Yongtalong: December 2021

Friday, December 31, 2021

College Football Playoff 2021 - Georgia's Brock Bowers knows only one speed - fast - ESPN

7:00 AM ET

It didn't take long for Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken to realize that tight end Brock Bowers was different from a lot of freshmen who have come through the Bulldogs' program.

During a practice this past spring, the Bulldogs put GPS systems on the backs of their top 40 or so players. Bowers, who arrived on campus all the way from Napa, California, only a couple of months earlier, was among them. When Georgia's sports science personnel gave Monken the GPS readings after practice, he was impressed by what he saw.

"There's a small group of guys ... that when you put that GPS system on them, the band of their top and their bottom miles per hour are really, really small," Monken said. "They only know one speed, and that's working their rear end off every day."

While some players' miles-per-hour readings might vary between 13 mph and 21 mph during a practice, Bowers' rarely moves.

"Right away, you can tell he only knew one speed," Monken said.

During another practice, the Bulldogs were running laps around the playing field at Sanford Stadium as part of their conditioning drills. Monken noticed that Bowers was way out in front of the other tight ends.

"I wouldn't have done it as a young player," Monken said. "I would run with the pack, I would have run with the rest of the guys. Not Brock Bowers. Tight ends were running, he'd be 10 yards in front of every other guy. He was working at his own speed to be the best he could be, and that is a rare quality to put yourself out there like he did."

That work ethic, combined with exceptional speed and a 6-foot-4 and 230-pound frame, has allowed Bowers to become not only one of the best freshmen in the FBS, but perhaps the most explosive tight end in the country.

Going into Friday's game against No. 2 Michigan in a College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN App), Bowers leads the No. 3 Bulldogs with 47 receptions for 791 yards. His 11 touchdown receptions are the most by a Georgia freshman and any Georgia tight end in a single season.

While Georgia doesn't allow freshmen to speak to the media, Bowers' coaches and family can all attest to his work ethic they have seen up close.

"He's going to continue to develop his skill set," Monken said. "He's probably got more range than we thought. We knew he had the run-after-catch ability. We saw that on tape. ... But he works awfully hard at his craft. It's important to him. He doesn't say a lot, he just works."

DeAnna Bowers didn't expect her son to make such an impact at Georgia so quickly, but she isn't surprised to hear what coaches are saying. When Brock was 9 years old, she remembers him chasing down another kid who stole the ball from him during a soccer game. By the time Brock caught him and kicked the ball out of bounds, he couldn't catch his breath. Coaches had to calm him down on the sideline.

"I told him in the car, 'Dude, you cannot ... '" DeAnna said. "The coaches were worried about him. They had to get him to stick his head between his knees to get him to breathe. He was in tears. His whole life, he has been that competitive."

Then, during his junior year at Napa High School, Brock played nearly every snap on offense and defense during a game on a hot night in September. While he was driving his Bronco home after the game, his legs locked up from cramps. He had to pull into a parking lot and call his parents to get him.

"He was playing almost all 60 minutes at that speed," DeAnna said. "He called me in tears and said, 'I can't drive. I can't move.'"

DeAnna and her husband, Warren, picked Brock up and brought him home.

"He was in pain from cramping," DeAnna said. "He laid on the floor in the living room and we just couldn't calm him down. We were looking at each other saying, 'What are we going to do with this kid?' That's what he gave to his team during that junior season."

Georgia coach Kirby Smart said he got a peek of Bowers' diligence while the Bulldogs were recruiting him. When COVID-19 wiped out much of the recruiting calendar in 2020, the Bulldogs asked prospects to send them videos of what they were doing to stay in shape. Bowers missed his entire senior campaign at Napa High in 2020 when the California Interscholastic Federation canceled the season because of coronavirus concerns.

"When we recruited him, I thought he was different than a typical freshman," Smart said. "This was a guy that would put his phone up and go run up a mountain or a hill out in Napa and sprint up the hill and back down the hill and send video of it. Like he was wired differently. He worked out every day. He competed every day."

Bowers comes from a competitive and athletic family. His father was a center on Utah State's football team in the early 1990s; his mother, the former DeAnna Earsley, was a four-year starting pitcher for the Aggies' softball team from 1990 to 1993. She was an All-American and is in the school's sports hall of fame. His sister, Brianna, was an outfielder at Sacramento State the past three seasons. Still, DeAnna could sense there was something different about her son.

"Brock has always been really competitive and it's something inside him," DeAnna said. "We didn't train him to be that way, but we're a very competitive family. Board games are bad for us and we don't do those."

DeAnna wasn't surprised her son chose to play college football at a school more than 2,500 miles away from home because he wanted to compete against the best. Before Brock committed to Georgia, DeAnna promised him that either she or his father would be at every one of his games. She took a leave of absence from her teaching job and attended every game this season. Both parents plan to be at Hard Rock Stadium to watch the Bulldogs play Michigan.

"He knew the SEC was one of the most competitive conferences out there," DeAnna said. "He wanted to compete with the best of the best to see how he would stack up to that competition."

Unlike the bottles of wine from the vineyards that surround the Bowers family home, the Bulldogs didn't have to wait for Brock to age well. He was ready to play from the start, catching six passes in a 10-3 win against Clemson in the opener. As Brock became more comfortable, he emerged as Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett's favorite target. He scored two touchdowns in five games and then had a career-high 10 receptions for 139 yards with one score in a 41-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC championship game.

He figures to be one of Georgia's primary weapons against the Wolverines.

"Brock is a heck of a player, man," Michigan defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald said. "He's really dynamic. He really plays every position. He'll play the Z, the Y, the X, the move guy, the down guy. They'll give it to him on reverses, screens. It's pretty impressive. A tribute to their coaching staff for putting him in positions to affect the game.

