work. "The main announcement tomorrow will be the increase of the level of enrichment to 5% percent from 3.67% that we agreed under the deal," the official said on Saturday on condition of anonymity. In a sign of heightening Western concern, French President Emmanuel Macron said he and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani had agreed to seek conditions for a resumption of dialogue on the Iranian nuclear question by July 15. Macron's office added that he would keep on talking with Iranian authorities and other involved parties to "engage in a de-escalation of tensions related to Iranian nuclear issue." The deal is aimed at extending the time Iran would need to produce a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to a year from roughly 2-3 months. Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, such as power generation, and not to make bombs. Under its deal with six world powers, Iran can enrich uranium to 3.67 percent fissile material, well below the 20 percent it was reaching before the deal and the roughly 90 percent suitable for a nuclear weapon. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi would announce more cuts in its commitments to the pact at a news conference at 10:30 a.m. (0600 GMT) in Tehran. Sunday's planned announcement is a setback for Britain, France and Germany, co-signatories of the deal who have pressed for months to persuade Iran to remain committed to the accord. Iran has said that the Europeans have done "too little, too late" to salvage the pact by protecting Iran's economic interests from U.S. sanctions. "ECONOMIC WAR" Washington tightened those curbs from May, ordering all countries and companies to halt all imports of Iranian oil or be banished from the global financial system. It has also dispatched extra troops to the region to counter what it describes as Iranian threats. In reaction to the toughened U.S. sanctions, Iran said in May that it would scale back its commitments to the deal after a 60-day deadline to European signatories of the pact to protect Iran's economic interests from U.S. sanctions. However, Iran's Rouhani said last week that all the measures taken by Iran were "reversible" if other parties to the deal fulfilled their promises. Leaving room for diplomacy, Rouhani said in a telephone conversation with his Macron: "Lifting all sanctions can be the beginning of a move between Iran and six major powers." "The U.S. sanctions are a full-scale economic war against Iran that could create more crisis in the region and in the world," he told Macron, according to state TV. Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iranian officials were unanimous in raising the level of uranium enrichment beyond the 3.67% set in accord, in remarks posted on Khamenei's officials website. "For example, we need uranium enriched to 5% for use in the Bushehr (power plant) and this is a completely peaceful purpose," Velayati said, hinting that this might be the first step Iran might take in raising the enrichment level. Iran's main demand - in talks with the European parties to the deal and as a precondition to any talks with the United States - is to be allowed to sell its oil at the levels before Washington pulled out of the deal and restored sanctions. Iranian crude exports were around 300,000 barrels per day or less in late June, industry sources said, a fraction of the more than 2.5 million bpd Iran shipped in April 2018, the month before Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal. (Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by William Maclean)


SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A third body has been found in the rubble of a burned-out mobile home in California, bringing to five the number of dead in a shooting and fire that began during an argument at a golf course, authorities said. Santa Maria police identified Kurt Bracke, 70, and Richard Hanen, 78, as the victims who were fatally shot. Residents told The Santa Maria Times there had been a long-standing feud between the two men and the shooter that boiled over Friday at the golf course of the Casa Grande Mobile Estates in Santa Maria, a coastal city about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The shooter has not been identified. "These three guys were threatening each other for a long time," Keith Castro said. Responding to a report of shots fired at the mobile home park on Friday morning, police found one man fatally shot inside the Casa Grande clubhouse and another dead on the grass nearby, the newspaper reported. The gunman is believed to have fled to his mobile home, which then went up in flames after a small explosion. The blaze spread to nearby mobile homes before it could be put out by firefighters, where ammunition was exploding from the gunman's mobile home. "All throughout the firefighting efforts, ammunition was cooking off," Police Chief Phil Hansen said. Authorities initially found two bodies- one of which is believed to be the gunman's- in the rubble, but said Saturday an additional victim had been located. Their names will be released after the coroner's office confirms their identities. The gas valve to the mobile home park was turned off during the firefighting efforts, the Southern California Gas Company said in an email. It has since been turned back on. Santa Maria City Councilwoman Gloria Soto expressed her condolences to the victims' families on Twitter. "I am committed to working on local policies that keep our residents and their families safe," she wrote . Santa Maria police declined to release any additional information and Casa Grande Mobile Estates declined to comment on Sunday. https://compass.pressekompass.net/compasses/golfweek/is-being-disqualified-a-too-harsh-a-pena MORE: Mystery of fish caught with wedding ring attached solved NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players D'Angelo Russell and Lakers Both Interested in Reunion Robert Quinn explains why he picked Cowboys over Saints D'Angelo Russell open to Lakers return with Magic Johnson gone


Curious just how far your dollar goes in Charlotte? We've rounded up the latest rental listings via rental site Zumper to get a sense of what to expect when it comes to scoring housing in Charlotte if you don't want to spend more than $1,100/month on rent. Take a look at the listings, below. (Note: prices and availability are subject to change.) Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 4051 Bannockburn Place (Providence Park) Here's a 924-square-foot one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom at 4051 Bannockburn Place that's going for $1,099/month. In the unit, you'll get hardwood flooring, a dishwasher and a ceiling fan. The building offers on-site laundry, outdoor space and and a swimming pool. Pet owners, take heed: cats and dogs are allowed. Walk Score indicates that this location isn't very walkable and is somewhat bikeable. (Check out the complete listing here .) 9214 Christy Joy Drive (Griers Fork) Next, check out this 660-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom that's located at 9214 Christy Joy Drive. It's listed for $1,088/month. In the furnished unit, you'll find in-unit laundry, a walk-in closet and high ceilings. Building amenities include garage parking, a swimming pool and a fitness center. Good news for animal lovers: both dogs and cats are permitted here. Per Walk Score ratings, the surrounding area requires a car for most errands and isn't particularly bikeable. (Take a look at the complete listing here .) 8620 Bella Reese Road (Provincetowne) Listed at $1,079/month, this 790-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom is located at 8620 Bella Reese Road. In the unit, you can expect a dishwasher, a walk-in closet and a balcony. The building offers a swimming pool, a fitness center and outdoor space. Good news for animal lovers: both dogs and cats are permitted here. There isn't a leasing fee associated with this rental. According to Walk Score's assessment, the area around this address is moderately walkable and has minimal bike infrastructure. (See the complete listing here .) 7810 Spindletop Place (Piper Glen Estates) Next, there's this one-bedroom, one-bathroom located at 7810 Spindletop Place. It's listed for $1,077/month for its 882 square feet of space. In the unit, anticipate hardwood flooring, in-unit laundry and a fireplace. The building boasts a fitness center, a swimming pool and garage parking. When it comes to pets, both meows and barks are allowed. The rental doesn't require a leasing fee. Walk Score indicates that the surrounding area is moderately walkable and isn't particularly bikeable. (Take a gander at the complete listing here .) 8700 Long Creek Club Drive (North Lake) Here's a 719-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom at 8700 Long Creek Club Drive that's also going for $1,077/month. The building boasts on-site laundry, a swimming pool and outdoor space. In the unit, you'll get a walk-in closet, air conditioning and a ceiling fan. Both cats and dogs are welcome. According to Walk Score, the surrounding area requires a car for most errands and has minimal bike infrastructure. (See the full listing here .) This story was created automatically using local real estate data, then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.


Craving vegan food? Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the best affordable vegan restaurants around Phoenix, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of the best spots to fulfill your urges. 1. Nami Topping the list is Nami . Located at 2014 N. Seventh St. in Encanto, the bakery and vegan spot, which offers coffee, cupcakes and more, is the highest rated low-priced vegan restaurant in Phoenix, boasting 4.5 stars out of 707 reviews on Yelp. 2. Loving Hut Next up is Camelback East's Loving Hut , situated at 3239 E. Indian School Road. With four stars out of 277 reviews on Yelp, the vegan and Vietnamese spot has proven to be a local favorite for those looking for a cheap option. 3. Pieology Pizzeria Deer Valley's Pieology Pizzeria , located at 903 E. Bell Road, is another top choice, with Yelpers giving the budget-friendly vegan and gluten-free spot, which offers pizza and more, four stars out of 90 reviews. 4. Community Cuisine Community Cuisine , a vegetarian and vegan spot in Central City, is another much-loved, low-priced go-to, with five stars out of 14 Yelp reviews. Head over to 2245 E. Washington St. to see for yourself. 5. Powered Up Nutrition Over in Central City, check out Powered Up Nutrition , which has earned four stars out of 32 reviews on Yelp. Dig in at the vegetarian and vegan spot, which offers juice, smoothies and more, by heading over to 455 N. Third St., Suite 1080. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.


