Month: February 2018

To say winter gets really cold in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in the midwestern, American state of Minnesota is an understatement.

On this day, with temperatures hovering at around minus two or three degrees Celsius, it’s enough to make most people run and hide some place warm.

But then Deneena Hughes isn’t like most people.

She grew up in Canada — America’s neighbor to the North — so cold weather isn’t the worst thing in the world for her.

In fact, it’s part of her existence.

She and her husband immigrated to Minnesota in 1996. They have been competitive ice carvers since.

“I’ve been creative my whole life, and this is just another creative outlet for me,” she says.

Hughes and her husband have five children. She’s a mom making art out of 136-kilogram blocks of ice in a medium dominated by men. When she started carving ice sculptures at the Winter Carnival in St. Paul in the 1990s, she was the only woman competing.

Now there are a few others who have joined the artisans continuing a tradition of ice sculpting here that dates to 1886, the year of Saint Paul’s first ice carnival.
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A Massachusetts grandmother worried that no one would believe her story of meeting Beyonce before the Grammys — until a picture of her star-struck reaction appeared on the singer’s Instagram page .

The picture shows Beyonce and Jay-Z strolling down a hotel hallway past Shrewsbury resident Susan Monaghan, her mouth agape as she stands aside to let the celebrity couple pass.

Monaghan tells the Boston Globe that all she could think as the singer smiled at her was, “No one is going to believe me.”

Her daughter, Jenn Hiitt, confirms that she was skeptical of the story. But the next day, she got a text saying that Monaghan’s picture was circulating online.

Monaghan says that seeing Beyonce’s smile felt like being “hugged by an angel.”
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Fans attending the Super Bowl in Minneapolis will have the chance to go through security screening off-site, and out of the elements.

NFL Chief Security Officer Cathy Lanier says this is the first time remote satellite checkpoints are being used for a Super Bowl, and she says it’s by far the easiest way to get to the game. Fans can be screened at the Mall of America, then take a light rail to U.S. Bank Stadium.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says there’s no threat to the Super Bowl. But people will see more security.

Rick Thornton, special agent in charge with the FBI, says it is game time for law enforcement. He says authorities have planned for every scenario and are ready.

 

 
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport has upheld appeals by 28 Russian athletes who were sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee for an alleged doping scheme at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

The CAS said Thursday there was insufficient evidence that the athletes committed doping violations. It annulled the sanctions against them and reinstated their results from the 2014 Games.

The IOC said after the ruling that the 28 athletes who won their appeals would not be invited to participate in this month’s Olympics in South Korea.

Still no invite

“Not being sanctioned does not automatically confer the privilege of an invitation,” the IOC said in a statement.

It further expressed regret at the court’s decision, saying it “may have a serious impact on the future fight against doping.”

For 11 other athletes who had appealed their sanctions, the CAS said there was enough evidence to show doping violations. But instead of keeping in place lifetime Olympic bans, it said those athletes would only be barred from participating in the 2018 games.

The court said its mandate was not to determine whether there was a wider effort on the part of Russia to manipulate drug tests at the 2014 Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee banned Russian athletes from competing under the country’s flag during the games in South Korea because of the doping scandal, and instead those participating will do so under a neutral flag.

Kremlin pleased

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the CAS decision and said Russia would continue to stand up for the rights of its athletes.

Those who saw their sanctions overturned Thursday include skeleton gold medalist Aleksander Tretiakov, cross-country skiing gold medalist Alexander Legkov, and luge silver medalists Tatyana Ivanova and Albert Demchenko.

Bobsled gold medalists Aleksandr Zubkov and Alexey Voevoda were among those for whom the court said there was evidence of doping and sanctions would remain in place.
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Fox and the NFL have agreed to a five-year deal for Thursday night football games.

Those games previously were televised by CBS and NBC, two of the league’s other network partners. Fox announced Wednesday that it will televise 11 games between Weeks 4 and 15, with simulcasts on NFL Network and Fox Deportes.

Fox, which has the Sunday afternoon NFC package, will produce all of the games under the deal, which is worth a little more than $3 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the terms of the deal who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league didn’t announce its value.

“This is a single partner deal, we are not splitting the package,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a conference call. “We had tremendous amount of interest from all the broadcast partners, all of whom wanted it exclusively. We felt this was the best opportunity for the NFL to grow the Thursday night package.”

Digital partners

Goodell added that the league is exploring partnerships with digital outlets, also in conjunction with Fox.

The NFL has broadcast deals “five years out” with its other partners, ESPN has the Monday night package, so five years on this agreement made sense.

“Fundamentally, Fox was built on football,” said Peter Rice, president of 21st Century Fox, noting that 25 years ago, the NFC package “helped launch a fledgling network into what it is today.”

“These opportunities come along very, very infrequently,” he added. “You either have the rights to the most-watched content in media or you don’t. If you don’t take the opportunity, this won’t come up again for five years. We believe in buying the very best rights, and the best rights are the NFL.”

CBS and NBC each paid $450 million for the previous two-year package.

“We explored a responsible bid for Thursday Night Football but in the end are very pleased to return to entertainment programming on television’s biggest night,” CBS said in a statement. “At the same time, we look forward to continuing our terrific long-term partnership with the NFL on Sunday afternoons, with more than 100 games per season including next year’s Super Bowl 53.”

Fox could have a conflict if weather causes a World Series game to be postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. In recent years, Series Game 2 and 6 have been scheduled for Wednesday.

“In that hypothetical kind of a scenario, the World Series game would stay on Fox and our Thursday night game would become an FS1/NFL Network simulcast,” Fox spokesman Eddie Motl said.

Innovation space

Goodell noted that the Thursday night games are a place for innovation.

“One of the things we’ve taken into consideration with Thursday night in general is to evolve this package, to use it as an opportunity to learn, to understand where these various platforms are going, and what we can do to make it a more attractive experience for our fans,” he said. “We will look at that in that context, and the term will be consistent with what it will take to make sure that we continue to evolve that platform as well as the experience for our fans.”

That means streaming outlets, of course.

“We have accepted bids for digital partners,” Goodell said. “We have very healthy competition. In fact, I would say it’s unprecedented competition from a number of digital partners.

“As I say, we put our focus on the broadcast package first. … We are not required to go coterminous with the broadcasts. We can do any length of deal that we get to an agreement on with that digital partner. As I mentioned earlier, we will be doing this in cooperation with our Fox partners.”
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