Nearly two months into MLB lockout, when is it time to worry about spring training and Opening Day? - ESPN

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The MLB lockout is about to enter its third month.

When it began back on Dec. 2, MLB and the MLBPA had 119 days before the start of a new season to figure things out. As the clock ticks down to Opening Day -- now just 59 days away -- without a new collective bargaining agreement in place, the two sides have put everything in jeopardy.

Normally, baseball is in motion as the calendar flips from January to February. Teams are packing trucks to deliver equipment to spring camps while players and coaches are beginning their journeys to Arizona and Florida. Visas are being secured for foreign players and housing arrangements for the next couple of months are being finalized. Pitchers are ramping up their throwing programs while hitters are doing the same in the weight room.

But this year, all of it is on hold.

"I had a couple setbacks to getting ready for the season, so it's just tough gauging whether I need to push it and get ready or take my time," free-agent reliever Steve Cishek said in a phone conversation. "The unknown, like the COVID season, is the hard part."

The MLBPA is prepared for an extended lockout, with $5,000 checks going out to players this week for the month of February. But the players themselves still have to prep for the season even with the start date of spring training, and possibly Opening Day, increasingly uncertain.

"It's not ideal," one player opined. "But there are more important things right now. We just have to do the best we can to be ready."

Here is what the current negotiations stalemate means for the biggest upcoming dates on the baseball calendar -- and when it is officially time to worry we could lose them if a deal is not yet in place.

Feb. 15 (44 days from Opening Day): Pitchers and catchers report

When to worry: Feb. 8

If the lockout ends in the next seven days, players under contract should have enough time to get to camp as scheduled, according to one team executive, while a free-agent frenzy would take place for the remaining unsigned players.

Would everyone arrive on time? Probably not, especially those coming from outside the country. But camps could open, pitchers could start throwing and spring routines could commence.

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And while that's going on, front offices and agents would pick up where the offseason halted back in December.

"I've gone through rosters, time and again," one agent stated. "I have two free agents, and I'm ready but the dialogue is in a vacuum right now. I think, like pre-lockout, things will move fast. I settled several arbitration cases [in November] that normally would have settled more recently. I think it will be the same after the lockout. It showed you, you could accomplish a lot in a short amount of time."

Those players arriving from foreign countries, those signing and taking physicals and players simply finding spring housing would be part of a chaotic stretch into the start of spring training, but an early February agreement would at least keep the start of play on track.

"Right now, guys don't know if they should find a place to rent [for housing in spring training] or if it's possible to put a clause in the renters agreement to be protected if we don't make it for spring," Cishek said. "Stuff like that is tough on young guys and guys with families, but hopefully we will iron it out in time."

Feb. 26 (33 days from Opening Day): Spring training games begin

When to worry: Feb. 19

In conversations with people in the game, the consensus is that players need a bare minimum of seven days to prepare for game action. It means camps have to be up and running by around Feb. 19 if spring schedules are to be adhered to.

Of course, there are ways to keep pitchers and even position players safe, starting with instructing them to give a little less than 100 percent in the first few games of the spring. And being ready before camp opens would be ideal as well.

"I'm telling my starting pitchers to be ready to pitch three innings on Day 1," one agent said last week. "They can always back off, if we start on time. But they can't go in there with only a few weeks to prepare and pitch an inning. They'll need to go up and down right away."

Injuries were a season-long issue when the start of spring training was altered by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and it will again be a concern if camps open late. Teams are preparing by adding non-40-man-roster minor leaguers to big league camp, according to at least one front-office executive. They can be ready more quickly, as those players are allowed to be at spring training before the lockout ends. Many have been at spring facilities already.

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If camps don't open on time, players on 40-man rosters will likely pick up where they left off during the pandemic: organizing their own live batting practice sessions and even pickup games in areas of the country, like Florida and Arizona, where players congregate -- just not at team facilities.

"The pandemic was a great trial run of working out on your own and trying to be creative as much as possible," San Diego Padres catcher Austin Nola said. "It helps a lot because you have to think outside the box. You're figuring out stuff on your own instead of someone telling you what to do."

Filling out a roster for pickup games might be more difficult this time around.

"Last time [2020], we used college players because no one was playing," a player stated. "I don't know what we'll do now, maybe grab some high school guys? But the live batting practice sessions will definitely take place."

March 31: Opening Day

When to worry: March 3.

During the restart to the pandemic season in 2020, the 23 days between the start of summer camp (July 1) and Opening Day (July 24) wasn't enough time to get ready, at least according to many pitchers and their agents. In order to begin the 2022 regular season on time, and with less concern for injury, four weeks of spring are likely needed, according to league sources.

That means camps need to open by March 3, approximately. It doesn't mean the sides can't agree on a shorter spring -- just like they did two years ago -- to keep Opening Day on March 31, it's just not ideal. And if a deal isn't struck by early March, once again, players will receive $5,000 checks from the union and will need to be ready to either play fewer than 162 games or a condensed schedule with modified roster limits in order to fit all 162 in. It's pretty much the doomsday scenario.

"You found out what you were made of as far as preparation goes last year," Nola said. "If you could do it through COVID, you could probably do it through anything."

"I'm trying not to think that way," another player stated about a delay. "We want to play a whole season. We should be able to be ready in three to four weeks, but I'm hoping for a full spring. I think the fans are as well."

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Chastened Draghi Buys Time to Fix Italy After Presidential Chaos - Bloomberg

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Mario Draghi’s failed bid to become Italian president has tarnished the aura that helped him keep a fractious coalition in line. But the damage suffered by the country’s main political parties means that the prime minister may still have the leverage to push through his agenda in the final year of his mandate. 

After six days of chaotic voting, and fraught behind-the-scenes negotiations, Italian lawmakers on Saturday opted to keep Sergio Mattarella as head of state. To break a deadlock and salvage the situation, Draghi himself called the 80-year-old president and persuaded him to put off his much publicized plans for retirement, according to two people familiar with the situation.

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When is the last time Bengals went to a Super Bowl? History of Cincinnati's big game appearances - Sporting News

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The Bengals are on the verge of history.

It has been a long time since Cincinnati has made the trip to the Super Bowl, or even make it to the conference championship, for that matter. Yet on Sunday, the Bengals will play for the chance to make the trip to Los Angeles in what would be just the third Super Bowl bid in franchise history.

Just reaching the game alone would be history for the team. Winning it would be another major step for one of the NFL's franchises that has yet to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

Sporting News dives into the history of the Bengals, and their history in the Super Bowl ahead of Sunday's AFC Championship Game against the Chiefs.

Bengals Super Bowl history

When is the last time the Bengals went to a Super Bowl?

The last time Cincinnati played for a title was 1989. It was the second trip to the big game the team had made in its franchise history, and the second time it had faced the 49ers.

Cincinnati had gone 12-4 in the regular season under the guidance of coach Sam Wyche and were led under center by quarterback Boomer Esiason, who was the league MVP that season. The Bengals took a late 16-13 lead in the Super Bowl, but Joe Montana hit John Taylor with a 10-yard touchdown pass in the fourth to take the lead and ultimately win the game 20-16 for his third of four Super Bowl rings.

The first time Cincinnati played the 49ers in the Super Bowl, Montana was still under center, but it was Ken Anderson leading the Bengals. Like Esiason, Anderson was the league MVP for the 1981 season and capped off the year by taking Cincinnati to the Super Bowl, its first-ever trip to the big game.

