North Korea will never completely give up its nuclear weapons, a top defector said ahead of leader Kim Jong Un's landmark summit with US President Donald Trump next month. The current whirlwind of diplomacy and negotiations will not end with "a sincere and complete disarmament" but with "a reduced North Korean nuclear threat", said Thae Yong-ho, who fled his post as the North's deputy ambassador to Britain in August 2016. "In the end, North Korea will remain 'a nuclear power packaged as a non-nuclear state'," Thae told the South's Newsis news agency. His remarks come ahead of an unprecedented summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore on June 12, at which North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes are expected to dominate the agenda. North and South Korea affirmed their commitment to the goal of denuclearisation of the peninsula at a summit last month, and Pyongyang announced at the weekend it would destroy its only known nuclear test site next week. South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday welcomed the announcement, calling it an "initial step in the complete denuclearisation of North Korea". But North Korea has not made public what concessions it is offering, and the South's JoongAng Ilbo daily pointed out that it had only invited journalists to witness the operation at the Punggye-ri site. "It is regrettable that North Korea did not invite nuclear experts to the destruction of the test site," it said in an editorial. "If North Korea has really decided to denuclearise, it has no reason not to invite them." Pyongyang has said it does not need nuclear weapons if the security of its regime is guaranteed. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has met Kim twice, said he was "convinced" the North Korean leader shared US goals, and promised security assurances and bountiful American investment in the isolated nation. "Those are the kind of things that, if we get what it is the President has demanded -– the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation (CVID) of North Korea -– that the American people will offer in spades," Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday. But verification will be key. And Thae, one of the highest-ranking officials to have defected in recent years, said: "North Korea will argue that the process of nuclear disarmament will lead to the collapse of North Korea and oppose CVID."

JERUSALEM — When Israel declared its independence in 1948, President Harry Truman rushed to recognize it. He took just 11 minutes, and Israelis, about to go to war to defend their infant state, were euphoric. Seventy years to the day — and nearly as long since Israel declared the holy city of Jerusalem its “eternal capital” — the United States will formally open its embassy on a hilltop here two miles south of the Western Wall. The embassy’s move from Tel Aviv and President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — reversing decades of American foreign policy — comes at a moment so fraught with both pride and peril that Israelis seem not to know what to feel. Israelis find it hard to rejoice when they find themselves doing some of the same things they did back in 1948: listening for civil-defense sirens, readying bomb shelters and calling in reinforcements to confront threats to the north, south and east. An escalating shadow war with Iran has broken into the open, pitting Israel against its most powerful adversary in the region. A mass protest in Gaza has spurred thousands of Palestinians, encouraged by Hamas, to try to cross into Israel, whose snipers have killed scores and wounded thousands of them. The bloodshed has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back onto the international agenda after years as an afterthought. Now, in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, Israeli border police and troops are bracing for expressions of pent-up frustration, impatience and rage — at the United States for seeming to dispense with any pretense at balance; at Israel for its continuing occupation; at the Palestinian Authority for its weakness and corruption; and at the peace process itself, for inspiring hopes that have again and again proved false. “If you look at it from the outside, you’d see one of the most dramatic success stories of the 20th century,” said the historian Tom Segev, author of a new biography of Israel’s founding prime minister, “David Ben-Gurion: A State at All Costs.” With Israel so strong and its Jewish population larger than ever, Mr. Segev said, “It’s really the realization of Ben-Gurion’s dream. But at the same time, the future is very bleak, and some of the problems he left us remain unresolved.” It is hard for Israeli Jews to feel entirely at ease when they remain so estranged from one another and the nearly two million Arab citizens at home, and from millions of people next door: A lasting settlement with the Palestinians seems as elusive at it has been in more than a generation. However besieged many Israelis may feel, objectively Israel has never been more powerful, in almost any sense of the word. Its military routinely obliterates opposing forces with fighter jets, antimissile batteries and newfangled tunnel-destroying tools. Its spies whisk warehouses’ worth of secrets out from under its enemies’ noses. Its high-tech start-ups routinely sell for billions, its economy is the envy of the Middle East, its television shows thrive on Netflix. On Saturday, its entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest — a chicken-dancing feminist named Netta Barzilai — overcame a boycott attempt by Israel’s detractors to win by popular acclaim. Warming relations with Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States are even buoying hopes that Israel could begin to expand its tiny circle of friends in the region. Monday’s move of the American mission to a fortified former consulate along the seam between East and West Jerusalem, from a beachfront bastion in Tel Aviv, is freighted with symbolism in manifold ways. But the relocation of the chief American outpost from liberal Tel Aviv, a blue dot on the red political map of Israel, to a capital city that has largely replaced its secular Israeli population with a more religious one, neatly mirrors what is happening to support for Israel in the United States. Ben-Gurion was prime minister for 13 years, all told. Benjamin Netanyahu will surpass that record in mid-2019 if he holds on to office. That is far from assured: He faces possible indictment in a web of domestic corruption scandals, and criminal charges could cause his governing coalition to collapse. President Trump has gone further than perhaps any of his predecessors to support Israel and its right-wing leader, and no American president has done more to bestow gifts on an Israeli leader than he has. From recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, to withholding money from the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees — an agency Mr. Netanyahu would like to see eliminated altogether — to pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement last week, Mr. Trump’s has showered Mr. Netanyahu with political prizes. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a senior adviser on the Middle East, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, are among the high-ranking representative sent by the administration to attend Monday’s opening ceremony. Israel said all 86 countries with diplomatic missions in the country were invited to the event, and 33 confirmed attendance. To Palestinians, the official unveiling of the embassy is just the most concrete and latest in a cavalcade of provocations from Washington and the Israeli government. “It’s might makes right,” said Hind Khoury, a former diplomat for the Palestine Liberation Organization who now heads a sustainable development nonprofit based in Bethlehem. Not only are Palestinians now expected to forget about Jerusalem, she said, but also the losses of their homes in 1948 and again in the fighting of 1967. “Accept Israel’s presence and dominance,” she said. “Accept home demolitions and expulsions and dispossession. “Accept the uprooting of our olive trees, the violence of settlers,” she continued, picking up steam. “Accept settlements. Accept Israel’s control of all the Jordan Valley, and using it for its economic benefit. Accept that Israel didn’t live up to any of its commitments. Accept the siege of Gaza. Accept that East Jerusalem doesn’t belong to us anymore. Accept the racist legislation that Israel passes; that we’re prisoners in our land: I can’t get a visa because we’re ‘all terrorists.’ Accept the use of ‘anti-Semitism’ to fight anybody who wants to support Palestinian rights.” “These are things we have to accept, or we’ll just get more hell,” she said, before adding: “Maybe I speak more like a mother and grandmother, but it’s so sinful to give such a legacy to the next generation.” For Israeli Jews, a different set of grievances is being assuaged and activated by Monday’s embassy opening and all it stirs up. The American-Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi, whose new book “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor” is being published on Tuesday, sees the embassy move as a “rare moment of compensation” for what he called “the campaign to deny any Jewish connection to Jerusalem” — one expressed in votes of Unesco, or in the speeches of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, when he invokes the Christian and Muslim attachment to Jerusalem but pointedly omits any Jewish one. “There’s this deep resentment among Israelis about the war against our history and our rootedness in this city,” Mr. Halevi said. Still, noting that his book “about reconciliation with my Palestinian neighbors is coming out at one of the worst moments in the tortured history of our relationship,” Mr. Halevi said he wished the embassy move could be accompanied by some kind of “affirmation by both Israel and the United States of the Palestinian presence in the city we share.” “I don’t think we should be laying out blueprints,” he said. “We’re far from that. But there should be a clear stating of our recognition that we’re not alone in Jerusalem. This would be an apt moment for a generous Israeli statement.” Mr. Netanyahu’s advocacy against the Iran deal during the Obama administration did much to sour Jewish Democrats on the Israeli leader. His abandonment of a painstakingly negotiated deal to give Reform and Conservative Jews a bigger stake in Jewish life in Israel, and approval of a measure granting the Orthodox chief rabbinate’s monopoly over conversions to Judaism in Israel, drove a wedge between liberal American Jews and Israeli religious leaders. Other policies, like efforts to deport African migrants, and an ongoing legislative attack by Mr. Netanyahu’s political allies on democratic institutions like Israel’s Supreme Court, have only added to many liberal Americans’ discomfort with Israel. In effect, as the Trump administration gives physical expression to its affection for Israel, a rift appears to be widening between the world’s two main centers of Jewish life. The immediate threats to Israeli security could of course fizzle. The rift between American and Israeli Jews could heal with a new administration in either place, if not before. Even the risk posed by the embassy move could prove no more dampening to the celebration, in retrospect, than the smashing of a glass at a Jewish wedding. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Middle East peace process “is most decidedly not dead,” despite the embassy move, telling “Fox News Sunday” that the United States still hopes to be able to “achieve a successful outcome” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Segev, the biographer, said he had learned in his research that Ben-Gurion had never cared much for Jerusalem, and had refrained from trying to take the city in 1948 in part because he knew it would be difficult to guard its Old City from extremists. In that sense, Mr. Segev said, little seems to have changed. “That’s what Jerusalem is all about,” he said. “That’s why it’s been a problem the last 3,000 years. And it may be a problem for the next 3,000 years.”

SURABAYA, Indonesia — An Indonesian family bought its 8-year-old daughter to a suicide bomb attack it launched Monday on the police headquarters in the country's second-largest city, authorities said, a day after members of another family conducted coordinated suicide bombings on three city churches that killed 12 people. National police chief Tito Karnavian said the girl, who was with two of the attackers on a motorcycle, survived being thrown by the blast at Surabaya's police headquarters. The attack killed the four perpetrators. Six civilians and four officers were wounded. The attack came just hours after police said the family that carried out the church bombings included girls aged 9 and 12. The flurry of bombings raised concerns that previously beaten-down militant networks in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation have been reinvigorated by the return of some of the estimated 1,100 Indonesians who went to fight with the Islamic State group in Syria. Experts have warned for several years that when those fighters return, they could pose a significant threat. IS claimed responsibility for the church bombings in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. Karnavian, however, said earlier police comments that the family had spent time in Syria were incorrect. He said the church bombers and the police headquarters attackers were friends, as were another family whose homemade bombs exploded in their apartment Sunday night. The use of children in the attacks has been particularly horrifying to people. "This is terrifying," said Taufik Andrie, executive director of an institute that runs programs to help paroled militants reject extremism and rejoin society. "This is showing how extremist ideology can entrap children. Children have no choice. They can't comprehend the decisions involved." All told, 25 people have died since Sunday including a total of 13 militants and their children. Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo condemned the attacks as "barbaric" and vowed that authorities would root out and destroy Islamic militant networks. The top security minister, Wiranto, who uses one name, said the government will attempt to hasten passage of an updated anti-terrorism law that has languished in parliament. A security camera video of the attack on Surabaya's police headquarters showed at least one explosion after the four attackers rode two motorcycles up to a security checkpoint. The motorcycles, which moved closely together, pulled up alongside a car and four officers manning opposite sides of the checkpoint. Two men, apparently civilians, were walking into the area just meters (yards) from the motorcycles at the moment of the explosion, which a split second later was followed by a second possible blast. Indonesia's deadliest terrorist attack occurred in 2002, when bombs exploded on the tourist island of Bali, killing 202 people in one night, mostly foreigners. Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaida affiliated network responsible for the Bali attacks, was obliterated by a sustained crackdown on militants by Indonesia's counterterrorism police with U.S. and Australian support. Its leaders were killed in police raids and hundreds of militants were arrested. Karnavian said the father of the family that carried out the church bombings was head of the Surabaya cell of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, an Indonesian militant network affiliated with IS that has been implicated in attacks in Indonesia in the past year. All six members of the family were killed. The IS statement claiming responsibility for the attacks didn't mention anything about families or children taking part and said there were only three attackers. The group also claimed responsibility for a hostage-taking ordeal last week by imprisoned Islamic militants at a detention center near Jakarta in which six officers were killed. Separately on Sunday, three members of another family were killed when homemade bombs exploded at an apartment in Sidoarjo, a town bordering Surabaya, police said. The church attacks occurred within minutes of each other, according to Surabaya police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera. Karnavian said the father drove a bomb-laden car into the city's Pentecostal church. The mother, with her two daughters, attacked the Christian Church of Diponegoro, he said. Based on their remains, Karnavian said the mother and daughters were all wearing explosives around their waists. The sons aged 16 and 18 rode a motorcycle onto the grounds of the Santa Maria Church and detonated their explosives there, he said.

