Championship Bids Fall Short For Four After Martinsville - SPEED SPORT - SPEED SPORT

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MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch came close to advancing into the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4, finishing less than one second away from having a chance to go to Phoenix Raceway for a chance to battle for the NASCAR Cup Series championship.

As for Team Penske, all three of its drivers failed to advance into the Championship 4 after Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Busch along with Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney were all eliminated in a wild 500-lap race at the treacherous .526-mile Martinsville Speedway oval.

Busch’s bid at making the Championship 4 ended when he finished .472 seconds behind race winner Alex Bowman.

He entered the race with a one-point edge in the points, but lost that advantage through stage points on Sunday. He missed a bid at the championship race by three points.

Busch believes it was last Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway that put him in the difficult position at the end Sunday’s race. He finished 28th at Kansas, six laps down.

“We just missed last week,” Busch said after finishing second. “That’s where we lost all the ground. We could have come in here with 15 more points, we would have been fine on the cut. Just wasn’t it. Wasn’t meant to be.”

Ironically, Busch lost the last Championship 4 position to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Martin Truex, Jr.

“Obviously, it was Truex’s day,” Busch said. “We had a Hail Mary opportunity there at the end. Just didn’t materialize.

“All in all, just proud of the effort for sure. We slung everything and anything at this thing today, couldn’t really make it come alive. Great effort. That was there for sure. We just got to get better, everybody included, the whole team, in order to be able to go race with the best and race for a championship. We’re not going to do that this year.

“Anytime you go into a season with Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing, this 18, M&M’s team, myself, you expect to be Championship 4, in contention, eligible. Anything other than that is a failure.

“I guess you get an F.”

Near the end of the race, Keselowski was involved in a fierce battle with Busch for what would could have been the final spot in the Championship 4. But that changed when race-leader Denny Hamlin was spun out by eventual race winner Alex Bowman six laps from the finish.

At that point, Busch had to win the race in order to get in, or Truex would have had to have a major calamity to prevent him from advancing.

Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford finished third and he missed the Championship 4 by eight points.

“We gave it all we had,” Keselowski said. “We just needed to be a little bit faster in stage two to get us a handful of points and be closer, and then at the end I was just too loose.  I just couldn’t quite get it perfectly tweaked in, but all in all, a pretty good run.”

The last few laps were not only wild at the front in the battle involving Bowman, Hamlin and at the end, Busch, but also in Keselowski’s Hail Mary attempt at a victory.

“We all just threw everything we had at it, and nobody really had anything for the Hendrick and Gibbs cars,” Keselowski said. “I felt we were getting closer at the end. Crew chief Jeremy Bullins and the team really dialed the thing in as close as we could get, but that was just all we had.

“Alex was so much faster. I mean, he pulled two car lengths from me through the gears, so I was going to need a lot more help under the hood if I was going to move Bowman, so we’ve got a lot of work to do for next year.”

Except next year will be with a different team for Keselowski, as he leaves Team Penske after next week’s race at Phoenix Raceway and joins Roush Fenway Racing. Keselowski will have an ownership stake with that operation.

Blaney’s bid was going to be even more difficult. The second-generation Cup racer knew he had to win to get in.

Instead, he finished 11th in the No. 12 Ford for Team Penske.

“It was definitely frustrating,” Blaney explained. “I was looking forward to today a lot.  We had one run where I thought we got going pretty good and drove up into the top 10 and made an adjustment and went right back to where it was.  It was kind of a head scratcher today.  I wish I could tell you where we missed it at, but I appreciate all the hard work from everybody today. 

“It just wasn’t quite enough.

“Losing is losing.  I don’t care if you miss it by one point or 20, I mean, it stinks no matter what.  It sucks we don’t get to race for a championship at Phoenix, but I appreciate the year everyone has put together and we have one more shot to get Todd another victory.  Hopefully, we can do that for him before he hangs it up.”

Logano was another driver that had to win to advance to the Championship 4. He finished 10th.

“We just weren’t fast enough,” Logano said. “We couldn’t get the car to turn.  It was just a struggle all day.  We tried different things, but the car just wouldn’t fire off good and ultimately at the end you had to fire off good and we didn’t have that either.  We tried compromising to try and make everything better, but all that is is a compromise.  The guys that win aren’t compromising and it just wasn’t there.

“It was mediocre.  That’s all we were today.  We struggled with being tight in two-thirds and tried to fix it.  It was kind of the wrong way, so we tried a different way and got closer, but even at that we were just kind of compromising our balance to get decent.  Our fire off speed was not very good, which was also a struggle, especially at the end with all those refires at the end.  We just didn’t fire off fast enough.

“It was not the best of days.  Nothing really worked out.  The strategy piece that we tried worked out fairly well, but we just weren’t fast enough to really stay towards the front and really do much.  It’s kind of a bummer.  You go out there in a must-win situation and can’t even see the front most of the day, so we just missed it.”

All four of these drivers will have a chance to compete for a victory at Phoenix Raceway, but they won’t be a factor in the championship.

For a driver that finished less than one second to the race win or three points from advancing via points such as Busch, or a driver that ultimately was out of advancement by a lot, it doesn’t really matter to these four.

“Losing is losing,” Logano said. “I don’t think it matters how it happens.  Whether you’re close or you lose by a lot, I think they both sting.”

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Part-time early childhood programs forgotten again - Evanston RoundTable

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On Monday, Sept. 13, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a Child Care Workforce Bonus program to recognize the efforts of child care staff who served and continue to serve children and families in person during the pandemic. This bonus is funded by federal pandemic relief funds and will be administered through the Illinois Department of Human Services and Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies. The Child Care Workforce bonus will provide bonuses of up to $1,000 for eligible child care providers. 

We just learned that part-day early childhood program staff are ineligible to receive this bonus simply because the program that they work for does not have a full-day license. Our staff worked tirelessly during the pandemic. Each staff member followed extensive protocols to keep the children safe. Each staff member put themselves at personal risk of contracting COVID-19 every day they came to school.

The part-day early childhood programs are still suffering the consequences of being disqualified from the Child Care Restoration Grants. The pandemic put a financial strain on all early childhood programs, not just full-day programs. All early childhood programs’ enrollment was restricted due to Illinois Department of Children and Family Services guidelines. All programs had an increase in spending to equip the centers with personal protective equipment to keep every child and staff member safe. We all had to add air purifiers and filters to our furnaces. While we had less tuition money coming in and more expenses, we still needed to pay our usual expenses including rent or mortgage, utilities and staff salaries. While full-day programs struggled during this time, many part-day programs closed or are teetering on the edge of closing. There is only so much money any child care program can put in reserves for a rainy day.