The 49ers took a 20-0 first-half lead, but Cincinnati scored 14 unanswered to start the second half. San Francisco kicked a pair of field goals to stay out in front, however, despite a late touchdown from Anderson to Dan Ross as Montana claimed his first ring in a 26-21 victory.

Game	Date	Opponent	Result	MVP
Super Bowl 16	Jan. 24, 1982	49ers	49ers 26, Bengals 21	Joe Montana
Super Bowl 23	Jan. 22, 1989	49ers	49ers 20, Bengals 16	Jerry Rice

How many Super Bowls have the Bengals won?

The answer to that, unfortunately for Cincinnati fans, is zero. 

The Bengals are one of 12 teams currently in the league that do not have any Super Bowl victories in their franchise's history. It is one of the four expansion teams created during the Super Bowl era that have not won, along with the Panthers, Jaguars and Titans.

The first year of the Super Bowl was 1966, and Cincinnati's first season was 1968.

Most Super Bowl appearances without a win

The Bengals are not alone among teams that have reached the final stage multiple times and leave empty-handed.

There have been four other teams that have reached the Super Bowl at least twice without success.

Team	Losses	Most Recent Appearance
Vikings	4	1976
Bills	4	1993
Bengals	2	1988
Panthers	2	2015
Falcons	2	2016

Should Cincinnati advance to Super Bowl 56 and lose, it would move into sole possession of third place. Should they win, the Bengals would get to leave this list.

The Cardinals, Chargers and Titans are each 0-1 in the Super Bowl.

Longest Super Bowl appearance drought

Cincinnati has gone a long time without appearing in the Super Bowl.

Among teams that have been to a Super Bowl, only three teams have had a longer absence: the Jets, Vikings and Dolphins.

Team	Date	Result
Jets	Jan. 12, 1969	Jets 16, Colts 7
Vikings	Jan. 9, 1977	Raiders 32, Vikings 14
Dolphins	Jan. 20, 1985	49ers 38, Dolphins 16
Bengals	Jan. 22, 1989	49ers 20, Bengals 16
Washington	Jan. 26, 1992	Redskins 37, Bills 24

That doesn't include the list of teams that have never been to a Super Bowl, which had its first edition in 1966.

Team	Year Founded	Farthest NFL Playoff Round
Lions	1930	Conference Championship
Browns	1946	Conference Championship
Jaguars	1995	Conference Championship
Texans	2002	Divisional Round

The Browns won eight championships before the Super Bowl, four in the All American Football Championship and four in the NFL, with the most recent being in 1964. The Lions have four NFL Championship titles, most recently winning in 1957.

Super Bowl rematches

On the table as a possible outcome is that the Bengals and 49ers meet again in the Super Bowl for a third time.

There already have only been a handful of rematches in the Super Bowl to begin with, and just two teams have met three times in the final round.

Teams	Matchups
Steelers vs. Cowboys	3
Dolphins vs. Redskins	2
49ers vs. Bengals	2
Cowboys vs. Bills	2
Patriots vs. Eagles	2
Patriots vs. Giants	2
Patriots vs. Rams	2

The Bengals and 49ers would join only the Cowboys and Steelers as the two teams that have met each other three times in the Super Bowl.

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When Omicron Isn’t So Mild - The New York Times

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Regina Perez, 57, had never been hospitalized for her lifelong asthma condition until she came down with Covid this month.

She started having difficulty breathing, even after taking her usual medications. “It kind of took over, almost,” she said. She wound up at St. Luke’s Hospital in Allentown, Pa., for most of a week at a time when nearly all the Covid patients sampled had contracted the Omicron variant.

The episode frightened her. While doctors were able to get her asthma and breathing under control, “I’ll probably be scared for the rest of my life,” she said. Ms. Perez, who was fully vaccinated and is now recovering at home, said she had spent the last two years doing everything she could to avoid infection, including working from home and rarely going out. She has not yet gotten a booster shot.

Throughout the pandemic, people like Ms. Perez have been at higher risk for serious illness from Covid because they have underlying medical conditions, like asthma, diabetes, heart or lung disease. More than half of American adults have at least one underlying chronic condition, and for many of them, the Omicron wave hasn’t been as mild as it has for the larger, healthier populations around the world.

Omicron has indeed caused far lower rates of severe illness and death in the U.S. population, especially among those who are vaccinated and have received booster shots. Still, the variant’s high transmissibility did lead to record-setting case counts that resulted in pandemic-high hospitalizations.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on Wednesday that this surge was still imposing a heavy burden. “Importantly, ‘milder’ does not mean ‘mild,’” she said. “And we cannot look past the strain on our health systems and substantial number of deaths — nearing 2,200 a day as a result of the extremely transmissible Omicron variant.”

In the last few weeks, the rate of hospitalization has declined considerably in some regions, where Omicron first arrived and sent case counts soaring. While a smaller share of people with the variant are being hospitalized, according to a recent report from researchers at the C.D.C., the soaring number of Omicron infections has led to higher admissions than in previous surges. Nationally, hospitalizations are still averaging about 150,000 people, including many rural regions where facilities are stretched thin.

“Our experience is that it’s worse right now than it’s ever been,” said Craig Thompson, chief executive of Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare, a small rural hospital in Clinton, Mo. This month, the Covid, heart attack and stroke patients that the hospital would typically transfer to larger facilities were boarded in the emergency room for days. Staff members made about 200 phone calls to get beds for patients — at times up to 400 miles away.

The majority of those hospitalized with severe illness during the Omicron surge are unvaccinated, public health experts say. But some who were vaccinated and have underlying conditions have also been at risk for more serious illness caused by the virus, and for the infection potentially worsening their existing diseases, increasing their chances of hospitalization.

While they may not be hospitalized for respiratory illnesses, “we are seeing some exacerbation of other conditions in individuals who are vulnerable,” said Dr. Sandra Nelson, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In some cases, patients were dehydrated from the effects of a virus infection and came in with kidney failure.

Doctors say that it is not always clear what role Omicron plays, but there is a plausible biological explanation for a virus causing patients to develop systemic issues. “You’re going to see kidneys get worse, etc.,” said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a critical care specialist and assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

At St. Luke’s, where Ms. Perez was admitted, roughly two-thirds of the coronavirus-positive patients in the system’s network had a primary diagnosis of Covid, but an additional 15 to 20 percent were diagnosed with other illnesses, like sepsis or acute kidney failure, that doctors said were clearly related to a virus infection.

“It isn’t an incidental diagnosis,” said Dr. Jeffrey Jahre, an infectious disease specialist who is senior vice president for medical and academic affairs at St. Luke’s University Health Network, which operates 11 hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In some cases, these patients may have had a “smoldering” case of diabetes or hypertension that a Covid case pushed over into serious illness, said Dr. Nicholas Kman, an emergency physician at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. In other cases, individuals who had successfully been managing their conditions before becoming infected, like Ms. Perez, are coming in with high blood sugar levels or worrying hypertension.

Others, like transplant or cancer patients — although fully vaccinated — are not able to mount a sufficient immune response to protect themselves from serious disease when they become infected.

Doctors say these admissions — often categorized as “with” Covid rather than “for” Covid — have had significant effects on stressed hospitals. “All those patients add to the surge and the volume,” Dr. Kman said, adding that “one or two extra patients can push a health system over the edge.”

Hospitals at maximum capacity have also been dealing with nationwide shortages of basic supplies that are needed to care for patients with complicated conditions, including intravenous bags of saline solution, small syringes of saline solution and small plastic tubes to take blood samples.

Frontline nurses, already parceling out a few minutes an hour to each patient under their care, say juggling unfamiliar products or adjusting to workarounds makes their jobs even more fraught.

