The newly-married royals (Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Markle, Duchess of Sussex) attended a gala performance of Hamilton in support of Sentebale (the charity founded by the prince in 2006) at Victoria Palace Theatre (a.k.a. the room where it happens) on Wednesday night. 

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has suggested the right of return for Palestinian refugees could be removed from any eventual peace settlement with Israel.

Speaking at an event on Tuesday with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington DC-based neoconservative think-tank with pro-Israeli sympathies, Haley was asked whether she agreed with taking the right of return off the table.

“I think we have to look at this in terms of what’s happening [with refugees] in Syria, what’s happening in Venezuela,” she said.

“So I absolutely think we have to look at the right of return.”

Palestinians view the right of return, along with the end of the Israeli occupation, as one of the basic tenants in achieving a peace deal with Israel.

Haley also accused the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) of exaggerating the number of Palestinian refugees it currently provides aid to and services for.

“We will be a donor if it [UNRWA] reforms what it does … if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account, we will look back at partnering them,” Haley said.

‘Starvation and distress’

There are more than five million Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories and surrounding countries of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

The majority are descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their villages, towns and cities by Zionist paramilitaries in 1947-1948.

In response to the refugee crisis, UNRWA was created the following year under UN Resolution 302, which stated its mandate to “prevent conditions of starvation and distress … and to further conditions of peace and stability”.

Since its inception, UNRWA has worked with governments on interim measures in anticipation of a “just resolution” to the Palestinian refugee question.

Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesman for UNRWA in Gaza, said the issue of refugees is political by nature.

“Because of this, it falls upon the international community to come up with a political solution,” he told Al Jazeera, adding this has nothing to do with a particular vision.

“We serve the Palestinian refugees until the Palestinian issue is resolved,” he said. “We execute what the resolution mandates. Once resolved, there is no need for UNRWA to exist.”

UNRWA cuts and refugee review

In January, the United States cut $300m out of $350m in funding for UNRWA, which forced the UN body to slash jobs and scale back its operations, much to the consternation of Palestinian employees and those who rely on its services.

Half a million Palestinian students in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip went back to the 692 schools operated by the UNRWA on Wednesday, but the agency said it only has enough money keep the them open until September.

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett said Israeli media has reported the US is intending to go further by restricting the definition of Palestine refugees to only those who were forcibly displaced in 1948.

“They’re restricting the number from more than five million to 500,000, and indeed permanently cutting off all US funding to the UN agency,” Fawcett said, reporting from West Jerusalem.

“It is something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued for, both the restriction of the definition of Palestine refugees and also the disbandment of UNRWA entirely,” he said, noting the agency provides food aid to more than one million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Security implications

The Donald Trump administration has made no secret of its hostile view of UNRWA. In emails leaked to Foreign Policy magazine earlier this month, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, described the agency in January as “corrupt, inefficient, and doesn’t help peace”.

During his visit to Jordan last June, Kushner reportedly pushed for the refugee status of the two million Palestinians registered in the country to be dissolved.

According to Fawcett, some Israeli military and security officials are worried about the repercussions of the moves.

“They have been telling the Israeli media that they are concerned about preventing UNRWA from operating because of the security implications that could have,” he said.

“So there is by no means a total acceptance of this plan in the Israeli establishment.”

League of Legends developer Riot Games wants to share what it’s learned over the past month.

The studio came under fire after Kotaku’s Cecilia D’Anastasio delivered an investigative report on Aug. 7 that exposed what the story referred to as a “culture of sexism” at the company. Riot responded the next day with a statement that pledged to step back and take some time to listen and learn.

“We recognize we still have work to do to achieve our goals, which starts with listening to feedback from Rioters and others, and providing Rioters with the guidance and resources they need to uphold our values,” the statement read (in part).

But no statement could halt the conversation that sprung up in the wake of the report. In the weeks that followed other former Riot employees came forward with stories of their own. While it was clear that not every employee at Riot had the same unpleasant experiences, a troubling pattern emerged to reinforce the original report.

Kotaku’s article described an environment at the studio that’s been dominated for some time by a “bro culture.” A lot of it seems to be rooted in the company’s emphasis on employing only the most hardcore fans of video games, coupled with the wrong-headed thinking that women somehow can’t have that level of interest in such things.

