Categories
Sports

MLB cancels All-Star Game for first time since 1945

MLB season will be ‘pretty compelling’ with 60 games only: Former player

Former MLB player Harold Reynolds discusses the MLB announcing a shortened baseball season while managing coronavirus safety.

Dodger Stadium’s 40-year wait to host the All-Star Game is going to last even longer.

Continue Reading Below

The game scheduled for July 14 was canceled Friday because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Dodger Stadium was awarded the 2022 Midsummer Classic. The 2021 game is set for Atlanta’s Truist Park, home to the Braves since 2017.

Because of the pandemic, opening day had already been delayed from March 26 to July 23 or 24.

CORONAVIRUS FORCES MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TO CANCEL SEASON

“Once it became clear we were unable to hold this year’s All-Star festivities, we wanted to award the Dodgers with the next available All-Star Game, which is 2022,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.

This will be the first time since 1945 that no game will be held. Travel restrictions because of World War II kept the game scheduled for Boston’s Fenway Park and any player selections from taking place that year. It was pushed back to the next season.

The Dodgers hosted the only the Mid-Summer Classic in Dodger Stadium history in 1980, won 4-2 by the National League.

BERNIE SANDERS RIPS MLB OVER MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAN

The stadium —third-oldest in baseball behind Fenway and Chicago’s Wrigley Field — is the only park in the majors not to have increased its 56,000-seat capacity since it opened in 1962.

That’s not to say it hasn’t changed, however.

Since 2013, the stadium that overlooks downtown Los Angeles has undergone a series of structural and behind-the-scenes improvements, including two entrance plazas on the field level, tiered seating and bar areas overlooking both bullpens. The ballpark has also gotten new HD video screens and sound systems, wider concourses and renovated restrooms, kids play areas, displays to honor the franchise’s storied history, new home and visiting clubhouses and batting cages.

And that doesn’t include the $100 million in renovations that helped the Dodgers land the 2020 game. Those feature two acres of food and entertainment offerings in a new center field plaza and spruced-up outfield pavilions. Also added were elevators, escalators and bridges to improve circulation around the ballpark without changing its picturesque look and feel. The speaker tower sound system in center field is being replaced. New so-called “home run seats” are being added in front of existing outfield seats.

The coronavirus delayed the start of the season and also slowed work at the stadium. In mid-April, retired Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully narrated a brief video of the project.

“When we get back to baseball, Dodger fans will be greeted with the most significant upgrade to the fan experience in the history of our storied venue,” he said.

“When exactly will that return to Dodger Stadium take place? Well, as that noted baseball philosopher Yogi Berra once said, ‘I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question,‴ Scully said, chuckling.

Scully, now 92, announced the 1959 All-Star game hosted by the Dodgers at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (the second such game played that year). He joined Mel Allen on the call for NBC on Aug. 3.

It was the first Mid-Summer Classic to be played on the West Coast, and also one of only two games to be played outside the month of July. The other was in 1981, when it was held on Aug. 9 because of the players’ strike.

The Dodgers also hosted the game at Ebbets Field in 1949 before they moved to the West Coast from Brooklyn.

The Dodgers have produced four different All-Star Game MVPs: Maury Wills in 1962; Steve Garvey in 1974 and ’78; Don Sutton in 1977; and Mike Piazza in 1996. From the 87-year-old Wills to the 51-year-old Piazza, all are still living and may have played a part in this year’s festivities.

Scully would surely have made an appearance, either in person or via video, where he has turned up several times since retiring in 2016. He and Brent Musburger worked the 1980 game in LA for CBS radio.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

The Dodgers had been planning to host the 91st All-Star Game since being chosen in 2018. They sent teams of planners to Washington, D.C., in 2018 and Cleveland last year to study what did and didn’t work for those host cities.

Besides the Futures Game, Home Run Derby and All-Star Game over three days at the stadium, there would have been a Fan Fest and other events and commercial tie-ins around the game.

In February 2018, the Los Angeles City Council estimated an economic impact of $89.4 million from hosting the game. The Dodgers had committed to paying $100,000 for city services needed as part of the game.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXBUSINESS.COM

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

Chef Boyardee proposed to replace Christopher Columbus statue

Petition calls for Christopher Columbus statue to be replaced with Chef Boyardee

RealClearPolitics co-founder Tom Bevan weighs in on the upcoming presidential election, a petition to replace a statue of Christopher Columbus with Chef Boyardee and a petition to rename Columbus, Ohio, to ‘Flavortown’ in honor of celebrity chef Guy Fieri who was born there.

A new petition is demanding a statue of Christopher Colombus in Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood be replaced with a statue of Chef Boyardee, the Italian chef mascot behind the canned goods company.