When the Governor announced that the state of Illinois would be giving bonuses to child care workers, we all assumed we would finally be included. After all, the only thing separating our programs from the full-day programs is a full-day license. During the pandemic many full-day programs operated less than eight hours a day.

This snub feels like the last straw. This snub feels personal. This money was for our hardworking staff at a time when many of us are losing staff due to low wages, little or no benefits and difficult working conditions.

Our staff heard Gov. Pritzker’s announcement on Sept. 13. Nowhere in this announcement did the Governor say that only some child care workers would be recognized for their sacrifice and commitment to families during the pandemic. What can we tell our hardworking staff … that they don’t matter? That their sacrifice doesn’t count?

As directors of part-day preschool programs, we are furious! Our staff does matter! Their sacrifice does matter! Our families needed their children to attend school just as much as the parents of children enrolled in full-day programs. Many parents worked from home. Many parents needed to be available to their school-aged children to help them access their remote learning. Attending our preschool program was the only sense of normalcy our families had during the pandemic. Making part-day early childhood programs ineligible for these bonuses sends a clear message to our staff. That message is that they do not count. They are not seen. Their sacrifices are not appreciated.

Debbie Boileve, Executive Director
Warren W. Cherry Preschool

Chrissy Cornell, Executive Director
School for Little Children

Tina Vanderwarker, Executive Director
Covenant Nursery School

Daryl-Lynn Johnson, Executive Director
Unity Preschool

Margaret Parcell, Executive Director
Northminster Nursery School

With full support of the Evanston Early Childhood Council

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Fall back: Daylight Savings Time ends Saturday night - Independent Herald

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The good news: Everyone will gain an hour of sleep Saturday night. The bad news: It’s about to start getting dark really early.

Daylight Savings Time ends Saturday. If you want to get technical, DST officially ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 7. That means everyone will set their clocks back one hour before going to bed Saturday night — smart clocks, such as those on cell phones and other connected devices, will update automatically overnight — as most of the United States transitions to standard time for the winter months.

Each year, Daylight Savings Time begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. It has been that way since 2007, and it is observed that way in most of the U.S. There are some exceptions. Arizona and Hawaii do not observe Daylight Savings Time. Several U.S. territories also do not observe DST.

Why DST

Daylight Savings Time is designed to save energy. The time change was first implemented during World War I, and then re-implemented during World War II, at which point it became permanent.

DST takes advantage of the extra daylight during the evening hours in the summer, while rolling back to prevent sunrise from coming too late in the winter. Although there is a push by some to eliminate DST, and others to make it permanent, that doesn’t appear likely to happen anytime soon.

Tennessee is one of the states that have pushed for permanent Daylight Savings Time. However, because time changes are matters of interstate commerce, the federal government has to approve Tennessee’s time change law before it can take affect. That can only happen if Congress amends the Uniform Time Change Act of 1966 to exempt states like Tennessee and Florida, which has also passed a state bill to make DST permanent.

Adjusting internally

The biggest gripe for most people is that the twice-annual clock changes require humans to adjust to the new times. And the biggest gripe for proponents of permanent DST is just how early it gets dark once the time changes in the fall.

On Sunday, Nov. 7, for example, the sun will set at 6:02 p.m. in Oneida. By early December, the sun will be setting at 5:23 p.m. That means it’s pitch-black dark by 6 p.m., when many people are just getting home from work.

But the flip side is just how late it would get light in the mornings if DST were permanent. Even with the time change, the sun won’t rise until 7:06 a.m. in Oneida on Sunday, Nov. 7. If we did not fall back to standard time, the sun wouldn’t rise until after 8:30 a.m. by early December — which means it would be pitch-black dark until after 8 a.m., well after kids have arrived at school and most people have headed to work.

Check your batteries

The TN Fire Marshal’s office recommends that everyone check and change the batteries in their smoke and carbon monoxide alarms when the time changes.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, almost three of every five deaths in residential fires — there were more than 2,400 of them in 2016 — occur in homes with no working smoke alarms. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention estimate that more than 400 people die in the U.S. each year from carbon monoxide poisoning.

While experts recommend checking your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms monthly, most Americans forget to conduct those simple checks. So, it’s recommended that residents check and change their batteries when the time changes. Additionally, the CPSC recommends replacing your smoke alarms if they are more than 10 years old.

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Electric flight has a future, but batteries are only for short-haul flights - Innovation Origins

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More and more we read about aircraft that are taking to the skies on battery electric power, mainly on a small scale at the moment, but who knows, maybe on a large scale in the future. Joris Melkert, lecturer in aerospace engineering at the Technical University of Delft, is not so sure yet. “Pipistrel, a Slovenian company, is selling a fully certified 2-seater that is powered by a battery. This gets you a range of 68 kilometers, nothing more than that. If you take off from Schiphol Airport, you end up just south of Dordrecht, but then you have to fly very economically and not have any headwind. At this point, that’s state of the art.“

Melkert is the first to acknowledge that these 68 kilometers will eventually become 100 and as technology continues to advance it will move towards 150 kilometers and beyond. “And those two people will become four and later six and ten, and so on. But there is a limit to this. That has everything to do with the battery that’s in the airplane,” he explains.

First of all, batteries are incredibly heavy for the amount of energy that goes into them. According to Melkert, there is 50 times less energy in a kilogram of battery than in the same amount of kerosene. “So you have to carry around a lot more weight for the same amount of energy. The next generation of batteries will be about three to four times more powerful, in the most optimistic expectations perhaps six times better. But that’s nowhere near enough to reach the level of kerosene. I also don’t see alternative batteries like the lithium-air battery – which is potentially much lighter – appearing on the market any time soon. The requirements for batteries are very strict, especially in aviation.”

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Battery life must be improved

Likewise, Mark Ommert, technical project leader at Dragonfly, sees these disadvantages as well. Together with students and teachers of the InHolland University of Applied Sciences in Delft, he is building a battery-powered electric aircraft. The goal of the project is not only to get the airplane off the ground, but also to exchange knowledge between the field of practice and education. According to Ommert, the testing and certification of battery technology for aviation is still in its infancy. “Also, the lifespan of these batteries currently leaves much to be desired. The batteries of one of these Pipistrel airplanes must be replaced every 400 to 500 hours of flight. That adds up to a considerable outlay and probably makes it too expensive for commercial use. But if that lifespan improves and the price of batteries drops further, why not use this kind of plane at a flight school?”