Now, three weeks after its initial statement, Riot is ready to talk again. A Wednesday blog post bears the title “Our First Steps Forward” and it lays out an action plan — detailed in some spots, vague in others — aimed at leaving “no room for sexism or misogyny” in the company’s “cultural DNA.”

“We’re committed to do things the right way, and we know the change we need isn’t going to happen overnight.”

“We’re committed to do things the right way, and we know the change we need isn’t going to happen overnight,” the post reads, following an apologetic preamble. “We are taking everything we’ve learned from Rioters and leading culture-change experts, and we are starting to develop a plan with substance.”

The post then lays out the company’s 7-point approach to improving itself. There’s nothing revelatory in Riot’s plans, though it’s important to note that there’s no sense anywhere in the post of an expectation that the steps being taken will fix everything.

Riot will be taking steps to expand its Diversity & Inclusion Initiative, and the team assembled around it. That includes key hires at the company leadership level, with a Chief Human Resources Officer and a Chief Diversity Officer.

As an extension of this, Riot will also take a fresh look at its recruiting practices — one of the stories shared recently by former employees talked at length about how a rape joke made its way into recruiting materials several years ago. The company will also commit to putting employees through training sessions, reevaluating the language in its corporate manifesto, and having its diversity and inclusion efforts evaluated by outside third parties.

The most detailed section of Riot’s action plan relates to the companies investigation process. “We understand we lost trust with Rioters, so rebuilding trust is key to making Rioters feel safe and empowered to raise issues,” the post reads.

These efforts include a newly established anonymous hotline where employees can submit complaints, a larger internal team — backed by a law firm — to work on investigating any reports of bad behavior, and an understandably vague reference to employees who have already been let go.

“No one and nothing is sacred,” the post reads. “We are prepared to make big changes and have begun taking action against specific cases, including removal of Rioters, though we aren’t likely to get into those details publicly on a case-by-case basis for legal and privacy reasons.”

Of course, actions speak louder than words. We’re not here to applaud Riot for laying out an action plan comprised of the steps every company should take to protect its employees. But it’s notable that the company has now not only acknowledged the reality that exists internally, but is also laying out for all the world to see how it plans to fix things.

Steve Berkowitz, Randy Peterson, Amanda Caffey, USA TODAY Network
Published 1:14 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2018 | Updated 2:43 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2018

College football’s version of the gig economy gets rolling Thursday, as teams across the country begin the annual ritual of playing one-time, non-conference games in exchange for huge payouts.

This season, well over $175 million will change hands just for teams getting on the field for these so-called “guarantee” games, according to an analysis of more than 275 contracts for matchups involving teams in the NCAA’s top-level Bowl Subdivision.

While some of these agreements involve series of games on equal and relatively modest terms, the real money is elsewhere.

It’s in about a dozen contests at off-campus sites, like the weekend’s featured matchups: No. 6-ranked Washington vs. No. 10 Auburn on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and No. 8 Miami (Fla.) vs. No. 24 LSU at AT&T Stadium on Sunday night in Arlington, Texas. Those games will provide the participating schools a combined total of more than $50 million in appearance fees that come with strings, including a need to sell tens of thousands of tickets schools agree to purchase from third-party organizers.

Meanwhile, millions more will come directly from the schools with the wealthiest athletics departments. In at least 45 instances this season, one of those schools will pay at least $1 million to a lower-scale opponent while aiming to fill vast stadiums and — at least theoretically — get an impressive victory with minimal risk of defeat. Then there is Liberty, which is paying Old Dominion $1.32 million to play a game Saturday in Lynchburg, Va., that will be its first as an FBS school.

More than 15 games this season will give the visiting team at least $1.4 million.

MORE: An eagle, the band and the refs: Oddities in college football guarantee-game contracts

MORE: Costs for non-conference games rising for Power Five football

MORE: Top 25 Most Quotable College Football Coaches

MORE: Kyler Murray taking detour from MLB career to try and lead Oklahoma to national title

“The market just continues to go up,” Iowa athletics director Gary Barta said. “I’m hearing stories of other schools paying $2 million for games (in the future). You continue to wonder where the market is going to stop.”