Continue Reading Below

The petition comes as protesters across the U.S. tear down statues of historical figures with ties to slavery or forms of brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death.

"In 1988, Clevelanders erected a statue to Christopher Columbus in Little Italy. Today it sits in front of Tony Brush Park, and it is the centerpiece of the annual Columbus Day Parade," the petition states. "It is allegedly a monument to a legendary Italian explorer and a symbol of Italian-American pride. Except it isn't. Columbus is not someone we should celebrate."

Chef Boiardi (ChefBoyardee.com)

It adds that Columbus was a "racist monster who initiated the genocide against indigenous Americans" and "pioneered the Transatlantic slave trade and likely sent more enslaved people across the sea than any other person."

DEMOCRATS WANT JOHN WAYNE'S NAME, STATUE TAKEN OFF AIRPORT

Instead of Columbus, the petition circulators have suggested replacing the Columbus statue with Clevelander Ettore "Hector" Boiardi, who is better known as Chef Boyardee.

COUNTRY MUSIC RECKONS WITH RACIAL STEREOTYPES AND ITS FUTURE

Boiardi, who was born in Italy in 1897 and moved to New York when he was 16. Boiardi opened his first restaurant, "The Garden of Italy," in Cleveland in 1926 and founded the Chef Boyardee brand in 1929.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

"It's time for Cleveland to remove its statue to a genocidal sociopath with a bowl cut and erect a statue to an immigrant success story who enriched our community with his food and iconic mustache," the petition concludes.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

Money can actually buy happiness, study suggests

Fox Business Flash top headlines for July 2

Fox Business Flash top headlines are here. Check out what’s clicking on FoxBusiness.com.

A recent study revealed financial success has become increasingly linked to happiness, effectively going against the old adage that "money can't buy happiness."

Continue Reading Below

Expanding Class Divide in Happiness in the United States found the correlation between socioeconomic status, which includes income, education and occupational prestige, and happiness steadily increased between the 1970s and 2010s among adults who were at least 30 years old.

"The happiness-income link has gotten steadily stronger over the decades — happiness is more strongly related to income now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. So money buys happiness more now than in the past," the lead author of the paper, Jean Twenge, told FOX Business.

The study, published last week in the journal Emotion, based its findings on data gathered from the General Social Survey, which is one of the longest-running nationally representative surveys of U.S. adults. The survey covered 44,198 U.S. adult participants between 1972 and 2016.

EXERCISE MAKES PEOPLE HAPPIER THAN MONEY

The results indicated, however, that there is a class divide when it comes to happiness. While the happiness of white adults with a high socioeconomic status, which includes income, education and occupational prestige, remained fairly stable, the happiness of white adults with a lower socioeconomic status steadily declined, according to the study.

(iStock)

By comparison, happiness among black adults with lower socioeconomic status remained fairly stable, whereas the happiness of black adults with a high socioeconomic status increased.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

Researchers divided participants into groups based on income and asked them the following questions: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days? Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?" according to the Washington Post.

Researchers then analyzed how the participants within each group answered that question over several decades.

In 2016, adults who were among the highest earners were 5 percent more likely to proclaim that they were “very happy” compared to participants in the second-highest income group, the Post explained.

However, there was no evidence to suggest that happiness diminishes after a certain income point, Twenge noted.

"Unlike some previous studies that found happiness leveled off after a yearly income of $75,000, we found that happiness kept going up with more income, even at higher income levels," Twenge said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
Sports

Ohio school district to retire ‘Redskins’ name for sports teams

NFL will most likely start on time: Abby Hornacek

Fox Nation host Abby Hornacek says the National Football League will do whatever it takes to make its season start on time.

An Ohio school district has decided that its high school sports teams should no longer be known as the Redskins.

Continue Reading Below

The Forest Hills Board of Education voted 4-1 on Thursday to “retire” the name and mascot at Anderson High School. A new name has not been chosen, and officials plan to soon announce a timeline and process for how a new name and mascot will be selected.

WASHINGTON REDSKINS TO REVIEW TEAM NAME, CONSIDER CHANGE AMID SPONSOR PUSHBACK

The Redskins logo will be phased out in stages beginning in the 2020-21 school year, officials said. Anderson Township is an eastern Cincinnati suburb.

NIKE PULLS WASHINGTON REDSKINS APPAREL FROM ITS WEBSITE AMID TEAM NAME CONTROVERSY

Board members had discussed the name change at length during a meeting on Tuesday, with some noting they had resisted efforts to change the name in recent years but now felt it had become too divisive.

CLICK HERE TO GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO

Board member Patty Taylor cast the lone vote against the motion, saying it should be postponed because there has been little public discussion on the matter outside of emails.