"I think the first thing you have to have is an awareness of where he's at, and if he's out of place you have to understand that. And then just understand the things that he likes to do from certain positions so we can help try to slow him down as best we can."

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College Football Playoff 2021 - Georgia's Brock Bowers knows only one speed - fast - ESPN
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Thursday, December 30, 2021

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Calls Vin Diesel 'Manipulative' Over 'Fast & Furious 10' - TMZ

The beef between Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Vin Diesel is far from squelched ... because "The Rock" just blasted his former 'Fast & Furious' co-star, calling him manipulative.

TMZ reported back in 2016, when they were filming the 8th installment of the franchise -- "The Fate of the Furious" -- the 2 men were at each other's throats. "The Rock" made it clear he was done with the franchise, but Vin wasn't done himself, posting this last month ...

"My little brother Dwayne... the time has come. The world awaits the finale of Fast 10. As you know, my children refer to you as Uncle Dwayne in my house. There is not a holiday that goes by that they and you don't send well wishes... but the time has come. Legacy awaits. I told you years ago that I was going to fulfill my promise to Pablo. I swore that we would reach and manifest the best Fast in the finale that is 10! I say this out of love... but you must show up, do not leave the franchise idle you have a very important role to play. Hobbs can't be played by no other. I hope that you rise to the occasion and fulfill your destiny.",

Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.

Well, Dwayne just called out Vin on CNN, saying his post was "an example of manipulation," adding, "This past June, when Vin and I actually connected not over social media, I told him directly — and privately — that I would not be returning to the franchise. I was firm yet cordial with my words and said that I would always be supportive of the cast and always root for the franchise to be successful, but that there was no chance I would return."

He went on ... "I didn't like that he brought up his children in the post, as well as Paul Walker's death. Leave them out of it. We had spoken months ago about this and came to a clear understanding. My goal all along was to end my amazing journey with this incredible 'Fast & Furious' franchise with gratitude and grace."

The 2 actors had a rotten time together in F&F8, with The Rock making it clear by process of elimination ... "There's no other franchise that gets my blood boiling more than this one. My female costars are always amazing and I love 'em. My male costars, however, are a different story," he wrote, adding, "Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don't."

Beef alive and well.

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Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Calls Vin Diesel 'Manipulative' Over 'Fast & Furious 10' - TMZ
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Shein: the Chinese company storming the world of fast fashion with a little help from TikTok - Financial Post

For Gen-Z consumers, the company has become synonymous with the TikTok phenomenon of influencers posting short clips of "Shein hauls"

Financial Times

Jonathan Eley and Eleanor Olcott

Shein has found a way to do the fast-fashion model cheaper and faster. Photo by Shein.com

Time did not seem to be on Chris Xu’s side when he threw himself into the cut-throat world of Chinese entrepreneurship. He quit his job in marketing and set up an online fashion retailer just as the 2008 global financial crisis struck.

Yet after little more than a dozen years, Shein, the company he founded, has seized over a quarter of the US fast-fashion market and its rapid growth threatens to disrupt established global players such as Spain’s Inditex and Sweden’s H&M.

The business is built around the fast-fashion model pioneered by others, including Inditex’s Zara. But through use of automation, artificial intelligence and a well-drilled supply chain, Shein has found a way to do it both cheaper and faster.

Detractors say its business model relies on tax loopholes, a flexible attitude to intellectual property and scant regard for corporate and social responsibility

The company’s detractors say its business model relies on tax loopholes, a flexible attitude to intellectual property and scant regard for corporate and social responsibility. “I think it should be closed down,” grumbles the chief executive of one big fashion retailer.

But its young consumers appear to care little and Shein’s rock-bottom pricing plus its growing dominance in mobile apps and social media favoured by that cohort has started to cause concern in western boardrooms.

In the first few months of 2021, its app downloads were second only to Amazon and its engagement levels on TikTok were notably higher than those of rivals.

Despite such a rapid rise, there is little public information about the company or its enigmatic founder, beyond that it started life selling Chinese-made goods from sunglasses to wedding dresses for export to individual customers in the U.S., and that it changed its name from SheInside to Shein in 2015.

In the process, Shein has become one of the few Chinese consumer brands to break through in the U.S. and European markets. The company’s competitiveness also calls into question the notion that the era of super-cheap manufacturing in China is over.

“We didn’t come out of nowhere,” says George Chiao, head of the company’s operations in the U.S., where Shein this year surpassed H&M and Zara to become the largest fast-fashion retailer by sales, according to retail data analytics company Earnest. “We spent the past 10 years building the foundations of the company.”

“It has been difficult for Chinese brands to go to the west and make a name for themselves,” he adds, referring to what he says is the tendency of Chinese companies to concentrate on manufacturing and to shun publicity. “Chinese people have been very good at manufacturing. Why? Because they lock themselves up in a factory and make products westerners ask them to make. It’s a cultural thing. Chinese people don’t like to talk about themselves and take away from what the business has built.”

‘Test and repeat’

Inditex, the world’s biggest apparel retailer, pioneered the idea of quickly adapting catwalk styles into clothes that could be bought by ordinary consumers in stores. The likes of Boohoo in the U.K. and Fashion Nova in the U.S. used a “test and repeat” model — producing small amounts of a range of styles — to accelerate that process to just a couple of weeks.

But Shein has taken that down further — to as little as a week — and at much greater scale. Each day, it adds 6,000 new items online, far more than any comparable retailer manages. It responds in real time to trends picked up not by fashionistas and designers but by analytics software, which trawls through shopping and social media websites.