The caseloads have had a rippling effect, far more pronounced in this wave than in others. Severe staffing shortages at nursing homes and dialysis clinics have made it difficult to discharge patients from the hospital who were still positive for the coronavirus, said Dr. David Margolius, an internal medicine specialist at MetroHealth in Cleveland. Some facilities do not accept Covid patients, and others have been so short-staffed that there are no openings.

“With Covid, for Covid, it’s putting so much stress on the health care system because of the implications of having Covid for placement,” he said.

Other patients at high risk — including pregnant women — have also become seriously ill. Alex Chandler, 27, a teacher in Killeen, Texas, who was vaccinated and had received a booster shot, was diagnosed with Covid when she gave birth on Jan. 9, according to her mother, Jenny Clay. That week, Omicron made up 99.7 percent of the Covid cases in Texas and surrounding states, federal data show.

Initially her throat felt as if she had swallowed broken glass, and her chills were hard to shake. But her symptoms gave way to the consuming care of her firstborn child, Beau.

Five days after giving birth, Ms. Chandler sought follow-up care for her son, and staff members noticed that she was breathing heavily, Ms. Clay said. Her oxygen saturation read 76 percent, far lower than the typical 95 to 100 percent.

A C.D.C. spokeswoman, Belsie González, said that women have higher heart rates, lower lung capacity and immune system changes during pregnancy. Nearly all of the pregnant women admitted to critical care in Europe were unvaccinated, according to a study published Friday.

Her mother said she was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 14, and developed pneumonia and a pneumothorax, or punctured lung, a known Covid-19 complication. By the following morning, she had been put on a ventilator, and she is in the intensive care unit at AdventHealth Central Texas in Killeen.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

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Card 1 of 4

Omicron in retreat. Though the U.S. is still facing overwhelmed hospitals and more than 2,500 deaths a day, new cases are falling rapidly across the country. But experts warned that spotty immunity and the threat of new variants mean the virus is not likely to ever completely disappear.

Covid shots. More than 10 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally according to the University of Oxford, though distribution is uneven. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that third vaccine shots reduced the hospitalization risk for immunocompromised people.

Around the world. Pope Francis warned of a growing “infodemic” based on fake news about the coronavirus, urging Catholic journalists to build bridges with those misled by false reports. A convoy of truckers protesting federal vaccine mandates descended on Ottawa.

Staying safe. Worried about spreading Covid? Keep yourself and others safe by following some basic guidance on when to test, which mask to pick and how to use at-home virus tests. Here is what to do if you test positive for the coronavirus, and if you lose your vaccination card.

Ms. Clay has been helping care for her grandson. She noticed that he has his mother’s eyes and like his mother as a newborn, he eats well and rarely cries.

“I’m just thinking, ‘His mom should be here and sharing this with me,’” Ms. Clay said. She documented the first precious days, planning to share with her daughter later. At nearly two weeks on the ventilator, Ms. Clay said, her daughter showed some signs of progress but then lost ground. “They said when it’s time, we’ll know,” Ms. Clay said. “There’s not really a lot of hope right now.”

Others who have trouble mounting an immune response are among those hospitalized in this Omicron wave. Dr. Craig Bunnell, the chief medical officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said the strikingly high number of infections — even with Omicron’s reduced virulence — had led to the increased rate of hospitalizations among cancer patients. “The I.C.U.s are still full,” Dr. Bunnell said. “The beds are still full.”

He said the newly available treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and antiviral pills, remained in very short supply. Those who are getting very sick resemble the patients from previous waves.

Some of the patients seen by Dr. Natalia Solenkova, an intensive care physician who works at hospitals in Florida and Tennessee, are organ transplant recipients who she said “did what they were supposed to do” by getting vaccines and booster shots. They are typically on immune-suppressing drugs that keep their bodies from rejecting a donor organ, which makes them highly vulnerable to Covid.

“They are very sick,” Dr. Solenkova said. “Many are on ventilators and on life support and they are dying.”

Amanda Halks, 36, of Tampa, Fla., who was vaccinated and had a booster, had succeeded in avoiding Covid until the last day of December, when Omicron was responsible for 95 percent of the cases in Florida. She had survived a difficult eight-day hospitalization with pneumonia in 2011 and feared any residual damage would make her susceptible to a severe case.

Her fears came to pass on Jan. 11, when she was admitted to a Tampa hospital with her blood oxygen level just below 80. While her hospital stay was brief, her oxygen levels have continued to drop with mild exertion. She was diagnosed with post-Covid MIS-A, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome.

She bristles at the notion that the Omicron variant is mild. She recounted joking with a friend that it is “hot and spicy.”

Dr. Mark Lewis, a cancer specialist at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, said he had found that Omicron presents in patients as “a completely different beast.” While the variant appears less likely to descend into a patient’s lungs and cause pneumonia, it may still result in a patient’s condition flaring up. “It’s a profoundly inflammatory state,” Dr. Lewis said.

Ms. Clay said her daughter’s precarious condition was a clear sign that Omicron is not always mild, a notion she views as dismissive and stemming from those fatigued by the lengthy pandemic.

“I know we all want to be done, but it’s not time to be done,” Ms. Clay said. “This is serious and it’s not over.”

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Throwers Climb All-Time Charts at adidas Classic - University of Nebraska - huskers.com

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The Nebraska track and field team had a trio of throwers climb the charts of the top 10 all-time marks in program history on day one of the adidas Classic on Friday.

Marika Spencer moved to sixth all-time in program history with a fifth-place finish of 64-6 (19.66m), while Henry Zimmerman and Maxwell Otterdahl climbed to sixth and seventh all-time in the weight throw, respectively. Zimmerman placed second with a toss of 68-5 3/4 (20.87m) and Otterdahl finished third with a mark of 68-5 1/4 (20.86m).

Taylor Latimer finished one spot ahead of Spencer with a throw of 64-7 1/4 (19.69m).

Winsome Harris ran an 8.56, while Johanna Ilves clocked an 8.71 and LaQwasia Stepney finished in 8.72 to advance to Saturday's final in the 60m hurdles. On the men's side, Darius Luff clocked the fastest time in the prelims with a time of 7.70 to advance to Saturday's final. Also qualifying with Luff, were Tyler Drew (8.20) and Joseph Clifford (8.26).

Jenna Rogers won the high jump with a clearance of 5-10 (1.78m). Brooklyn Miller placed third with a height of 5-8 3/4 (1.75m) and Riley Masten and Madison Yerigan tied for fifth at 5-7 1/4 (1.71m).

Clayton Keys was crowned long jump champion with a jump of 24-1 3/4 (7.36m). Terrol Wilson had a fourth-place finish with a distance of 23-7 1/4 (7.19m).

On the women's side, Darby Thomas took home the long jump title with a leap of 19-8 1/4 (6.00m). Lishanna Ilves was runner-up with a mark of 19-7 1/2 (5.98m), followed by Zionn Pearson in third (19-2 3/4, 5.86m). LaQwasia Stepney and Ashley McElmurry tied for fourth with jumps of 19-0 (5.79m).

Garrison Hughes cleared 16-3 1/4 (4.96m) to finish third in the pole vault.

Chris Ramsey and Alex Nelson finished first and third in the 60m prelims, advancing to tomorrow's final with time of 6.79 and 6.89, respectively.

After four events of the heptathlon, Till Steinforth enters Saturday in first with a total of 3,103. Matthias Algarin is in third with a score of 3,008, followed by Zach Podraza with 2,835 in fourth.