Taylor said the decision should go to a public vote and also voiced concerns about the cost of removing imagery from the school.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

Amid the national reckoning with racial injustice, pressure has been mounting on schools to abandon the name called a “dictionary-defined racial slur” by experts and advocates.

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

Canada's biggest banks join boycott of Facebook platforms

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s biggest lenders confirmed on Friday they had joined a widespread boycott of Facebook Inc (FB.O) begun by U.S. civil rights groups seeking to pressure the world’s largest social media platform to take concrete steps to block hate speech.

More than 400 brands have pulled advertising on Facebook in response to the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, begun after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Canadian lenders Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD.TO), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO), Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO), National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM.TO) all said they will pause advertising on Facebook platforms in July.

Desjardins Group, Canada’s largest federation of credit unions, also said on its website on Thursday it will pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram for the month “barring any exceptional situations where we need to communicate with our members or clients.”

Most cited their commitments to inclusion and diversity.

Facebook has opened itself up to a civil rights audit and has banned 250 white supremacist organizations from Facebook and Instagram, a spokesman said by email. Its investments in artificial intelligence mean it finds nearly 90% of hate speech it takes action on before users report it, he added.

BMO said it is continuing its “ongoing dialogue with Facebook on changes they can make to their platforms to reduce the spread of hate speech.”

RBC said one way to help clients and communities is to stand against “misinformation and hate speech, which only make systemic racism more pervasive.”

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

White couple charged for threatening black family

A white husband and wife have been charged after the woman pulled a gun on a black mother and her children during a confrontation in a car park.

Footage of the incident in Orion Township, near Detroit, has been viewed millions of times on social media.

It shows Jillian Wuestenberg pointing the cocked gun and shouting: “Get away.”

Local Sheriff Michael Bouchard said the confrontation had stemmed from a “bump” at the entrance to a restaurant.

The Wuestenbergs have both been charged with felonious assault. They each had a loaded firearm, the sheriff said. The black family was not armed.

Ms Wuestenberg, 32, is alleged to have bumped into 15-year-old Makayla Green, whose mother Takelia Hill then demands an apology. Both she and her daughter are filming.

Ms Wuestenberg gets into her vehicle, driven by her husband Eric, 42, but the argument escalates and she reappears brandishing a gun and pointing it at Makayla and her mother.

Several people called the police and the couple were arrested, Sheriff Bouchard said.

You may also be interested in….

“Let’s have a little more tolerance for each other and not being so quick to react,” he told a news conference. “If someone is doing something improper or unfair, I tell my family and friends to look away. This is not the moment to plant your flag.”

Oakland County Chief Executive David Coulter said he had been “deeply disturbed” by the incident on 1 July.

“This behaviour is unacceptable. I wholly expect the prosecutor to bring charges that reflect the severity of the incident.” he said.

What happened during the argument?

Makayla Green told the Detroit News that she had been bumped by Ms Wuestenberg.

“Before I could walk into Chipotle, this woman was coming out, and I had moved out the way so she can walk out,” she told The Detroit News.

“She bumped me, and I said, ‘excuse you’. And then she started cussing me out and saying things like I was invading her personal space.”

Makayla then called her mother over because she was scared, she said.

The footage shows the argument continuing during which Ms Wuestenberg is accused of being racist.

From the car, Ms Wuestenberg says: “You cannot just walk around calling white people racist.”

“White people aren’t racist… I care about you, and I’m sorry if you had an incident that has made someone make you feel like that. No one is racist,” she says.

When the car begins reversing, Ms Hill is behind it and knocks on the back of the car. Ms Wuestenberg then jumps out and shouts “get back” and “back up” along with several expletives.

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

Football: Fifa investigating West Ham over Haller transfer

LONDON (REUTERS) – Fifa are investigating a claim by Eintracht Frankfurt against West Ham United over the transfer of French striker Sebastien Haller, a spokesperson for soccer’s world governing body said on Friday (July 3).

British media reported Frankfurt had lodged a complaint with Fifa claiming they had yet to receive £5.4 million (S$7.5 million) from West Ham as part of the deal that brought the 26-year-old to the London Stadium in 2019.

“We can confirm that we have received a claim from the German club Eintracht Frankfurt against the English club West Ham United,” a Fifa spokesperson said in a statement.

“The matter is currently still being investigated and consequently we cannot provide any further comments.”

Haller joined West Ham on a five-year deal for an undisclosed club record fee.

He has scored seven goals in 27 league appearances for the Hammers, who are 16th in the standings with 30 points, three points clear of the relegation zone.

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

‘Multiple charges’ in Canada’s Rideau Hall breach

An armed member of Canada’s military faces multiple charges after breaching the gates of an estate where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lives.