Shein has turned shopping into a form of online entertainment

While established fashion retailers rely heavily on Instagram, especially for social media promotion, Shein has piggybacked on the growth of TikTok, the Chinese short-video app that has also become wildly popular around the world.

For Gen-Z consumers, the company has become synonymous with the TikTok phenomenon of influencers posting short clips of “Shein hauls,” parading an array of outfits to their online fans.

Shein also makes a much greater proportion of its sales via mobile apps rather than conventional websites and has borrowed ideas from the world of gaming — such as countdown clocks and even games with discounts as prizes — to boost engagement and spend in that channel.

Before shoppers check out, Shein’s app entices them to continue adding to the basket with the lure of gifts and express delivery if they hit a certain spending threshold. Although such practices are common among fast-fashion retailers, Rouge, a website and branding agency, found that Shein included more prompts to users to spend more money or disclose personal data than any other.

Dimitrios Tsivrikos, a consumer psychologist at University College London, says that Shein has turned shopping into a form of online entertainment. “Social media has been a very effective promotional outlet for Shein, especially with the rise of TikTok.

For Gen-Z consumers, the company has become synonymous with the TikTok phenomenon of influencers posting short clips of “Shein hauls,” parading an array of outfits to their online fans. Photo by TikTok

“Young people can only wear the same clothes once or twice before eventually throwing them away for fear of being labelled ‘cheugy’,” he adds, referring to a pejorative teenagers use to poke fun at the unfashionable and outdated.

Shein is also very cheap. The average unit price for its more than 600,000 products is just US$7.90. Analysts at Morgan Stanley found that only Primark in Europe — which operates a traditional model of long lead-time manufacturing in south Asia — and Forever 21 in the U.S. could consistently match it on prices of staples such as jeans, dresses and T-shirts.

Industry competitors question how Shein is able to sell its wares so cheaply, given that labour costs in China have been rising for years, and that more recently the Covid-19 pandemic has inflated prices for everything from fabrics to air freight.

“We have tried to model it and we just couldn’t make it add up,” says one senior U.K. fashion executive. “A lot of the clothes are very simple but the quality isn’t bad for the price points.”

He and many others point to the tax advantages that Shein enjoys. Most fashion retailers build a presence in their home market before expanding overseas, but Shein has never sold clothes in China itself. Instead it exports, largely using air freight, from its manufacturing base in Guangdong to key markets such as the U.S. and Europe.

Those transactions are free of export taxes in China and only a tiny minority of its shipments overseas incur import duties; the threshold at which consignments into the U.S. qualify for assessment is US$800, in the UK the equivalent is £135 and in Europe it is €150.

Because Shein ships individual parcels from its base in southern China, almost all its packages fall below this threshold and are not subject to import duties in the U.S. or Europe. This helps them set prices lower than western-based rivals.

In addition, for much of its existence Shein benefited from discounted shipping rates owing to China’s classification as a “developing country” within the Universal Postal Union, the UN agency that co-ordinates postal policies, though changes made in 2020 have reduced the impact of these.

Shein also insists that it does not undercut rivals by effectively subsidizing operating expenses such as air freight costs. Instead, it points to its supply chain system within China. “We keep our margins very low, reinvesting the money to improve and iterate our business,” says Chiao.

Its manufacturing capacity is concentrated around Panyu, the industrial district of the southeastern province of Guangdong. He says Shein uses both suppliers who design their own products and pitch it to Shein’s buyers and “contract manufacturers who exclusively work for us”. Both are expected to do small-batch production runs.

“It took 10 years to build these supply chains because most suppliers don’t want to sell you only 100 pieces,” he adds. Payment terms were one way of convincing them. “We started with 30 days, unheard of at the time. We were able to get buy-in for Shein’s way of sourcing.” Standard payment terms for garment companies to pay factories can be 90 days.

It also insisted that suppliers use its cloud-based supply-chain management software, unusual in what is often still a low-tech industry that runs on personal relationships. As a result of this integration, product lines that sell well are automatically reordered in larger volumes, according to one consultant who has worked with the company.

Shein is able to pay suppliers quickly because its just-in-time model means very little cash is tied up in inventory. Its reliance on third-party logistics operators and lack of physical stores has also meant its growth has not required much capital.

Figures from PitchBook suggest that its growth to an estimated US$10 billion of annual sales, according to Bloomberg reports citing unidentified sources, has been supported by total equity investment of little more than US$500 million. This came from Tiger Global Management, Sequoia and Jafco Asia among others. All three declined to discuss their involvement.

Repeat customers

It is hard to know exactly how much disquiet Shein’s growth is causing in an industry that is well used to fickle consumer tastes and vigorous competition. “I’ve seen a lot of things in fashion that have come out of nowhere,” says one former senior executive in the sector. “Some crash and burn, some go on to have a profound impact. It’s not yet clear to me which bucket this one falls into.”

Pablo Isla, who as chief executive and executive chair masterminded Inditex’s massive global expansion from 2005 onwards, confined himself in a Financial Times interview earlier this year to noting that “there is not just one business model that can prove successful.”

But Michael Maloof at Earnest Research in New York, who has tracked Shein’s rapid growth in the U.S. in recent years, says “there is genuine concern” among executives he has met from established fashion retailers. “The U.S. is a huge market for many of them.”

He pointed out that not only was Shein winning new customers, but that based on the U.S. credit and debit card transaction data that Earnest analyses, its repeat purchase frequency was also high. He says its customers seem to regard its low prices as an acceptable trade-off for any variable quality and longer delivery times than many of its rivals.

Unsurprisingly, given its growth and unusual modus operandi, controversy has followed Shein. It has been accused of copying designs from multinationals such as Dr Martens and Levi’s to individual designers such as UK-based entrepreneurs Deborah Breen and Sarah Vaughan.