Xiao Long, the latest employee at the Jiujiang Road branch of the China Construction Bank is never late for work. “Welcome to China Construction Bank,” she chirps to customers arriving at the Shanghai branch, flashing her white teeth. “What can I help you with today?” Xiao Long, or “Little Dragon”, is not your typical employee – she’s a robot at China’s first fully automated, human-free bank branch. As guardian of the bank, she talks to customers, takes bank cards and checks accounts (she comes complete with a PIN pad) and can answer basic questions. After a quick initial chat with Xiao Long, customers pass through electronic gates where their faces and ID cards are scanned. On future visits, facial recognition alone is enough to open the gates and call up customer information. Inside, automated teller machineshelp with services such as account opening, money transfer and foreign exchange. A second robot waits inside the barriers, and there is a VR room and video-link should customers want to talk to a mortal. There is also a staggering number of security cameras. I counted eight in the lobby alone, and loitering for too long or pulling out a camera quickly produces a human security guardwho has been hiding out of sight. The bank is rather low on customers, who in the main appear rather ambivalent. One man in his 30s shrugs that he does most of his banking online anyway, and avoids coming into branches – though at least he didn’t have to queue. Robot waiters, robot guards Robots are handling more and more aspects of everyday life in Chinese cities. They have been deployed in train stations for security purposes; robot security guards at Zhengzhou East railway station are programmed to scan travellers’ faces and respond to common questions. The chief executive of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com recently predicted that robots will eventually replace human workers in the retail industry, with China’s unmanned retail sector expected to triple in size to 65bn yuan (£7.5bn) by 2020, according to iResearch. Robots are being used to cook – both in restaurants and industrial kitchens – and a video of an entirely automated dumpling factory went viral on Chinese social media last year. Robot waiters have been a fad for a number of years, with restaurants keen to draw customers with novel experiences, as well as saving on staff costs. Robotic waiters can be frustratingly slow for hungry diners though. Most move along pre-programmed tracks, and for some restaurants they have proved more trouble than they’re worth. But the rise of China’s robot industry is a core part of Beijing’s economic ambitions. Beijing’s Robotics Industry Development Plan is a five-year programme that targets the production of at least 100,000 industrial robots a year by 2020, partly to reboot the country’s ailing manufacturing sector. “In AI and robotics, China clearly is interested in emerging as a global leader,” says Professor Yu Zhou at the department of earth science and geography at Vassar College. “Moving up the value chain is what is really behind China’s move into robots. Working wages have been increasing and there have been shortages of low-level labour. “You have to replace this labour, and automation and robots became a natural area to look into. Robots are really seen as an upgrade – better products, more efficient and cheaper.” The Cityscape: get the best of Guardian Cities delivered to you every week, with just-released data, features and on-the-ground reports from all over the world According to figures from the International Federation of Robots, China is already the biggest shareholder of the robotic global market at a net worth of $30bn (£22bn). Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn has cut tens of thousands of employees by replacing them with machine labour, reportedly deploying more than 40,000 factory robots, and has said it aims to achieve 30% automation by 2020. The rise of the robots also ties in with heavy public and private investment in facial recognition and AI. In Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, local authorities have been using facial recognition to target jaywalkers. Those caught crossing the road illegally have their photos taken, and after being identified can be publicly named and shamed on large screens by the roadside – and even sent fines automatically via instant messaging. Police at Qingdao beer festival used a network of cameras and facial recognition technology to scan the faces of the 2.3 million attendees. Those identified from the national police database as having a history of drug addiction were tested. As a result, 19 were arrested for drug use. Meanwhile, customers in the Hangzhou branch of KFC can pay for orders using only their faces, and retailers including Tencent have been experimenting with cashier-less stores. The frenetic growth of the industry is giving some cause for concern, though. Related: 'It's like a robot playground': the cities welcoming self-driving delivery droids “There is a risk that you sacrifice quality for quantity,” says Jeffrey Ding, researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University, adding that there are concerns about how AI and robotics could exacerbate a growing social and wealth divide. “There’s also an emerging pushback in China against violations of privacy,” he says. “A national survey, called the China Economic Life Survey, found nearly 80% of Chinese consumers said they felt the development of AI would present a serious threat to their privacy.” Back at the China Construction Bank in Shanghai, Xiao Long is not burdened by any of these mortal problems. “If you have any questions, just ask me!” When probed on her future career prospects, she just smiles and blinks.

WASHINGTON – Ron Ziegler, President Richard Nixon's press secretary, famously called the Watergate break-in a "third-rate burglary attempt" — and then it exploded into a wide-ranging scandal involving political dirty tricks, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice, ultimately forcing Nixon's resignation. The Whitewater scandal dogged Bill Clinton for most of his presidency, as an investigation into an Arkansas real estate deal spun off into inquiries into the suicide of a White House lawyer, the firings at the White House Travel Office — and finally, Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. And now President Trump, too, finds himself in the midst of a series of controversies cascading like dominoes through the headlines. What started as an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has morphed into an ever-expanding galaxy of scandals involving an adult-film star, influence peddling and — most recently — what the president knew about allegations of sexual abuse by the New York attorney general. Just this past week, Trump has seen revelations that his personal attorney used his position to make more than $1 million from corporate clients trying to influence the president — and that he had funneled that money through the same account he used to pay hush money to an adult-film star alleging she had a sexual encounter with Trump. "Yes, this has been a terrible week for him, but because it’s Trump, terrible is a relative word," said Lanny Davis, a former Clinton lawyer who now specializes in political crisis management. Unlike previous scandals, Trump faces a different political and media environment than past presidents — differences that could either help him to weather the storm or face a crippled presidency. The cumulative effect of Trump's scandals has put him on the defensive. He's publicly decried the Russia investigation as a "witch hunt," but has been more circumspect in dealing with the allegations he paid hush money to an adult-film star. After that actress, Stormy Daniels, gave an interview to 60 Minutes last month, Trump went 11 days without addressing the allegation, largely avoiding press encounters where it might come up. In the short term, the headlines are distracting from the issues that Trump would prefer to talk about — including tax cuts, a recovering economy and his historic opening to North Korea. But the sheer number of scandals can have an impact on a president's approval rating, his relationship with Congress, and how he governs. University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus has studied scandals from Nixon to George W. Bush and found patterns in the ways that presidents respond to scandals. • They give more speeches. After a mini-hiatus following the defeat of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore last December, Trump has returned to holding monthly campaign rallies, mostly in states he won in 2016. In a rally last week, he made no mention of the controversies, but instead attacked Democrats running for Congress. "Give me some reinforcements, please," he told 7,000 people in Elkhart, Ind. • They pick fewer fights with Congress. After successfully getting a tax cut package passed last December, Trump's legislative agenda has largely stalled. His top priorities — infrastructure and immigration — appear unlikely to pass before the midterm elections in November. • They take fewer unilateral executive actions. After signing 101 executive orders and presidential memoranda in 2017, Trump has had just 26 appear in the Federal Register this year as of Friday. Usually, presidents face a point where they "come clean" — or at least take some action to try to mitigate a scandal. Trump hasn't done that. His defiant response to scandals is informed by his decades as a target of New York tabloid media. When hit with an accusation, deny it — and then hit back harder against the accuser. And never apologize. Trump has been able to stand his ground in part because the political situation hasn't much changed since he was elected: The GOP remains in control of Congress, and his support among his political base hasn't wavered. "The ultimate end of a scandal is impeachment, and if the president's not afraid of that, there's no sanction that can hold him accountable," said Rottinghaus. But also, he said, the growing complexity of the scandals can work to the president's advantage, as voters begin to be desensitized and lose the plot. To his supporters, the media coverage could look like "piling on." In Clinton's case, that swarm of scandal hurt his approval ratings and led to the "Clinton fatigue" that ultimately hurt Vice President Al Gore's 2000 election prospects. But it also led to a public backlash against the never-ending cycle of investigations by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, whose mandate grew to include matters that had little or nothing to do with the real estate deal. As a result, Congress did not reauthorize the independent counsel statute in 1999, putting the Justice Department back in charge of appointing and supervising investigations into the president. Indeed, the latest revelations involving Trump have come not from special counsel Robert Mueller, who's investigating the Russia connections, but from career prosecutors in New York. There, the FBI raided the home and office of Trump's personal attorney. One tactic the White House has used is to insulate the president's past personal behavior from the presidency itself, setting up an outside team of lawyers to deal with it. At least 27 times over the past two weeks, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and her deputies have referred questions about the controversies to the lawyers. "As you know, due to the complications of the different components of this investigation, I would refer you to the president's outside counsel to address those concerns," Sanders said last week. Davis, the former Clinton attorney who now specializes in crisis management for a number of political clients, said that's probably a smart strategy. But eventually, Trump needs to take some decisive action. "Usually in crisis management, you have a terrible week, and your first rule is to get it all over with," he said. "In the case of Trump, he seems to not care. "The reason why his crisis management strategy is not working is because his team cannot trust that he's able to focus on reality and that he's telling them the truth."

Jarvis Landry Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft. Jarvis Landry was traded to Cleveland and landed a massive extension this offseason. But, it was with the Browns. Although the Browns made a lot of big moves this offseason, their question at quarterback is still unanswered. Paired with Josh Gordon, Landry is going to have to adjust to not being the No. 1 option, and also adjust to not having a good QB. Landry will struggle this season due to simply being a Cleveland Brown. Mark Ingram Last season, Mark Ingram had himself a brilliant campaign in the Big Easy. But, a four-game suspension is coming Ingram's way due to the use of a banned substance. This will hurt Ingram as he will not be seeing snaps for four weeks and Alvin Kamara will be taking the reins. The suspension is going to hurt him in more ways than one. Alex Smith For Alex Smith, he is 34 and entering a completely new system and new division. After being traded to the Redskins, Washington fans have high expectations for their new signal caller. Playing in the NFC East, and with no weapons, Smith is going to see a down year, no question. Kareem Hunt Kareem Hunt was a sensation at the beginning of last season. He broke out in the first six weeks, but once teams figured out how to handle the Chiefs, his production stopped. Now, with a whole offseason to look over tape, Hunt will be figured out by the entire league, and the absence of Alex Smith is definitely going to impact Hunt's performance. Earl Thomas Earl Thomas is essentially the only one left from the Legion of Boom. He's going to have to build new chemistry with the new guys out on the gridiron. Thomas is waiting on a contract extension to come his way, and hasn't reported to offseason workouts yet. That could play a role in the way he produces this season. It's not even fully guaranteed he returns to Seattle next year. Michael Bennett Michael Bennett has landed in the City of Brotherly Love. Last season, Bennett was the only consistent Seahawk on the defense that fell apart. But, being added to that ferocious line in Philly, his production won't be the same. The rotation for the Eagles, mixed with Jim Schwartz's system and the chemistry the line already has, will make it hard for Bennett to make a Pro-Bowl type impact. Donald Penn Donald Penn is entering his 11th season in the NFL. Reaching the Pro Bowl in the last two seasons, the 34 year old was replaced due to a foot injury suffered late last year. Penn is getting up there with age as well, and coming off a recent injury, his production will not be there. The pass rush from L.A. and Denver is ridiculous and playing them twice a year hurts his chances of maintaining a high level enormously. Jimmy Graham The Seattle Seahawks finally found a way to incorporate Jimmy Graham into the offense. The big TE was a stud in the red zone and caught 10 TD passes. Now, Graham finds himself with another new QB. Although it is the almighty Aaron Rodgers, Rodgers hasn't had the best of luck building chemistry with his tight ends in recent seasons. This could hurt Graham in 2018. Delanie Walker Delanie Walker has had an outstanding last three seasons, breaking out as one of the top tight ends in the league. Walker is turning 34 this season, though, and has battled injuries in recent years. Age is starting to catch up to him. Will he take a step back next year? We believe so.