Cup drivers got their first laps on the Carousel on Friday at Sonoma Raceway, a half-mile addition that includes a sweeping left-hand turn and leads to a hairpin at Turn 7. The Carousel was last used in a Cup race in 1997. Here's what some drivers had to say about running the Carousel: Joey Logano   "The thing that is still an unknown is how it races. We got behind some cars in traffic in practice to see what effect it has to your car and those little things. There are a lot of unknowns until we race in all honesty." Ryan Newman   "The Carousel just took a little bit of learning for me and figuring out braking points and what the car balance is going to be like as it went through the corners. Other than that, I guess maybe a little bit of catch-up for me because I came in with a mindset of 18 or 19 years of what I used to do and it isn't that anymore." Kyle Larson   "I actually feel like it's kind of an odd corner just because I feel like I have a lot of grip for the first two-thirds of the corner. And then, like as we get back on the drag strip, I lose all sorts of grip. So, that's been tricky. It's been a tricky corner. But, it is what it is. You can't really pass there anyway." William Byron   "It's so blind on entry, so it's going to be hard to make much out of the entry. I'm sure there will be some passes there once we are all together and stuffed in there, but I don't know. I think the biggest area to focus on will be exiting that Carousel and trying to get that good so you can launch to the next corner." Paul Menard   "It is a pretty tricky corner in Turn 6. The exit of it is off-camber wide and you get push. If you can hug it a little tighter and get a run off, you will be able to get inside of somebody for Turn 7. It is a good passing zone." Bubba Wallace   "In watching all the races, it's cool to watch Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt go at it there. But, it's different now. So, we'll see. We'll just have to mind our P's and Q's and be on our toes the entire time."


Foxconn has offshored more than 150 U.S. jobs to Mexico, according to the Labor Department, even as it struggles to meet job-creation targets promised as part of a massive new factory championed by President Donald Trump. The Taiwan-based electronics maker said in a filing in Indiana in November 2018 that it would lay off 155 workers at a computer factory outside Indianapolis, citing "changes in our business and production objectives." The Labor Department in February determined that the jobs were eliminated because the company had shifted some production to Mexico, records obtained by Reuters through a Freedom of Information Act request show. Foxconn officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company told the Indianapolis Business Journal in November that the plant in Plainfield, Indiana, was operated by a subsidiary firm and added that the layoffs would not affect other Foxconn-related companies. The 155 jobs amount to a small fraction of Foxconn's global workforce, which stood at 988,000 at the end of 2017, according to its corporate responsibility report. But the company is under the spotlight for having so far failed to meet job-creation targets at another facility in Wisconsin unveiled at a White House ceremony in 2017 and cited by Trump as proof that he was reviving American manufacturing. Trump has threatened to punish companies that ship U.S. jobs to other countries and is currently pushing to impose tariffs on Mexican products due to an immigration dispute. If completed, the 20-million-sq-foot research facility and liquid crystal display plant in Wisconsin would be the largest greenfield investment by a foreign-based company in U.S. history, employing 13,000 people. But Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., has said that it has been reconsidering its plans. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said in April that he wants to renegotiate the deal, secured with $4 billion in tax breaks, because Foxconn is not expected to reach its job creation goals for the state. Evers, a Democrat, inherited the project from his predecessor, Republican Scott Walker. Foxconn has said it remains committed to its agreement, and company chairman Terry Gou met with Trump at the White House last month to discuss the project. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Related video: The fallout in Wisconsin from Foxconn (provided by CNBC) (Additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Sanders and Sonya Hepinstall)


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. On Monday, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut became the latest Democrat to come out in favor of a formal impeachment inquiry . While Himes' position on the House Intelligence Committee makes him one of the most prominent names to call for impeachment, House Democratic leadership has remained adamantly opposed to initiating such proceedings. As Democrats continue to agonize over whether to commence a formal impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, they are trapped between two realities. On the one hand, if they start an inquiry, the facts already known would compel a vote to impeach . On the other hand, the Republicans in the Senate will not vote to convict, regardless of the facts. If, therefore, impeachment cannot compel removal, and if, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi believes, impeachment risks loss of the House by the Democrats and enhances the chance of Trump's reelection, what would be the point of starting the process? I am loath to second-guess the proven political judgment of Pelosi in resisting a formal impeachment inquiry, but that judgment should at least be informed by a fair reading of history. And as I explain in my forthcoming book , the history of impeachments English and American teaches that conviction of the target officeholder is not the only measure of a successful impeachment. Indeed, impeachments that did not result in conviction have often succeeded in attaining most, if not all, of the objectives of those who initiated them. Impeachment was invented by the British Parliament in the 1300s as a tool to counteract the dictatorial tendencies of the monarchy. Parliament could not remove an unsatisfactory king short of bloody rebellion. But impeachment gave it a means to check abuses of royal power by removing and sometimes imprisoning, impoverishing, banishing, or beheading the officials who carried out objectionable royal policies. The American founders abandoned British impeachment's sometimes grisly criminal penalties (in part to make impeachment more palatable), but retained the distinctive procedural features of parliamentary practice the lower house of the legislature brings the impeachment charges and the upper house tries them. Through the roughly four centuries during which impeachment was in active use by Parliament, a great many officials were impeached by the House of Commons, but never convicted by the House of Lords. Sometimes the House of Lords acquitted the defendant outright. More often it simply failed to act, or the process was blocked when the monarch "prorogued" (dissolved) Parliament before a trial could be held. The Earl of Suffolk (1450), the Duke of Buckingham (1626), and the Earl of Danby (1678) were all impeached but never tried because the king prorogued Parliament. Nonetheless, for each of these men and the king he served, impeachment was a personal and political blow. The King preemptively banished Suffolk to forestall parliamentary condemnation, but Suffolk was murdered by pirates in the English Channel. Buckingham retained the King's favor despite impeachment, but impeachment aggravated his personal unpopularity and he was assassinated. Danby was driven from office and imprisoned during the impeachment wrangling and effectively banished from public life during the reign of Charles II. In each case, the policies these men promoted on behalf of their royal masters were also impeded. In 1715, the Earl of Strafford was impeached for giving Queen Anne "pernicious advice" about the Treaty of Utrecht. He was never tried but fell from power. His impeachment along with that of the Earl of Oxford and Viscount Bolingbroke signaled a decisive repudiation of pro-Catholic foreign policy and extinguished any hope of restoration of a Catholic English monarchy. In 1787, when the Framers were gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution, Parliament had just commenced the impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor general of Bengal. Hastings' impeachment was specifically mentioned in the exchange between George Mason and James Madison that gave us the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors." The trial dragged on for seven years and ended in acquittal, but the proceeding both destroyed Hastings and markedly altered the way England viewed governance of its overseas territories. On this side of the Atlantic, impeachment was sometimes used by American colonists to protest royal policies. For example, in 1774, the Massachusetts House of Representatives impeached Chief Judge Peter Oliver for the "high crime and misdemeanor" of accepting a salary paid by the British monarchy under an Act of Parliament. This seems bizarre to us, but to the colonists, the effort to pay Colonial judges from the royal exchequer was an attempt to wrest control of the judiciary away from local authorities and make American judges accountable only to the faraway king. Oliver was never tried because Colonial Gov. Thomas Hutchinson dissolved the upper chamber of the Legislature to prevent a trial. Nonetheless, Oliver became the hated embodiment of the danger of judicial servility to the monarchy. Faced with his example, no other Massachusetts judge dared to accept the king's salary. And although Oliver's impeachment produced no conviction, the case assumed such importance in American minds that it made its way into the list of grievances against the king laid out in the Declaration of Independence . The king, wrote Thomas Jefferson: … has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. After the newly independent United States adopted impeachment as part of its Constitution, the House of Representatives impeached Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in 1804, largely for judicial intemperance and displaying partisan bias in the exercise of his judicial duties. The effort to remove him was said to be part of an attempt by President Thomas Jefferson to purge the federal bench of judges aligned with his political opponents, the Federalists. Chase's acquittal is often cited as authority for the proposition that judges should not be impeached for their political leanings. But it had another effect, which was to admonish federal judges to stay out of partisan politics when on the bench, which they have for the most part done ever since. Finally, the failed impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 is cited by some as both a misuse of the impeachment power and an example of the futility of impeaching a president in the House, but failing to convict him in the Senate. I disagree on both points. Johnson plainly deserved to be impeached. He was wrong about the most important constitutional questions posed by the aftermath of the Civil War whether to readmit the rebel states of the defeated Confederacy to full political participation in national government without thorough reform of their politics and social structure, and whether to confer on black people the rights of citizenship that the abolition of slavery necessarily implied. Johnson wanted a version of "Reconstruction" that restored the white supremacist oligarchy of the Old South to power locally and influence nationally. And he wanted to consign freedmen to a sort of permanent peonage. The Republican-dominated Congress wanted thorough southern reformation and far more rights for black Americans. Johnson opposed them at every turn, vetoing virtually every congressional reconstruction bill and opposing ratification of the 14th Amendment. His effort to, in effect, pretend that the Civil War never happened was the true ground on which Republicans sought his removal, even though the articles of impeachment focused on the technicality of his violating the Tenure of Office Act by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Although Johnson escaped Senate conviction by one vote, the impeachment proceedings forced Johnson to make concessions to Congress on reconstruction. Impeachment also eviscerated his effort to secure election to the presidency in 1868. One can fairly debate whether, in the long run, the goal of meaningful Reconstruction was helped or hurt by Johnson's impeachment. But in the short term, it made crystal clear that congressional Republicans, not the president or recalcitrant southerners, would define the post-war political order. Against all these cases stands the supposed cautionary tale of Bill Clinton's acquittal. It is unquestionably true that the rush to impeach Clinton over his reprehensible personal conduct and obfuscatory perjuries imposed a short-term political cost on Republicans. But the lesson of that sad episode is not that any failure to convict a president is necessarily a political disaster for his or her opponents. Rather, the lesson is that the public will punish a party that tries to remove a president on transparently trivial grounds. To draw from Clinton's travails the lesson that no impeachment inquiry should be attempted without a guarantee of success in the Senate is to insulate even the most egregious presidential wrongdoing from serious scrutiny, still less serious consequences, so long as he can coerce the loyalty of a craven majority of senators of his own party. To take that line not only abandons a primary constitutional defense against executive tyranny, but concedes that a politically dispositive fraction of the American public is so tribalized as to be unpersuadable. I don't think that is the lesson of American history, at least so far. Richard Nixon resigned because congressional hearings, including a formal impeachment inquiry, convinced an initially resistant American public and their congressional representatives that he committed constitutionally consequential misdeeds. Democrat Bill Clinton was acquitted because his impeachment inquiry disclosed tawdry and dishonorable, but constitutionally inconsequential, misbehavior. In the next presidential election, Republican George W. Bush, though confronted with Clinton's strong economic legacy , ran on restoring " honor and dignity " to the White House … and won . Ultimately, it's not political naivete to believe that a voting majority of Americans can be educated to recognize the threat to constitutional governance President Trump presents. Moreover, while it is imperative that Trump be beaten, it is only slightly less important that he be beaten on proper grounds. Not merely by promising better health care, or a more rational and humane immigration system, or a moderately improved system of allocating the vast wealth generated by robust capitalism. The constitutional health of the country requires that he lose, in significant part, because a voting majority of the American people understands that, unless repudiated, Trump and Trumpism will destroy the Constitution. Democrats can't do this if they don't at least try to make the case, and history suggests that the risks of such an effort are lower than they seem to fear.