Shein says it responds promptly and fairly to any accusations of intellectual property theft. And Chiao argues that the company is now supporting independent fashion designers such as Reia Toombs, one of a group of designers now producing special lines for Shein. She says the company supports her dreams of being a successful fashion designer: “The cost of running my brand was too high. But now the company pays for my manufacturing and marketing costs.”

Working conditions in its supply base have also come under scrutiny. The company says it treats staff at contract manufacturers well, paying garment makers an average salary that is 45 per cent more than the national average. But an investigation by Sixth Tone, a Chinese online magazine, found many of Shein’s manufacturers cut costs by outsourcing to small workshops that pay their workers less and frequently flout labour laws — a complaint that has also been levelled at the U.K.’s Boohoo. Chiao says Shein auditors check up on its outsourced manufacturers and the company brings disciplinary action if it finds a problem.

Environmental groups have condemned it for contributing to soaring levels of clothing pollution. The fashion industry accounts for about 5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and, by some estimates, fewer than 1 per cent of garments are recycled.

Chiao said Shein is trying to “actively mitigate” its environmental impact through its small-batch sourcing model which prevents large amounts of unsold stock going to waste, but was unapologetic about accusations of stoking demand for disposable clothing. “This is what consumers want,” he says.

Shein is also gradually moving away from both its focus on the ultra-cheap end of the market and its historical aversion to publicity. It has launched a more upmarket label, known as MOTF, which uses better quality fabrics but is still priced below mass-market equivalents.

This year it bid for Topshop, the U.K. fashion brand that was the jewel in Sir Philip Green’s collapsed Arcadia empire, though it lost out to Asos.

“In the past, people have (said) we are being intentionally mysterious for some nefarious reason, but the truth is we’ve just been keeping our heads down and working,” says Chiao.

“But at this stage, we are selling clothes to the west and people want to talk about us. We’re ready to be more engaging now.”

Some are already taking note. In October, analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley cut its medium-term forecasts and share price targets by up to 34 per cent on 15 major fashion groups, listed across Europe, the US and Latin America, that they considered particularly exposed to the rapid growth of Shein.

“We think that the recent disappointing performance of several European online retailers could actually be partially linked to Shein’s emerging success,” they said.

Most of all, it was concerned at what the emergence of such a formidable operator in a comparatively short space of time implied about barriers to entry in the sector. Shein’s rise suggests “that other similar or even more disruptive players could well emerge over the next 10 years, further increasing the competitive pressure in this market.”

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Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Statistics show the 'she-cession' is over, but experts say not so fast - CTV News

CALGARY -- When Alicia Dempster started her maternity leave in June 2019, she never dreamed that she would still be at home two and a half years later.

The Stouffville, Ont. woman fully intended to return to her job as an event planner for an area municipality after 15 months at home caring for her baby son and his toddler brother.

But COVID-19 derailed those plans. When her planned return-to-work date rolled around, the complete absence of public events meant the job she once had no longer existed. The alternative work her employer offered her -- cutting grass and picking weeds with the parks department -- seemed a poor match for her skills, so she opted to stay home "just a little longer."

Now, her sons are five and two and a half and the Omicron variant is on the rise.

Like many Canadian women, Dempster is not only concerned about how long she's been out of the workforce, but should she find a job, she knows she'll be juggling the demands of work and parenting, including COVID tests and mandatory isolation every time one of her children gets a cough or the sniffles.

While recent data suggests a jobs recovery for working age women, the statistics fail to capture the whole picture, one in which many women are still struggling to balance work and family life.

Early in the pandemic, much was written about the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on the finances and career prospects of Canadian women. Female-dominated industries like accommodation and food services were the hardest-hit by restrictions and lockdowns, and many women also suffered from a lack of child care as daycares and schools shut down in the pandemic's early months.

Even one year on, in March of 2021, employment among women remained about 5.3 per cent below where it sat in February 2020, compared to a drop of about 3.7 per cent for men, according to a report from the Labour Market Information Council.

But as the economy gradually reopened over the summer and fall, women's prospects improved. Canada as a whole caught up with its pre-pandemic job numbers in September of this year, and according to Statistics Canada, the only age group of women that has yet to recover to its pre-pandemic employment level is the 55-plus category.

"Now if you look at younger women, their employment rate is higher than it was before the pandemic. A little more than one percentage point higher," said University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe. "It's the same story for the 25-54 age group -- their employment rate is one percentage point higher."

But Armine Yalnizyan, a Toronto-based economist and the Atkinson Foundation's Fellow on the Future of Workers, cautions against declaring the "she-cession" over. She pointed out that statistics offer an aggregate look at a population, and many individual women are still struggling with the impacts of the pandemic on their careers and finances.

In addition, Yalnizyan said, it's crucial to remember that Statistics Canada employment data only looks at the "quantity" of jobs, not "quality" -- a key part of the story when it comes to COVID-19 and its affect on gender and the workforce.

"The quality of work question is really, really important to the question of what's been happening to women," she said. "For the `I'm not able to get a promotion, I've had to change jobs or I have stress about possibly losing my job, I'm barely hanging on because my kids are home half the time,' the binary of `are you employed or aren't you employed' isn't a very good metric."

Before the pandemic hit, Stephanie Bakker-Houpf of High River, Alta., was excited to finally have time to focus on getting her creative consultancy and content management business off the ground after years of putting her own career dreams on the back-burner to raise her two now-teenage daughters.