They sit in courtroom pews, almost all of them young black men, waiting their turn before a New York City judge to face a charge that no longer exists in some states: possessing marijuana. They tell of smoking in a housing project hallway, or of being in a car with a friend who was smoking, or of lighting up a Black & Mild cigar the police mistake for a blunt. There are many ways to be arrested on marijuana charges, but one pattern has remained true through years of piecemeal policy changes in New York: The primary targets are black and Hispanic people. Across the city, black people were arrested on low-level marijuana charges at eight times the rate of white, non-Hispanic people over the past three years, The New York Times found. Hispanic people were arrested at five times the rate of white people. In Manhattan, the gap is even starker: Black people there were arrested at 15 times the rate of white people. With crime dropping and the Police Department under pressure to justify the number of low-level arrests it makes, a senior police official recently testified to lawmakers that there was a simple reason for the racial imbalance: More residents in predominately black and Hispanic neighborhoods were calling to complain about marijuana. An analysis by The Times found that fact did not fully explain the racial disparity. Instead, among neighborhoods where people called about marijuana at the same rate, the police almost always made arrests at a higher rate in the area with more black residents, The Times found. In Brooklyn, officers in the precinct covering Canarsie arrested people on marijuana possession charges at a rate more than four times as high as in the precinct that includes Greenpoint, despite residents calling 311, the city’s help line, and 911 to complain about marijuana at the same rate, police data show. The Canarsie precinct is 85 percent black. The Greenpoint precinct is 4 percent black. In Queens, the marijuana arrest rate is more than 10 times as high in the precinct covering Queens Village as it is in precinct that serves Forest Hills. Both got marijuana complaints at the same rate, but the Queens Village precinct is just over half black, while the one covering Forest Hills has a tiny portion of black residents. And in Manhattan, officers in a precinct covering a stretch of western Harlem make marijuana arrests at double the rate of their counterparts in a precinct covering the northern part of the Upper West Side. Both received complaints at the same rate, but the precinct covering western Harlem has double the percentage of black residents as the one that serves the Upper West Side. The Times’s analysis, combined with interviews with defendants facing marijuana charges, lawyers and police officers, paints a picture of uneven enforcement. In some neighborhoods, officers expected by their commanders to be assertive on the streets seize on the smell of marijuana and stop people who are smoking. In others, people smoke in public without fear of an officer passing by or stopping them. Black neighborhoods often contend with more violent crime, and the police often deploy extra officers there, which can lead to residents being exposed more to the police. “More cops in neighborhoods means they’re more likely to encounter somebody smoking,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a Columbia Law School professor who also advised The Times on its marijuana-arrest analysis. But more officers are historically assigned to black neighborhoods than would be expected based on crime rates, according to a study by Professor Fagan. And research has found “there is no good evidence” that marijuana arrests in New York City are associated with reductions in serious crime. Officers who catch someone smoking marijuana are legally able to stop and search that person and check for open warrants. Some defense lawyers and criminologists say those searches and warrant checks are the real impetus for enforcing marijuana laws more heavily in some neighborhoods. The analysis by The Times shows that at least some quality-of-life arrests have more to do with the Police Department’s strategies than with residents who call for help, undermining one of the arguments the police have used to defend mass enforcement of minor offenses in an era of declining serious crime. The analysis examined how marijuana arrests were related to the marijuana-complaint rate, race, violent-crime levels, the poverty rate and homeownership data in each precinct. It also considered the borough where an arrest took place to account for different policing practices across the city. The arrests represent cases in which the most serious charge against someone was low-level marijuana possession. Government surveys have shown that black and white people use marijuana at roughly the same rate. Marijuana smoke wafts down streets all over the city, from the brownstones in upper-middle-class areas of Manhattan to apartment buildings in working-class neighborhoods in other boroughs. Mayor Bill de Blasio said in late 2014 that the police would largely give summonses instead of making arrests for carrying personal marijuana, and reserve arrests mainly for smoking in public. Since then, the police have arrested 17,500 people for marijuana possession on average a year, down from about 26,000 people in 2014, and issued thousands of additional summonses. Overall, arrests have dropped sharply from their recent peak of more than 50,000 during some years under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. About 87 percent of those arrested in recent years have been black or Hispanic, a proportion that has remained roughly the same for decades, according to research led by Harry G. Levine, a sociology professor at Queens College. “What you have is people smoking weed in the same places in any neighborhood in the city,” said Scott Levy, a special counsel to the criminal defense practice at the Bronx Defenders, who has studied marijuana arrests. “It’s just those neighborhoods are patrolled very, very differently. And the people in those neighborhoods are seen very differently by the police.” Responding to The Times’s analysis, the Police Department said pockets of violent crime — and the heavier deployments that result — push up marijuana arrests in some neighborhoods. J. Peter Donald, an assistant commissioner in the department’s public information office, also said more people smoke in public in some neighborhoods than others, driving up arrests. He said 911 and 311 complaints about marijuana had increased in recent years. “N.Y.P.D. police officers enforce the law fairly and evenly, not only where and when they observe infractions but also in response to complaints from 911 and 311 calls, tenant associations, community councils and build-the-block meetings,” Mr. Donald said in a statement. Appearing before the City Council in February, Chief Dermot F. Shea said, “The remaining arrests that we make now are overlaid exactly in the parts of the city where we are receiving complaints from the public.” He asked, “What would you have the police do when people are calling?” Police data do show that neighborhoods with many black and Hispanic residents tend to generate more 311 and 911 complaints about marijuana. Criminal justice reform advocates said that is not because more people are smoking marijuana in those areas. Rather, people in poor neighborhoods call the police because they are less likely to have a responsive landlord, building superintendent or co-op board member who can field their complaints. Rory Lancman, a councilman from Queens who pressed police officials for the marijuana data at the February hearing, said with the police still arresting thousands of people for smoking amid a widespread push for reform, the police “blame it on the communities themselves because they’re the ones calling on us.” The city’s 77 precincts, led by commanders with their own enforcement priorities, show erratic arrest patterns. In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for example, the police made more than twice as many marijuana arrests last year as in 2016, despite receiving roughly the same number of annual complaints. And in a precinct covering a section of northwestern Harlem, arrests dropped to 90 last year from almost 700 a year earlier, even though complaints fell only slightly from one year to the next. Criticism of marijuana arrests provided fuel for Mr. de Blasio’s campaign for mayor in 2013, when he won promising to “reverse the racial impact of low-level marijuana arrests.” The next year the new Brooklyn district attorney, Ken Thompson, defied the Police Department and said his office would stop prosecuting many low-level marijuana arrests. Yet the disparities remain. Black and Hispanic people are the main targets of arrests even in mostly white neighborhoods. In the precinct covering the southern part of the Upper West Side, for example, white residents outnumber their black and Hispanic neighbors by six to one, yet seven out of every 10 people charged with marijuana possession in the last three years are black or Hispanic, state data show. In the precinct covering Park Slope, Brooklyn, where a fifth of the residents are black or Hispanic, three-quarters of those arrested on marijuana charges are black or Hispanic. The question of how to address those disparities has divided Democratic politicians in New York. Cynthia Nixon, who is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for governor against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, has vowed to legalize marijuana and clear people’s arrest records. Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo have been reluctant to support the same measures. In Criminal Court in Brooklyn on a recent Monday, the people waiting in the crowded pews to be arraigned on marijuana charges were almost all black men. In interviews, some declined to give their full names for fear of compounding the consequences of their arrests. They had missed work or school, sometimes losing hundreds of dollars in wages, to show up in court — often twice, because paperwork was not ready the first time. Their cases were all dismissed so long as they stayed out of trouble for a stretch, an indication of what Scott Hechinger, a senior staff lawyer and director of policy at Brooklyn Defender Services, said was the low value the court system places on such cases. Eli, 18, said he had been smoking in a housing project hallway because his parents preferred him to keep it out of the apartment. Greg, 39, said he had not even been smoking himself, but was sitting in his car next to his wife, who he said smokes marijuana to relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. “They do it because that’s the easiest way to arrest you,” Greg said. Rashawn Nicol, 27, said officers found his female friend holding a lit blunt on a third-floor stairwell landing in a Brooklyn housing project. They backed off arresting her once she started crying, he said, but said they needed to bring their supervisor an arrest because he had radioed over a noise complaint. “Somebody’s got to go down for this,” Mr. Nicol said an officer told him. So they let her go, but arrested him. Several people asked why the police hound residents for small-time infractions like marijuana in more violent neighborhoods, but are slow to follow up about serious crimes. “The resources they waste for this are ridiculous,” Mr. Nicol said.

If you needed further proof that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are just like us trendy millennials, let their plans to have food trucks at their upcoming nuptials be a clue. From the moment their engagement was announced we knew these two were going to throw the most epic royal wedding ever. From bucking tradition by having an American bishop give the address at their wedding and Meghan giving a speech to her husband at their reception, the happy couple is truly making their big day their own. And the latest news promises a sweet surprise at the end of the reception. Whispers that the royal couple might serve grilled cheese, tacos, and other American-style bites post-dinner surfaced in February, viaBrides, and they reportedly are planning to do just that. According to an “exclusive reveal” by the Sunday Express, Meghan and Harry’s reception will end with late-night snacks, including “ice cream vans.” Although, this isn’t the first time food trucks have made an appearance at a royal event. The Telegraph reported that the Prince convinced his brother Prince William to have food trucks consisting of bacon and sausage sandwiches at his own wedding to Kate Middleton back in 2011. William and Kate also had an ice cream truck at their wedding as an alternative wedding dessert. That in mind, the decision to have an ice cream truck again is more or less for the same reason, and the frozen dessert will surely pair nicely with the lemon elderflower cake being served at Meghan and Harry’s reception. Kensington Palace tweeted out details about the royal wedding cake, set to incorporate the “bright flavours of spring” and be made by pastry chef Claire Ptak, owner of the London-based business Violet Bakery. The cake will also be covered with buttercream and decorated with fresh flowers. The food trucks and cake are only a small part of the overall wedding day menu, and being that Meghan is a former lifestyle blogger and foodie, I’m sure the rest is totally drool-worthy. Too bad our invites got lost in the mail.