But even if these more powerful batteries ever materialize, it will be a long time before you see them in an airplane. “There is not much room to be able to experiment and getting a certificate takes a very long time. Especially if we have more powerful batteries in the future, which succeed each other every two years, you don’t want to have to go through that whole process again. For this reason, you could set up a form of certification circuit where you don’t have to go through everything again from the very beginning.”

But that is, as he himself is well aware, a long way in the future. Ommert also doesn’t think we’ll be flying across the ocean on batteries anytime soon. “Maybe we have to change strategy so that from now on you first have to make a stopover. But I refuse to write off electric-batteries at this stage simply because not everything is possible (yet).”

Electric driving was considered impossible for a long time

Ommert compares it with Tesla electric cars. Didn’t everyone say it couldn’t be done? “And now look at it all. The range of those cars is increasing year on year. Why shouldn’t it be the same with electric flight?” he adds enthusiastically.

Moreover, he goes on to say, battery-powered flight is actually happening already, and there are a lot of start-ups working on it. Take the E-Flight Academy in Teuze, a flight school where they fly almost entirely electric. In America you have Bye Aerospace. This company has built a frame from scratch, unlike Pipistrel which converts an existing frame. Because of this they claim to be able to fly much more efficiently. They are working on a 4 and an 8-seater and claim to be able to fly a lot further. When translated into flight schools, this could already be commercially interesting.”

Light aviation is just like a playground for big planes

A tremendous amount is also happening in the field of electric motors, Ommers notes. “For the Dragonfly, we use an electric motor from Saluqi in Helmond. They make motors that are less heavy, more compact and that run more efficiently than what is currently available on the market. The great thing is that this company can make both small motors and motors with large capacities for a variety of markets. The knowledge we gain here is also extremely useful for ‘big’ aviation. It’s a kind of playground where knowledge can be passed on.”

This is also something that Melkert agrees with, but we should “not think that we will ever fly across the ocean with 500 people on batteries.” In the short term, he himself sees more in synthetic kerosene that is made with sustainable electricity. In the long term, he sees a future for hydrogen-electric power. “In terms of emissions, the biggest problem of aviation tends to be intercontinental flights, the short-haul and small-scale flights are negligible in that respect. The potential of hydrogen-electric exceeds that of batteries, so we need to push forward with that.”

Read here how synthetic kerosene is made.

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Gonzaga vs. Eastern Oregon: Game Time, TV Schedule, and How to Stream Online - The Slipper Still Fits

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The Gonzaga Bulldogs season begins this afternoon with the first of two exhibitions to start the season. The Zags welcome the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers to Spokane once again.

This will probably be one of the rowdier exhibition games on hand. For the second-consecutive season, the Zags are opening the year as the preseason AP No. 1 team. Only this time around, the students and the rest of the fans will actually be in the house for the game.

Gonzaga has high hopes for this season after last year’s storybook weird-as-ever season came to an absolutely crashing halt against the Baylor Bears in the NCAA Championship game. Despite losing Corey Kispert, Joel Ayayi, and Jalen Suggs to various levels of the NBA, the Zags return Andrew Nembhard, Drew Timme, and Anton Watson, and welcome a freshman class that will probably be the best ever at Gonzaga for quite some time.

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New Trailers: The Wheel of Time, The Witcher, Lightyear, House of Gucci, and more - The Verge

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I’m close to giving up on The Morning Show; the latest episode spends a lot of time building up to a twist that makes very little sense given the season so far. They only have three episodes left and a lot of plot to push forward. Luckily, Succession is getting good and juicy with the Roy siblings choosing sides, and I’m also getting caught up in Maid, mainly because of Margaret Qualley’s strong performance as Alex.

So much to watch, so little time.

We’re heavy into the sci-fi and fantasy realms in this week’s roundup, but there’s a little fashion and murder-mystery as well.

The Wheel of Time

We’ve seen a few glimpses of The Wheel of Time series based on the books by Robert Jordan, but this latest trailer shows us the beginning of the story, with Moiraine Damodred of the Aes Sedai trying to figure out how to stop the Dark One. She finds five magic using people she thinks could be the key (or keys) to saving the world (whether they’re up for it or not). Rosamund Pike, Daniel Henney, Josha Stradowski, Marcus Rutherford, and Zoe Robins star in The Wheel of Time, which drops the first episode of its eight-episode season on Amazon Prime Video November 19th.

Note: You can watch this trailer as a “360 experience” (I didn’t think it really added a lot here, though)

The Witcher

We’ve seen a few teasers and sneak peeks and first-look clips from the second season of The Witcher and now we have a full-length trailer with some juicy details about what’s next for Geralt of Rivia and company. War with the Nilfgaardian Empire is looming, along with the possible “end of days” (which Geralt scoffs at), Geralt is hunting enormous monsters, and Ciri is tapping in to her powers while Jaskier is befriending some small rodents (rats? mice? something else entirely?). Henry Cavill, Freya Allen, Anya Chalotra, Joey Batey, Anna Shaffer, and Kim Bodnia star in season 2 of The Witcher, coming to Netflix December 17th.

Lightyear

At last, a Pixar movie that doesn’t immediately look like it will tear the hearts out of parents (honestly, I am still traumatized by Inside Out and Toy Story 3). Lightyear is the backstory of the “real” astronaut on whom the the Buzz Lightyear action figure from Toy Story is based. The teaser shows what looks like a familiar space exploration adventure, with the requisite aliens and spaceships, and Chris Evans provides the hero’s voice. Lightyear will be released June 17th, 2022.

House of Gucci

We have a second trailer for the movie about the Gucci family starring Lady Gaga, and of course everyone looks fabulous and beautiful, even though the “Italian” accents from the lead actors are... a little off? Based on the book by Sara Gay Forden, House of Gucci tells the story of Patrizia Reggiani’s marriage to Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), and her plot to hire an assassin to kill him. Jared Leto, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, and Salma Hayek also star in House of Gucci which arrives in theaters November 24th.

Servant

Look, you can only show me so many long, ominous, darkly-lit hallways before the trick gets old. In its first season this show had promise (and Lauren Ambrose gives a tremendous performance as Dorothy), but by season three it defies logic (and is beyond sadistic) that Dorothy’s family would continue to hide from her the truth about what happened to her baby. Maybe they’ll finally do the ethical thing. But now, apparently, the show is more interested in the cult that nanny Leanne (the servant of the show’s title) escaped from. If you’re still hoping for an M. Night Shyamalan plot twist, you can check out season three of Servant on Apple Plus TV starting January 21st.

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Why Paid Family Leave’s Demise This Time Could Fuel It Later - The New York Times

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In failing to secure a benefit with bipartisan appeal, President Biden joins a long line of frustrated politicians. But some Republicans say it could be resurrected on its own.