When it comes to saving for retirement, everyone's situation is different. While one person may be able to survive on a couple of hundred thousand dollars over several decades, another person may need well over a million dollars just to make ends meet throughout retirement. For that reason, comparing your 401(k) balance to someone else's is like comparing apples and oranges. That said, it's hard not to be curious about what your friends, neighbors, and coworkers have saved for retirement. The average 401(k) participant has around $92,000 stashed in a retirement account, a new report from Vanguard found. But that number is skewed by power-savers with loads of cash in their 401(k), so a more telling figure is the median amount workers have saved -- which is a mere $22,000. Another important factor to consider when looking at these numbers is age. A 25-year-old with $22,000 saved is off to a good start, for example, but a 60-year-old with $90,000 may be in trouble. The Vanguard report also broke down average and median savings amounts by age groups and found that savings varied widely: Age Average 401(k) Balance Median 401(k) Balance Under 25 $4,236 $1,427 25 to 34 $21,970 $8,126 35 to 44 $61,238 $22,123 45 to 54 $115,497 $40,243 55 to 64 $171,623 $61,739 65 and older $192,877 $58,035 Data source: Vanguard's 2019 "How America Saves" report. So does this mean if you have more than the average worker your age that you're on track to retire comfortably? Not necessarily. Rather than comparing yourself to others, it's more important to calculate your individual retirement number to gauge whether you're saving enough. Determining your unique retirement number There's no one-size-fits-all answer to how much you should have saved by the time you retire. Besides the fact that everyone lives different lifestyles -- some more expensive and others more frugal -- there are also various other factors that come into play, such as whether or not you have a pension and how much you're expecting to receive in Social Security benefits . One of the quickest ways to get a ballpark estimate of what you'll need to save is to use a retirement calculator . But because most calculators use slightly different algorithms, you'll probably end up with several different results. That's OK, though, as there's no one right answer for how much you'll need to save. As you're inputting your information, just be sure to look closely at how the calculator is determining your results. For example, is it figuring in Social Security benefits? If not, you may need to save slightly less than what it suggests. Does the calculator account for inflation? If it doesn't, you might need to save more than you think. Another way to estimate how much you should be saving is to use the Rule of 25. This is based on the 4% rule , which says you can withdraw 4% of your total savings the first year of retirement, and then adjust that withdrawal amount each year afterward to account for inflation. The Rule of 25, then, simply allows you to work backwards to determine how much you should have in total savings based on the amount you need to withdraw each year. So, for instance, say you expect to need $50,000 per year in retirement. You also expect to receive $1,500 per month (or $18,000 per year) in Social Security benefits, bringing the amount that needs to come from your personal savings down to $32,000. Multiply that figure by 25, and you'll determine you'll need to have around $800,000 saved by the time you retire. Then if you want to check your work, take 4% of $800,000 for a result of $32,000. How to tell whether you're on track to reach your goal So you know you have to save, say, $800,000 by the time you retire. How do you know whether you're saving enough now to reach that goal? The key is to have a monthly saving goal in mind, and then consistently check your progress every few years. Most calculators will tell you what you should be saving each month to reach your overarching retirement goal. But you can also use a compound interest calculator to play around with different numbers and see how your total savings would change if you were to save different amounts each month. In this example, if you're 30 years old with no savings and you want to retire at age 67 with $800,000, you'd need to save just over $400 per month to reach that goal, assuming you're earning a 7% annual rate of return on your investments. But if you were only able to save, say, $300 per month, you'd end up with total savings of around $577,000, all other factors remaining the same. Breaking your big goal into smaller, more manageable goals can sometimes make it easier to save. So rather than fixating on that intimidating $800,000 figure, focus instead on the $400-per-month goal. You can also break that down even further by looking at it as $100 per week, or around $13 per day. As you're saving, simply take it day by day or month by month to slowly but slowly reach your big goal. Also, don't forget to check in on your progress and hold yourself accountable. If you skip saving one or two months, boost your savings over the next several months to catch up. Not saving a few hundred dollars may not seem like a big deal, but if you make a habit of not saving, you could end up hundreds of thousands of dollars short by the time you reach retirement age. Every so often, it's also a good idea to check in on your big goal to make sure it still aligns with your needs. Maybe you've come down with health issues that could raise your expenses in retirement, or perhaps you've moved to a more expensive city and will need more money than you previously thought to keep up your current lifestyle. It's better to make adjustments sooner rather than later when you still have plenty of time to save. Rather than trying to keep up with the Joneses and compare your savings to what your friends and coworkers have stashed away, focus on what you need to be financially successful. In the end, it's your retirement at stake, and a more personalized approach to saving and goal-setting will ensure you can achieve the retirement of your dreams. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . SPONSORED: The $16,728 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. 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The Minnesota State Fair has adjusted one of its new foods after public backlash against the plastic syringes that came with it. The "Wingwalker Donut Flight" included donut holes and plastic syringes of filling to be inserted by the hungry fairgoer. A Change.org online petition protesting the plastic waste generated by the syringes has picked up more than 3,200 signatures over the past week. RELATED: MN State Fair unveils new foods for 2019 The donut flight was on the menu at The Hangar, a large venue at the fair that features live music, food and drinks. The Minnesota State Fair released a statement on Friday, saying that they have decided, along with The Hangar, to remove the plastic syringes from the donut flight after "feedback from the public." The fair announced Friday that the donut holes will instead be served in a compostable tray with three dipping compartments for Bavarian cream, chocolate custard and lingonberry jam. RELATED: State fair: The Hangar taking over Pet Center "A small family-owned business, The Hangar is committed to improving its sustainability efforts," the statement read. "The owners will be changing all of their food service trays and boats to 'eco trays,' a post-consumer recycled paper product; utensils made from wood will be given to guests instead of plastic forks and knives; and they will continue to use eco-friendly napkins made from recycled paper products." RELATED: Cattle Barn repairs on schedule for Minnesota State Fair The state fair also said it looks forward to "furthering our sustainability efforts in the future." In place of the Wingwalker Donut Flight, The Hangar will also offer a new food item, Tailspin, which is described as "tangy BBQ sauce drizzled on top of french-fried onions and fresh-made coleslaw, layered over pulled pork, elote, Oaxaca cheese and peppery spices   all on a seasoned hash brown waffle." RELATED: Dierks Bentley fills out Grandstand lineup for 2019 MN State Fair The Minnesota State Fair starts Aug. 22 and runs through Sept. 2. You can view more of this year's new foods here.