LAS VEGAS — There was not an overabundance of enthusiasm for Senator Dean Heller when the Nevada Republican Men’s Club gathered for its monthly luncheon at the Bali Hai Golf Club here. Karl Johnson, a precinct director for the Clark County Republican Party, wrinkled his nose and raised his eyebrows when asked about Mr. Heller’s prospects for re-election. Paul Workman, a banker who supports Mr. Heller, said conservatives are complaining to him about the Republican senator’s shifting stances on health care. Linda Cannon, a candidate for the Nevada State Assembly, summed up the views of many. “I’m going to hold my nose and vote for him,” she said. Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter For Mr. Heller, 58, an easygoing ranch owner who is in the unenviable position of being the only Senate Republican up for re-election in a state that Hillary Clinton carried, the “hold your nose” vote may be critical this fall. He is still trying to recover from last year’s health care debacle, when he enraged conservatives by voting against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act — only to anger moderates and Democrats when he turned around and voted for a narrower version of the repeal. Democrats deride that awkward reversal as a flip-flop, one of many, including an about-face on immigration. The senator’s backers say he was simply making thoughtful decisions. Regardless, it hangs over Mr. Heller, who at the moment is something like a man without a country. He is struggling to mend fences with backers of President Trump, who have not forgotten that in 2016 he declared himself “vehemently opposed” to Mr. Trump as a candidate. They are suspicious of his recent embrace of the president. But his appeal will have to extend well beyond Mr. Trump’s supporters in a state where polls show Mr. Trump’s popularity near or below 40 percent. © John Locher/Associated Press Senator Dean Heller of Nevada at a picnic for veterans in Las Vegas last month. He is the only Republican senator running for re-election this year in a state Hillary Clinton won in 2016. In a private talk to the Republican Men’s Club here last month, Mr. Heller said he was counting on low Democratic turnout to win, according to a leaked audiotape obtained by The Las Vegas Review-Journal. Noting that Democrats outnumber Republicans by fewer than 60,000 registered voters, he said, “If we can get that number below 50,000, I can’t lose.” And his seat is one both sides desperately need. With Democrats defending 10 Senate seats in states Mr. Trump won, Mr. Heller’s is that rare opportunity to mitigate potential losses. For Republicans clinging to a 51-to-49 Senate majority, Nevada is one of only a handful of states where they are on defense — and in a Democratic sweep, it could be one of the seats that costs them control. While the president gave him a big boost recently, by nudging Danny Tarkanian, a conservative businessman and perennial candidate, out of the Republican primary, people in both parties say Mr. Heller remains the most vulnerable Republican in the Senate. “He’s not hard-enough red meat for the Republicans, not moderate enough to satisfy the nonpartisan folks,” said David Damore, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who is following the race. But Mr. Heller’s chief strategist, Mike Slanker, said that in a swing state like Nevada, Mr. Heller — who has never lost a race in his nearly 30 years in politics — is exactly where he should be. He was recently ranked No. 5 on a list of the most bipartisan senators, developed by the Lugar Center and Georgetown University. “People may knock him, but he’s a winner,” Mr. Slanker said, “and he’s a winner because voters like him.” Mr. Heller declined to be interviewed for this article. During a quick hallway conversation in the Capitol in Washington, he brushed off questions and, perhaps only half-jokingly, urged a reporter not to write about his race. “Don’t do it, don’t do it, it wouldn’t be worth it,” he said with a smile. In Nevada, he pitches himself to voters as the candidate with experience who can work in a bipartisan way, and he spotlights his work on behalf of veterans, an important constituency in Nevada, and on the recent tax overhaul. “It’s still Heller’s race to lose,” said Sig Rogich, a longtime Republican strategist here. Analysts expect the race against his expected Democratic opponent, Representative Jacky Rosen, to get nasty. In a preview of what is to come, the Heller campaign has released a digital advertisement attacking Ms. Rosen over her opposition to the tax bill. His allies are portraying her as a neophyte with a thin résumé who can’t deliver for the state. Ms. Rosen, 60, casts herself as a fresh face and a woman of the people who worked her way through college as a waitress — and worked her way up as a computer programmer when few women were in the field. In a brief interview, she suggested she would make an issue of Mr. Heller’s embrace of Mr. Trump. “Dean Heller last year voted 96 percent of the time with Donald Trump, and he’s never voted against a Trump nominee,” Ms. Rosen said. “I’m always going to stand up for Nevada first.” Complicating the electoral math for Mr. Heller will be an unusual feature of Nevada elections: Voters have the option of casting a ballot for “none of these candidates” — a wild card that could tip the race in Ms. Rosen’s favor. In 2016, Representative Joe Heck, a Republican who like Mr. Heller was openly critical of Mr. Trump, lost a Senate race to a Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto, by fewer than three percentage points. Nearly 4 percent of voters cast their ballots for no one. “The people in Nevada who are solid Trump supporters aren’t buying into this idea that now he’s suddenly becoming a Trump supporter,” said Chuck Muth, a conservative blogger here. “They’ve become Never Hellers. And there’s going to be a lot of Trump supporters who will not vote for Dean Heller. They’ll vote for none of the above.” That said, Republicans are desperate to keep their seat in Nevada. Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative talk show host who has been one of Mr. Heller’s staunchest critics, now says he is “all in” for the senator. “He’s come a long way,” Mr. Root said. “Is it a miraculous religious conversion or is it just convenience to get elected again? I’m a skeptical guy. We’ll see after the election.” Mr. Heller, a former Nevada secretary of state, cuts a low-key figure in the Senate. He is media shy; in Washington, he typically takes a back stairway to reach the chamber during votes, to avoid the usual scrum of reporters. Here in Nevada, journalists say he often ducks their questions. “If you could do a specific Google search to find ‘Heller was not available,’ there would be a lot of results,” said Jon Ralston, the editor of The Nevada Independent. Friends say the senator, an amateur racecar driver who likes to spend weekends on his ranch in northern Nevada, simply does not seek the limelight. “He’s not a glitzy guy in any way. It’s just not his nature,” Mr. Rogich said. Appointed by Gov. Brian Sandoval in 2011 to fill a seat left vacant by the departure of John Ensign, Mr. Heller was elected in his own right, by a thin one-point margin, in 2012. The following year, he broke with many in his party to vote in favor of an immigration law overhaul — a vote that pleased Nevada’s growing Hispanic population. But this year, he sided with the president in backing a plan that would sharply limit legal immigration, a move that again exposed him to accusations of flip-flopping. On health care, the senator voted against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act at the urging of Mr. Sandoval, who has used the law to expand Medicaid in Nevada. The narrower version, which Mr. Heller backed, left the Medicaid expansion intact. Pete Ernaut, a longtime friend and adviser to Mr. Heller, summed up the situation: “There was no perfect answer. It wouldn’t have mattered what he did on that. Somebody would have picked it apart.”

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of Palestinian protesters converged along the border with Israel on Monday, drawing Israeli fire that killed at least 16 people in the bloodiest day of weeks of demonstrations and casting a cloud over Israel’s festive inauguration of the new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem. With their anger fueled by the embassy opening, protesters set tires on fire, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air at several spots along the border, while the Israeli military said protesters assaulted the border fence. By midafternoon, at least 16 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed while over 500 were wounded by Israeli fire, Palestinian health officials said. In the West Bank, several thousand people gathered in the center of Ramallah, while hundreds marched to the Qalandiya crossing on the outskirts of Jerusalem, where protesters threw stones at Israeli troops. The protest in Gaza was to be the biggest yet in a weekslong campaign against a decade-old blockade of the territory. The march was also directed at the inauguration of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem later Monday. The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv, a key campaign promise of President Donald Trump, has infuriated the Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital. “A great day for Israel,” Trump tweeted early Monday. Monday marked the biggest showdown in recent weeks between Israel’s military and Gaza’s Hamas rulers along the volatile border. It is the culmination of a campaign, led by the Islamic militant Hamas and fueled by despair among Gaza’s 2 million people, to break the decade-old border blockade of the territory by Israel and Egypt. Since weekly border marches began in late March, 58 Palestinian protesters have been killed and more than 2,300 wounded by Israeli army fire. Hamas leaders have suggested a border breach is possible Monday, while Israel has warned it would prevent protesters from breaking through the barrier at any cost. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army had bolstered its front-line forces along the border, but also set up additional “layers” of security in and around neighboring communities to defend Israeli civilians in case of a mass breach. He said there already had been several “significant attempts” to break through the fence. “Even if the fence is breached, we will be able to protect Israeli civilians from attempts to massacre or kidnap or kill them,” he said. The timing of Monday’s events was deeply symbolic, both to Israel and the Palestinians. The U.S. said it chose the date to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment. But it also marks the anniversary of what Palestinians call their “nakba,” or catastrophe, a reference to the uprooting of hundreds of thousands who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s independence. A majority of Gaza’s 2 million people are descendants of refugees, and the protests have been billed as the “Great March of Return” to long-lost homes in what is now Israel. In one of the border areas east of Gaza City, Mohammed Hamami, a 40-year-old civil servant, joined a crowd of hundreds of protesters, along with his mother and five children. “Today we are here to send a message to Israel and its allies that we will never give up on our land,” he said. “We will cross the border and impose new realities like the reality Trump imposed in Jerusalem,” he added, referring to President Donald Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and then move the U.S. Embassy there. Some protesters moved to within about 150 meters (yards) of the border fence. A reporter saw two men who tried to advance further being shot in the legs by Israeli troops. Clouds of black smoke from burning tires rose into the air. Earlier Monday, Israeli drones dropping incendiary material had pre-emptively set ablaze some of the tires collected in advance by activists. Protesters have used the thick smoke as cover against Israeli snipers perched on high sand berms on the other side of the border. The army accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover to plan or carry out attacks. Leaflets dropped over Gaza by army jets warned that those approaching the border “jeopardize” their lives. The warning said the army is “prepared to face all scenarios and will act against every attempt to damage the security fence or harm IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians.” In Jerusalem, top Trump administration officials attended events linked to the inauguration of the embassy later Monday. Speaking at a celebration hosted by the Orthodox Union, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that it was a U.S. “national security priority” to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump’s decision to go forward with a campaign promise to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was welcomed by Israel and condemned by the Palestinians. Previous presidents had signed a waiver postponing the move, citing national security. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community. The Palestinians seek the city’s eastern half as the capital of a future state. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut ties with the Trump administration and declared it unfit to remain in its role as the sole mediator in peace talks. Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide, blasted the Trump administration Monday, saying Trump had violated a promise to hold off on moving the embassy to give peace talks a chance and that his administration is “based on lies.” Erekat said the Trump administration has “become part of the problem, not part of the solution.” Administration officials have dismissed Palestinian criticism, portraying the embassy opening as an essential step toward an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. However, they have not said how they will move forward without the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s “bold decision” in upending decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “It’s the right thing to do,” a smiling Netanyahu told the jubilant crowd at a reception in Jerusalem late Sunday. Although Trump has said his declaration does not set the final borders of the city, his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has been perceived by both Israel and the Palestinians as taking Israel’s side in the most sensitive issue in their conflict. Only two countries, Guatemala and Paraguay, have said they will follow suit. Most of the world maintains embassies in Tel Aviv, saying the Jerusalem issue must first be resolved. In a reflection of the deep sensitivities, dozens of countries — including Britain, France and Germany — skipped a celebration Sunday night at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Monday’s opening will be attended by Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who both serve as White House advisers. Kushner leads the Trump Mideast team.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Tiger Woods left TPC Sawgrass on Sunday night coming off his lowest-scoring weekend in six years, and he knew one thing. "I'm not that far off from winning golf tournaments," Woods said. Considering Woods was at one point T-2 on the back nine in the final round of a tournament boasting the strongest field of the year, it's hard to argue otherwise. Woods made the cut on the number and was 1 under going into Round 3 of The Players Championship. He finished T-11 after shooting 11-under 277 for the week - seven shots behind runaway winner Webb Simpson - and closed with rounds of 65 and 69. The 134 weekend total was Woods' lowest since the 2012 Deutsche Bank Championship and led to his fifth top-25 finish in eight starts this season. This was perhaps his most promising week yet. He finished runner-up at the Valspar Championship on the difficult Copperhead Course, but that was against a weaker field, and Woods said all week the difficult course conditions played to his strengths. He likes it when par is a good score. Rally after rough start at TPC Sawgrass Even par was good for a one-way ticket home Friday night at TPC Sawgrass, and Woods fought hard to stick around at 1 under. Then he made birdies in droves and proved he can compete in a shootout, too. He started the weekend 14 shots behind 36-hole leader Simpson and got to within four of him after a birdie at No. 12 Sunday. Woods moved up to eighth overall this season in strokes gained: total, a good indicator of a player's overall game and consistency relative to the rest of the Tour. "There's no way I would have predicted I would be at this point at the beginning of the year," Woods said. No one did, really, because 42-year-old athletes don't improve with age and he fell so hard and fast after the 2013 Player of the Year campaign. The torch was passed, in many ways, to Jordan Spieth, who at the 2017 British Open became just the second player in history alongside Jack Nicklaus to win three of the four major championships before age 24. Then Woods had a back fusion, started this comeback and found himself playing with Spieth in the fifth-to-last pairing Sunday. Woods makes Spieth an understudy Put bluntly, he emasculated Spieth at times throughout the round. Woods was five shots better on the day, he drove it 54 yards past him on the par-4 14th hole and placed Spieth in the unfamiliar second-fiddle role. After Woods made birdie at the par-3 third hole, fans were sprinting to the fourth tee box. Spieth and Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy are huge draws, but there is only one man in golf who can create track meets outside the ropes. "His game, if I compare it to other guys that are winning golf tournaments that I'm playing with day-do-day, it's right up there," Spieth said. The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village likely will be Woods' next stop after two weeks off. He's won there five times, including three in a row from 1999-2001 and most recently in 2012. Then it's on to Shinnecock, where Woods finished T-17 in 2004 in his only prior U.S. Open appearance there as a professional. His chances at the second major of the year look increasingly strong after his sudden weekend charge just four months into a comeback few took seriously at the onset. "I think if you would have asked me on Friday, I would have said, 'Uhhh, so-so,' " Woods' caddie Joe LaCava said. "But after these last two days, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but those are good signs. … If he can continue like this he'll certainly be a factor at Shinnecock."