WASHINGTON — In late 2019, with bipartisan backing, including from the iconoclastic Senate Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, President Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka hosted a summit at the White House to promote her vision for paid family and medical leave.

As with many domestic initiatives of the Trump years, the effort went nowhere, thanks in part to the former president’s lack of interest in legislating. But it also stalled in part because of opposition from Democrats like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who saw the plan not as a true federal benefit but as a “payday loan” off future Social Security benefits.

Ms. Gillibrand believed she could do much better.

Last week was the Democrats’ turn to fail. A 12-week paid family and medical leave program, costing $500 billion over 10 years, was supposed to be a centerpiece of President Biden’s social safety net legislation. But it fell out of his compromise framework, a victim of centrists who objected to its ambition and cost.

The demise of the effort, even amid bipartisan interest, in part reflected the polarization surrounding Democrats’ marquee domestic legislation, which Republicans are opposing en masse.

Some business groups and G.O.P. proponents of a paid leave program believe that if it had been broken out and negotiated with Republicans, the way a $1 trillion infrastructure package was at Mr. Biden’s urging, it could have survived, and some think it still could resurrected as a bipartisan initiative.

They said the problem lay with the Democrats’ decision to put paid family leave in the expansive social policy and climate bill — a multitrillion-dollar package financed by large tax increases on businesses and the wealthy — which they knew that Republicans and mainstream business groups would never support.

“In any area that is substantive, when members sit down to actually walk through whether or not we can build good legislation, there are possibilities,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said. “We’re not being encouraged to work together to solve problems. What we’re being encouraged to do is line up with the team so that we can have the political messaging point.”

At least for now, though, the United States is almost certain to remain one of only six countries with no national paid leave.

“Fundamentally, to provide paid leave, you have to value women and value their work,” Ms. Gillibrand lamented, “and valuing women and their work is a hard thing for the United States.”

The last-minute removal of the paid leave program underscored longstanding questions about how it can be that while 186 other countries have such a program, the United States does not.

A rally for paid leave near the White House. The United States is one of only six countries that do not provide some sort of national paid leave.Valerie Plesch for The New York Times

Ms. Gillibrand was highly skeptical that a bipartisan deal to address the issue was possible. She said she had been developing paid family and medical leave legislation for nearly a decade, had sought out numerous Republican and business partners, and had always found the parties too ideologically divided.

But the issue driving interest in both parties — bringing more women into the work force and keeping them there — has only grown more acute since the coronavirus pandemic hit.

White House officials say 95 percent of the lowest-wage workers lack any paid leave, and they are predominantly women and people of color. Some five million women lost their jobs during the pandemic, and many of them, struggling with access to child care and bedeviled by intermittent school closures and periodic Covid-19 outbreaks, have opted not to return.

Mr. Trump campaigned on the issue and included six weeks of federally paid leave in his budgets, which were ignored by Republican leaders. Congressional Republicans had their own ideas. Legislation introduced in 2019 by Senators Sinema and Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Representatives Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, and Colin Allred, Democrat of Texas, would offer new parents $5,000 during the first year of their baby’s life, which they would repay over the decade through cuts to their child tax credit.

The Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Mitt Romney of Utah, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah similarly proposed offering workers parental leave benefits that would have to be repaid — with interest — through cuts in their Social Security retirement benefits.

Senator Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, championed and secured more modest legislation — tucked into the Republican tax cuts of 2017 — that gave small businesses a tax credit to fund family leave. She argued against broader versions, since many companies already offer employees paid leave.

“If you have two or three employees, you cannot afford to do paid family leave because you can’t afford to hire somebody to take their place, which is why I think the tax credit that we have in law now is really beneficial,” Ms. Fischer said.

According to the White House, fewer than a third of small businesses with 100 or more employees offer paid leave. Only 14 percent with fewer than 50 employees do. Ms. Fischer conceded that few small businesses have taken advantage of her credit, but she blamed the Treasury Department, under Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, for dragging its feet on issuing detailed regulations and promoting it.

To Democrats, those proposals are not true leave. They are either loans off other needed benefits or too limited to make a difference. Ms. Gillibrand said that optimally, a stable, generous family and medical leave plan would be an “earned benefit” like Social Security and Medicare: Workers would pay into the system and claim the benefit when they needed it, regardless of where they worked or how much they earned.

But, she said, taxing workers has become politically difficult. Her 2013 bill envisioned family and medical leave insurance, financed by a small contribution from employers with each paycheck.

This year, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders opted to fund paid leave out of general revenues, bolstered by tax increases on the wealthy and corporations. They said the program was part of a broader “human infrastructure” effort to help children and young parents, which included child care support, a child tax credit and universal prekindergarten — and therefore didn’t need a dedicated funding source.

Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, opposed a plan for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, saying he worried that without a stable revenue source, it would be a drain on the Social Security system.Al Drago for The New York Times

The House proposal would have guaranteed 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave annually to all workers, in private or government employment, gig work like Uber and Lyft, or self-employment. The benefit would have replaced 85 percent of wages or earnings for the lowest-paid workers, scaling back from there.

That generosity was why the plan ran into a roadblock in the Senate. Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, saw an expensive new benefit without a stable revenue source that he worried would end up draining an already stressed Social Security system.

Ms. Gillibrand and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, have pleaded, cajoled and bargained with him. They said a paid leave plan would actually bolster Social Security’s finances by helping women get back to work, where they would pay Social Security taxes, and helping young families have more children, which would bolster the work force of the future. Democrats offered to scale back a 12-week leave plan to four weeks, then to limit it to leave for new babies, not medical emergencies.

Mr. Manchin promised to consider the offers, but few are optimistic. Ms. Gillibrand sees societal issues at work. While it is true that virtually every country in the world has a paid leave program, that is somewhat misleading, she said.

Most of those countries can afford to offer paid leave because they do not actually expect women to work once they begin having children. Long leave plans help couples get started having children, but most countries then do not help with child care because they assume women will stay home.

The U.S. work force relies on women. Mr. Biden’s compromise framework does include generous subsidies for child care starting at birth and for universal prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds. It now lacks the first step: helping parents through pregnancy and childbirth.

“What we’re trying to achieve here is the ability of women to work effectively and to be most productive at work,” Ms. Gillibrand said.

Advocates say lawmakers should not give up yet. Marc Freedman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for employment policy, said the business group had been meeting with congressional offices before the pandemic, pressing for a national paid leave plan to replace the patchwork of state and local government plans popping up.

The government would create a minimum benefit that businesses would be allowed to exceed for recruitment and retention, financed by a payroll tax paid by employees. Such a plan would help smaller businesses compete for labor with larger corporations, while offloading some of the burden on companies that already offer leave plans.