But not only did her bread-and-butter contracts with musician and entertainer clients dry up in the absence of live performances last year, the divorced Bakker-Houpf found herself sacrificing precious work time as she helped her daughters with home-schooling and supported them through all of the disruptions and anxieties that go along with being a kid in a pandemic.

"Kids today are constantly dealing with uncertainty and their lives being interrupted. And yet, we as moms are still supposed to be able to function the same way and show up at our jobs the same way," Bakker-Houpf said.

Jennifer Hargreaves, founder and CEO of diversity recruitment organization Tellent -- which aims to help women in career transition find new opportunities -- said while it's true that as many women may be working now as before the pandemic, the numbers don't tell the whole story.

In fact, Hargreaves said she worries Canadian working women may be heading into another crisis in 2022, as employers begin to urge employees to come back to the office on at least a part-time basis even as schools and daycares continue to struggle with COVID cases and children under 5 remain unvaccinated.

"What's frightening is some employers seem eager to say, 'we're going back to normal this year,' " Hargreaves said. "Because what I actually see on the ground is more and more women reaching out and getting mental health support, because they've just got to a tipping point with burnout. And women are taking stress leave."

If women have one thing working in their favour, Hargreaves said, it's the fact that employers across a wide range of industries are struggling with systemic labour shortages right now. She said she hopes that will spur employers to recognize that the way to retain talent is to continue to prioritize flexibility.

"I hope employers can take the lessons learned during COVID-19 and start implementing them and doing that culture shift," Hargreaves said. "I think they're absolutely going to need to do that in order to stay agile in this new economy."

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Statistics show the 'she-cession' is over, but experts say not so fast - CTV News
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Brickbat: Fast Cash - Reason

The U.S. Secret Service reports that at least $100 billion was stolen from federal funds aimed to help people who lost their jobs because of COVID-19 and associated economic shutdowns and businesses that suffered because of the pandemic. That's about 3 percent of the money distributed under those programs, and it doesn't include cases being prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Fast-tracked plan to double Golan population a minefield — nature advocacy group - The Times of Israel

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) says a cabinet plan to invest NIS 1 billion ($317 million) into doubling the population of the Golan Heights is riddled with “legal, planning, environmental and public [representation]” problems.

During a special cabinet meeting Sunday, held at the Golan’s Kibbutz Mevo Hama, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced two new neighborhoods in the town of Katzrin, as well as two new communities to be named Asif and Matar, each with about 2,000 housing units.

But in a detailed response, the SPNI warned that the plan threatens the open vistas, springs, waterfalls and rich biodiversity that make the sparsely-populated region such a draw for Israelis and tourists alike.

The organization said that a plan to set up a special fast-track planning committee for the whole Golan Heights area was legally dubious — planning law only allows such committees for places where there is no settlement at all, it said — and bristled at the fact that no provision had been made to include a single representative of the public, let alone of environmental organizations.

Ministers take part in a special cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights, on December 26, 2021. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

The SPNI suggested that, instead, an official responsible for the development of the Golan would be added to the Northern District planning committee, noting that district councils know their areas well and better understand what must be preserved in the region.

The idea of creating two new communities from scratch — in an area that the regional council has zoned for protection — does not makes sense from a planning, social, environmental or economic perspective, the SPNI went on, given the burning need to strengthen the many existing moshavim and kibbutzim, and in particular the region’s main town and service center, Katzrin.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, it said, the state should use some of the 12,000 existing permits for residential construction that have not been implemented. An additional 4,500 permits exist to build in Katzrin alone.

The document went on to criticize a plan for a massive solar energy field in an area known as the Valley of Tears, the site of a crucial battle during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which a small group of Israelis held back a Syrian advance, sustaining great losses.

The Valley of Tears (Emek Habaha), viewed from the Oz77 memorial area. (Shmuel Bar-Am)

The valley, said the SPNI, is an important area of open space that is home to 19 species of mammals, among them gazelles and wolves.

Instead, it recommended a regional electricity saving drive and the erection of solar panels on the roofs of existing homes, along with renewable energy storage, to allow communities to provide their own power.

For scenic reasons, and to protect birds, it also called for high-voltage electricity lines to be buried underground.

As regards the government’s plan for new industrial areas to create employment, the SPNI said that the country is peppered with such areas, many of which are not used. It said the state should work within the framework of the Northern District planning authority’s policy of strengthening existing industrial zones — there is one in Katzrin, which can be expanded — by providing incentives to draw factories to the country’s rural areas and ensuring that revenue from the taxes that they pay is distributed fairly.

This aerial view shows Katzrin, an Israeli town in the Golan Heights, on December 26, 2021. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

Finally, the report noted that dozens of tons of basalt rock have been piled up over the years (in the course of clearing fields and preparing land for military activity) and that these should be used before any thought is given to establishing new stone quarries that will only further deplete open space.

The government says that its plan is aimed at “sustainable demographic growth” on the Heights.

For that to be true, the SPNI insisted, meaningful commitments will need to be made to balance the needs of development with those of nature. This means creating more nature reserves, rehabilitating sites that have been disturbed (for example, by the army), creating a reservoir in the Hula Valley for farm irrigation so that Golan spring water can flow into streams rather than be diverted, and pledging to protect endangered species, such as vultures and gazelles.

An Egyptian vulture in flight over the Gamla nature reserve on the Israeli Golan, May 2013. (Wikipedia/Вых Пыхманн/CC BY-SA)

Some 53,000 people currently live in the Golan Heights: 27,000 Jews, 24,000 Druze, and some 2,000 Alawites (an ethnoreligious group originating from Shia Islam and a minority sect to which Syria’s ruling family, the Assads, belong).

Apart from the United States, the international community regards the Golan as part of Syria, which lost the territory to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Israel annexed the Golan in 1981.