on the Midnight Special. Outside of the US, they were called The Detroit Spinners


FCS teams will face FBS teams 114 times during the 2019 college football season. That's 114 opportunities to add to their all-time win total and 114 opportunities and produce interesting numbers to chew on. Since Division-I college football split into the FCS and FBS (then Division I-A and Division I-AA) in 1978, an FCS team have defeated an FBS team on 189 occasions. Here are 21 fascinating numbers from those 189 wins: 37 At least one FCS team has defeated an FBS team in 37 of the 41 seasons since 1978. Seasons without an FCS-over-FBS win: 1980, 1981, 1993 and 1997. 2000 FCS teams recorded 14 wins from 1991-99. Fourteen total wins over nine years, or 1.6 per year. In 2000, they won 16 games, five of which were won by at least 10 points, including two 20-point victories: Southwest Texas State beat UL Monroe, 27-7, and Portland State beat Hawai'i, 45-20. 79 Seventy-nine different FCS teams have defeated at least one FBS team. 9 The average margin of victory: Nine points. Sixty-six games were won by at least nine points, while 123 were won by fewer than eight points. Median margin of victory: Six points. Mode: Three points. 117 One hundred and seventeen wins were decided by seven points or fewer, including five of the seven wins last season. 18 Eighteen of the 189 wins, or nearly 10 percent, came by one point. 5 FCS teams have pitched five shutouts, though none have come in the last 12 seasons. Most recent shutout: Richmond beat Duke, 13-0, in 2006. The largest margin of victory in a shutout: Northeastern smoked Ohio, 31-0, in 2002. 4 Four FCS teams won despite scoring fewer than 10 points, including North Dakota State in their 6-3 win over Kansas in 2010. Others who failed to score 10 points: Maine (9-7 over Mississippi State in 2004), Illinois State (9-7 over Northwestern in 2016), and Eastern Washington (8-5 over Idaho in 2003). 59 Two FCS wins have come by at least 40 points: Western Illinois beat Coastal Carolina, 52-10, in 2017, and Portland State beat North Texas, 66-7, in 2015. Portland State's 59-point demolition is the largest margin of victory in an FCS-over-FBS win. 7 With their 59-point loss to Portland State in 2015, North Texas became the seventh team to be on the winning and losing end of an FCS vs. FBS game. North Texas, as an FCS team, had four FBS wins from 1985-88. Other teams who've been on both ends: App State, Georgia Southern, Holy Cross, Louisiana Tech, North Texas, South Florida and UConn. 6 Five weeks before Portland State throttled North Texas, the Vikings beat Washington State. With both wins, they became the sixth FCS team to win two FBS games in the same season. It's only been done twice in the last 25 years (North Dakota State, 2007). Other four teams: UMass (1978), Cincinnati (1983), North Texas (1988), The Citadel (1992). 8 Two FCS teams lead with FBS wins: North Dakota State and Northern Iowa. Following behind: App State (seven), Furman (six), Montana (six), New Hampshire (six), Northwestern State (six) and Richmond (six). 11 There are 11 active FBS teams who, prior to leaving the FCS, defeated at least one FBS team. A 12th team, Idaho, joined the FBS after an FCS win (1984) before returning to the FCS. 26 There were only seven FCS-over-FBS wins last season, tied for the fewest since 2012. However, it was the fifth consecutive year with at least seven wins, the longest streak ever. And the seven wins bumped the three-year total to 26 victories, tied for the second-highest three-year total since 2003. Highest three-year total in history: Thirty-two wins from 2000-2002. 4 The Citadel defeated four FBS teams from 1990-92, the most wins for any FCS team over a three-year period. They won the four games by a total of 17 points. 11 Army hasn't lost to an FCS team since 2015 but they still lead all FBS teams with 11 FCS losses. They're the only team with more than seven losses. 7 Kansas State lost to North Dakota State, 24-21, in 2013, their seventh all-time FCS loss, the most among Power Five teams. Wake Forest, Iowa State and Oregon State are close behind with six losses apiece. 6 Wake Forest has lost six games to FCS teams. Correction: Wake Forest has lost six games to an FCS team. Six losses to one single FCS team. App State defeated Wake Forest six times, the most wins over the same opponent. All six wins came between 1983-2000. They also played a tie game in 1988. 2 Only one active FBS team has a losing streak vs. FCS teams: East Carolina. The Pirates lost to James Madison in 2017 and North Carolina A&T in 2018. 6 Six FCS teams needed at least one overtime to beat an FBS team, including North Carolina A&T, who outlasted Kent State, 39-36, in four overtimes in 2016. Only two Power Five teams have lost overtime games to FCS teams: Ole Miss (vs. Jacksonville State, 2010), and Kansas (vs. Nicholls, 2018). 4 There have been four FCS vs. FBS ties, all of which occurred between 1983-88 and all of which involved an active Power Five team.