“We very much want to restart those conversations,” he said.

Some Republicans, especially Republican women, say they are ready to join those talks.

“It’s an issue we need to address as a nation and look at and get creative with,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, who helped secure paid leave for federal workers.

But as with the infrastructure deal struck over the summer, Democrats would not be likely to get all they want. Ms. Capito, for instance, said the plan that Mr. Manchin killed was too generous, with leave beyond care for new babies and sick family members.

Ms. Gillibrand said she had already begun outreach. She talked to Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, about an interim step of helping small states pool with larger ones to create regional leave programs. She signaled flexibility on funding the kind of insurance mechanism that Mr. Freedman said the Chamber of Commerce favored.

But none of those ideas would happen as quickly as the broad program that Mr. Manchin is opposing, she said.

“There is work I can do over the next six months to a year, sure, but will take time,” Ms. Gillibrand concluded. “And it won’t be simple.”

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When does Daylight Saving Time end in 2021? When do clocks fall back this year? - MLive.com

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Daylight Saving Time ends in 2021 on Sunday, Nov. 7. The clocks will fall back one hour.file photo

We’re a little more than a week from the end of Daylight Saving Time for 2021, which marks when we turn our clocks back an hour.

Daylight Saving Time concludes at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021, when the clock will “fall back” one hour and in theory we get one extra hour of sleep.

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The Atlanta Braves Are Peaking at Exactly the Right Time - The New York Times

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An 88-win team faced a series of daunting challenges, yet is on the verge of a championship thanks to timely hitting and terrific bullpen work.

ATLANTA — In a sport that revels in the unpredictable, the Atlanta Braves were once a sure thing. With almost ruthless efficiency, they won their division 14 times in a row, a streak that began before Dansby Swanson was born and ended when he was almost a teenager.

By then Swanson had charted his career path. As a boy in Marietta, Ga., he dreamed only of playing baseball — and with luck he might even do it for his favorite team. He got his wish in a surprise deal to Atlanta in 2015, just six months after the Arizona Diamondbacks had drafted him first overall out of Vanderbilt.

“Getting traded here, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, to be able to be back home and to be able to play for this city and to just grow this community,” Swanson said late Saturday night, after his homer helped lift Atlanta to the edge of a World Series championship. “That moment, it means a lot. It really does.”

Swanson’s moment arrived in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 4 against the Houston Astros at Truist Park. He drove a fastball from Cristian Javier over the right field wall to tie the score, and Jorge Soler followed with a go-ahead pinch-hit homer, carrying Atlanta to a 3-2 victory and a three-games-to-one series lead. Atlanta can take the title at home in Game 5 on Sunday night.

“I’m happy for our city that they can go through this, experience this,” Manager Brian Snitker said. “What a great time of year.”

Atlanta has not been this close to the crown since 1995, the only season in that streak of division titles with a joyous ending. Winning it all can be absurdly difficult; in baseball’s modern era, the franchise triumphed once in Boston (1914) and once in Milwaukee (1957) before its lone title in Atlanta.

“Kyle is the reason we won the game,” Manager Brian Snitker said of Kyle Wright, who entered the game with the bases loaded in the first inning and carried the team through the fifth.Brett Davis/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

On Saturday, Swanson and Soler pulled off a feat just as rare. Only twice before had teammates hit game-tying and go-ahead back-to-back homers in the World Series, most recently in 1981, with Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Those players shared the most valuable player award for that series (with teammate Ron Cey), but Swanson did not remember their names in the interview room after Game 4. He did recall the others who did it.

“Man, on MLB Network they were saying this is the third time, and the other two, one of them was Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1928,” Swanson said, as awe-struck as a six-year major league veteran can be.

“Baseball’s been around a long time, and for this to be the third time is pretty special. I feel like when you’re in that moment and you’re in between the lines, your only thought is on winning. So it’s kind of hard to wrap your mind around what just happened.”

Eddie Rosario made a sensational catch in left field during Saturday’s game.Brynn Anderson/Associated Press

What is happening is an 88-win team peaking at just the right time, making big plays and critical pitches that defy explanation.

Atlanta’s Game 4 starter, Dylan Lee, pitched only two games in the majors this season, the same as Kyle Wright, who relieved him with one out and the bases loaded in the first inning. The Astros, with their thunderous offense, had several chances to win the game in a blowout. Instead, Wright made it through the fifth with the deficit only 2-0.

“Kyle is the reason we won the game,” Snitker said, but the hitters and fielders had to do just enough to make it possible.

They did, of course, because this postseason, Snitker’s team does almost nothing wrong. After doubling and scoring Atlanta’s first run in the sixth, Eddie Rosario made a racing, backhanded grab at the left field wall to rob Jose Altuve in the eighth. Unless you saw Sandy Amoros in 1955 or Joe Rudi in 1972, you’ve probably never seen a better catch by a left fielder in the World Series.

“When Eddie turned to look at the fence, we thought to ourselves — or I least I thought personally — that ball either hit the fence, or it’s gone,” said Soler, describing the dugout view through an interpreter. “Then he just kept running and threw the glove out there and made the catch, and we all looked at each other in amazement, like: ‘Did that just really happen?’ It took us all by surprise, and it was something truly out of a movie.”

Jorge Soler hit a home run as the first batter of this World Series in Game 1. His pinch-hit homer in Game 4 may have been even more pivotal.Elsa/Getty Images

Soler started this multipart epic with a Game 1 homer as the very first batter of the World Series. Nobody had done that before — but then, no team is believed to have lost its Game 1 starter to a broken leg in the third inning, either. That also happened to Atlanta, with Charlie Morton, and it will force Snitker to use another bullpen game to try to close out the title in Game 5.

That seems daunting, but Atlanta has overcome worse problems, like the loss of their best player, Ronald Acuña Jr., to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in July. They traded for four outfielders — including Rosario and Soler — to solve that problem, and Snitker has a stable of problem-solvers in the bullpen, too.

Atlanta relievers have a 1.61 earned run average across the first four games, and the Astros have been especially quiet after the fourth inning. In Atlanta’s three victories — Games 1, 3 and 4 — Houston has scored only one run from the fifth inning on.

“I can’t say enough about our bullpen,” Snitker said. “My God, I’m going to talk to ownership and send them all to Hawaii for a week when we’re done.”

The way things are going, there might be a parade along the way.

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Yalla Showed Promise as UAE’s First Tech Unicorn. Then Came the Short Sellers - Yahoo Finance

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It was hailed as the first tech unicorn from the United Arab Emirates in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange and touted as the “Clubhouse of the Middle East.”