Kerrigan Myers scored a 3,166 to place eighth in the pentathlon. Myers' highest finish of the five events was in the 60m hurdles with a first-place time of 8.76. Teri Zanker had a total of 3,102 to finish 10th, while placing sixth in the high jump.

Day two of the adidas Classic begins at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Devaney Center Indoor Track.
 

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Is it time for Rays to trade Kevin Kiermaier? - Tampa Bay Times

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Seeing their sport headed toward a lockout the night of Dec. 1 was concerning for just about every big-league player. But Kevin Kiermaier was dealing with his own drama.

The Rays centerfielder, his wife Marisa and some friends were enjoying a getaway in Sarasota when Kiermaier got a call from Erik Neander. The Rays’ baseball operations president told Kiermaier some teams were interested in trading for him. Nothing seemed likely to happen before the lockout started at midnight, Neander said, but things could change as talks continued.

Kiermaier had an anxious evening, especially when word of talks with the Phillies leaked and more so when he saw teammate Joey Wendle, whose future also was the source of speculation by the media, traded to the Marlins.

“I couldn’t believe that he got traded,” Kiermaier said. “Then I’m like, Well, if he got traded and this article is saying the discussions are heating up, I’m for sure getting traded now.”

Related: John Romano on how Carl Crawford's Hall of Fame future turned

Neander called back a few hours later to tell Kiermaier, the team’s longest-tenured player, that he wasn’t going anywhere. For now, anyway.

Kiermaier, who turns 32 in April, has dealt with trade rumors the past several years. But he acknowledges the possibility seems much more likely now, with the potential for something to happen quickly after the lockout ends.

He’s right, and for several reasons.

Start with his salary, a team-high $12 million in 2022, plus at least a $2.5 million buyout on a $13 million 2023 option. Given the Rays’ usual self-imposed payroll limits, their pre-lockout expenditures (signing Corey Kluber and Brooks Raley, committing $182 million long-term to Wander Franco), the potential financial ramifications of the new labor deal (or abbreviated season) and the unexpected death of their Montreal split-city stadium plan, they may prefer to dump that money.

Plus, they have legitimate options to replace Kiermaier in center, starting with platooning Manuel Margot and Brett Phillips (with more potential offense) and eventually including prospect Josh Lowe and/or Vidal Brujan.

The decision will be complicated. Upon previous inquiries, the Rays ultimately decided they valued Kiermaier, a three-time Gold Glover, more than other teams and weren’t offered enough for him. But now that he’s at the end of his contract, the calculus is different.

Do the Rays have to get something of value back? Is getting a team to take Kiermaier’s whole salary enough? Would the Rays attach a prospect to get out from under the money and sweeten the return?

“I know the business side of the game and my future here is real, now more than ever. I will say that,” Kiermaier said. “With what’s going on with me personally, it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens moving forward.

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“If and when the lockout gets lifted, I think the 24 to 72 hours after that are going to be absolutely nuts for baseball in general. And I’m over here wondering myself what’s going to happen. So, wild times right now.”

Kiermaier, drafted by the Rays in 2010, wants nothing more than to stay in Tampa Bay his whole career. But since lockout rules bar contact with team officials — even updates on the November arthroscopic right knee surgery from which he is fully recovered — he can only wait and wonder.

“It’s crept in my mind quite a bit throughout the course of this offseason,” Kiermaier said. “It’s weird, because usually you can have those convos and I could call Erik and just get an idea of what they’re thinking. But ever since everything’s been put on halt, it’s just kind of a weird situation all around.

“I’ll just sit here, and the anticipation, it’s real. I mean, there’s no doubt about that. Just anxious to see what will happen.”

Hall call

Former Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella's hopes for getting into baseball's Hall of Fame now reside in the hands of the Today’s Game Era Committee. [ ROBERT AZMITIA | Associated Press (2005) ]

Chances for Tampa natives and one-time Rays Fred McGriff and Lou Piniella to get voted into the Hall of Fame are about to get entangled with the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens controversy. That’s because all four — plus Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Bruce Bochy and others — now are in the hands of the Today’s Game Era Committee, a 16-member group including current Hall of Famers (who are not likely to welcome steroids-tainted candidates), team owners/executives and veteran media members that votes in December. Just making the 10-candidate ballot of players, managers and executives, which is chosen by a separate committee of media/historians, will be tough. Then, election requires 12 votes (Piniella got 11 in 2018), with voters allowed to only pick four. Once the voting committee is named, politicking is rampant, which is how Harold Baines got elected in 2018.

Rays rumblings

Xavier Edwards is among the advanced prospects participating in minicamps for minor-leaguers in Port Charlotte. [ MARTHA ASENCIO RHINE | Times ]

Rays officials have yet to decide whether there will be a FanFest this year. … Top post-lockout priority seems to be a right-handed hitter who can play first base, and not necessarily a proven big-leaguer. … Top bonuses among the latest international signees were $1,075,000 to outfielder Jose Lazaro Contreras and $975,000 to shortstop Miguel Tamares. ... Minor-league right-hander David Hess, who was being treated for a cancerous tumor in his chest, tweeted he had “been ‘cured’ and cleared for all activity!” hoping to get back on the mound soon. ... With major-leaguers locked out, the Rays have run minicamps for minor-leaguers in Port Charlotte, grouped for pitching velocity, hitting, injury rehabs and international signees coming state-side. Among more advanced prospects participating were Taj Bradley, Carlos Colmenarez, Xavier Edwards, Heriberto Hernandez, recently acquired Kam Misner, Ian Seymour and Austin Shenton. Also, top pick Carson Williams and most of the 2021 draft class. … Failed 2010 Rays first-round pick Josh Sale, 30, is back in organized ball, signing a minor-league deal with Texas as a result of an impressive 2021 independent league showing after five years out of the game following multiple suspensions and other issues. … Consider this: Bonds drew more intentional walks in his 22 seasons than all Rays hitters combined in their 24 seasons, 688-650. … Some team online job postings feature a “Why work for the Rays?” section where some creative answers include low-cost healthy meal options, weekly yoga sessions during the work day and that “Your office is in a baseball stadium!’’

• • •

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Tip-Off Time, How to Watch, and More: Boston College Men’s Basketball vs Pittsburgh - BC Interruption

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The Eagles look to snap a road losing streak this afternoon as they welcome Pitt to Conte Forum. Will being back home give BC the needed boost to prevail?

Who: Boston College Eagles (8-11, 3-6 ACC) vs. Pitt Panthers (8-12, 3-6 ACC)

Where: Conte Forum, Chestnut Hill, MA

Stadium COVID Protocol: Boston College requires proof of vaccination from all attendees. Fans must also wear masks in the building

Tip Off Time: Saturday, January 29 at 4 PM

How to Watch: The game will be available via the ACC Network. Watch online here.

How to Listen: Listen locally on WEEI 850 AM or online on BC’s website.

How to Follow: Follow along via @bcinterruption and @bcmbb on Twitter

Live Stats: Live stats will be posted here.

Series Record: The Eagles are 20-35 all time against the Panthers, and have lost the past 2 meetings between the 2 teams. BC’s last victory came in 2019, at Conte.

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You're 'wasting your time' doing these 3 things during work—here's what to do instead, says work expert - CNBC

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There's a lot to love about working from home: you get to skip the commute, take meetings from the comfort of your couch and wear your favorite pair of sweatpants. But it can be harder to focus and maintain a work-life balance when your home becomes your office. 

While research shows that most Americans prefer remote over in-person work, the transition from the office to home has caused new, continuing challenges to productivity and burnout. 