We hear the statistics often: One in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, and the risk for breast cancer increases with age. But many people aren't as familiar with noncancerous or benign breast disease, which comes with some of the same initial warning signs as breast cancer, such as a lump in the breast or a suspicious mammogram . "Women need to understand that not every palpable lump in the breast is an issue. However, it's important when they notice anything to seek an evaluation by a health care provider who can discern the difference," says Dr. Susan Hoover, surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer at the Moffitt Cancer Center Department of Breast Oncology. Benign breast conditions are common, and most women will experience some of them in their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. While there are many types of benign breast diseases, here are the most prevalent: Simple or complex cysts. Fibrocystic breast changes. Ductal or lobular hyperplasia. Lobular carcinoma in situ. Fibroadenomas. Simple or Complex Cysts Cysts are fluid-filled sacs that can be found in many places in the body. In the breast, cysts may show up as swollen, painful or tender lumps that may worsen during a woman's menstrual period. A simple cyst is filled with water and doesn't evolve into cancer. It often goes away on its own. Complex cysts have both fluid and solid matter. "On an ultrasound, if a radiologist sees things within the cyst like flecks floating in the water, those start to move a cyst from simple to complex. And then the significance is whether the cyst has something growing in it that can be cancerous," Hoover explains. If the cyst is large and uncomfortable, your doctor may drain it with a needle and test it for breast cancer if it's found to be suspicious. Fibrocystic Breast Changes For many women, breast tissue may become denser and it may have simple cysts within it. This combination is a benign breast condition that was once called fibrosis or fibrocystic breast disease. However, doctors now refer to the condition as fibrocystic breast changes. Fibrocystic breast tissue may feel rubbery, firm or hard. It can lead to swelling or tenderness in the breast and may be influenced by hormonal changes that occur during the menstrual cycle. Fibrocystic breast changes often resolve with time and do not usually require treatment. But many doctors will want to monitor the condition. "For the physician, it can be a problem because the patient comes in with a lump and you don't know what it is," Hoover says. "We typically order a mammogram and ultrasound to tell us if the lump is something of concern or not." If noncancerous breast lumps caused by fibrocystic breast changes cause you pain, the American Cancer Society suggests using over-the-counter pain relievers , wearing a supportive bra or applying a warm compress. Ductal or Lobular Hyperplasia Ductal and lobular hyperplasia are benign breast conditions that refer to an overgrowth of breast cells in the lobules (the milk glands) of the breast and the ducts of the breast (tiny tubes that deliver milk to the nipple). "Ductal and lobular designation depends on how these cells look under the microscope," Hoover notes. Hyperplasia is categorized as usual or atypical: Usual hyperplasia refers to a simple overgrowth of breast cells in the lobule or duct. Atypical hyperplasia refers to an overgrowth of cells that look abnormal or distorted under a microscope. It may increase the risk of a woman developing breast cancer. Hyperplasia seldom shows up as a lump. It tends to be found in a routine mammogram and is diagnosed using a needle biopsy. In cases of atypical hyperplasia, doctors do a surgical biopsy and take a little bit more of the surrounding tissue. Lobular Carcinoma in Situ Lobular carcinoma in situ refers to abnormal cell growth inside the breast lobules that has not spread to surrounding tissue. It typically does not cause symptoms, and it may not show up on a mammogram. It is usually diagnosed between ages 40 and 50. "It's often found incidentally in a woman's breast as a result of getting a breast biopsy performed for some other reason," Hoover says. Although lobular carcinoma in situ includes the word "carcinoma," which means cancer, it is not a cancer. It's a benign breast condition. The problem is that having lobular carcinoma in situ indicates that a person is at higher-than-average risk for having breast cancer now or in the future. Treatment of lobular carcinoma in situ may involve needle biopsy, surgery to remove the affected tissue, alternating mammograms and breast MRI every six months as part of breast cancer surveillance and medication to ward off future cancer. "We typically offer tamoxifen, an anti-estrogen pill. We think these beginning breast formations are driven by estrogen. If we can make the estrogen load lower, there's less estrogen floating around to bathe the breast cells and cause them to do things they're not supposed to be doing," Hoover says. Fibroadenomas Fibroadenomas are firm, smooth, rubbery or hard growths that often have a defined shape. These noncancerous breast lumps are "probably the most common in women in their 20s and 30s , but they can be found in women of any age. They tend to shrink after a woman goes through menopause," explains Dr. Nicole Williams, assistant professor of medical oncology at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. "We usually image fibroadenomas. Depending on the size and how they look, we leave them alone," Hoover notes. Do These Conditions Elevate My Breast Cancer Risk? For the most part, benign breast conditions aren't cause for much concern, Williams says, but they should be checked out just to be sure they aren't cancerous or masking a cancer elsewhere in the breast. In most cases, you'll be offered a mammogram, and depending on the results of that, you may have an ultrasound or a biopsy. However, lobular carcinoma in situ, complex cysts and hyperplasia with atypia can increase your risk of developing breast cancer. Atypical hyperplasia can elevate a woman's risk for developing breast cancer at least four times that of the general population, according to the Mayo Clinic. Williams says patients with lobular carcinoma in situ have "anywhere from seven to 12 times higher risk of developing invasive cancer in either breast." Risk Factors for Benign Breast Disease As a rule, doctors don't assign risk factors for benign breast disease. "Any woman with breasts is subject to benign breast disease," Hoover points out. "There's not a hard and fast rule that says if you're 25, you're at risk. It doesn't work that way." However, Hoover says the same advice that applies to reducing breast cancer risk applies to overall breast health, including: Doing at least 150 minutes per week of aerobic exercise. Maintaining a healthy weight . Eating a healthy diet . Drinking alcohol only in moderation (no more than one drink per day for women). Remember: If you have any pain, tenderness or swelling in your breasts or find a lump, it's best to get it checked out by your gynecologist. Most likely, it's not breast cancer. Nearly 80 percent of all breast lumps are not cancerous, according to the Cleveland Clinic. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't get it evaluated, and don't be afraid," Hoover advises. "The earlier we find something, the better we are at treating it." Related Video: New Study Suggests Diet Can Lower Breast Cancer Risks (Provided by CBS)


Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Wednesday the Democratic National Committee informed him it will not dedicate one of its presidential primary debates to the issue of climate change. The decision comes despite a furious push from progressive and environmental advocates for a climate change debate, as well as strong support across the Democratic ideological spectrum. At least half a dozen Democratic candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and former Obama cabinet official Julián Castro, have backed the idea. Inslee, who led the push among presidential candidates and has made climate change the centerpiece of his campaign, called the decision "deeply disappointing" and out of step with Democratic primary voters. He also said the organization threatened not to invite him to future debates if he participated in any other climate change debate. "The DNC is silencing the voices of Democratic activists, many of our progressive partner organizations, and nearly half of the Democratic presidential field who want to debate the existential crisis of our time," Inslee said in a statement. "The climate crisis merits a full discussion of our plans, not a short exchange of talking points." Inslee continues to roll out policies outlining his plans for combating climate change. On Wednesday, he unveiled his strategy for international engagement on the issue, which emphasizes rejoining a host of international climate pacts beyond just the Paris accord; applying stronger climate requirements for trade agreements and ending fossil fuel subsidies around the world. In a statement, the DNC said climate change would remain a top priority during the debates but that it hoped to ensure "vigorous discussion" on all important issues to voters like the economy, climate change and health care. "While climate change is at the top of our list, the DNC will not be holding entire debates on a single issue area because we want to make sure voters have the ability to hear from candidates on dozens of issues of importance to American voters," the DNC said. Progressive organizations like the Sunrise Movement, which has led the push for a Green New Deal to decarbonize the U.S., slammed the decision, as did other environmental advocates. "This is an outrage," the Sunrise Movement said in a tweet . "This is an emergency. We need @TheDemocrats to act like it." The Sierra Club and Tom Steyer's NextGen America also urged the DNC to reconsider. "This is a deeply disappointing decision," the Sierra Club said in a tweet . "Democratic candidates are offering strong, bold climate plans that contrast sharply with Trump's inaction & the public deserves to hear them discussed in depth."


NEW YORK   The first Subway Series game of the season never got on track Monday night. The scheduled opener between the New York Mets and New York Yankees was postponed because of rain at Yankee Stadium. The game was called about 30 minutes before it was supposed to start and will be made up Tuesday afternoon as part of a day-night doubleheader. The day game is slated to begin at 1:05 p.m., with the nightcap at 7:05 p.m. Before the washout, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the Subway Series "is something that gets your juices flowing a little bit." Zack Wheeler (5-3) will start the opener Tuesday for the Mets against Masahiro Tanaka (3-5) in the first of four matchups this year between the crosstown rivals. Jason Vargas (2-3) goes in the nightcap versus fellow left-hander James Paxton (3-2) and the Yankees. The Mets flip-flopped their scheduled pitchers   Vargas originally had been set for Monday night, with Wheeler going Tuesday. The Yankees simply stayed in rotation. Both teams are off Wednesday. "We're pumped up to be here," Mets manager Mickey Callaway said Monday afternoon. Trailing Tampa Bay by a half-game in the AL East after the Rays' win over Oakland on Monday night, the injury-depleted Yankees now will need a fifth starter this week to face the White Sox in Chicago on Saturday. Boone said the club could choose Chance Adams, David Hale or a reliever as an opener. TRAINER'S ROOM Mets: 2B Robinson Canó (left quadriceps), OF Brandon Nimmo (neck) and LHP Justin Wilson (left elbow) are scheduled to play Tuesday night for Triple-A Syracuse against Charlotte as part of their rehab assignments. Canó and Wilson are just getting started. Nimmo had been playing rehab games at Class A St. Lucie. Yankees: Right-handed reliever Dellin Betances was examined by a doctor and will have an MRI on Tuesday. Betances has been out all season with a shoulder impingement but is now feeling lat soreness. ... Boone said RHP Domingo Germán (left hip flexor) had an MRI that looked "pretty good" and he will receive a cortisone shot Tuesday. ... RF Aaron Judge (strained left oblique) was set to face high-velocity pitches from a batting machine and could be ready to play in rehab games by this weekend, Boone said. ... OF-DH Giancarlo Stanton (biceps/shoulder/calf) is set to play rehab games for Class A Tampa on Tuesday and Wednesday before moving to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this weekend. ... RHP Danny Farquhar, who collapsed in the Chicago White Sox dugout on April 20 last year because of a ruptured aneurysm and brain hemorrhage, said on Instagram he will join Scranton on Tuesday. ... Tanaka was reinstated from the paternity leave list. After Sunday's game in Cleveland, the Yankees optioned LHP Nestor Cortes Jr. to Triple-A. COUNT ME IN Yankees slugger Luke Voit was the leading vote-getter at first base in the first AL All-Star balloting update released Monday. "Pretty cool," he said. "If I get a chance to play in it, it'd be awesome." Boone added: "The Luke Voit show rolls on." If invited, Voit said he'd love to participate in the Home Run Derby. "Oh, I'm in. Let's go!" he said with a smile. WELCOME ABOARD, KID The Yankees signed first-round draft pick Anthony Volpe, an 18-year-old high school shortstop from nearby New Jersey. Volpe, who grew up a Yankees fan, was introduced to the media at Yankee Stadium before the game was called. He met Boone and New York players in the clubhouse, and said the whole experience has been a "surreal" dream come true. "I don't think it's hit me yet," said Volpe, headed Friday to the club's complex in Tampa, Florida. Listed at 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, Volpe was selected with the 30th overall pick last Monday night out of Delbarton School. He passed up a college commitment to Vanderbilt to sign with the Yankees, saying it was the hardest decision of his life. "I probably didn't sleep the whole week of the draft," he said. Volpe lived in Manhattan as a child before moving to New Jersey. He said Derek Jeter was his favorite player and he wears No. 7 because Mickey Mantle was his grandfather's idol. "Good-looking kid. Athletic-looking kid. Really nice kid. You could tell very excited, obviously, understanding his affinity for this organization growing up. Can't wait to get started," Boone said. "A really neat opportunity to welcome somebody into the organization, into the family." ___ More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Related slideshow: The 2019 MLB season (Provided by imagn)