But these days, Yalla Group Ltd., a voice-chat startup based out of Dubai, might be earning a less flattering label: stock-market bust.

After a fivefold surge in the months following its initial public offering last year, Yalla — a Chinese-backed social network based in the United Arab Emirates that means “Let’s Go” in Arabic — has given up all its gains and then some. Since peaking at over $40 in February, Yalla has lost more than 80% of its market value. Its American depositary receipts, which debuted at $7.50, are now consistently below $7 and hit an all-time low of $6.26 this past week.

This is quite a comedown for a company once feted by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, drew comparisons to the buzzy Silicon Valley startup Clubhouse and even garnered a small stake from billionaire Steve Cohen’s hedge fund. But as the once red-hot, live-audio chatroom space cools, the company’s spectacular growth has come under scrutiny.

Shorts Circling

In recent months, short sellers Swan Street and Gotham City Research targeted Yalla, questioning the social-media app’s user numbers. Following Yalla’s quarterly results in August, which sent the stock reeling 19% the next day, a shareholder suit was filed alleging Yalla and Chief Executive Tao Yang made “false and misleading statements.”

“We caution that investors should be wary of Yalla’s risks,” said Nirgunan Tiruchelvam, the Singapore-based head of consumer sector equity research at Tellimer. While Tiruchelvam doesn’t have a formal recommendation on the stock, he wrote in a Sept. 16 note that the allegations show “the risk of trusting non-financial metrics.”

“It doesn’t mean that all the allegations from the short sellers are correct,” he said in an email to Bloomberg News. “But it means there are a lot of uncertainties.”

Yalla spokesperson Kerry Gao refuted the short sellers’ allegations, saying in a statement in May their reports “contain numerous errors and distorted, misleading and unsubstantiated claims.” In response to follow-up questions by Bloomberg News, she reiterated the company’s position. Gao also said a recent shareholder class action suit “largely repeats the false allegations” of the short sellers.

“We believe the complaint is unfounded and without merit,” Gao said.

Buzz Wears Off

When Yalla debuted on the Big Board in September 2020, things could hardly have been more different. The company’s main shareholders are Chinese, including directors and executive officers, with a complex ownership structure using several offshore entities, but the operations are in the UAE.

Buoyed by a $1 billion valuation and the enthusiasm for voice chat, which before long would be embodied by the Clubhouse frenzy, Yalla’s ADRs more than doubled by December. Two months later they doubled again, lifting them to a high of $41.35 on Feb. 11 and pushing Yalla’s market value close to $6 billion.

Then, Yalla’s stock-market fortunes began to turn. The initial buzz wore off and competition in audio chats began to heat up as companies like Twitter entered the arena. China’s crackdown on its U.S.-listed companies didn’t help either. By May, Yalla was already down roughly 50% from its peak when Swan Street and Gotham City disclosed that they were shorting Yalla.

Swan Street, founded this year by an anonymous former Wall Street analyst, according to its website, said in its 31-page report that Yalla’s numbers didn’t square with its own “channel checks” and that usage metrics such as its number of monthly average users were inflated by bots. On its Twitter feed, Gotham City compared Yalla to Luckin Coffee Inc., the Chinese company that went public to much fanfare, but filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. after saying more than a quarter’s worth of business may have been faked. Gotham City is still short Yalla, founder Daniel Yu wrote in an email.

(Swan Street declined multiple requests to comment on the record.)

Yalla responded by saying it “has not placed any robots into any of its chatrooms or otherwise manipulated its MAU or other operating or financial data” and announced a $150 million share buyback — just over the amount it raised in its IPO.

Debating Numbers

In its earnings release in August, Yalla said its monthly average users (MAUs) reached a record 22.1 million at the end of the second quarter. While revenue more than doubled to $66.6 million from a year ago, the figure was at the low end of Yalla’s own guidance, deepening its ADR selloff.

An analysis for Bloomberg by the mobile app researcher Apptopia showed that all Yalla apps combined had 5.41 million monthly average users at the end of June, about a quarter of the company’s reported figure. Apptopia gathers data to assess the performance of apps and counts Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Andreessen Horowitz among its customers.

And despite the reported surge in users, there’s been no corresponding increase in internet searches for the terms “Yalla chat” (both in English and Arabic) and “Yalla app,” based on Google Trends search metrics.

Yalla’s numbers “reflect something like the phenomenal growth enjoyed by Clubhouse in its first year of beta-test operation,” said David Tuffley, a senior lecturer in applied ethics and cybersecurity at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. “I’m skeptical.”

Four days after Yalla’s reported second-quarter earnings, Jeffrey Crass, a retail investor represented by Scott + Scott Attorneys at Law, a law firm for shareholder fraud suits, sued Yalla and its CEO, claiming they misled investors about its financial metrics and failed to disclose the company overstated its user metrics and revenue. Seven other investors filed motions to serve as lead plaintiffs of the action and represent a class of similarly situated shareholders who suffered losses from Yalla’s ADRs.

Gao said Apptopia’s estimates are “inconsistent with the financial and operating data we collected from our own business operation and audited by our auditor.” She added that Google search trends don’t accurately reflect the company’s growth and popularity. Yalla’s interactive community culture has created a strong word-of-mouth effect and its growth has benefited from the rise of online social networking during the pandemic, as well as advertising on Facebook, Gao said. She also reiterated that the lawsuit is without merit.

User Questions

Whatever the case, some investors have already decided to throw in the towel. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, a top outside holder early in the year, sold out of its 520,000 ADR position, a regulatory filing as of June 30 showed. The firm declined to comment.

The ADRs have closed below their IPO price for 20 consecutive sessions. Since Yalla’s peak in February, the slump has wiped out around $5 billion of value and pushed its market capitalization below $930 million.

On Oct. 17, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Omar Sheikh cut his price target for the company’s ADRs to $7 from $16. In a research note, he wrote that the Morgan Stanley AlphaWise’s survey of social media users in one of Yalla’s biggest markets, Saudi Arabia, suggests “low awareness and usage of Yalla’s apps, which reduces our confidence in the company’s ability to achieve high levels of penetration long term.”

A recent visit to the app showed users chatting in real-time in various audio rooms, although it’s hard to know who they are or, as short sellers have suggested, if there are real people behind all of those accounts. Bloomberg contacted a number of people on Yalla’s Facebook page for its popular online board game called Ludo, which is similar to Parcheesi, and they said they mainly use Yalla’s app for chatting while playing games like dominoes or Ludo.