The government plan, condemned by Syria and Arab Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi, aims to upgrade infrastructure, establish new communities and neighborhoods, and create 2,000 new jobs by turning the region into a center for Israel’s renewable energy technologies.

Some NIS 576 million ($183 million) is to be allocated for housing planning — about 3,300 new housing units in Katzrin and another 4,000 in the Golan Regional Council — within five years.

Another NIS 160 million ($51 million) is to be invested in infrastructure and transportation, to improve the quality of life in the Golan Heights.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett first announced the plan in October.

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Statistics show 'she-cession' is over, but experts say not so fast - NewmarketToday.ca

When Alicia Dempster started her maternity leave in June 2019, she never dreamed that she would still be at home 2-1/2 years later.

The Stouffville woman fully intended to return to her job as an event planner for an area municipality after 15 months at home caring for her baby son and his toddler brother.

But COVID-19 derailed those plans. When her planned return-to-work date rolled around, the complete absence of public events meant the job she once had no longer existed. The alternative work her employer offered her — cutting grass and picking weeds with the parks department — seemed a poor match for her skills, so she opted to stay home "just a little longer."

Now, her sons are five and 2-1/2 and the omicron variant is on the rise.

While recent data suggests a jobs recovery for working age women, the statistics fail to capture the whole picture, one in which many women are still struggling to balance work and family life.

“Now if you look at younger women, their employment rate is higher than it was before the pandemic. A little more than one percentage point higher," said University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe. "It's the same story for the 25-54 age group — their employment rate is one percentage point higher."

In addition, Yalnizyan said, it's crucial to remember that Statistics Canada employment data only looks at the "quantity" of jobs, not "quality" — a key part of the story when it comes to COVID-19 and its affect on gender and the workforce.

“The quality of work question is really, really important to the question of what’s been happening to women," she said. "For the ‘I’m not able to get a promotion, I’ve had to change jobs or I have stress about possibly losing my job, I’m barely hanging on because my kids are home half the time,' the binary of ‘are you employed or aren’t you employed’ isn’t a very good metric.”

Jennifer Hargreaves, founder and CEO of diversity recruitment organization Tellent – which aims to help women in career transition find new opportunities — said while it's true that as many women may be working now as before the pandemic, the numbers don't tell the whole story.

"I hope employers can take the lessons learned during COVID-19 and start implementing them and doing that culture shift," Hargreaves said. "I think they’re absolutely going to need to do that in order to stay agile in this new economy.”

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

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Statistics show 'she-cession' is over, but experts say not so fast - NewmarketToday.ca
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The Eco-Fashion Label TIJN Looks To Conquer Fast-Fashion Through Influencer Marketing - Forbes

Sunday, December 26, 2021

JonBenet Ramsey Murder Fast Facts - CTV News

Here is some background information about the JonBenét Ramsey murder investigation.

The six-year-old beauty pageant queen was found murdered in her Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.

No one has ever been charged in the case and the investigation is still open.

Early suspicion fell on her parents, but they were exonerated after DNA at the scene was found to belong to a male unrelated to the Ramsey family.

PERSONAL

Birth date: August 6, 1990

Birth place: Atlanta, Georgia

Birth name: JonBenét Ramsey

Parents: John and Patricia "Patsy" Ramsey

Siblings: Burke Ramsey; John Andrew Ramsey, (half-brother); Melinda Ramsey Long, (half-sister); Elizabeth Ramsey, (half-sister), died in 1992 at age 22

OTHER FACTS

JonBenét was named after her father, John Bennett Ramsey, and her name is pronounced in a French style.

She won the following beauty pageants - Little Miss Colorado, Little Miss Charlevoix, Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl, America's Royale Miss, and National Tiny Miss Beauty.

She is buried in Marietta, Georgia, beside her mother, who died from ovarian cancer in 2006, and her half-sister Elizabeth Ramsey, who died in a car crash in 1992.

TIMELINE

December 26, 1996 - JonBenét is murdered in her Boulder, Colorado, home.

Her body is found in her basement that same day. JonBenét's mother, Patsy, says she found a ransom note demanding US$118,000 for JonBenét's return.

January 4, 1997 - Reports reveal that JonBenét's skull had been fractured.

April 30, 1997 - Police conduct their first formal interviews with John and Patsy Ramsey.

December 1997 - Boulder police say John and Patsy Ramsey remain under "an umbrella of suspicion."

January 15, 1998 - JonBenét's parents decline to participate in a second interview with detectives, saying that they won't cooperate unless police allow them to review evidence in the case.

October 13, 1999 - Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter states that no indictments will be issued due to a lack of evidence in the case.

December 2003 - A new DNA sample is submitted to the FBI database in the hope of finding new leads.

June 24, 2006 - Patsy Ramsey, age 49, dies of ovarian cancer.

August 16, 2006 - Officials announce that 41-year-old John Mark Karr has been arrested in Bangkok, Thailand as a suspect in the case. Karr allegedly told an American investigator that he drugged JonBenét and sexually assaulted her before accidentally killing her. Prosecutors later drop the case after DNA tests fail to link him to the crime scene.

July 9, 2008 - Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy says no one in the Ramsey family is considered a suspect and formally apologizes in a letter to John Ramsey.

February 2009 - The Boulder Police Department resumes its status as the lead agency investigating the case.

October 2, 2010 - Police investigators conduct new rounds of interviews.

January 27, 2013 - The Boulder Daily Camera reports that in 1999 the grand jury voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on charges of child abuse resulting in death, but Hunter decided there was not enough evidence to file charges and did not sign the indictment.