HighSpeedInternet.com surveyed 1,000 U.S. workers in December and 77% reported that they have felt unproductive while working from home. Research from Eagle Hill Consulting published in November shows that more than half of U.S. employees are experiencing burnout, with women and younger workers reporting the highest levels of stress.

There are several common mistakes people make in their remote work routines that are "wasting your time" and can exacerbate burnout, Anna Dearmon Kornick, a time management coach and head of community at Clockwise, an online calendar platform, tells CNBC Make It.

Here are the top three time-wasting habits and how to avoid them: 

Responding to emails right away 

If you're working from home, all – if not most – of your communication is likely online, whether it be through email, Slack or another platform. While you might feel productive responding to messages as soon as they hit your inbox, you're stealing time from more important work. 

"When you're living in reactive mode and responding to emails as they come in, your day becomes incredibly fragmented and you're not going to have the space available to focus on the actual work you need to get done," Kornick explains. 

Instead, Kornick recommends scheduling three 30-minute "check-in time blocks" to check your messages during work. "By putting a fence around your online communications, emails won't stretch and take over every single minute of your day," she adds. 

'Chasing the shiny things' 

One of the sneakiest time-wasters is getting caught up in "busy work": new tasks that come up throughout the day or small action items on your to-do list that might make you feel productive, but distract you from more important work.

Psychologists call this phenomenon "shiny object syndrome," which describes the habit of getting distracted by anything that's new or exciting.

"Accomplishing lots of little things gives us hits of dopamine, which makes us feel great until we realize we've procrastinated our highest priority work by chasing the shiny things," Kornick says. 

She continues: "You might sit down with every intention of focusing, but all of a sudden you remember that you're out of toilet paper, so you pop over to Amazon to order some toilet paper, and then you remember that your mom's birthday is coming up, so you order her a gift. Soon, you've done so many small tasks that have just popped into your head that you've missed that window of focus before your next meeting." 

Here's how to combat "shiny object syndrome": Review your to-do list in the morning and choose the top three things you need to accomplish. Then, create time blocks in your schedule dedicated to each of those three items to help you stay focused. Save the smaller tasks for after you knock out at least one of your top three, Kornick says.

Scrolling through social media 

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In 2021, the US Economy Grew Faster Than Any Year in Nearly 4 Decades - TIME

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew last year at the fastest pace since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, bouncing back with resilience from 2020’s brief but devastating coronavirus recession.

The nation’s gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — expanded 5.7% in 2021. It was the strongest calendar-year growth since a 7.2% surge in 1984 after a previous recession. The economy ended the year by growing at an unexpectedly brisk 6.9% annual pace from October through December as businesses replenished their inventories, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

“It just goes to show that the U.S. economy has learned to adapt to the new variants and continues to produce,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings.

Squeezed by inflation and still gripped by COVID-19 caseloads, the economy is expected to slow this year. Many economists have been downgrading their forecasts for the current January-March quarter, reflecting the impact of the omicron variant. And for all of 2022, the International Monetary Fund has forecast that the the nation’s GDP growth will slow to 4%.

Many U.S. businesses, especially restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment venues, remain under pressure from the omicron variant, which has kept millions of people hunkered down at home to avoid crowds. Consumer spending, the primary driver of the economy, may be further held back this year by the loss of government aid to households, which nurtured activity in 2020 and 2021 but has mainly expired.

What’s more, the Federal Reserve made clear Wednesday that it plans to raise interest rates multiple times this year to battle the hottest inflation in nearly four decades. Those rate increases will make borrowing more expensive and perhaps slow the economy this year.

Growth last year was driven up by a 7.9% surge in consumer spending and a 9.5% increase in private investment. For the final three months of 2021, consumer spending rose at a more muted 3.3% annual pace. But private investment rocketed 32% higher, boosted by a surge in business inventories as companies stocked up to meet higher customer demand. Rising inventories, in fact, accounted for 71% of the fourth-quarter growth.

“The upside surprise came largely from a surge in inventories, and the details aren’t as strong as the headline would suggest,” Kathy Bostjancic, Oxford Economics’ chief U.S. financial economist, said in a research note.

Arising from the 2020 pandemic recession, a healthy rebound had been expected for 2021. GDP had shrunk 3.4% in 2020, the steepest full-year drop since an 11.6% plunge in 1946, when the nation was demobilizing after World War II. The eruption of COVID in March 2020 had led authorities to order lockdowns and businesses to abruptly shut down or reduce hours. Employers slashed a staggering 22 million jobs. The economy sank into a deep recession.

But super-low interest rates, huge infusions of government aid — including $1,400 checks to most households — and, eventually, the widespread rollout of vaccines revived the economy. Many consumers regained the confidence and financial wherewithal to go out and spend again.

The resurgence in demand was so robust, in fact, that it caught businesses off guard. Many struggled to acquire enough supplies and workers to meet a swift increase in customer orders. With many people now working remotely, shortages became especially acute for goods ordered for homes, from appliances to sporting goods to electronic equipment. And with computer chips in especially short supply, auto dealers were left desperately short of vehicles.

Factories, ports and freight yards were overwhelmed, and supply chains became ensnarled. Inflation began to accelerate. Over the past 12 months, consumer prices soared 7% — the fastest year-over-year inflation since 1982. Food, energy and autos were among the items whose prices soared the most.

Late last year, the economy began to show signs of fatigue. Retail sales, for instance, fell 1.9% in December. And manufacturing slowed in December to its lowest level in 11 months, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index.

More Must-Read Stories From TIME

---

• How the Biden Administration Lost Its Way
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• Inside Finland's Plan to End All Waste by 2050
• Chloe Kim Is Ready to Win Olympic Gold Again—On Her Own Terms
• Asia Has Kept COVID-19 at Bay for 2 Years. Omicron Could Change That
• Investors Are Sinking Real Money Into Virtual Real Estate, With No Guarantees
• The Man Putin Fears

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Roethlisberger retires at 39: Time to 'hang up my cleats' - ABC News

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PITTSBURGH -- No more comebacks for Ben Roethlisberger.

The longtime Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback announced his retirement on Thursday, saying it was “time to clean out my locker, hang up my cleats” after 18 seasons, two Super Bowls, countless team records and a spot in the Hall of Fame all but secure.

The much-anticipated decision came less than two weeks after Pittsburgh's lopsided loss to Kansas City in the first round of the postseason, the 12th time in Roethlisberger's career the Steelers reached the playoffs.

He hinted before his final game at Heinz Field that it was time for him to move on and spend more time with his wife, Ashley, and their three children. He made it a point to embrace the moment following a Monday night win over the Browns on Jan. 3, doing a victory lap of sorts before disappearing down the tunnel surrounded by his family.

Roethlisberger called the journey from a kid growing up in Ohio to the 11th overall pick in the 2004 draft to a likely future Hall of Famer “exhilarating.”

And wildly successful.

The Steelers never endured a losing season during Roethlisberger's tenure and captured Super Bowls 40 and 46 — the latter coming on a now-iconic touchdown pass over the outstretched hands of three Arizona defenders to Santonio Holmes in the back corner of the end zone.

“Putting that jersey on every Sunday with my brothers will always be one of the greatest joys of my life,” he said.

Roethlisberger's personal journey, unlike his professional one, was more complicated. He wasn't wearing a helmet when broke his jaw and his nose in a motorcycle crash in 2006 shortly after becoming the youngest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl.