Vermont lawmakers have passed a bill that will require all single-user bathrooms in public buildings or places of public accommodation to be marked as gender-neutral. Gov. Phil Scott signed H.333 on Friday. It was introduced in the Vermont General Assembly in February 2017. The bill passed with a large majority in the House in April 2017, and then took a year to reach the Senate, where it passed unanimously. "Two years ago, when I was running for governor, I was asked in a debate whether I would support gender-neutral bathrooms in public places or not," Scott, a Republican, said at the bill-signing ceremony at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier. "I responded with a one-word answer, a simple yes. Because to me it was just that simple. Why wouldn't we do that? And now two years later I am honored to be able to sign that legislation into law today." According to the bill, "a single-user toilet may be identified by a sign, provided that the sign marks the facility as a restroom and does not indicate any specific gender." Scott said, "This is especially important for kids in school who face anxiety and bullying over something as simple as using the restroom. Treating others in this way is not who we are as Vermonters, and I hope the signing of this bill will send a powerful message that that's not the way we act. "Vermont has a well-earned reputation for embracing equality and being inclusive," he added. In February 2017, the Trump administration withdrew Obama-era protections for transgender students in public schools that let them use bathrooms and facilities corresponding with their gender identity. In May 2016, the departments of Education and Justice had issued joint guidance directing schools to let transgender students use facilities that corresponded with their gender identity. The "Dear Colleague" letter, addressed to school districts and colleges that receive federal funding, was based on the Obama administration's interpretation of Title IX, the federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools, to include gender identity. Reaction was swift and divisive, culminating in the Trump administration's first "Dear Colleague" letter rescinding the guidance without offering a replacement. Issued jointly by the departments of Education and Justice, the letter did not take a position on the underlying question of whether Title IX protects gender identity. The departments withdrew the guidance "in order to further and more completely consider the legal issues involved," the letter said. State Rep. Bill Lippert Jr., one of the co-sponsors of the Vermont bill, said, "In the face of the kind of hysteria that has been generated around transgender restrooms in other states, this makes commons sense. Because it really makes a difference for transgender people who want to use a bathroom where they feel safe. It is satisfying to take the next step forward." In a statement, Vermont House Speaker Mitzi Johnson said, "Too many states are passing 'bathroom bills' that move in the wrong direction, discriminating against LGBTQIA individuals and forcing schoolchildren to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender at birth, not their chosen gender identity. In a time where LBGTQIA rights are being rolled back on the federal level, when the Trump administration isn't protecting children, it is our duty to step in." The law will go into effect on July 1. It does not apply to bathrooms with more than one toilet. CNN's Emanuella Grinberg contributed to this report.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He plans to fly out Tuesday for talks with the U.S., two people familiar with the situation said, signaling progress on trade tensions after President Donald Trump offered a lifeline to beleaguered telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp. Liu, who is President Xi Jinping’s top aide for economic matters, will be accompanied by Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, along with deputy ministers from the commerce, finance and foreign affairs ministries, as well as the central bank, one of the people said. Both asked not to be identified because the schedule isn’t public. Trump said in a Sunday morning tweet that he and Xi are working together to give ZTE “a way to get back into business, fast.” His administration had cut off the massive Chinese company from its U.S. suppliers for violating the terms of a 2017 sanctions settlement related to trading with Iran and North Korea, then lying about it. Trump in Reversal Says U.S. to Help China’s ZTE Stay Afloat The move amounted to a drastic shift in tone for Trump, who has sought to use any leverage possible in negotiations aimed at lowering the U.S. trade deficit with China. In a major reversal for a president who has accused China many times of stealing U.S. jobs, Trump said the “Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” because “too many jobs in China lost.” It wasn’t immediately clear if Trump received anything in return. Still, people familiar with the matter said Monday that Chinese regulators have restarted their review of Qualcomm Inc.’s application to acquire NXP Semiconductors NV after having shelved the work earlier in reaction to growing trade tensions with the U.S. China Is Said to Restart Review of Qualcomm’s Proposed NXP Deal The approval, if it comes, would mark another step back from a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Qualcomm declined to comment. China’s commerce ministry didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment. The State Council Information Office didn’t respond to faxed questions.

Percy Ronald Chess left home for good 20 years ago and made his way across America. He had served in the Air Force in the early 1970s, then rejoined relatives in Miami. But he struggled to hold a job, and his family believes he suffered from mental illness. At first he’d wander for weeks or months. But one day he didn’t come back. Over the years, Chess’s relatives scoured the Internet, tracking his travels through his arrest record of mostly petty crimes of loitering, prowling, stealing and receiving stolen property. They found signs he’d been in Florida, Alabama, Washington, Tennessee. Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia. They think Chess hitchhiked and earned a few dollars fixing cars and broken machines — skills he learned as a child. They tried to find him, to help him, but they were never able to catch up. His story came to a sad end on March 31, when a tourist in a paddle boat found his body floating in the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. It took authorities two weeks to find his family. Chess was 65. D.C. police do not suspect foul play; his cause of death is pending. Chess’s family plans to bury him Tuesday at Georgia National Cemetery for veterans, outside Atlanta, where several of his relatives now live. “In different times and different circumstances, he could have had a really great life,” said his niece, Margaret Smith-Williams, 33, who lives in Miami and last saw her uncle when she was 13. “You don’t want your loved ones to pass away alone.” An obituary written by his family notes that Chess was received “with much excitement and great joy” when he was born in Miami on Aug. 21, 1952. Chess’s sudden death, his obituary says, “is most disquieting and without answers.” The family did not try to hide Chess’s troubles. They wrote that the man who had once coveted family and church had returned from military service a recluse, disappearing for long spells even as his parents kept a room for him. Not much is known about his military service, but records indicate he was never deployed overseas. “Percy lived his life out in the open,” the obituary says, “sometimes alone and sometimes sleeping in the rough terrors and fierce weather of the night. . . .We can only speculate what life may have been for Percy from day-to-day.” Relatives said they prefer to recall Chess as a youth — a boy who looked after his younger sister and an enterprising teen who would take the toaster apart and put it back together again. He read books on engineering, fixed his neighbor’s cars. Chess also set out to “master the game that matched his name,” said Smith-Williams, his niece. He spent hours studying strategy plotting moves far ahead in the game. His family said he used “his quick wit and charming savvy” to draw competitors into what he called “his game.” His family described him as a “cool dresser” who is “remembered for having ‘swag’ even before any of us knew what ‘swag’ meant.” Chess enlisted in the Air Force in May 1971 at the age of 19 after he had graduated from high school in Miami. What happened during those years remains a mystery to his family. From his discharge notice, it appears Chess never left the United States, although he served during the final years of the Vietnam War. The one-page form the Air Force provided his family after his death lists his service time as two years, eight months and 18 days, none overseas. It notes that Chess served in an engineering division as a tractor operator. He was honorably discharged in February 1974 from McChord Air Force Base, now part of Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Wash. He went back to his family home in Miami, but seemed different. Relatives said he appeared to be suffering from mental illness, although they can’t recall a diagnosis. “He was very secluded,” said one of his sisters, Elouise Chess Williams, who lives in Atlanta. “It was as if he was in a totally different world.” He retreated to his room for dinner, eating whatever was served as long as it came with ketchup. He never married, and had no children. Over the next 20 years, he often left for weeks, sometimes months, but would return, sometimes with bruises from being beaten or bitten by dogs. He hitchhiked, carrying a mat to sleep on and a baseball bat. He went with Williams when she moved to South Carolina. He did odd jobs but couldn’t keep them. His father, retired from a gas company, started a yard service that could have meant steady work for Chess. But by then Chess was drinking and refusing to take his medication. He emerged from his room only at night. He walked away from programs his family had enrolled him in to help. His sister said she paid $500 to put him in a mental health facility but he didn’t stay long. “He would come out and say we were the ones who were crazy, he wasn’t,” Williams said. One day 20 years ago, Chess left. In the years that followed, if a family member lived close to a police station or a courthouse where they thought he might be, they’d speed over in hopes of finding him. They never did. One cousin, learning he had just been released from a jail in Jacksonville, Fla., drove around the city all night, but with no luck. One of Chess’s brothers is convinced he saw Chess walking along a highway in Atlanta, but by the time he reached the next exit and turned around, the man was gone. In mid-April, one of Chess’s brothers in Florida got a call from the police in Fort Lauderdale, who had been contacted by the police in the District. They had located Percy Chess. Though not an unexpected ending, it was still tragic. “We’re talking over 40 years of him coming and going, and us really wondering if he’s dead or alive,” said his sister, Williams. “In one way it’s a relief. But it’s sad because he was so much a part of us.”