December 28, 2016 - After CBS airs a docu-series about the case suggesting that JonBenét's brother, Burke Ramsey, may have been the culprit, Burke files a US$250 million defamation lawsuit against the network, the production company that made the documentary and one of the experts featured in the special, Dr. Werner Spitz. Burke had filed a separate defamation lawsuit against Spitz in October, stemming from a comment the doctor made during a radio interview. John Ramsey later files his own suit against CBS in Michigan state court.

January 2, 2019 - Following an undisclosed settlement, Michigan Circuit Court Judge David Groner signs an order of dismissal in the defamation lawsuit filed by Burke against CBS. Court documents appear to show that John Ramsey's separate lawsuit against the media company is also settled and dismissed on the same day.

December 20, 2021 - The City of Boulder releases a statement saying they have processed more than 1,500 pieces of evidence and analyzed nearly 1,000 DNA samples related to the child's murder. In the release, Boulder Police Department say they actively "use new technology to enhance the investigation" and check regularly for DNA matches in order to solve the case.

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Homeowners insurance premiums are rising fast - The Washington Post

Ken Hoagland was surprised to see his monthly mortgage payment increase recently.

“I noticed that our mortgage had gone up $100 on a $1,250 mortgage,” he said. “So, I looked into it. First, I called the mortgage company and they said, ‘It’s costing a lot more to insure your house. Talk to [the insurance company].’ So then I called USAA and said, ‘What’s going on?’”

Across the country, homeowners renewing their policies are discovering that rising material costs, supply chain disruptions and climate change are combining to drive premiums up by an average 4 percent to an average annual premium of $1,398, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit organization known as Triple-I that provides information on the insurance industry. Triple-I uses data from Standard & Poor’s Global Market Intelligence for its analysis.

Since 2017, premium rates are up 11.4 percent on average, which means they are rising faster than inflation — and insurance experts expect that the rates will stay high.

“From everything I know about homeowners’ risk, I expected those numbers to be higher,” said Dale Porfilio, the chief insurance officer at Triple-I. “Honestly, I would say they still should go up further.”

The cost of insuring a home depends on several factors. Location often drives costs up, particularly if the house is in an area prone to natural disasters. Some areas have higher rates because it costs more to rebuild a house there. How resistant a house is to natural disaster — for example, if it was built to withstand an earthquake — can affect rates.

When Hoagland spoke to his insurance agent, he learned that the increases in his insurance premium were tied to the rising price of lumber, a severe shortage of skilled labor and inflation. All those factors caused the replacement cost of his house to rise. The insurance company calculated the cost to rebuild his 1871 Tuscan-style house in Berkley Springs, W.Va., which he bought for $265,000 less than two years ago, at $625,000.

“My first instinct was this was some kind of insurance company scam,” Hoagland said. “I called all of the top-rated insurance companies, five or six of them, and said, ‘I’m not sure I want to insure replacement value.’ Every single one of them said, ‘No, that’s the only insurance we provide.’”

Most homeowners want their home back in the condition it was before the event destroyed it, which is why replacement cost — the cost to rebuild the home as it was — often differs from the value of the home. Replacement cost also doesn’t take into account the value of the land. In some cases, the replacement cost of a house is less than the value of the house because the land value is high in that area.

“We offer what’s referred to as replacement cost coverage,” said Karen Collins, the assistant vice president for personal lines at the American Property and Casualty Insurance Association, the largest insurance trade association. “We want to rebuild, to replace what you had before. We try to estimate that on an inflation factor. But when you have such an abnormal rate of inflation, those automated processes may not always keep up.”

Rising costs for raw materials, particularly lumber, and supply chain disruptions are adding to the bottom line. When the pandemic hit, lumber producers feared a repeat of the Great Recession. They cut production and unloaded inventory. But demand soared, catching them by surprise. The price of lumber spiked to $1,500 per thousand feet of board in March, a 400 percent year-over-year increase. The Biden administration’s decision in November to double the tariff on Canadian lumber to 18 percent, up from 9 percent during the Trump administration, also affected prices. Canada has been the largest U.S. trade partner for lumber, providing about 30 percent of U.S. supply.

“Right now, lumber prices are about $900 per thousand board feet,” said Robert Dietz, the chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. “Domestic lumber production has really not increased in the United States. The economics of lumber tariffs when we’re trying to fight inflation don’t make any sense.”

The supply chain bottleneck has also made refrigerators and stoves more expensive and scarce. A survey by the NAHB of its members in May found shortages of materials more widespread than at any time since NAHB began tracking the issue in the 1990s. Appliances were rated the items most in short supply, followed by lumber.

“It’s taking longer to build, and it’s costing more,” Dietz said. “Using the [Producer Price Index] inflation data, we build a basket of goods that are connected to residential construction, and right now, those prices are up about 19 percent year-over-year.”

Climate change also is contributing to higher rates. The year began with a devastating winter freeze in Texas, which led to the state’s largest non-hurricane weather loss event. Hurricane Ida, which hit in late summer, is expected to rank among the five costliest hurricanes in U.S. history. It is too soon to calculate the losses from the tornadoes that ripped through eight states in early December.

Porfilio said insured damage from tornados, hurricanes, severe storms, wildfires and other natural disasters has reached $82 billion this year, bringing the total from 2017 until now to more than $400 billion.

“Climate risk is continuing to put pressure on all things weather-related,” Porfilio said. “We are seeing more severe hurricanes, more severe wildfires and the science isn’t as clear on tornado events in terms of whether they’re changing in frequency or not. But what we definitely do know is that severity is going up.”

When a natural disaster affects a wide area, the demand for materials and labor puts pressure on prices.