He was twice accused of sexual assault, once in 2009 and again in 2010. A civil case filed against him stemming from an incident at Lake Tahoe in 2009 was settled out of court. A woman in Georgia alleged he assaulted her at a bar in March 2010 but prosecutors did not formally charge him.

The NFL suspended him for the start of the 2010 season for violating the league's personal conduct policy. He returned to lead the Steelers to the Super Bowl, a loss to Green Bay.

The second half of his career hinted at his evolution both as a player and a person. Known more for his rugged “Ben being Ben” approach to the game during his 20s, he morphed into one of the league's premier passers in his 30s. He twice led the league in yards passing and retires in the all-time top 10 in yards passing and touchdown passes and game-winning drives.

Off the field, he got married in 2011 and started a family while largely retreating from public view.

The only thing that didn't really change? Winning.

Roethlisberger posted a 165-81-1 record as a starter, the most in franchise history and fifth-most ever. The Steelers won the AFC North eight times with his familiar No. 7 behind center and the player known universally as “Big Ben” seemed to thrive when Pittsburgh was in a tight spot. His 53 game-winning drives are tied for second in NFL history behind Peyton Manning's 54.

Long regarded for his toughness and playing in considerable pain, Roethlisberger suffered only one major injury. He missed almost the entire 2019 season after tearing ligaments in his right elbow in Week 2 against Seattle.

He returned in 2020 and guided the Steelers to an 11-0 start and a division title, throwing for 3,803 yards and 33 touchdowns against just 10 interceptions. The season ended, however, with a four-interception performance in a home playoff loss to Cleveland.

While teammates and good friends Maurkice Pouncey and Vance McDonald retired, Roethlisberger returned for one last run behind an almost completely rebuilt offensive line. The Steelers sputtered for long stretches, with Roethlisberger very much looking his age at times.

Yet there were still flashes of the Ben of old, not Old Ben, perhaps most notably in a 20-19 win over Baltimore in early December in which he threw a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes to edge the rival Ravens. Despite the offense's limitations, the Steelers managed to scrap their way to a playoff berth despite an underwhelming 9-7-1 season.

Afterward, the player who flirted with retirement several times in recent years seemed to acknowledge this would be his final season in black and gold. He spoke at length in December about the need to pass along “ The Steeler Way ” to his teammates, almost all of them at least a decade younger, and made it a point to pass the baton to defensive tackle Cam Heyward after falling to the Chiefs.

His retirement caps a career that began when Dan Rooney insisted the Steelers take him in the 2004 draft. Pittsburgh expected to have Roethlisberger bide his time behind starter Tommy Maddox. Then Maddox went down in Week 2 against Baltimore and a raw, 22-year-old Roethlisberger took over.

The Steelers ended up losing that game. They didn't for the rest of the regular season with Roethlisberger at the controls. He was named the Offensive Rookie of the Year after guiding the Steelers to a 15-1 record.

That season ended with a loss to New England in the AFC championship game. A year later, the Steelers won their fifth Super Bowl by ripping off three straight road victories in the playoffs, including an upset of Indianapolis in the divisional round aided by Roethlisberger's shoestring tackle of Colts defensive back Nick Harper following a late fumble by running back Jerome Bettis.

Like Bettis, Roethlisberger hoped the final year of his career would end on a confetti-strewn field with the Vince Lombardi Trophy in hand. It didn't happen, though Roethlisberger stressed he was at peace with his decision to walk away.

———

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Protective paper is removed from a triptych by Kerry James Marshall that is part of an exhibition that opened Wednesday at the Block Museum at Northwestern University. The panels are based on a famous photograph of a 1930 lynching in Marion, Indiana. Marshall isolated the faces of three women in the crowd and placed them in cameos. It is called Heirlooms and Accessories. To see the entire piece, come to Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence. It’s free through July 10. (Photo by Richard Cahan)

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It's time to take reproduction in space seriously - Axios

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Before humans can settle off-Earth, scientists need to figure out how — or even whether — people can reproduce in space.

Why it matters: Powerful figures in the space industry like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have dreams of a future where millions of people live in space, which would naturally require a self-sustaining population of humans somewhere other than Earth.

• "It has been [more than] 20 years since the last systematic experiments on vertebrate reproduction and development in spaceflight," Gary Strangman, the scientific lead at the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, told me.
• "Yet we are now actively planning missions and building rockets to reach the Moon and Mars. Reproduction will almost certainly be relevant to a three-year mission to Mars. And we don’t want to discover serious adverse effects by accident."

What's happening: Scientists have sent a number of experiments to the International Space Station in recent years to try to answer various questions about what it might take for mammals, and eventually humans, to reproduce in space.

• A study published in June found freeze-dried sperm from mice sent to the ISS weren't adversely impacted by the environment in low-Earth orbit, producing healthy pups back on Earth after its return.
• An earlier Russian experiment sent male and female rats to orbit, allowing them to breed. Two of the female rats became pregnant, but neither resulted in a live birth.

Yes, but: More in-depth studies are needed in order to figure out just what it would take for humans and other species to have babies off-Earth, and some scientists say there hasn't been enough attention paid to funding and performing these types of studies.

• "There's always been a bigger problem to solve," Virginia Wotring, a professor at the International Space University, told me. The focus instead has been on the technology needed to get to orbit, life support and funding for deep space efforts.
• "The risks of spaceflight are (reasonably) well-understood, but the consequences of those risks on conception, pregnancy, birth and development are barely understood at all — in any species, but particularly in mammals, and even more so in humans," Strangman said via email.
• Women have been historically underrepresented among astronauts, making it harder to study how important parts of reproduction like birth control, menstruation and ovulation may work.

The big question: What are the major factors that could limit how and whether humans can have healthy babies in space?

• Mouse sperm and embryos haven't been adversely impacted by the radiation environment on the ISS, but as humans push to farther-afield destinations like Mars, that could change as the radiation environment gets worse.
• Gravity may also be important in physically arranging the cells in an embryo. Researchers are now analyzing an experiment on the space station where astronauts cultured frozen mouse embryos to see if they needed gravity to develop. (The results of that research haven't yet been made available.)
• But it could be even more simple: Mammals are sensitive to stress, making it difficult to mate even on the ground, Teruhiko Wakayama, a researcher focusing on reproduction in space, told me.
• The ethical issues surrounding studies of human reproduction also limit experiments in space, according to Strangman.

What's next: A number of studies being proposed in the coming years could help answer those outstanding questions around reproduction in space.

• Wakayama and his research team are hoping to send freeze-dried sperm to the Gateway, a planned facility that would orbit the Moon, to understand how it fares in a more radiation-intense environment.
• Another proposed experiment, which likely still has decades to go before launch, would send tardigrades — microscopic extremophiles that are hardened to the space environment — and nematodes on an interstellar journey to see how they behave, including how they might reproduce far from Earth.

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For the first time in 4 years, profitability beats growth - TechCrunch

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Jeremy Abelson is the founder and lead portfolio manager of Irving Investors. Combining his experience as an operator and institutional investor, Abelson runs Irving as a multi-strategy platform making long-term durable investments in both the public and private markets.

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• While the IPO market roars back, venture remains leery
• IPO Slowdown: A Look At Company Profitability

Jacob Sonnenberg Contributor

Jacob Sonnenberg is a portfolio manager at Irving Investors and runs Irving's Technology and Consumer Crossover Fund. Jacob has been investing in tech for over a decade and applies a deeply analytical approach with a true passion for entrepreneurship to his investment strategy.

For the last decade, private company executives have all asked us the same question: “Do public market investors prefer profitability or growth?” While the answer to that question is not simple, the recent trends in the data are clear.