A lot of people are worried that voice assistants like Amazon (AMZN)'s Alexa, Apple (AAPL)'s Siri or the Google (GOOGL) Assistant are spying on us at home. All three companies have said the assistants are not listening all the time, but only listen for a wake word — or perhaps hidden commands humans can't hear. So I asked all three voice assistants if they're spying on us, just for kicks. Here's what each one said. "Hey Alexa, are you spying on me?" Here's what Amazon Alexa said: "I only send audio back to Amazon when you activate me. For more information, and to view Amazon's privacy notice, visit the help section of your Alexa app or alexa.amazon.com." "Ok Google, are you spying on me?" Here's what Google Assistant said: "Your security comes first in everything Google does. It's important Google keeps your data private and safe and puts you in control. You can learn more at privacy.google.com." "Hey Siri, are you spying on me?" Here's what Siri said: "Nope." Looks like there's no room for joking here. It's good Amazon and Google direct users to their privacy pages. Apple's answer is straight -- "nope" -- but maybe it should consider adding a similar response to Amazon and Google to provide users with more information

Today in very cool celebrity news, we all get one more reason to crush on actor Benedict Cumberbatch. The ‘Batch just revealed that from now on, he will reject roles if his female co-stars don’t receive equal pay. It’s a pretty awesome move that, we hope, encourages other men to do the same thing. During a recent interview with Radio Times, the Avengers: Infinity War actor explained why from now on, he’ll only do projects where women are paid equally. “It’s about implementation. Equal pay and a place at the table are the central tenets of feminism. Look at your quotas. Ask what women are being paid, and say: ‘If she’s not paid the same as the men, I’m not doing it.'” Cumberbatch continued: “I’m proud that [my friend and partner] Adamand I are the only men in our production company; our next project is a female story with a female lens about motherhood, in a time of environmental disaster. If it’s centered around my name, to get investors, then we can use that attention for a raft of female projects. Half the audience is female. And, in terms of diversity, Black Panther is now the third most successful film of all time.” The wage gap is just one inequality issue that women are fighting in Hollywood. In 2016, women working full time in the United States were paid just 80% of what men were paid. That’s a wage gap of 20%. The gap has narrowed since the ’70s, but we still have a long way to go. According to AAUW, “if the change continues at the slower rate seen since 2001, women will not reach pay equity with men until 2119.” That isn’t acceptable, and women aren’t the only ones who need to participate in the fight. Men do too, which is why we’re so happy to see Benedict Cumberbatch take this stand. Now we just need more men to step up and do the same.

You may have noticed, gas prices are on the rise and hitting levels not seen in more than three years. Gas prices nationwide are up a nickel in just the last week. That's 20 cents in the last month, according to AAA. Drivers fueling up in New Jersey are paying just under $3 for a gallon of regular unleaded. "It was $54.16 for 18 gallons, and I just paid $40 for 13 gallons," Damian Woo told CBS News. In California and Hawaii, gas prices are approaching $3.70 a gallon, nearly a dollar higher than the national average. "There are 10 states that are at $3 a gallon or above," AAA's Robert Sinclair said "We're seeing extremely high demand for gasoline," Sinclair said. "With the economy moving along as strongly as it is, there's a lot more work, and with work, comes a lot more transportation." Sinclair says the steady climb is also due to a diminishing supply of crude oil. "The price of gasoline is going up and we're now at what is considered the pain point for many drivers," Sinclair said. © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. But the drivers we spoke with said what they pay at the pump is simply part of the price of hitting the road. "Can you afford the increase in gas prices?" CBS News asked. "I can afford it, yeah, but I don't like it," Woo said. "You need to put gas you need to go places so you need to pay," Tania Ortega said. "I hate it, but what are we gonna do?" Now is the busiest driving season and until September, one analyst said, Americans will pay an extra $200 dollars on gas compared to last year. But prices at the pump are still well-below the all-time high of $4.11 a gallon in 2008.

Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney lashed out at the decision to have a controversial evangelical leader give a blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem Monday, calling him a "religious bigot." The Senate candidate from Utah criticized the inclusion of the Rev. Robert Jeffress — the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas who is also an an adviser to President Donald Trump. The president recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year. "Robert Jeffress says, 'You can't be saved by being a Jew,' and 'Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell,'" Romney wrote in a tweet. "He's said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem." Romney is Mormon. Jeffress denied he was a bigot, but added that he believed Mormonism was "wrong," and said the Southern Baptist Convention had designated it a "cult." "Mormonism has never been considered a part of historic Christianity. People may disagree with that view, but it's not a view unique to me," he said in an interview with NBC News. Along with many other evangelical so-called Christian Zionists, Jeffress is a strong supporter of Israel and the decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — a move condemned by Palestinians and many foreign governments. Jeffress bases his beliefs and his general opposition to a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians on his strict interpretation of the Bible. "The Bible says this land belongs to the Jewish people — period," he told NBC News in a separate interview in February. "God has pronounced judgment after judgment in the Old Testament to those who would 'divide the land,' end quote, and hand it over to non-Jews." While a staunch ally of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jeffress has been criticized for preaching that all non-Christians, including people who are Jewish, will not go to heaven. "The truth everyone headed to hell has rejected is that Jesus Christ is the only means by which a person may be saved,"Jeffress said in a Feb. 6, 2017, video posted on his church's website. "Jesus could not have been more clear [when] he said, 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." Jeffress has also been open about his beliefs on Islam. "Is Islam just another way to worship God? Let me say this without any hesitation: Islam is a false religion that is based on a false book that was written by a false prophet," he said on Oct. 9, according to his church's website. "If you sincerely follow the tenets of Islam, then you will end up in hell when you die." He has also espoused a conservative line on homosexuality, saying the "New Testament also prohibits homosexual marriage." Jeffress added: "By upholding God's pattern for sexuality — a man and a woman in a marriage relationship — Jesus automatically condemned any deviation from that pattern." Jeffress isn't the only conservative evangelical leader to be on hand for Monday's embassy ceremony, which will include around 800 guests. The Rev. John Hagee, the founder of influential evangelical Christians United for Israel and a pastor from San Antonio, was also scheduled to deliver a closing blessing at the ceremony. American evangelicals surged onto the political scene in 1980 by helping to elect President Ronald Reagan. In 2016, around 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. As evangelicals grew more prominent domestically, their ties to the Israeli political establishment strengthened. Hagee has explicitly linked the establishment of the state of Israel to biblical prophecy and the second coming of Jesus. "The rebirth of Israel as a nation was an unmistakable milestone on the prophetic timeline leading to the return of Christ," he wrote in his book, "In Defense of Israel." Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have been embraced by Christian Zionists who believe the establishment of the state of Israel is proof of God keeping his promises and a step toward the second coming of Christ. Many European nations who oppose Trump's decision to move the embassy are expected to skip related events on Monday.

As James Harden looked ahead to the game and series that had he been so inclined he could have anticipated for at least the past six months, he was sure of two things. The Golden State Warriors, NBA champions in two of the past three seasons and a minute away from three straight titles, would be a greater challenge than the Rockets have faced. And, Harden was as certain, the Rockets would be ready for it. "Obviously, the Warriors, who have been here a few years in a row, they're a whole different beast," Harden said on Sunday, a day before the Rockets will host Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals in Toyota Center. "Utah was a defensive beast and they got after you, they were aggressive. Golden State can get hot at any moment. Defensively, they're active. They do a really good job of shot-blocking. "Whenever we do our moves and everything, we have to be strong and aggressive." He could have gone on, but the more Harden praised the qualities that made the Warriors champions, the more he was willing to share his season-long conviction that for the Rockets, "This is the year." "We're prepared," Harden said. "We've been preparing for this the entire season. They've been here, but we're hungry. We got a lot of guys individually that have been on their own teams, whether it's Chris (Paul) or Trevor (Ariza) or Eric (Gordon), who are hungry. This is the perfect opportunity for it. We've been saying it all year. "In order to be the best you have to beat the best. We know what's at stake. We know what's in front of us. We're ready for it. We just have to go out there, accept the challenge and do what we've been doing all year. No different." The Rockets have not lost four games in a stretch of seven all season, other than in their five-game losing streak in December when Paul, Luc Mbah a Moute and Clint Capela were out through most of that stretch. When Paul, Harden and Capela all play, the Rockets have gone 50-5, including their 4-1 runs through each of the playoffs' first two rounds. The Warriors, however, have moved far past the injuries that marked their regular-season slide to the second-best record. To advance, the Rockets would have to send them to more playoff losses in seven games than the Warriors have had in their six postseason series over the past two seasons. "We did win 65 (games,)" Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni said. "They're the ones that always win homecourt advantage. Hopefully, we gained a little ground. These guys are champions for a reason. They've shown on the big stage that they can perform at a very, very, very high level, as good as anybody ever. We haven't shown that yet. "That's the doubt in most people's mind. Until you show it, they don't know. We got to beat them and show them we can do it." D'Antoni, however, said he has no doubt that the Rockets can do what they have never done together before, even against the proven champions, for one good reason. "I have the good pleasure to watch them 82 games and be in the locker room," D'Antoni said. "I know the intensity of what they want to get accomplished. I'm a believer."

The years ahead should be filled with a handful of new sports cars and supercars, some pushing upwards of 1,000 horsepower (745 kilowatts) and $1 million; most of them were featured in our previous "25 Cars Worth Waiting For." But let us not forget the high-volume vehicles that make those six- and seven-figure supercars possible in the first place: trucks and SUVs. By 2022, more than 20 new trucks and SUVs will be on the market. Most of these high-riders will be updated significantly from the models they replace, or will be new models entirely. Offerings from Jeep, Land Rover, and Lamborghini are obviously already on everyone’s radar, while outliers like Tesla, Audi, and Rolls-Royce are poised to pique some interest.