It doesn't get any cuter than this.


A day after the second fundraising quarter ended and after his national finance director left to join former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke's presidential campaign, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper shook up his own presidential campaign staff. On Monday night, Hickenlooper named M.E. Smith his campaign manager, replacing Brad Komar. A spokesperson confirmed the departure of Hickenlooper's national finance director, Dan Sorenson, for O'Rourke's campaign. Politico first reported Sorenson's defection to O'Rourke. Smith most recently served as campaign manager for Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey's successful reelection. Smith was also Sen. Michael Bennet's deputy campaign manager in 2016 and deputy campaign manager for Hickenlooper's gubernatorial reelection campaign in 2014. Hickenlooper campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said of Sorenson in a statement to CBS News, "We wish him the best on his future endeavors." But Hitt, too, is leaving Hickenlooper's campaign. She told CBS News she would be transitioning out of the job in the next couple of weeks. A source with knowledge of the campaign says the staffers leaving Hickenlooper's team were not fired but decided to leave. Hickenlooper has been criticizing progressive plans like "Medicare for All" and the "Green New Deal" as unrealistic economically, while defending the role of the private sector and capitalism in the U.S. economy. The popular two-term Colorado governor has been lagging in the polls, registering under 1% in a CNN survey taken after last week's first primary debates . Sarah Ewall-Wice and Stephen Sanchez contributed to this report.


The NHL Draft doesn't get as much love as its counterparts in the NBA or NFL. That's because we see those draftees play in college, in the NFL's case for a few years, while the NHL Draft features a lot of kids coming from junior teams and Europe. However, a great draft pick can help an NHL team right off the bat. Rasmus Dahlin was the first pick for the Buffalo Sabres in 2018, and while they didn't make the playoffs, the Swedish defenseman was a huge boon on the blue line. You think that the Capitals and Penguins would be where they are without Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby, respectively? You don't even need the top pick to get a great prospect, especially in this draft. Here's our first look at the top 10 prospects for the 2019 NHL Draft, set for June, which is headlined by a one-two punch that is starting to cause debate. 1. Jack Hughes, C, US U18 NTDP While there are murmurs about Hughes not being the top pick in this draft, we aren't biting on that just yet. Sure, at 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, he's not giant. There's a chance that in the NHL he will move to the wing. You know who is another American forward with a ton of skill who ended up on the wing in part because of his size? Patrick Kane. And Hughes could be that caliber of player at the next level with his elite speed and talent. He put up 112 points in 50 games for the U.S. under-18 team, breaking records left and right. Yes, it's a little dull when a prospect goes wire to wire as the clear top guy in the draft, but don't overthink it. Hughes is the best player in this draft class. 2. Kaapo Kakko, RW, TPS That being said, Kakko would make a wonderful consolation prize and would be the best prospect in several past draft classes. The Finn notched 38 points in 45 games in his home country's top league. Only two players his age, Aleksander Barkov and Mikael Granlund, have managed more. While you would perhaps be a smidge disappointed to get a Granlund with your top pick, everybody would love a Barkov. Kakko also has impressed at the World Championships, which is helping to fuel the argument that he belongs above Hughes. 3. Kirby Dach, C, Saskatoon Blades You want that prototype big center? Dach is your guy. He stands 6-foot-4 and weighs a hair under 200 pounds, but despite his size he has deft hands and is a sharp passer. That calls to mind Joe Thornton, though that comparison would be a bit of a stretch. Still, the kid is the kind of pivot you can build around, and he should get even bigger and stronger as he fills out. 4. Bowen Byram, D, Vancouver Giants Byram is the consensus best defenseman in this year's class. His stock has been on the rise because he led the WHL in playoff scoring by putting up 26 points in 22 games in Vancouver's effort to win the title. It fell one game short, losing in overtime to Prince Albert in Game 7, but being a top-five pick would be a nice consolation prize. 5. Alex Turcotte, C, US U18 NTDP This is a huge year for America's developmental program. As many as six of its players could be drafted in the first half of the first round. It was an injury-marred year for Turcotte, but he was able to turn heads at the U18 World Championship. There are some concerns that he might be a product of his teammates, but he also averaged 1.68 points per game this season when healthy. 6. Cole Caufield, RW, US U18 NTDP Caufield is destined to be the most polarizing prospect in this class, as all he does is score. He netted 72 goals in 64 games this season for his team. When playing for the American squad at the U18 World Championships, he scored a whopping 14 more goals, tying Alex Ovechkin for the most ever in one tournament. These are great numbers, but here is a concerning one: 67. That's Caufield's height in inches. He's only 5-foot-7, which is strikingly short for the NHL. (He's shorter than Martin St. Louis.) Only two players his height have ever been drafted in the first round. Caufield will have to break a trend, but the league has gotten more speed-based and less physicality-based. In the modern era, a prospect like Caufield can make it work. 7. Dylan Cozens, C, Lethbridge Hurricanes Cozens is basically the opposite kind of prospect compared to Caufield. He didn't put up gaudy numbers, but he is a center who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 180 pounds. Cozens can also skate like the wind. He didn't have great teammates around him on Lethbridge, but he still managed 84 points, which was the most of any under-18 player in the WHL. Put him on the right roster, and the numbers should be there. 8. Vasili Podkolzin, RW, Neva St. Petersburg Podkolzin had a weird season. He played across three levels in Russia, including a three-game cup of coffee with the KHL's SKA St. Petersburg in which the Russian failed to register a point. He had three points in seven games at the World Junior Championship. So why the intrigue? Because Podkolzin doesn't even turn 18 until June 24. He played in the KHL as a 17-year-old. Imagine how hyped you'd be if there were a 17-year-old in Triple-A baseball. It's kind of like that. 9. Trevor Zegras, C, US U18 NTDP Zegras is one of those players who could stickhandle in a phone booth, although there's a chance the 18-year-old has never seen an actual phone booth. We're all getting old. He has great hands and real skill as a passer. That helped him pick up nine assists at the World U18 tourney. 10. Philip Broberg, D, AIK If Broberg were a baseball prospect, they'd say he was "tooled up." Some consider him the best skater among defensemen in this draft class, even though he's 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds. The Swede was named the best defenseman at the U18 championships. If Broberg lives up to his potential, he'll be a real star. This is partially a bet on physical skill, but the results have been there as well. Related Slideshow: Best of the NHL Season (Provided by imagn)