In 2021, profitability — measured by free cash flow (FCF) margins, not revenue growth — had the higher correlation to positive stock returns in the software sector. This broke a four-year trend of revenue growth being the more important driver of software company stock performance.

This correction is big. And the reversal in investor sentiment is clear.

In addition to deviating from the four-year trend, the data shows profitability correlation hit a seven-year high at the end of last year, while revenue growth correlation was close to a seven-year low. With the continued selloff, revenue growth correlation broke well below the seven-year historic low, and profitability correlation stayed at record highs, as shown below.

What’s happening?

So far in 2022, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones have significantly outperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Additionally, a number of recent high-profile/high-growth/unprofitable IPOs have broken IPO price (Hashicorp, Sweetgreen, Rivian Automotive, Rent the Runway, etc.).

As the market turns and volatility increases, investors retreat to names they are comfortable with.

The Bessemer Emerging Cloud Index (made up of prominent SaaS companies) is down over 30% from its November 2021 peak, while some high-multiple names like Cloudflare and HubSpot are down about 50% from their peaks. Broad SaaS valuation multiples over the same period have adjusted from a peak of about 17.5x NTM EV/Rev in November 2021 to about 10.5x.

Investors are “rotating” out of high-growth/high-multiple software names into sectors like finance (banks) and insurance, which benefit from rising interest rates. Also, it is important to note that big, slower-growing, more profitable tech stocks like Microsoft, Google and Facebook have corrected, but to a much smaller degree.

This shift has been fast, resolute and extreme.

Why are investors selling high-growth stocks?

Interest rates are increasing

Inflation is rising, which led the U.S. Federal Reserve to signal three or four interest rate hikes in 2022, which has caused the 10-year treasury yield to rise from about 1.5% in the beginning of the year to about 1.9% today, an around 40bps increase. As interest rates go up, investors focus more on profitability (or a derivative of profitability; Rule of 40 or Magic Number).

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Part of Maria Frasco’s job is to empty trash at the Food 4 Less gas station on Main Street near Pitner Avenue. At night, she cleans the station and runs a floor polisher inside the Food 4 Less grocery store. During the day, she has a second job at the store: Mondays in receiving, Tuesdays in produce, Wednesdays in the deli, Thursdays in the bakery and Fridays in the dairy. “I like to work,” she says. She has three children in college. (Photo by Richard Cahan)

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'Self-Care Is Not Selfish': Milwaukee VA Chaplain Advocates Taking Time For Yourself | VA Milwaukee Health Care - VAntage Point Blog

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If you think taking a vacation is self-care, think again.

Instead of allowing a person to relax and recharge, vacations often bring their own share of headaches and stress – followed by the anxiety of returning to work and a slew of unread emails and pressure to jump back into the fray.

Instead, Milwaukee VA Medical Center Chaplain Robert Allen says people need to be more aware of what “fills your cup” and carve out time to do that.

“We need to identify what fills me, but also what drains me,” he said, noting that friends and family we love – as well as work we have a passion for – can also be draining. “You need to come into a balance where you are being poured into as much as you are pouring out.”

That is just one facet to Allen’s prescription for self-care, which he lays out in his book “Self-Care: Let’s Start the Conversation.”

Allen advances four pillars of self-care:

• Retreat: “Simply get away,” he said. “Take ourselves out of whatever the chaos is so that we can finally breathe.”
• Reflect: “Take a step back and think, ‘What worked well? What things do I need to change or adjust?'"
• Replenish: “Whatever fills your cup in your most needful space, which means self-care is progressive; it is not stagnant. What you needed in your 20s is different than what you need in your 30s, 40s and 50s.”
• Restore: “After you have retreated, given yourself time to reflect and refilled your cup, now you can move forward … and implement things that you’ve learned about yourself.”

“Self-care is what everybody needs to help them find their voice and what they need for themselves,” Allen said.

Finding self-care

Allen, hired in 2021 to head the hospital’s chaplaincy service, has a varied background in counseling, coaching, ministry and business. But it wasn’t until his clinical pastoral education classes that he encountered true self-care.

The assignment: Go somewhere and disconnect, with only a Bible and maybe pen and paper. So Allen went to a nearby park, where for the first 10 minutes his head was swirling, thinking about everything else he needed to do.

“And then there was this calm,” he said. “I started noticing the birds, the sky – stuff I never noticed before.

“That was probably the first time I’ve really experienced self-care, where I disconnected from all of this busyness and chaos and sat in a space where I could just be.”

Since then, he has devoted significant time to self-care and teaching others of its importance.

Allen offers self-care training seminars for companies and organizations. In those seminars, he stresses to leaders the importance of self-care for themselves and their employees, saying it needs to be more than a flyer on a bulletin board or an item in a newsletter.

“If they put more investment on this side, then they’ll have happier workers, better work-life balance and better customer satisfaction. Which means better returns on investment for companies and leaders,” he said.

Self-care for caregivers

Working in a hospital during a pandemic has only reinforced the importance of self-care, Allen said, especially for people whose passion is helping others.

He compared it to the safety briefing on airplanes when passengers are instructed to put on their oxygen masks before helping a child or family member.

“Self-care is not selfish; it’s about being able to help yourself so you can help others,” he said. “When you take better care of you, you’re able to be a better person. You’re able to be more useful to others.”

But daily life often doesn’t leave time for self-care. Family, work and other responsibilities constantly pull at us.

Allen said it is important for people to identify stressors in their lives and realize when it is time to stop and address self-care.

“Even though people have various responsibilities, I feel it's their responsibility to carve time out for themselves, whatever that may be,” he said.

“Self-care doesn't have to be the big vacation or the big getaway. It can be little things that people can do on a daily basis,” like yoga, running, or pursuing a hobby.

He sometimes asks people what they used to do in high school that brought them joy. Invariable, people will say they no longer have time for that. Allen’s response: Why not?

“What you’re saying is you haven’t thought about you enough to take care of you because you’re too busy taking care of everything and everybody else,” he said. “People can do it if they decide to take time for themselves.”

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It's time to delete the scary amount of data Google has on you - CNET

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You can limit how long Google holds onto your information by following these steps.

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Google may be collecting far more personal data and information than you might realize. Every search you perform and every YouTube video you watch, Google is keeping tabs on you. Google Maps even logs everywhere you go, the route you use to get there and how long you stay, no matter if you have an iPhone or an Android. It can be eye-opening and possibly a little unsettling looking into everything Google knows about you. 

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Google's tracking has caught the attention of attorneys general from Indiana, Texas, Washington state and Washington, DC. They allege the search giant makes it "nearly impossible" for people to stop their location from being tracked and accuse the company of deceiving users and invading their privacy. As a result, the attorneys general are suing Google over its use of location data. 

Since 2019, Google has made changes to how your location data is collected and the options you have in controlling it. This includes autodelete controls, which allow people to automatically delete their location data on a rolling basis, and an incognito mode in Google Maps, which lets people browse and get directions without Google saving that information. 

We're going to cut through all the clutter and show you how to access the private data Google has on you, as well as how to delete some or all of it. Then we're going to help you find the right balance between your privacy and the Google services you rely on by choosing settings that limit Google's access to your information without impairing your experience.

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4:34

Find out what private information Google considers 'public'

Chances are, Google knows your name, your face, your birthday, your gender, other email addresses you use, your password and phone number. Some of this is listed as public information (not your password, of course). Here's how to see what Google shares with the world about you.