DURHAM, Pa. — The other day, spring exploding with the 18,000 flowering plantings on his 200-acre property of rolling hills and classic stone buildings, Matt Millen took the controls of his John Deere backhoe and began moving 12 huge logs. One after the other, chaining them up, pulling them off the pile, and moving them to where most of this wood is going to be part of the construction of a storage building on the Millen estate here in the northeast corner of the state he loves. Millen finished after maybe an hour. He climbed slowly off the huge machine, and gave his Rottweilers, Ranger and Bench, a couple of scratches around the ears. This is a sick man? Take a closer look. Millen, 60, has that pale-faced look you sometimes see in people deep into chemotherapy. The four-time Super Bowl-winning linebacker was noted for playing with intelligent abandon for the Raiders, Niners and Washington, but he doesn’t do much with abandon these days. He just had his weekly chemo treatment the previous day, and he’s surprised he’s feeling up to doing as much as he’s done on one of the first warm mornings of the year here. Millen’s down around 50 pounds in the past year, chasing a cure for a disease called amyloidosis that is particularly evil: He needs debilitating chemotherapy now to fight amyloid, a rogue protein that attacks organs (his heart, in this case). Because the amyloid is attacking his heart, he’ll eventually need a heart transplant to have a chance to live many more years. “We’re in the fourth quarter of a big football game,” Millen said. “We’re down 13. Playing defense. It’s getting late.” Millen thought, and he laughed. He does a lot of laughing. He is not impressed with his own mortality, nor does he have the slightest problem discussing it. “We need a stop,” he said. “We need a big stop.” Millen has had one of the most interesting football lives of our time. A linebacker both vicious and impossible to trick, he’s the only player in history to win a Super Bowl in four cities: Oakland and Los Angeles (with the itinerant Raiders), and then San Francisco and Washington. Then he became Son of John Madden on TV, destined, it seemed, to replace Madden as the brainiac BOOM-BAM analyst of the people. But he got an offer to become president and GM of the woebegone Lions in 2001 that he couldn’t refuse. Maybe he should have. Millen lasted seven years and four games, and was fired in the midst of Detroit’s 0-16 season in 2008. Then he went back to TV. Now he does NFL games for FOX and college games for the Big Ten Network. And still will in 2018, if his health holds through the chemo. Many head-scratching things about this incurable malady plaguing Millen. This might be the topper: It took doctors almost as long as his ill-fated NFL executive career lasted to find out he had amyloidosis. He traveled to New York, to Los Angeles, to Rochester, Minn., to Philadelphia, to Chicago, with multiple doctors seen in a couple of those cities, before finally finding out this truth from a doctor in Jacksonville a year ago: “My friend, I know what you’ve got, and you’re not going to like it.” The long, strange trip to diagnosis (amyloidosis fools doctors and clinicians because it mimics other diseases) started one day in 2011 on this property, as Millen was walking up the steep mini-mountain on the western edge of the property with his wife Pat. “We’d walk three miles, and we'd attack that big hill. And of course Pat would just bury me all the time,” Millen recalled. “And I thought no big deal, because she's little and she's in great shape. Sometimes I'd catch up to her and we'd run at the end and I'd beat her. And then, I couldn't. I'd start walking, and I was like, What is going on? I'd start getting this pressure like right at the base of my chest. Then I couldn’t make it up to the top. Then I couldn't even get halfway up. That lasts about a year, year and a half, and I figure I better go see a doctor.” The first doctor visit was 2012. Multiple heart tests followed, and tests for severe acid reflux, and tests for lyme disease. Nothing. He passed a kidney stone in 2015, got a non-malignant tumor removed from his chest a year later, and still nothing. Millen was sick of feeling like crap. One day a couple of years ago, he decided that since the doctors kept telling him his heart was great and they couldn’t find anything else wrong, he’d take out the walk-behind 60-inch mower he used to mow the five acres he kept in groundskeeper’s condition and just attack his property. The lawn was a football game—four quarters, and he’d mow one sector, one quarter, at a time. So he was on the first series of the first quarter, in essence, and here came the issue again. “So I'm walking it, and I can't go 100 yards and it’s starting to bother me. But armed with the knowledge that there's nothing wrong, I get to this little hill, and I'm like I'm running up this hill. If I fall over dead, tough. This thing was really pissing me off. So I ran up the hill, it’s just killing me, and I was like, I'm done. I've got to find a doctor.” More doctors. Liver, kidney exams. Nothing. Finally, a team physician for the Eagles, a sleuth named Gary Dorshimer, sent him to the Mayo Clinic. This time, he’d stay till they found out what it was. Millen went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, to a doctor named Gary Lee. “So this is about a year ago,” Millen said, now inside his pristinely maintained home, on an antique couch. “I walked into his office, we sat down and we talked for about 15 to 20 minutes, and that’s when he tells me he knows what I got and I’m not gonna like it. I’m like, How do you know that? You didn’t even do a freakin’ test on me. He says, ‘I’ve been studying this disease for quite some time, amyloidosis. I'm looking at your carotid artery right now, it’s pronounced. I'm looking at the muscles in your head, and they’re deteriorated. Where there should be muscles around your eyes, you're getting more puffiness instead of muscle mass.’ “And I'm like, ‘Way to read your keys man! That's a good linebacker!’” Lee’s testing proved that this disastrous protein, amyloid, was being produced in Millen’s bone marrow and was being deposited in the area around his heart. The amyloid is produced in the bone marrow and in Millen’s case, has traveled to his heart walls, making the heart less elastic and unable to perform the necessary pumping for healthy heart function. Treatments including chemotherapy could manage Millen’s symptoms but not cure the disease. Eventually, he’ll need the heart transplant. “It’s just a matter of when,” Millen said. “And when the window opens for me, I may only have like five months to get it done.” I said: “Are you amazed that a person as healthy as you’ve been your whole life can be told you need a heart transplant?” “It’s unbelievable!” he said. “Here’s what I kept on saying—I’d be working out or I’d be cutting the grass, or I’d be doing something and I would have to stop. I could walk 50 feet and I’d be like, What is going on? I would always say, ‘Pat, didn’t I just play in a Super Bowl 20 minutes ago?’” “Had any ‘Why me?’ moments?” I asked. “Never,” he said. “Not one. I don’t think like that. This doesn’t bother me too much. I believe in life you’re supposed to take the bad with the good. You take what you get. This is our life. This is what we get. And so it was the same thing when I was playing. We were fortunate to win Super Bowls. There are guys who go through their whole career, great players, who don’t win one. I’m in Oakland, L.A., San Fran, Washington. We won one everywhere. You just can’t figure those things sometimes. So you just get what you get. I’m okay with that. “I’m also okay if I don’t wake up one day. We’re all gonna get there. I’m 60 years old and yeah, I’d like to kick around a little longer, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I’m actually really good with that. Some of it is just being pragmatic. I’ve always been that way. “And this life—this incredible life. It’s amazing to me. I’ve met presidents, I’ve met prime ministers, I’ve been around top world leaders, I’ve been around icons like Mr. Ford [the late Lions owner William Clay Ford]—and I’ve had awesome conversations with these people. The great lesson? We’re all the same. We’re all the same. There is no difference.” Millen’s attitude is so good, so positive—honestly, he could star in the remake of It’s a Wonderful Life—that I feel I could ask him anything at this moment. I could ask about where this “That’s life” ethos comes from. I probably should have. But I want to ask him about the Lions. “As you look back on it,” I said, “did you enjoy Detroit or …” “Yes,” he interrupts. “I enjoyed—I did not like the process because of the reality of what it is. Really when I take my steps back, I was not ready at all. Not even close. I was in over my head. And by the time I figured it out, it wasn’t necessarily too late, but we were in pretty deep.” So many weird things about Millen’s tenure. This one just boggles the mind: In the five drafts between 2003 and 2007, Millen had the second, seventh, 10th, ninth and second overall picks. He took wide receivers in four of those five drafts. Charles Rogers in 2003, Roy Williams in 2004, Mike Williams in 2005, Calvin Johnson in 2007. “The one that killed me was Mike Williams,” Millen said. “That was just so stupid Pete. It’s like my brain fell off my head. Why would I do that?” “So why did you?” I asked. “I listened to the group. They thought if they got Mike Williams and paired him with Roy Williams that in the red zone we could do all these things. And I was like okay. Do you realize at that time, when we were just about ready to pick, I had DeMarcus Ware on the phone? And I said, ‘All right, take Mike Williams.’ My son was in the draft room with us, and that’s when my son punched me. What a dope I was.” “How football history could have changed if you picked Ware instead of Mike Williams,” I said. “How ‘bout that?” Millen said. “Maybe we would have ruined him too.” Millen, of course, was fired by William Clay Ford four games into the winless 2008 season. But he says he’s glad to have had the experience. To this day, he loves the Ford family. He understands why he got whacked (“They had to do it”) and says he has no bitterness, and says he understands why the fans feel the enmity they feel for him. “Now I know what really happens when you build a team,” he said. “It’s so imperfect. There’s so many things that just happen that you stumble into. And sometimes it works out the way you plan it, but not often because it’s a people business. That’s what it is. Like with Charles [Rogers]. I worked him out. I met with Charles. Charles wasn’t a strong person. I knew that. I miscalculated all the people that would latch onto him, especially being so close to his hometown; he was from Saginaw. And that was a real problem. My choice then was to take him or the kid from Miami, Andre Johnson. The only reason that I didn’t take Andre Johnson was I thought this would be good for the franchise—a hometown kid, and he had better speed, but Andre was a physical guy.” Rogers had issues with Vicodin, marijuana, multiple DUIs and the weight of fathering eight children, two before he was out of high school. He was a mess for most of his awful three-year NFL career (36 catches, four touchdowns), and the Lions cut him in 2006. Yes, the football architecture thing didn’t quite work out for Millen. Millen is a garrulous sort, so it’s not rare for him to open his life like this. But now he’s doing it because he wants the public to know something about amyloidosis. Namely, that it’s incredibly hard to diagnose, even by the smartest doctors. Will McDonough, the famed Boston Globewriter, died of amyloidosis in 2003. His family had an autopsy done, and it wasn’t till then that the amyloidosis was discovered. “He did a stress test the day he died,” son Sean McDonough, the ESPN announcer, told me Sunday. “And the doctors told him he was fine—everything looks good. That’s how unexpected this can be.” Sean McDonough was thrilled Millen is speaking up now, so the light can be shined on a mostly unknown killer. (To learn more, visit the Amyloidosis Foundation.) Some 4,500 documented cases of the disease are found each year, with many more going undiagnosed. Millen hopes by him telling his story, others who cannot find the root cause of an illness might ask a doctor about amyloidosis. The longer a person waits to be diagnosed, the more of the damaging amyloid protein can be produced. And, of course, the chance to stave off the disease through aggressive treatment is reduced the longer it takes to be diagnosed. A bit of an update here: Millen visited another doctor at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York on Thursday. It was determined he would come off chemotherapy for two or three weeks to judge his progress, but nothing about his future treatment is likely to change, however. He’ll eventually be on a transplant list, and he’ll hope for the kindness of a stranger’s heart. Early in the afternoon of my visit, Millen seemed tired. Time to go. But he had one last thing to show me back outside: a gate, a beautiful stone arched gate, with a Bible verse he finds telling in his life. He pointed to it. “This is important,” he said. It read: “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life. And only a few find it.” It’s a verse he wanted his four children to follow in life: Take the right and the righteous path, not the popular path. Now he’s on his own narrow road. He’s okay with that. Chuck Knox: 1932-2018 Bill Parcells once said this of his friend Chuck Knox, who died Saturday from complications of dementia: “He’s the guy tough guys want to play for.” Knox proved it three times. He coached three teams that were struggling when he got hired: the early seventies Rams, the late seventies Bills, and mid-eighties Seahawks. He turned every one of them around. In Knox’s first year with the Rams, in 1973, Los Angeles went 12-2, and Knox won coach of the year. In his third year with the Bills, in 1980, Buffalo went 11-5, and Knox won coach of the year. In his second year with the Seahawks, in 1984, Seattle went 12-4, and Knox won coach of the year. He established a run-first, Ground Chuck style of offense, befitting a man who grew up in western Pennsylvania and spent time working in the steel mills there pre-coaching days. If you couldn’t run, Knox thought that said everything about your team. And it worked everywhere he coached, even in the post-O.J. Simpson Bills days. Knox coached 22 NFL seasons, and his 186 regular-season wins are 10th all-time in the 98-season history of the NFL. As with Marty Schottenheimer (seventh in regular-season wins) and Dan Reeves (ninth), Knox is on the outside of the Hall of Fame looking in, though his 193 wins in all games is 10 more than Parcells, who is in the Hall, and 11 more than Tom Coughlin, who may be one day. The difference is Super Bowls: Parcells and Coughlin have two, Knox zero. But no one who played for Knox will say Super Bowls should rule his résumé. He made every team he coached tougher, and better. “People forget that Alex was the No. 1 pick in the [2005] draft. He had to go through some growing pains and learn things kind of on his own, so he knew little things to help me, like my stance under center. I played all shotgun when I was in college, so it was different being under center as much as we are. But he helped me adjust my stance to eliminate the bucket step I had when I first got here, so I could be back further and able to throw the ball more on time.” —Kansas City quarterback Pat Mahomes, on what he learned playing behind Alex Smith as a rookie, to Jenny Vrentas of The MMQB. Stat of the Week Since 2013, influential NFC general managers Dave Gettleman and John Schneider have each won NFC titles—Gettleman’s Carolina Panthers once, Schneider’s Seattle Seahawks twice. (Gettleman, after five years with the Panthers, took over the Giants in late December.) They handle the draft from opposite poles. • In the six drafts (five Panthers, one Giants) since 2013, Gettleman has traded his first-round draft choice zero times. • In the six drafts since 2013, Schneider has traded his first-round draft choice six times. Conclusions to be drawn: not many, if any. In the five regular seasons from 2013-17, the results of the teams these two general managers formed: • Seattle is 54-25-1, has won three division titles, and has made the playoffs four times. • Carolina is 51-28-1, has won three division titles, and has made the playoffs four times. My point: There’s no one way to build a good football team, except maybe for this—you better have a good quarterback. Factoid That May Interest Only Me 2008: Anthony Gonzalez, a second-year wideout for the Colts, catches two touchdown passes from Peyton Manning to lift Indianapolis to an 18-15 upset of the Patriots on Sunday night football. 2018: Anthony Gonzalez, a rookie Republican politician, wins the Congressional primary in a northeast Ohio district, and will run for an open Congressional seat in the 16th District of Ohio in the November general election. Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note This thought occurred to me when I attended the Cards-Padres game Thursday night at lovely Petco Park in downtown San Diego, the first night of a four-day San Diego-Santa Barbara-Los Angeles retirement trip for my brother-in-law Bob Whiteley and my sister Pam: These days, sometimes a baseball ticket is a cover charge for really good food and better drink. Look at this photo. Just look at it. It’s a wall of wine, from all over the world. A while ago, maybe 2005, we did a King family vacation to Italy and stayed near a small Tuscan town, Greve. One night we went to an Italian festival in a tiny village, Lamole. What a charming, vivid memory. And so Thursday night at Petco, I went into the Italian takeout place, got a slice of Sicilian pie with basil and looked at the wine list. There were maybe 40 selections. In a ballpark. One was a Chianti from Lamole. I’ve not seen one since the day we left that tiny place. Of course I got it. My wife got a Quinoa salad with spinach, onions and corn. In a baseball stadium. On our walk around the park, I counted nine distinct craft beer stations, plus a huge craft beer bar behind home plate. That’s what happens, I guess, when you’re 14-25 (the Pads’ record when we left a 2-1 loss that night) and you've got to make the park a huge reason to come to the game. It is, I can assure you, a very good reason to come. Two other notes: Great to see forever Chargers PR man Bill Johnston, now in the Padres’ front office. Such a good man, and so good at this job. And it was cool to spend 15 minutes or so with GM A.J. Preller of the Padres. Had no idea he was such a fan of the New York Giants. I think he knows more about the eighties Giants than I do … and I covered the team for four years.