The Los Angeles Rams are undoubtedly set up for long-term success with players such as Jared Goff, Aaron Donald, Brandin Cooks and Todd Gurley under contract for the foreseeable future. The core of the team is as good as any in the NFL, as evidenced by the Rams' Super Bowl run last season. At the center of it all is Goff, who's entering his fourth season as a pro. He's improved in each of the last two years and has made the Pro Bowl twice, looking like a true franchise quarterback in 2018. Incredibly, he's only 24 years old and still has plenty of room to grow. Pro Football Focus released its annual list of the top 25 players under the age of 25 and Goff was among those selected. After a disappointing rookie year with Jeff Fisher at the helm, the former No. 1 overall pick has blossomed in the subsequent years with Sean McVay. His 2018 season was his best year to date; he ended the regular season with an 85.5 overall grade, and he finished eighth in the NFL in clean-pocket big-time throw percentage (5.45%) on the year. Goff did struggle at the end of the 2018 season, throwing only seven touchdown passes and eight interceptions in his final eight games (including the playoffs). He looked shaky in the Super Bowl and had trouble against every team not named the 49ers after the Rams' Week 11 bye, raising some concerns about his development. But again, he's just 24 and has seen his stock rise year over year. With another offseason to work alongside Sean McVay, Goff should continue to improve in 2019. MORE: Cowboys News: Prescott's circle of trust questioned, Kris Richard RKGs NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players Dale Earnhardt Jr. thought his wife, Amy, might break up with him over this drunken go-kart incident Why Packers' redefined defense could give Aaron Rodgers a Super Bowl opportunity What If Zion Williamson Refuses to Play for the Pelicans? [UPDATE]


Spending money is a necessary part of building a business. Business owners can attribute many costs to producing or creating a product or service. These are known as direct costs. The expenses that are not associated directly with building a product or service are known as overhead costs or indirect costs. If business owners aren't careful, overhead costs can quickly become a drain on business revenues. Business owners will want to take the time to figure out how to calculate overhead costs . Once they figure out how to do so, they should look into ways to cut back on these expenses. What is overhead? Overhead costs are those that are associated with running your business but that you can't directly attribute to a: Product Service Business activity Portion of the company's income These indirect costs commonly include things like: Professional expenses, such as for accounting or legal services Administrative costs, such as the salaries for your employees who are not involved with producing a product Insurance Depreciation Licenses and permits Property taxes Manufacturing overhead, such as rent payments for a building or piece of equipment Office equipment Utilities Although overhead costs are critical to business operations, they do not lead to a generation of profits. Additionally, overhead costs tend to be fixed. For instance, your rent payment tends to stay the same from month to month. Overhead costs are notably different from direct costs. Direct costs, which can include direct labor and direct materials, are ones associated with the creation of a product or service. Direct costs are variable costs. By adding direct expenses and overhead costs on the income statement, you'll see the total costs for your business. How to calculate overhead As a small business owner, you should know how to calculate overhead costs. The most common way to calculate overhead costs is as a percentage of sales or labor costs. Your goal as a business owner should be to keep your overhead proportion as low as possible. A small overhead proportion means that a high percentage of your expenses go directly toward the production of a good or service. Lower overhead ratios provide business owners with a competitive advantage. Related gallery: 107 ways to make extra money [Provided by Money Talks News] A low overhead rate will allow you to better price your products, making you a more attractive option than your competition. Furthermore, a small overhead could also allow you to increase your profit margins, boosting your bottom line. To calculate business overhead, you'll need to first comb through every specific business activity, listing all of your expenses. You'll want your list to be thorough. Look through your financial statements to ensure that you pinpoint each one of your costs. Once you've identified all of your business expenses, you'll want to sort them into two categories: direct and indirect expenses. When doing so, ask yourself, "Does this expense result in the production of a good or service?" Once you've sorted your expenses, add up all of the indirect costs for the month. Then look at the company's income statement to determine your monthly sales. Once you've figured out your monthly sales, you can calculate your overhead ratio with the following equation: (Monthly Overhead ÷ Monthly Sales) x 100 = Percentage of Overhead Cost to Sales You can also measure your overhead costs compared to your labor costs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the average U.S. wage increased by 3% between March 2018 and March 2019. With labor costs rising so rapidly, you'll want to cut back on overhead expenses. The equation to do so is: (Monthly Overhead ÷ Monthly Labor Cost) x 100 = Percentage of Overhead Cost to Labor Knowing how to calculate overhead will put your business in a much better position to succeed. Owners who routinely consider overhead are more efficient when managing company finances. How to lower overhead costs If you look at your business finances and realize that overhead expenses are taking a significant chunk of your revenue, it may be time for you to reevaluate. Below, you'll find 12 ways to reduce your overhead expenses. 1. Review everything thoroughly The first time that you pull your overhead costs, you'll determine which expenses you can consider indirect. However, these expenses could fluctuate over time, based on the activity level of your company. You should review overhead costs monthly to make sure there are no drastic changes. Furthermore, you should pour through your list of business expenses each month. You should mark items that are: No longer necessary Too high in price Open to efficiencies It's always a good idea to get a handle on your costs before you try to make sweeping changes. Consider cutting back on a couple of your expenses to see how they impact your overhead costs. 2. Don't look for a magic bullet There likely isn't one single solution to your high overhead percentage. Cutting one expense isn't going to fix your problem instantly. Have patience throughout the process and realize that your most significant cost savings might come from a series of small cuts. 3. Brainstorm with your employees If you have a staff, ask for their input on where the company can save money. Depending on the size of your organization, you might even want to offer incentives for the idea that saves the most or the concept that is the most innovative. You'll find more success brainstorming as a team than you would have going at it alone. 4. Reevaluate your third-party contracts If you rent equipment or pay service retainer fees, you can find cost savings by evaluating your current deals to see if they still fit your needs. The evaluation process is especially crucial if the contracts are older. Chances are your business has changed since you first signed the contract, so it's worth looking into the contract again. 5. Clear out your storeroom There's a chance that your storage room or empty office space is filled with non-working or outdated technology, including older computers, printers, fax machines, and phones. Take time to review your technology expenses, and cut out those that you no longer need. Compare service providers in your area to see if you can get a better rate as well. 6. Assess your staff Chances are there are one or two members of your team who are underperforming. Laying someone off hurts, but keeping an underachieving employee on staff doesn't do anyone any good. It's a drain on your resources and employee morale. It also doesn't give the employee a chance to find something new or different that might be better suited to his or her skills. Eliminating someone from your team could allow other members to work more efficiently. 7. Leverage your current client base to save on promotions Even in the digital age, word-of-mouth is still one of the best forms of referral. Scale back your advertising and marketing budget by using your current, happy customers as brand ambassadors. Here are a couple of ways to do it: Offer an incentive: (i.e., a restaurant gift card, a percentage off future services, premium items, etc.) to clients who refer others to your business. These incentives do not have to be pricey, but they should be valuable. Ask for testimonials: Ask current clients for a one- or two-sentence testimonial. You can use the testimony on your website, in email newsletters or as part of any other advertising. You should also ask the customer to post a positive review on Yelp or other social platforms like Facebook or Twitter. 8. Go paperless While you may not be able to eliminate office supplies from your business, you can cut back on things like how much paper and ink you use. Backup all of your documents to the cloud or a drive, and shred any unnecessary files so that you don't have costs related to document storage. 9. Use credit cards that work for you As a business owner, you probably have at least one credit card for business expenses . Make sure that you're using a card that gives you the most benefits, including: Miles or points for travel Cashback Other rewards You can also evaluate your cards based on annual fees and interest rates . Make sure the card you use is designed for small business and not individual consumers. 10. Control purchasing If possible, designate one person in your organization to handle all purchasing. This individual should be in charge of things like negotiating contracts and placing office-supply orders. Ideally, the person in charge of purchasing would have shrewd negotiating skills and should not be afraid to ask for a discount. Think of things like, "If we pay the total balance in eight months instead of 12, can we get a 3% discount?" By putting one person in charge of purchasing, this person can dedicate his or her time solely to finding the best prices and bargains. When a purchaser has multiple responsibilities, he or she may end up placing orders with a familiar vendor instead of shopping around for the best offer. Paying one person to handle purchasing will create a salary expense. But if the person is good at the job, your investment will pay off quickly thanks to the money you'll save in other areas. 11. Sublease your office space If you own your office space, you might find there are a group of rooms   or even floors of a building   that you don't use. Sublease this space to other small businesses and use the rent to subsidize your mortgage payments. 12. Consider how much space you need Depending on your organization's size, it might be time to give up your office space and move to a work-from-home model. Consider location as well. Do you really need to be paying rent for a high-priced office in the middle of the city? Consider what you use your office for, how often you're there, and why you have it. If you feel you still need an office, consider downsizing or look into office rental alternatives like shared co-working spaces. Cut your overhead costs and improve your business finances If you commit to cutting your operating expenses, you will need to carefully evaluate your current situation to come up with a savings strategy. Remember that results will not come overnight. Unless you do something drastic like cut administrative expenses by firing employees, your cost-saving endeavors will be fluid and ongoing. Keeping costs down should be a year-round effort. There should be a method to your cost-cutting. Take time to learn more about where not to cut corners when it comes to your startup's finances. You should also utilize accounting software designed for small business owners. Doing so will allow you to identify your overhead ratio and craft a strategy to reduce costs. This article originally appeared on the QuickBooks Resource Center and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.