1. Open a browser window and navigate to your Google Account page.

2. Type your Google username (with or without "@gmail.com").

3. From the menu bar, choose Personal info and review the information. You can change or delete your photo, name, birthday, gender, password, other email addresses and phone number.

4. If you'd like to see what information of yours is available publicly, scroll to the bottom and select Go to About me.

5. On this page, each line is labeled with either a people icon (visible to anyone), office building icon (visible only to your organization) or lock icon (visible only to you). Select an item to choose whether to make it public, semipublic or private. There's currently no way to make your account totally private. 

Google has adapted its privacy control dashboard for mobile devices as well as desktop browsers.

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Take a look at Google's record of your online activity

If you want to see the motherlode of data Google has on you, follow these steps to find it, review it, delete it or set it to automatically delete after a period of time. 

If your goal is to exert more control over your data but you still want Google services like search and Google Maps to personalize your results, we recommend setting your data to autodelete after three months. Otherwise, feel free to delete all your data and set Google to stop tracking you. For most of the day-to-day things you do with Google you won't even notice the difference.

1. Sign in to your Google Account and choose Data & Privacy from the navigation bar.

2. To see a list of all your activity that Google has logged, scroll to History Settings and select Web & App Activity. This is where all your Google searches, YouTube viewing history, Google Assistant commands and other interactions with Google apps and services get recorded.

3. To turn it completely off, move the toggle to the off position. But beware -- changing this setting will most likely make any Google Assistant devices you use, including Google Home and Google Nest smart speakers and displays, virtually unusable. 

4. If you want Google to stop tracking just your Chrome browser history and activity from sites you sign in to with your Google account, uncheck the first box. If you don't want Google to keep audio recordings of your interactions with Google Assistant, uncheck the second box. Otherwise, move on to Step 5.

5. To set Google to automatically delete this kind of data either never or every three or 18 months, select Auto-delete and pick the time frame you feel most comfortable with. Google will immediately delete any current data older than the time frame you specify. For example, if you choose three months, any information older than three months will be deleted right away.

6. Once you choose an Auto-delete setting, a pop-up will appear and ask you to confirm. Select Delete or Confirm.

7. Next, select Manage Activity. This page displays all the information Google has collected on you from the activities mentioned in the previous steps, arranged by date, all the way back to the day you created your account or the last time you purged this list. 

8. To delete specific days, select the trash can icon to the right of the day, then choose Got it. To get more specific details or to delete individual items, select the three stacked dots icon beside the item then choose either Details or Delete.

9. If you'd rather delete part or all of your history manually, select the three stacked dots icon to the right of the search bar at the top of the page and choose Delete activity by, then choose either Last hour, Last day, All time or Custom range.

10. To make sure your new settings took, head back to Manage Activity and make sure whatever's there only goes back the three or 18 months you selected.

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1:55

Access Google's record of your location history

Perhaps even more off-putting than Google knowing what recipes you've been cooking, what vacation destination you're interested in or how often you check the Powerball numbers, the precision of Google's record of your whereabouts can be downright chilling, even if you never do anything you shouldn't. 

If you're signed in to Google Maps on a mobile device, Google is watching your every move. It's about enough to make you want to leave your phone at home. Thankfully, that's unnecessary. Here's how to access, manage and delete your Google location data:

1. Sign in to your Google Account and choose Data & Privacy from the navigation bar.

2. To see a list of all your location data that Google has logged, scroll to History Settings and select Location History. 

3. If you want Google to stop tracking your location, turn the toggle on this page to off.

4. To set Google to automatically delete this kind of data either never or every three or 18 months, select Auto-delete, then pick the time frame you feel most comfortable with. Google will delete any current data older than the time frame you specify. For example, if you choose three months, any information older than three months will be deleted immediately.

5. Once you choose an autodelete setting, a popup will appear and ask you to confirm. Select Delete or Confirm.

6. Next, click Manage History. This page displays all the location information Google has collected on you as a timeline and a map, including places you've visited and the route you took there and back, as well as frequency and dates of visits.

7. To permanently delete all location history, click on the trash can icon in the lower right corner and choose Delete Location History when prompted. To delete individual trips, select a dot on the map or a bar on the timeline, then on the next page click the trash can icon beside the date of the trip you want to delete.

8. To make sure your location data really disappeared, go back to History Settings, then after Manage History, make sure the timeline in the upper left corner is empty and there are no dots on the map indicating your previous locations.

YouTube saves your search history as well as a list of every video you've ever watched while signed in to your Google account.

Angela Lang/CNET

Manage your YouTube search and watch history

Of all the personal data that Google tracks, your YouTube search and watch history is probably the most innocuous. Not only that, allowing Google to track your YouTube history might have the most obvious benefit to you -- it helps YouTube figure out what kind of videos you like so it can dish out more of the type of content you'll enjoy. 

Here's how to get a look at your YouTube history and, if you want to, how to delete it, either manually or at three- or 18-month intervals. Just like with Web & App Activity, we recommend setting YouTube to purge your data every three months. That's just long enough that YouTube's recommendations will stay fresh, but doesn't leave a years-long trail of personal data lingering behind.

1. Sign in to your Google Account and choose Data & Privacy from the navigation bar.

2. To see a list of all your YouTube data that Google has logged, scroll to History Settings and select YouTube History. 

3. If you want Google to stop tracking your YouTube search and viewing history entirely, turn off the toggle on this page. To stop Google from tracking either just the videos you watch or just your searches, uncheck the appropriate box.

4. To set Google to automatically delete your YouTube data either never or every three or 18 months, select Auto-delete and pick the time frame you feel most comfortable with. Google will delete any current data older than the time frame you specify. For example, if you choose three months, any information older than three months will be deleted immediately.

5. Once you choose an autodelete setting, a popup will appear and ask you to confirm. Select Delete or Confirm.

6. Next, click Manage History. This is where every search you make and every video you watch is listed.

7. To delete specific days, select the trash can icon to the right of the day, then choose Got it. To get more specific details or to delete individual items, select the three stacked dots icon, then choose either Delete or Details.

8. If you'd rather delete part or all of your history manually, select the three stacked dots icon to the right of the search bar at the top of the page and choose Delete activity by, then choose either Last hour, Last day, All time or Custom range.

9. To make sure your YouTube data really disappeared, start over with History Settings, then after Manage History, 
make sure whatever's there (if you deleted it all there should be nothing) only goes back the three or 18 months you selected.

Google is adamant that no one at the company reads your Gmail unless you ask them to, but Google software continues to scan Gmail users' email for purchase information.

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One more important thing about your privacy

Be forewarned, just because you set Google not to track your online or offline activity doesn't necessarily mean you've closed off your data to Google completely. Google has admitted it can track your physical location even if you turn off location services using information gathered from Wi-Fi and other wireless signals near your phone. Also, just like Facebook has been doing for years, Google can track you even when you're not signed in.

Not to mention, there are seeming contradictions between Google's statements on privacy issues. For example, Google has admitted to scanning your Gmail messages to compile a list of your purchases in spite of declaring in a 2018 statement, "To be absolutely clear: No one at Google reads your Gmail, except in very specific cases where you ask us to and give consent, or where we need to for security purposes, such as investigating a bug or abuse." Perhaps by "no one" Google meant "no human," but in an age of increasingly powerful AI, such a distinction may be moot.

The point is, it's ultimately up to you to protect yourself from invasive data practices. These eight smartphone apps can help manage your passwords and obscure your browser data, as well as attend to some other privacy-related tasks. If you have any Google Home smart speakers in your house, here's how to manage your privacy with Google Assistant.

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