Gao said Yalla collaborates with a number of social media influencers to promote its platform, including TV broadcasters Lutfi Al Zoabi and Fadia Al-Taweel. Zoabi said he does a daily sports segment that’s broadcast on Yalla’s platform. His wife, Sally Assad, worked at Yalla but is no longer employed there, according to her LinkedIn profile. Al-Taweel didn’t respond to requests for comment.

However, it hasn’t been easy to independently find prominent people who use Yalla’s services or are aware of them. Bloomberg News spoke to more than 15 UAE tech entrepreneurs, specialists and influencers over the past few months, none of whom use Yalla apps or know anyone who does. Many had never even heard of it.

One of them was Lana Al Beik, a 26-year-old model who’s a popular social-media influencer living in Yalla’s home base of Dubai. She has 56,600 Instagram followers and used the Clubhouse voice-chat app when it first started. While pursuing of a master’s degree in communications, Al Beik said she did a significant amount of research on local startups as part of her studies. Yalla never came up.

“We spoke to people from major players like Google,” she said. “We were talking about such companies all the time. But I never heard of Yalla.”

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Racer Rally Falls Short At TSU - Murray State University Athletics - MSU GoRacers

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MSU’s three second-half touchdowns not enough

Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

Football | 10/30/2021 9:17:00 PM

Story Links

Box Score

In A Nutshell
After trailing Tennessee State, 21-0 well into the third quarter, the Murray State football team scored 21 unanswered points to tie the game with 4:30 left in the fourth quarter Saturday night at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. However, the Tigers would retake the lead with 1:41 to play and were able to stop the Racers' ensuing drive to hold on for the win.

Fast Facts

• After DJ Williams exited the game, Preston Rice returned to quarterback and led Murray State on two 70-yard plus scoring drives, followed by a one-play scoring drive on a 54-yard pass to LaMartez Brooks.
• Rice's rushing touchdown that began the 21-unanswered points was the 15^th of his career, leaving him just two shy of becoming the first quarterback to join MSU's top ten career rushing touchdowns list.
• Brandon Burton blocked the extra point on TSU's final touchdown of the game for the second block of the season for Murray State.

Recap
After trailing 21-0, Murray State scored three consecutive touchdowns beginning at the 2:09 remaining mark of the third quarter. Entering the game in the second half, Rice led MSU on an 11-play 70-yard drive in the third, followed by a 10-play 78 -yard drive in the fourth that ended in touchdowns for Rice and Damonta Witherspoon. Later in the fourth, Rice threw a 54-yard pass to LaMartez Brooks on the first play of the drive to tie the score at 21 with 4:30 remaining.

Tiger quarterback Geremy Hickbottom then took his team 62 yards on eight plays to retake the lead at 27-21 with 1:41 to play. On the ensuing Racer drive, MSU was unable to get a first down, sealing the win for Tennessee State.

Rice went 5-for-12 for 106 yards with a touchdown, while also rushing for 29 yards and a score. Witherspoon led MSU on the ground with 124 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries, while Brooks led the receivers with 59 yards on two catches. Jamari Dailey and Eric Samuta led the defense with seven tackles, while Austin Daulton had the lone sack for the Racers.

Next Game
Murray State returns to Roy Stewart Stadium for the final two home games of the season next Saturday against Tennessee Tech at 1 p.m.

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Inbox: He's been the right guy at the right time in the right defense - Packers.com

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Matt from Oshkosh, WI

Kudos to the entire offensive line but a special shout out to Lucas Patrick. I want 11 Lucas Patrick on my team, any team. What an unsung warrior! He was fighting his butt off on every single play to the last second. It was a privilege to watch.

No NFL team has won a Super Bowl with 53 first-round picks. You need Lucas Patrick, Rasul Douglas, De'Vondre Campbell, Allen Lazard and Corey Bojorquez. Patrick may not be a "starter" on the team's (unofficial) depth chart but he's as important as anyone in that starting five. He will not quit. Ever.

Keith from Rockville, MD

Per Jennifer's comment, what more does Matt LaFleur need to do to get serious consideration for COY – walk on water? Speaking of which, I really think that God must be a Packer fan because there may have been some divine intervention on that last play.

It comes with the territory of being the head coach of the Packers. I touched on this two years ago when the AP voters selected John Harbaugh over LaFleur for Coach of the Year. Again, LaFleur isn't losing sleep over it. In his first 40 games as the Packers' head coach, LaFleur has won more times (33) than any coach in the Super Bowl era. I promise that is all he cares about – winning football games, preferably the granddaddy of them all.

Michael from Dover, PA

How good can this team be? A 7-1 team that talks more about the mistakes they made, the points left on the field and how much work needs to be done speaks volumes.

As good as they want to be. I mean, it's all out there for them right now. The Packers still have a tough November slate ahead but they carry with them the knowledge they can play with the NFL's best even when they aren't close to full strength. As players return, they must continue to grow but this team's mental toughness cannot be questioned.

Gretchen from Dousman, WI

Was that a legal hit on Kylin Hill during the kickoff return? The viscousness of that tackle makes me doubt my love of the game.

It was completely legal, yet brutal. As I tweeted, it's those types of plays that made me happy the NFL moved kickoffs up 5 yards several years back. After watching both Hill and Jonathan Ward get carted/stretchered off, I'd be cool with maybe moving kickoffs up another 5 yards.

Gretchen from Dousman, WI

There was a great little video last night of Tongan limping with his hand on a trainer's shoulder. One of those shots that says such a lot about the game and its players. Wishing Big Bob all the best.

I think that's the hardest part of this whole deal. Tonyan has done it the right way. He is a team-first guy who became a self-made star last season. You could hear in LaFleur's voice how much Tonyan's injury affected him and undoubtedly that locker room. Tonyan still has a lot of good football ahead of him, and hopefully in Green Bay. Until then, it's up to Lewis, Josiah Deguara and perhaps Lazard to help fill the hole Tonyan's absence creates in the offense.

Lori from Brookfield, WI

Is it true Coach LaFleur is 26-1 when the team is leading at halftime?

Correct…and 25-0 under LaFleur in the regular season when the Packers win the turnover battle.

Ron from Superior, WI

Can the league enhance the fine on the player with the late hit? It was not only late but he drove Rodgers into the ground.

Jordan Phillips needs to have a few zeros wiped off his game check. For all the ticky-tacky QB penalties we've seen this season, hits like that remind me why the NFL is having to enforce it the way that it is.

Graydon from Menomonie, WI

How does playing on Thursday night change the team's schedule (practice, prep, etc.) for next week's game?

