Monday, February 13, 2023

Wake-Up Call: Chiefs Rally To Win, Mahomes MVP

Super Bowl LVII: The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, their second win in four years. Patrick Mahomes was named Super Bowl MVP.

  • A late field goal with just 8 seconds left gave the Chiefs the 38-35 lead they needed to clinch the championship.
  • Patrick Mahomes passed for three touchdowns to lead his team to victory.
  • Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts ran for three touchdowns and passed for one, with over 300 yards of passing.
  • The Eagles surrendered a 10-point lead, and allowed the Chiefs to roll away with a 38-35 victory in the game’s final seconds when Harrison Butker kicked a 27-yard field goal to deliver Kansas City’s second championship in four years.
  • Despite being hobbled by a high ankle sprain that he re-aggravated before halftime, Mahomes proved to be too difficult of a puzzle for Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. He completed 21 of 27 passes for 182 yards and three touchdowns. 
  • The Eagles, who finished with most sacks in the NFL, failed to sack Mahomes even once. 
  • Eagles fans and Philly journalists on social media disagreed strongly after a holding call on cornerback James Bradberry allowed the Kansas City Chiefs to run out the clock and ultimately win by a field goal 38-35.

The ads: The Super Bowl game continued its reign as the most expensive ad real estate on TV. Some of the highlights:

  • Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez stumped for Dunkin'.
  • Rakuten brought back Alicia Silverstone as Cher from "Clueless."
  • Heineken spotlights nonalcoholic beer with Paul Rudd as Ant-Man.

The anthem: Country star Chris Stapleton performed a heart-warming rendition before kickoff.

Rihanna: The halftime show featured the pop star from Barbados giving her first major public performance in years.  Rihanna is pregnant with her second child, a spokeswoman for the pop star said, after the singer’s widely watched Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday night. The news comes as a surprise for many in the music industry, who were focused on something else—whether Rihanna would announce a new concert tour or an album, following a long absence from music. The Barbadian singer had her first child, with the rapper A$AP Rocky, last year. Before Sunday's performance, some Rihanna superfans had speculated that the 34-year-old artist was focused on building her family. On Sunday night, Rihanna unleashed a cavalcade of hits during her show that reminded watchers of her formidable hold over pop music in the 21st century.

The 13-minute performance, which began shortly before 8:30 p.m. ET, saw the singer, dressed all in red, standing on an elevated central platform, flanked by white-clad dancers on other platforms. Songs performed included “Diamonds,” “We Found Love” and Jay-Z’s “Run This Town,” on which she is a featured artist.

➤U-S KOs 4TH FLYING OBJECT: The U.S. shot down a fourth flying object Sunday afternoon at 20,000 feet above Lake Huron, the Pentagon said, underscoring heightened concerns over North American airspace after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was found traversing the U.S. An F-16 jet fighter shot down the object on orders of President Biden at 2:42 p.m., the Pentagon said, using the same kind of missile used in the previous three shootdowns, an AIM-9X Sidewinder. The U.S. wasn’t tracking other objects as of Sunday night, said Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said at a news conference late Sunday. The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for the object, which was shot down over Michigan but appeared to land in Canadian waters, officials said.

Pentagon officials said none of the objects shot down appeared to pose a military threat, but that officials couldn’t rule out additional takedowns of unidentified objects in U.S. airspace. The U.S. shot down the object out of “an abundance of caution,” Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, said during a news conference late Sunday.



➤TWO ARRESTED IN BATON ROUGE MASS SHOOTING: Two 19-year-olds have been arrested in Baton Rouge in connection with the late-night mass shooting that injured 12 people in a bar on January 22nd. All of the victims of the shooting at the Dior Bar & Lounge survived. One of the teenagers under arrest was charged with 12 counts of attempted first-degree murder while the other was charged with being a principal to attempted first-degree murder.