NEW ORLEANS (AP)   Billions of mosquito lookalikes are showing up in the New Orleans area, blanketing car windshields, littering the ground with bodies and even scaring some folks. They're aquatic midges, often called "blind mosquitoes." They don't bite and they're good for the environment, but they sure can be a nuisance. "They tend to emerge in the billions, with a b, generally. It's all at once and doesn't last too long. But in that time frame it's living hell," said Nick DeLisi, entomologist for the St. Tammany Mosquito Abatement District on the north shore of the huge tidal basin called Lake Pontchartrain. The swarms smell like aquarium fish food -- some compare it to rotting fish. It can be worse inside buildings where the critters creep through cracks and die in droves. These midges lay their eggs in fresh water, and they like it polluted . Normally, Lake Pontchartrain is brackish   but since May 10, it's been receiving Mississippi River water diverted to ease the strain on New Orleans' levees. The water is rich with fertilizer and other pollutants, flushed out from farms and cities across the middle of North America. "We've made Lake Pontchartrain a little more hospitable to insects that can't take salty water," DeLisi said. Midge swarms also are showing up along the lake's south shore, in New Orleans and suburban Jefferson Parish, and along the 24-mile-long (38.6-km) twin bridges connecting north and south shores. Blake Campo of Hahnville pulled his pickup into one of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway's "turnarounds" Tuesday night, no longer able to see through his windshield. He'd used up all his wiper fluid trying to clear off bugs, and only created a thick, opaque coating. Buzzing midges surrounded him as he cleared off the muck with the only liquid he could find in his truck   a bottle of spray wax. The midges swarm as they look for mates, so DeLisi said there could be new generations in several weeks. "They might not be quite to this severity," he said. The larvae of this sort of fly are important food for fish, and the flies themselves feed birds. "Chironomid midges are a gigantic part of the food web," DeLisi said. But to most people, they're just aggravating. "It's so bad you've got to literally get a push broom to push the carcasses away from doorways every morning," said Causeway manager Carlton Dufrechou. Driving through a swarm, he said, is "pretty doggone noisy" as the small flies hit a car "bupbupbupbup." He advised drivers to slow down and peer between the bodies, rather than use wipers, even with prodigious amounts of wiper fluid. Motorist Assistance Patrol trucks on the Causeway have had to fill up on water almost daily to slosh down windshields of motorists who pull into the twin span's crossovers to ask for help, Dufrechou said. A North Carolina State Extension Service online publication advises, "Swarms of adults may be so dense that they interfere with outdoor activities and stain walls, cars and other surfaces upon which they rest." Roger Boudreaux, who lives in eastern New Orleans, compared the infestation to Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller "The Birds." "I jumped out (of) the car and I was doing all kind of crazy dancing just to get them off me. People laughing at me in the street," he told WWL-TV. Silvina Henry told the station, "When my granddaughter woke up to go to work ... she could not come outside. The whole place was covered with these bugs. Just she screamed." Mosquito control officials across the region have been turning down requests to spray pesticide to control the swarms, because the adults die in three to five days and their bright red larvae, called bloodworms, feed fish and clean up waterways by filtering organic debris. "We could, but there are going to be ramifications," DeLisi said. "These are not biting, not transmitting diseases, not doing anything but being annoying." ___ Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert contributed to this story from the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.


For more than a decade, the Boston Book Festival has dedicated part of a fall weekend to the celebration of words. Now, the BBF returns for its 11th year, this time with more space and time to continue the festivities. Scheduled for Oct. 18-20, New England's largest literary event will add a second full day of events on Sunday, Oct. 20 in Roxbury's Dudley Square, following Friday night and Saturday offerings Oct. 18 and 19 in Copley Square. The festival also announced its headlining presenters on Wednesday. Among the big names featured will be former UN ambassador Samantha Power , poet Reginald Dwayne Betts ( "Bastards of the Reagan Era "), Candace Bushnell (best-selling author of "Sex and the City "), novelist Susan Choi ( "Trust Exercise ") and poet and memoirist Saeed Jones ( "Prelude to Bruise "). Power kicks off the festival Oct. 18 with a discussion of her new memoir, " The Education of an Idealist ." Events continue Oct. 19 in Copley Square with a street fair, live music, and food trucks. All told, the 2019 BBF will include 300 presenters on topics ranging from ethics, climate change, and politics to aging, sex, and romance. "We are excited to offer a variety of programming for people of all backgrounds that celebrates the mix of rich history, forward-thinking intellect and cultural diversity of Boston," executive director Norah Piehl said in a release. BBF will release a full list of presenters later this summer. For now, the program's confirmed list of presenters also includes historian David Blight ( "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom "), Akwaeke Emezi ("Freshwater") , Jasmine Guillory (" The Wedding Party "), and Martha Minow (" Between Vengeance and Forgiveness ") . Martha Merrow can be reached at martha.merrow@globe.com , or on Twitter @martha_merrow


It didn't take long for the Tampa Bay Lightning to get their top draft choice under contract, inking Nolan Foote to a three-year, entry-level contract today. Foote was selected 27th overall in Friday's draft, joining his brother Cal Foote in the Lightning organization. The 18-year-old Foote was something of a surprise selection at the end of the first round, as many publications had him ranked a little further down the draft board. NHL Central Scouting, for instance, had the Kelowna Rockets forward ranked 37th among North American skaters in its final ranking. Still, it's hard to question an organization that has been so successful in the draft over the last decade. First and foremost when evaluating Foote, one notices the top-end awareness and quick decision-making that comes from being around hockey from birth. The son of former NHL defenseman Adam Foote , the 6-3 forward often anticipates where the play will go before it does and finds himself in an excellent position to contribute offensively. Add that to his solid frame and willingness to drive the puck to difficult areas, and you at times have what looks like an NHL power forward in the making. Unfortunately, like his brother, Foote comes with questionable skating and playmaking abilities. Though he can often seem unstoppable coming off the wall if he has time to get up to speed, his edges need work, and it's unclear where his offensive ceiling really lies. Still, the Lightning obviously believe they can groom Foote into a force at the NHL level. He'll almost certainly return to the WHL next season to play, while he is also on Canada's camp roster for this year's World Junior Summer Showcase.


The Jets have added two more names to their general manager search. According to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, New York has sought permission to speak with Vikings assistant GM George Paton and Seahawks co-director of player personnel Scott Fitterer. They join a list of candidates that already includes Philadelphia's Joe Douglas and Chicago's Champ Kelly . The #Jets have added two more names to their GM request list: #Vikings assistant GM George Paton and #Seahawks Co-Director of Player Personnel Scott Fitterer were requested, source said. They join Joe Douglas ( #Eagles ) and Champ Kelly ( #Bears ) on NYJ's list so far. - Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) May 26, 2019 The Jets are in need of a new GM after firing Mike Maccagnan. Adam Gase is currently serving as the interim GM; he will have a say in a hiring decision that will ultimately be Christopher Johnson's call. Paton is an interesting candidate. He's been with the Vikings for 12 years now and has declined opportunities to interview for GM jobs in the past. That includes the Jets' last opening in 2015. Paton has overseen Minnesota's scouting department. Fitterer, meanwhile started with the Seahawks in 2001 as an area scout. He was a candidate for the Chiefs GM job two years ago. MORE: Giannis Antetokounmpo walks out on postgame press conference after playoff elimination Ahead of Finals, Stephen Curry defends Kevin Durant against critics This is how the Milwaukee Bucks head into the offseason One year later, Ryan Pace made the right call with Cam Meredith Report: Wizards would want Lonzo Ball included in Bradley Beal trade