A pint-sized girl wearing a jean jacket with the tags still on fans a stack of hundred dollar bills at the camera. She gets in the driver's seat of a red Mercedes-Benz, though her legs are too short to reach the pedals. Because of lax regulation on social media, no one checks what the owners of underage accounts are doing, how much they are getting paid and how many hours they are working. "This is an area that clearly needs definition," said Charlie Moore, a Californian attorney and CEO of online legal technology company Rocket Lawyer. "This is an area where adults are clearly getting financial gain." Instagram, YouTube and Snap both told CNBC they take down accounts when they find out the user is under 13, but declined comment on Tay's accounts specifically. All three allow child accounts if it is managed by an adult. Tay and her management did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. Social child stars The self-proclaimed "youngest flexer of the century" rose to notoriety after starring in a diss battle video alongside rapper Chief Keef at Coachella. Clips of Lil Tay lighting up a blunt (which admittedly looks like a carrot) or saying she wears red to represent the Blood gang have gone viral. She's starred alongside fellow social media star Jake Paul, where she insults him for not having four houses like she does. She claimed she sold "bricks" of cocaine as long as three years ago -- she would have been 6 -- prompting many social media users to ask where her parents are. Those questions sit alongside disturbing online comments suggesting she was raped and deserves to be slapped, as well as others making fun of her Asian features. Lil Tay's social media profiles in particular have drawn a morbid fascination thanks to her angelic looks and foul mouth. But Lil Tay is far from the only successful child on social media. "She's an outlier in terms of being aggressive and in terms of her personality, but kids on social media exist on a mass scale," said Ryan Detert, CEO of influencer platform Influential which has worked with child influencers. Ryan from Ryan's Toy Reviews earned $11 million for his YouTube videos last year, according to the Washington Post. He began his illustrious career at the age of 4, just two years ago. Another popular gaming and toy-focused channel with more than 3.3 billion views, Evan Tube, stars a 12-year-old. Child fashionistas Stella and Blaise started modeling at 3, while harajuku "princess" Coco is 7. Ten-year-old makeup guru Jack claims more than 40 million visits. Even Justin Bieber was discovered from homemade YouTube videos he posted when he was 12. "There are no age verification mechanisms for these platforms," said Liz Gottbrecht, vice president of influencer marketing platform Mavrck which has worked with kids alongside their families. "They may stipulate, but there's no checks in place... you can throw in whatever date you want." Many child stars list some sort of management company to show the channel isn't only run by the child. Although Lil Tay once posted an Instagram Story saying she wasn't managed by anyone, her account now says she's managed by singer and actress 24-year-old Miranda Cosgrove, best known for starring in Nickelodeon's "iCarly." Publicists for Cosgrove did not respond to requests for comment. Previously she claimed her management was Gucci Gang, which is a song by rapper Lil Pump. CNBC could find no actual Gucci Gang, save a competitive video game team called Gucci Gang, which competed in a "Splatoon 2" video game championship in April. An investigation by Jezebel suggested Lil Tay may actually be the daughter of a real estate agent, and her mom may be filming the clips. The South China Morning Post went so far as to investigate the locations of her shoots, revealing many of them take place in the not-so-hard suburban neighborhoods of Vancouver despite Lil Tay's blustering. Global News interviewed the owner of a Mercedes featured in one of her videos, who said that Lil Tay's mother asked him if her daughter could pose in his car but he did not realize what the photo was for. Despite Lil Tay's rapid rise to fame, her style of content is unsuitable for brands, which will make it hard for her to score sponsorships or premium advertising deals, Influential's Detert said. "Whether she rises to the top is based on society and whether they want to watch a car wreck," he said. No clear rules While their prolific posts or outlandish inappropriate behavior is what gets many child influencers famous, labor laws aren't usually enforced for social stars. Child performer regulations are dealt with on a state by state basis, and only 33 states have laws in place with varying stipulations. For example, in California, children are not allowed to work more than five consecutive days in the entertainment or allied industries and are only excused from school for up to five days a year. If Lil Tay is from Vancouver as reports have stated, she would be limited to work eight hours a day, and would need a chaperone while she is filming, among other requirements. However, there are few laws for online "influencers," Rocket Lawyer's Moore said. A lot of times children are filming short snaps, clips or YouTube videos that are only a few seconds long, so they operate outside of industry groups like the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Unless they are flagged and reported, there are no random check-ups on set to make sure everyone is keeping up to code. "Unless you are doing a multi-day shoot which never happens on social unless it's a big production shoot... people make these in their room in half an hour," Detert said. "That's the beauty of social media." Epic Signal's Gahan, which has worked with children under 13 with their families in advertising campaigns, said typically it's up to the parents to decide what rules they want to follow. As for standards, most marketers will have their own requirements but there's nothing legally they have to do for the most part. For example, the majority of alcohol companies will not allow children in their social media videos, even if the kid is not the star of the clip. "It definitely doesn't seem like there's something that's enforced across the board," Gahan said. "There's tons of kid content on all these platforms and nobody seems to regulate them in any form." Mavrck's Gottbrecht said platforms are active in blocking underage accounts, but only if it's brought to their attention. It often requires proof, like a government-issued ID or birth certificate, which most people won't have. Some kids accidentally become social media stars, while others and their parents are actively seeking fame, Gottbrecht added. It's hard to know which side of the line the child is coming from, but what's certain is social media companies can't be relied on to be the regulators. "Once you are online it takes on a life of its own, whether it is intentional or not," Gottbrecht said. "Knowing the social media network may or may not be partners in that is important."

Two days after the march which gathered 82 women on the stairs on Cannes Film Festival’s Palais, the festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux, Critics’s Week head Charles Tesson and Directors’ Fortnight incoming topper Paolo Moretti signed on Monday a pledge ensuring greater gender equality and transparency. The signing of the pledge took place during an international conference which brought together feminists and pro-equality movement members, including Time’s Up U.S., Time’s Up U.K., Italy’s Dissenso Comune, Spain’s IMA and Greek Women’s Wave. The debate, moderated by filmmakers Celine Sciamma (“Girlhood”) and Rebecca Zlotowski (“Planetarium”), was organized by the org 50/50 for 2020, as well as France’s culture minister Françoise Nyssen and the national film board (CNC) president Frédérique Bredin. The pledge called for several things: “have the festivals (Cannes Film Festival, Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight) issue statistics about the number of films in order to give the movement specific data; be transparent about the list of members on the selection and programming committees in order to prevent any suspicion about a lack of diversity or parity while allowing festivals to make their editorial and strategic choices; set up a timetable of goals to reach in order to ensure a perfect gender ratio within the respective terms. https://twitter.com/ElsaKeslassy/sta...87804961366016 “I would like to say that the event of the stairs of the Palais last Saturday was extraordinary and should not be. It marks the end of a cycle which started this fall and the beginning of a new chapter,” said Fremaux. “Cannes is welcoming all these initiatives to hopefully feed into the consciousness-raising. The world is not the same and that’s a good thing. Now we’re examining our own practices, our history. The statistics speak for themselves – only one woman has won the Palme d’Or and only 82 films directed by women have played in competition — and even if there is a higher proportion of women showing films at Cannes, we’re aware that it’s not enough,” said Fremaux.

Mexican writer-director Julio Hernandez Cordon’s sixth film looks at kids' lives in a cartel-controlled segment of Mexico. Buy Me A Gun (Comprame Un Revolver) is a listless, meandering yarn that takes an unfocused look at a few kids’ lives in a barren, cartel-controlled part of Mexico. Acknowledging his debt to Mark Twain by naming two of his characters Huck and Finn (and adopting a fashionably up-to-date stance by turning Huck into a girl), Mexican writer-director Julio Hernandez Cordon’s sixth film trades on the perilous extremes of life in lawless territory that makes the Old West look tame, but the benign and shallow dramatic treatment increasingly drains viewer patience. International prospects look minimal. The set-up initially looks to offer some offbeat possibilities for a story set in such violent circumstances. In an initial touch not without absurdist humor, a hapless drug-addled father is stuck keeping a desert-area baseball stadium in good condition so the local cartel boss and his gang can play whenever they want; the sight of armed guards everywhere and the absence of any fans feed the macabre atmosphere. There’s a small gang of pre-pubescent kids about, including the groundsman’s son, whom the dad tries to keep hidden, and his daughter, the Huck character, who always wears a mask to conceal her gender and consorts with some boys who camouflage themselves with straw and other items. If Hendandez Cordon had chosen to focus entirely on the kids from the outset, he might have had something here. Instead, most of the film’s first half is devoted to the father’s toadying to his armed superiors while always trying to find a little stray stash for himself. His cowering attitude is so extreme as to remind at times of Dennis Weaver’s loony motel manager in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil. One night the entire crew heads out into the night for a big party in another cartel boss’s territory. The kids lay low, and for good reason, as there’s no way this night is going to end well for most of the guests. But the writer-director shows little inclination to either build suspense or maintain dramatic focus; characters (including the initially dominant father and the first drug lord) come and go casually, and the kids are scarcely individualized. What the filmmaker chooses to focus upon appears almost random a fair amount of the time and there’s no point of view. A viewer shouldn’t be able to easily disengage from a situation so rife with opportunities to build tension, but this film allows it to happen. Despite its many built-in melodramatic elements, the result is downright dull. The Huck Finn connection never really kicks in thoroughly until the end, which, in retrospect, should have been the beginning. The sight of the girl Huck guiding a raft down a river through sand dunes is the most striking in the film and her adventures hereon would be something to see — a young female leading some boys on an unlikely journey through perilous cartel territory in northern Mexico. It’s an idea free for any takers. Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Directors Fortnight) Production: Woo Films, Burning Blue Cast: Matilde Hernandez Guinea, Rogelio Sosa, Sostenes Rojas, Wallace Pereyda, Angel Leonel Corral, Angel Rafael Yanez Director: Julio Hernandez Cordon Screenwriter: Julio Hernandez Cordon Director of photography: Nicolas Wong Production designer: Ivonne Fuentes Editor: Lenz Mauricio Claure Music: Alberto Torres 84 minutes

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