Besides rehab and weightlifting, players are in the midst of a three-day break. The team will get back together Monday for an extra practice day and then shift back into its normal routine Tuesday. And then it's onto KC…

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'Clubhouse of the Middle East'? Short Sellers Say User Numbers Are Fake - Bloomberg

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It was hailed as the first tech unicorn from the United Arab Emirates in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange and touted as the “Clubhouse of the Middle East.”

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Solomon: Jose Altuve comes up just short of another historic HR - Houston Chronicle

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ATLANTA — Once again, the Astros expected to come through in what they considered to be a must-win game.

Once again, Jose Altuve would be at the center of the Astros’ success.

Or at least that is how it was supposed to play out. How it so often has in their historic playoff success in recent years.

Altuve had scored both of the Astros’ runs Saturday night, as his teammates blew opportunity after opportunity to stretch out an early lead against the Braves.

When Atlanta jumped suddenly into the lead with back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Astros were in trouble.

With two out in the eighth, Altuve came to the plate knowing that one swing could turn the game around.

That is his specialty. The long ball when it matters.

He had already homered earlier in the game to give the Astros a two-run lead, and Altuve has more playoff home runs than all but one player in baseball history.

That lead was now gone. The season was now on the brink.

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As is his preference, Altuve jumped all over the first offering from Luke Jackson, sending it streaming to left.

It was a mighty blow that had home run written all over it. And for the majority of the ball’s flight, this appeared to be another in a long line of Altuve moments that the Astros have come to expect.

That is until Eddie Rosario reached out and made a leaping grab just before banging into the wall.

“It’s unbelievable what I did tonight,” said Rosario, who also had two hits and scored a run. “Wow, what a catch.”

It was a beautifully hit ball, that was more beautifully caught.

And it was the last threat from the Astros, who lost to Atlanta 3-2, and now will play to extend the series on Sunday night. Games 6 and 7 would be in Houston on Tuesday and Wednesday, but those contests will not be necessary if the Astros don’t find their missing offense.

They were 8-for-35 Saturday, with only one extra-base hit, but the team average improved to .206 in the World Series. They left 11 runners on base and were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position. That isn’t winning baseball.

Altuve and the Astros take no solace in the fact that his 375-foot out would have been a home run in 26 Major League parks, including Minute Maid in Houston.

Wrong place, wrong time.

Wrong year?

The Braves have certainly looked like a team of destiny this postseason.

The team with the fewest wins to make the playoffs, is one victory from its first championship since 1995.

Atlanta’s pitching has been stellar, but the Astros have not been anywhere near who they were earlier in the postseason.

In three of the four games in the World Series — all losses, mind you — the Astros have scored two or fewer runs and stranded more than 10 runners on base.

“They have good pitchers, and they’ve been executing every pitch,” Altuve said. “So, they’re not giving us a lot of pitches to hit. We’re trying hard as hitters.

“We’ve got a good lineup, we know, but sometimes you have to give credit to the other team as well.”

The Braves have held Houston to a total of two runs in two games at Truist Park this weekend. Those two runs held up for a while Saturday, until the first lead change in the series.

Cristian Javier, who had not allowed in the playoffs, came on in the bottom of the seventh and surrendered two solo home runs, as the Astros’ bullpen finally came back to earth. Hard.

As the stadium exploded in noise, chants, light shows and fireworks, the Astros saw their World Series hopes go from possible, even hopeful, to slim.

A 3-1 hole, with the Braves possibly closing out the series on Sunday is hardly what the Astros expected when they arrived in this cold, damp city.

But it is what you get when you don’t deliver offensively anywhere near what you are accustomed to.

Forty-one of the 48 teams (85.4 percent) that have taken a 3-1 lead in a World Series have gone on to win the championship. The last team to come back from that deficit is the 2016 Cubs.

“This is our house,” Rosario said. “We’re coming tomorrow with that energy and that focus. We know they’re a resilient group and they don’t give up, but we have our heads high right now, and we’re going to be ready to play.”

This was a game that could have, probably should have, been a blowout early on. But the Astros failed to deliver on opportunities in the first three innings.

Despite 10 baserunners in the first three innings, Houston managed just one run, with Altuve scoring on a groundout in the first, after the bases were loaded with one out.

The lead was down to 2-1, when Dansby Swanson got hold of a 95-mph fastball from Javier and launched it to right. Three pitches later, pinch-hitter Jorge Soler slapped a slider to left field, just clearing the wall over a leaping Jordan Alvarez.

The Astros, who had nursed a lead from their first at-bat, were suddenly behind and in trouble.

Life was much better early on, despite going 0-gor-7 with runners in scoring position in the first three inning, Houston opened a 2-0 lead thanks to Altuve.

The organist at Truist Park played “It’s A Small World” as Altuve stepped into the batter’s box in the fourth.

How true that is.

Everywhere Altuve goes, he seems to meet up with a clutch postseason home run.

There is no better response to such an attempted insult — not that Altuve even heard the music or recognized what song was playing — than a deep drive over the centerfield wall for a home run.

The “bomb” as Altuve described it to teammates in the dugout after he trotted around the bases, was his 23rd in playoffs, moving him into second place on the all-time list behind Manny Ramirez (29).

Altuve entered Saturday’s game hitting under .200 in the playoffs (.189). But he had been on base 18 times and scored 17 runs.

He scored only 14 runs in the 2017 and 2019 runs to the World Series, even after coming up just one shy of the MLB record for postseason hits two years ago.

He added two more runs on Saturday, but the Astros needed more.

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Florence Pugh Cut And Dyed Her Hair So It's Short And Brown, And The Rock's Response Was Absolutely Hilarious - BuzzFeed

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"I did a thing..."

Attention: Florence Pugh has officially ditched her classic long blonde hair.

Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for SBIFF

Florence has had brown hair for a couple of months now, which you probably wouldn't know unless you follow her on Instagram.

Earlier today, Florence took the look a step further and revealed that she has a new, short haircut:

"I did a thing..." she wrote in the caption. You did indeed, Flo!

Naturally, the celeb comments were highly hype-y:

Including The Rock's comment, which is absolutely sending me:

Flo's boyfriend, Zach Braff, also gave the look a shoutout:

It's worth mentioning that Florence is in the midst of filming her upcoming movie, A Good Person, directed by Zach — so it's possible that the hair is in relation to that.

Given how often Florence wears her hair up on the red carpet, I, for one, am excited for this new era of short hair.

Mike Marsland / WireImage / Getty Images

Anyway, off I go to try to resist hacking my own hair with the kitchen scissors...

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Florence Pugh Cut And Dyed Her Hair So It's Short And Brown, And The Rock's Response Was Absolutely Hilarious - BuzzFeed
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