“What usually happens when you have an event that is destroying or severely damaging hundreds of thousands in a metro area is the building material pricing in those markets tends to be elevated for about six, sometimes as much as nine months,” Dietz said. “You get an increased labor shortage in the market and neighboring markets because a lot of labor and construction know-how goes into the remodeling sector for repair efforts.”

Because of the rash of natural disasters, some insurance companies are offering extended replacement cost coverage at an additional cost.

“After a natural disaster, a widespread incident, [there is] a demand surge … where you have costs that spike because the demand spikes in the immediate aftermath,” Collins said. “So, the normal cost to reconstruct, to replace, suddenly changes. An extended replacement cost endorsement, which is optional, gives you an extra cushion for that demand surge specifically.”

Home insurance costs are rising faster in some states than others. According to data from Triple-I, Colorado experienced a 21 percent increase in average annual premiums for homeowners insurance from 2017 to 2020. Texas’s rates went up 18 percent during that time frame, and California’s increased 9.6 percent. D.C. saw a 3.2 percent increase; Maryland a 13.4 percent increase and Virginia 14.8 percent. West Virginia, where Hoagland has his house, went up 3.1 percent.

Although insurance companies are filing rate increases to keep up with rising costs, they are being held in check somewhat by state regulators. California is a case in point. Although the state has been ravaged by wildfires, homeowners insurance premiums haven’t kept pace with increasingly expensive claims.

“There are some constraints with how quickly insurers can adjust their rates,” Collins said. “You may have some [states] who haven’t experienced the same amount of rate increases simply because the carriers are still in that process of a negotiated filing that is getting drawn out for a lengthy period of time.”

Whether the increases are small or large, there are ways to save money on homeowners insurance premiums. Hoagland opted to increase his deductible from $1,000 to $2,000, which reduced his homeowners insurance by about $500 annually.

Although 2021 may turn out to be an exceptional year for natural disasters and rising inflation, it could be some time before homeowners insurance premiums moderate.

“I think [homeowners insurance premiums] need to go up at a faster pace than this in the future because of climate risk as well as inflationary pressures on repair costs,” Porfilio said. “The reality is we should all expect them to go up because costs do generally increase, and all of our insurance policies are reflecting cost. So it is a question of relative magnitude. I do believe, and we’ve got ample data that shows, that rates should be going up more than they have been. I think there is a bit of catching up to do.”

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F1 2022 runaway leaders will be closed down fast, says Domenicali - Motorsport.com

F1 teams are currently working hard on their designs for the all-new ground effect cars that will come in to play in 2022.

And, after an ultra-competitive 2021 campaign, there have been some fears voiced that the change of regulations could trigger more of a field spread with some teams having found better ways to unlock performance.

F1 has not shied away from the fact that there is the possibility of one or two squads being well clear at the front in the early stages of the new regulations.

But Domenicali has no doubts that, with teams still finding their way with the new rules, any advantages gained from the start of the campaign will be very quickly eroded.

Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com, Domenicali said: “It is clear that in the context of a season that starts with a new regulation and the budget cap, differences between the cars could emerge greater than what people might expect.

“But I am equally sure that the limitations linked to the new regulations will mean that if there are these differences, the gap will be closed more quickly.”

Ross Brawn, Managing Director of Motorsports, and Stefano Domenicali, CEO, Formula 1

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Domenicali’s belief about the competitive picture changing quickly has been backed by Ferrari, which reckons that the critical thing next year will be how fast teams can respond to their competitive situation at the beginning of the campaign.

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto said: “It may be that at the start to the season there will be difference in competitiveness between the cars, because of the ways in which each team may have interpreted the rules and the solutions they may bring.

“Here what I think will be important as Ferrari is being capable of understanding weaknesses and addressing them very quickly. So it's the team reaction that will be key.

“We cannot be confident of having a competitive car from the start, because you never know what may happen when you’ve got such a big rule change. But it is about being capable of addressing it as soon as possible.”

Domenicali remains bullish that the new generation of cars should put more emphasis on driver talent – and that could lead to plenty more battles.

"We are facing a season in 2022 where there are so many new elements that can be characterised in a positive or negative sense,” he said.

“The ground effect cars have been designed to highlight the skills of the drivers. They are machines that should be driven, without the wake [dirty air] effect that deteriorates the tyres. The goal is to have duels between many drivers, without having the limits related to the car.”

Yongtalong

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Friday, December 31, 2021

College Football Playoff 2021 - Georgia's Brock Bowers knows only one speed - fast - ESPN

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Calls Vin Diesel 'Manipulative' Over 'Fast & Furious 10' - TMZ

Shein: the Chinese company storming the world of fast fashion with a little help from TikTok - Financial Post

‘Test and repeat’

Repeat customers

Billionaire Weston family sells Selfridges to Thai-Austrian joint venture for $5.4 billion

Chinese state media warns Canada Goose may have violated consumer law

Lululemon fires back at Peloton with patent infringement lawsuit

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Statistics show the 'she-cession' is over, but experts say not so fast - CTV News

Brickbat: Fast Cash - Reason

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Fast-tracked plan to double Golan population a minefield — nature advocacy group - The Times of Israel

Statistics show 'she-cession' is over, but experts say not so fast - NewmarketToday.ca

The Eco-Fashion Label TIJN Looks To Conquer Fast-Fashion Through Influencer Marketing - Forbes

Sunday, December 26, 2021

JonBenet Ramsey Murder Fast Facts - CTV News

PERSONAL

OTHER FACTS

TIMELINE

Homeowners insurance premiums are rising fast - The Washington Post

F1 2022 runaway leaders will be closed down fast, says Domenicali - Motorsport.com

Armed man threatens to kill fast food employees during robbery: police - CTV News Winnipeg

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