The suspect drove a pick-up truck through the main entrance of Rideau Hall in Ottawa 06:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on Thursday morning.

He then entered the grounds on foot before being confronted by police and arrested two hours later.

He appeared in court Friday morning for a bail hearing.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a Friday news conference they believe he acted alone. They confirmed the suspect was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, but they did not identify him by name.

They would not say what he has been charged with, only that there are multiple charges.

Mr Trudeau and his family, who are currently living at a cottage on the Rideau Hall estate while the prime minister’s official residence is being renovated, were not at home at the time of the incident.

Nor was Governor General Julie Payette, who resides at Rideau Hall as the official representative of Queen Elizabeth II, Canada’s head of state.

During a press briefing on Friday, Mr Trudeau thanked “the extraordinary police services of the RCMP”.

“We thank the RCMP and police for quickly resolving the situation this morning at Rideau Hall. All of our staff are safe,” Ms Payette tweeted on Thursday.

The RCMP said it is working closely with the Canadian Armed Forces to investigate the incident, which was resolved “quickly and safely”.

“Through our members’ vigilance, quick action and successful de-escalation techniques, this highly volatile incident was resolved swiftly and peacefully,” the RCMP’s deputy commissioner, Mike Duheme, said.

The grounds of Rideau Hall, which sits on an 88-acre (0.35 sq km) wooded estate, have been closed to the public during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pictures taken outside Rideau Hall appear to show damage to its main pedestrian gate, which the suspect rammed through in his vehicle. The vehicle was disabled on impact, the RCMP said.

That is when the suspect began to walk the grounds on foot, police said. The suspect was quickly spotted by grounds staff and RCMP members, who put the area in lockdown.

RCMP officers approached the suspect at about 06:45 local time, and began to talk to him. He was arrested at 8:30 local time.

The RCMP would not discuss the nature of the conversation, as the investigation is ongoing.

Pictures from Thursday show an empty black pick-up truck inside the grounds of the estate. The RCMP said an army unit with a bomb-disposal robot searched the vehicle as a precaution.

Police confirmed the suspect had multiple weapons, though did not confirm the number or type.

CBC News cited a source as saying the suspect had driven his truck from the central province of Manitoba, about 1,900 km (1,180 miles) west of Ottawa.

Mr Trudeau has moved to limit the ownership of certain weapons in Canada, where gun ownership is popular, especially in rural parts of the country.

He introduced a long-promised ban on assault-style weapons in May this year, after a gun a rampage across the province of Nova Scotia that became the deadliest shooting in Canada’s history.

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

Dozens mourn man who killed himself in busy Beirut district

BEIRUT (REUTERS) – Dozens of people lay flowers on a main Beirut street where a man killed himself on Friday (July 3), with some blaming his death on the country’s economic collapse that has left more and more Lebanese hungry.

Reuters could not establish the motive for the apparent suicide.

The 61-year-old man shot himself in the head in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts store in the capital’s busy Hamra district, witnesses said.

Near his body was a Lebanese flag, a copy of his clean judicial record and a note in Arabic that read: “I’m not a heretic”.

It was a quote from a popular song that continues with the words “but hunger is heresy”.

A relative of the man, who asked not to be named, accused the country’s rulers for the hardship that led to his death.

“God damn them. People are suffocating.”

As he spoke, rescue workers carried the body away in a white coffin and a man mopped up a pool of blood.

Soaring prices and job losses have fuelled despair, and some aid groups have warned of the risk of mass hunger.

The country’s economic woes came to a head last year after capital inflows dried up and protests erupted against sectarian leaders in power since the 1975-1990 civil war.

“The people are hungry, broke, miserable,” said Lina Boubes in Hamra, where people chanted against the government and banks that have frozen people out of their savings.

“They took our dreams, our money, our bread,” she said.

“And they sit in their castles and they still oppress us.”

The Cabinet, which took office in January, has said it is doing all it can to tackle the crisis.

Source: Read Full Article

Categories
World News

Travel industry ‘unlocked’ and does NHS need reform after COVID-19 crisis?

On this edition of the Sky News Daily podcast with Jonathan Samuels, we examine the easing of lockdown – with countries being given quarantine exemptions in England as pubs and hair salons welcome customers back this weekend.

We are joined by our chief political correspondent Jon Craig, The Sun’s travel editor Lisa Minot – plus Dr Louise Irvine and Dr John Lee discuss the feats and flaws of the NHS as it turns 72 this weekend.

Listen to the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker

Credits:
Producer – Annie Joyce
Assistant producer – Sabah Choudhry
Interviews producer – Tatiana Alderson

Source: Read Full Article