The greatest payout this season is the $2 million Colorado State is getting from Florida for a game Sept. 15 that the schools created as part of package under which coach Jim McElwain fulfilled the $7.5 million buyout he owed for leaving the Rams to join the Gators after the 2014 season. McElwain and Florida agreed to part ways during the 2017 season, and he is now an assistant coach at Michigan — which will be paying $2 million for not playing a non-conference game against Arkansas. In 2016, Michigan canceled a two-game series that was to have started this season in Ann Arbor and been completed at Arkansas next year, which is when Michigan’s payment will be due.

More conventional transactions for home-site games this season top out at $1.7 million. That’s the price for four contests, including Oregon State’s visit to Ohio State on Saturday. Even that game has a distinction, however. It’s the only home-site game this season matching Power Five conference schools that is not part of a series.

But when you’re Oregon State, and you’re struggling to compete financially within the Pac-12 Conference, or when you’re a school in one of the FBS conferences outside the Power Five, you take to the road. Kent State will collect $3.65 million by playing three of its first four games this season at Illinois, Penn State and Mississippi (its first Mid-American Conference game also is on the road, so Golden Flashes will play one home game in September). Next season, Kent State is set for paydays of $1.9 million from Auburn and $1.5 million from Arizona State. And in 2020, it is due a total of $5 million for games at Arkansas, Kentucky and Alabama.

Middle Tennessee State — this season’s adjunct member of the Southeastern Conference — will get just over $3.1 million from Vanderbilt, Georgia and Kentucky, but the Vanderbilt game is the last of a four-game series that involved two at MTSU. The Blue Raiders have lost the first three games of that set against Vanderbilt, but in the first game they lost by just 17-13. And last season, they became a Power Five team’s nightmare, beating Syracuse in a game for which Syracuse paid MTSU $950,000. In an even sweeter turn for MTSU, its defensive coordinator, Scott Shafer, was Syracuse’s head coach from 2013 through 2015.

Northern Illinois also pulled a lucrative upset last season, getting $820,000 from Nebraska and a win in Lincoln. In addition to that payout, NIU had gotten just over $1 million from Nebraska when a 2016 game between the teams set for Chicago was canceled.

The guaranteed payouts and chances for stunning wins give some schools ample reason to incentivize their coaches to play them.

This weekend, Bowling Green coach Mike Jinks will pick up a $25,000 bonus for playing a guarantee game worth at least $400,000 (the Falcons are getting $900,000 to play at Oregon), and he can get another $12,500 for a win over a Power Five team.

Wyoming’s Craig Bohl can get $100,000 if the Cowboys beat a Power Five team — and Washington State visits Laramie on Saturday.

Contributing: Christopher Schnaars

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nottingham Forest knocked Premier League Newcastle out of the Carabao Cup for the second consecutive season after a dramatic finale.

Championship outfit Forest took the lead in the second minute when former Newcastle striker Daryl Murphy nodded in Sam Byram’s cross from close range.

Newcastle equalised in the second of six minutes of injury time when Salomon Rondon angled in a powerful low shot.

But two minutes later Matty Cash fired home before Gil Dias’ late chip.

Forest met Newcastle at the same stage of competition last season and claimed a thrilling 3-2 victory at St James’ Park.

The conclusion to this match was just as enthralling as Forest deservedly secured their place in the third round.

Aitor Karanka’s side had taken the lead when on-loan West Ham full-back Byram crossed for Murphy at the near post.

Murphy, who scored six times in 18 appearances in all competitions for Newcastle, escaped his marker and glanced a header past Newcastle goalkeeper Karl Darlow.

Murphy almost had a second five minutes into the second half when Darlow fumbled a shot from Dias, only for Federico Fernandez to make a brilliant last-ditch block.

Darlow, a former Forest player, made a crucial save just after the hour mark when he pawed away an audacious chip from Joao Carvalho.

Forest seems to be cruising to the finish only for substitute Rondon to equalise with clinical finish – Newcastle’s only attempt on target in the match – after a clever pass from Ayoze Perez.

However, Forest hit back when Darlow parried Dias’ shot and Cash arrived in the penalty area to slide the ball home.

Newcastle then had claim for a penalty when Luke Steele grappled with Perez inside the box but referee Jeremy Simpson waved play on.

The impressive Dias then caught Newcastle on the counter and superbly chipped Darlow to seal the victory.