➤FRAUDSTER USED IDENTITIES OF DEAD PEOPLE: A woman in Chicago has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for using the identities of dead people to fraudulently obtain $45,000 in government payments, according to a report in The New York Times. Katrina Pierce obtained the birth certificates of 36 Illinois murder victims and used their personal details to file for tax refunds and pandemic stimulus payments. She was convicted on charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

➤VOTER FRAUD INVESTIGATION FAILED TO FIND FRAUD: An investigation commissioned and paid for by the Trump campaign to look into allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election found nothing of substance, according to a new report in The Washington Post. The report by The Berkeley Research Group was never released. It was completed in the last weeks of 2020, before the January 6th, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. According to the report, the group was tasked with investigating a dozen allegations of voter fraud in six states. It found some anomalies but nothing that would have changed the outcome of the election.

📲DEMAND FOR USED PHONES SURGES:  No more waiting in line for the latest phone! Demand for used smartphones has surged 11.5% in 2022 after new phone purchases slumped in 2020 amid the onset of the pandemic. Lockdowns slowed production of new phones, and more consumers are sticking with their current phones or buying used. Trade-in programs offered by Apple and other companies may be contributing to this boom in second-hand phone demand. A lack of new features also seems partially to blame. "Ever since the X, none of the new iPhone releases (XS, Xr, 11, 11 Pro...) amaze me anymore," one Redditor notes.
 
➤WOMEN HONORED ON NEW U.S. QUARTERS: A portrait of singer Celia Cruz, known as the Queen of Salsa, will appear on the U.S. quarter in 2024, the U.S. Mint has announced. She is one of a number of prominent American women whose images will be featured on the quarter. The other picks for 2024 include Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in the U.S. Congress; Pauli Murray, a writer, lawyer and activist; Mary Edwards Walker, a 19th century abolitionist and surgeon, and Zitkala-Sa, a Native American rights activist.


🏈RAIDERS’ QUARTERBACK CARR AIMS FOR FREE AGENT STATUS: Quarterback Derek Carr has informed the Las Vegas Raiders that he won’t accept a trade to any other team in the league, the NFL Network reports. That presumably means that the Raiders will release Carr by this Wednesday’s deadline, making him a free agent this offseason. Carr has spent his entire nine-year career with the Raiders.

🏀ZION WILLIAMSON’S RETURN DELAYED: New Orleans Pelicans star Zion Williamson will spend more time than was hoped recovering from the hamstring injury that sidelined him at the start of the year. He didn’t make it back in time for the NBA All-Star game, in which he was set to be a starter. He later reaggravated the injury while gearing up for a planned return right after the All-Star break, according to ESPN. Word is it will be “multiple weeks” before Williamson can play again.

⚾DEREK JETER HAS GOT A NEW GIG: New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter has joined Fox Sports as part of the network’s studio coverage for the upcoming Major League Baseball season. The broadcast team already includes Jeter’s former Yankees teammate Alex Rodriguez, retired Boston Red Sox star David Ortiz and studio host Kevin Burkhardt. The news was announced during the Super Bowl pregame show.

🐶TEAM FLUFF GETS THE LOMBARKY TROPHY: Team Fluff triumphed over Team Ruff in last night’s 2023 Puppy Bowl, 87-83. The night’s most dramatic moment came when Vivianne, a bulldog mix from Colorado, scored the game’s final touchdown by carrying a green turtle chew toy into the end zone. Ruffaree Dan Schachner presented the Lombarky Trophy to Fluff Team Captain Majesty, a corgi from Florida. This was Animal Planet’s 19th annual Puppy Bowl featuring rescue dogs from shelters across America.

➤NEW STORM BREWS: A moderate winter storm developing over the Four Corners on Tuesday is expected to spread heavy snow across the Plains and into the Upper Midwest by Thursday, and sleet and freezing rain are possible along the route, meteorologists say. "This heavy snow and mixed precipitation, especially where combined with strong winds, could result in hazardous travel conditions and impacts to infrastructure," the National Weather Service said. Much colder temperatures – and some possible near record lows over the Southwest – were expected in the wake of the storm, the service said.



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