Category Archives: Yahoo

Clemson is keeping it in the family.

Dabo Swinney lost both his offensive coordinator, Tony Elliott, and defensive coordinator, Brent Venables, to head-coaching jobs in recent weeks. Some wondered if Swinney would look outside the Clemson building to fill those vacancies. Instead, he is promoting from within.

Swinney announced Tuesday that Wes Goodwin will take over as defensive coordinator for Venables, who left to become the head coach at Oklahoma. Additionally, Brandon Streeter has been elevated to offensive coordinator to replace Elliott, who took the Virginia job.

Goodwin, in his 10th season at Clemson, previously held the title of senior defensive assistant. In that role, he served in a critical off-field role, helping Venables with defensive breakdowns and opponent scouting, among other responsibilities.

Streeter previously held the role of quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator. He was also Clemsons recruiting coordinator from 2014 to the end of the 2019 season. Streeter has previous offensive coordinator and play-calling experience from his time at Liberty and Richmond.

Offensively, theres nobody more deserving than Brandon Streeter, Swinney said. Hes called a lot of plays in his day. He was a coordinator when I hired him, and he left being a coordinator to come to Clemson. What an amazing job he did with Deshaun Watson, an amazing job he did recruiting and developing Trevor Lawrence and what hes done from a passing game standpoint.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney sings the school alma mater with safety Jalyn Phillips (25) after the team's NCAA college football game against South Carolina on Saturday, Nov. 27, 2021, in Columbia, S.C. Clemson won 30-0. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)

Additionally, safeties coach Mickey Conn has been given the added title of co-defensive coordinator, cornerbacks coach Mike Reed is now also the special teams coordinator and defensive tackles coach Todd Bates has added an assistant head coach title. Bates also serves as Clemsons recruiting coordinator.

On the offensive side, Kyle Richardson is now the teams passing game coordinator and tight ends coach. Richardson was previously the director of high school relations and a special offensive assistant.

I am excited and energized by this deserved opportunity for so many members of our staff in new roles, Swinney said. But most of all, Im happiest for our players. More than anybody, they know what this group of coaches is capable of, and our players excitement to see them in these roles has been amazing.

Clemson was 4-3 midway through the season but closed out the regular season with five consecutive wins. Now 9-3, the Tigers will face Iowa State in the Cheez-It Bowl on Dec. 29.

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Clemson promotes from within to replace Brent Venables, Tony Elliott - Yahoo Sports

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When SafeSearch is enabled, your search engines block what they consider to be mature content in your search results. In case youd like to include those results in your searches, you will have to turn off SafeSearch first. Heres how.

RELATED: 5 Alternative Search Engines That Respect Your Privacy

To disable SafeSearch on Google on your desktop, simply open Google Search and go to Settings > Search Settings > SafeSearch Filters. There you can uncheck Turn on SafeSearch.

For more detailed instructions on this process, as well as how to do it on mobile devices, check out our dedicated guide. It lists and illustrates each step you need to follow to enable mature content results in your searches.

RELATED: How to Turn Off SafeSearch on Google Search

If you use Bing as your search engine, its easy to disable SafeSearch on this engine on both desktop and mobile.

On your Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook desktop computer, open a web browser and launch the Bing site. In Bings top-right corner, click the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines).

In the menu that opens, click SafeSearch.

You will see a Search page. Here, in the SafeSearch section, enable the Off option. This disables SafeSearch on Bing for you.

In case you do not want to disable SafeSearch completely, but youd rather change its effect, use either Moderate or Strict options for SafeSearch.

To save your changes, in the menu that pops up from the bottom of your screen, click Save.

On your Android, iPhone, or iPad, launch a web browser and open the Bing site. In the sites top-right corner, tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines).

From the menu that opens, select SafeSearch.

On the Search page, in the SafeSearch section, activate the Off option. This removes SafeSearchs filtering.

Save your changes by tapping Save in the menu that opens.

Confirm that you are at least 18 years old by tapping Agree in the prompt that opens.

Thats all.

RELATED: How to Get Bing's Daily Photos as Your Wallpaper on Windows 10

Unlike other search engines, on Yahoo, you have to first perform a search to then disable SafeSearch.

On your Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook computer, open a web browser and access the Yahoo site. On the site, click the search box, type any query, and press Enter.

On the search results page, in the top-right corner, click Yahoo Sites (a square made of nine dots).

At the bottom of the Yahoo Sites menu, click Settings.

You will see a Search Preferences page. Here, next to SafeSearch, click the drop-down menu.

Choose Off in the drop-down menu to disable SafeSearch.

Save your changes by scrolling down the page, and at the bottom, clicking Save.

Enjoy more results in your Yahoo searches going forward.

On an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone, open a web browser and launch the Yahoo site. At the top of the site, tap the search box and type a query. Then press Enter.

Scroll the search results page to the bottom. There, tap Settings.

Yahoo will open a Search Preferences page. On this page, in the SafeSearch section, tap the drop-down menu.

Select Off from the menu.

Scroll the Search Preferences page to the bottom, and there, tap Save.

You will see a prompt that says you must agree to Yahoos terms to disable SafeSearch. If you agree, tap I Accept.

Yahoo will take you back to your search results with SafeSearch disabled. Youre all set.

Like other search engines, DuckDuckGo also comes with the SafeSearch filter. You can disable this filter fairly easily from the settings page.

RELATED: What Is DuckDuckGo? Meet the Google Alternative for Privacy

On your Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook computer, open your preferred web browser and access the DuckDuckGo site. In the sites top-right corner, click the three horizontal lines.

In the Settings menu that opens, at the top, click All Settings.

On the All Settings page, at the top, click the General tab.

Scroll down the General tab to the Safe Search section. Here, click the drop-down menu and choose Off.

Scroll your page all the way down, and at the bottom, select Save and Exit.

SafeSearch is now turned off on DuckDuckGo.

On your handheld device, open a web browser and launch the DuckDuckGo site. In the sites top-left corner, tap the three horizontal lines.

In the menu that opens, tap All Settings.

At the top of the All Settings page, tap the General tab.

In the General tab, scroll down to the Safe Search option. Here, tap the drop-down menu and select Off.

Save your changes by scrolling the page to the bottom and tapping Save and Exit there.

Thats all.

And thats how you ensure you get all kinds of search results on your favorite search engine!

If you are a Twitter user, you might want to unblock potentially sensitive content on the popular microblogging site, too. Its easy to do that.

RELATED: How to Unblock "Potentially Sensitive Content" on Twitter

Original post:

How to Turn Off SafeSearch on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo - How-To Geek

It was almost 10 p.m. on a Thursday night, and Ali Watkins was walking around the capital following instructions texted by a stranger. One message instructed her to walk through an abandoned parking lot near Washington, D.C.s Dupont Circle, and then wait at a laundromat. Then came a final cryptic instruction: She was to enter an unmarked door on Connecticut Avenue leading to a hidden bar.

The Sheppard, an upscale speakeasy, was so dimly lit it was sometimes hard to see the menu, let alone a stranger at the bar. But amid the red velvet upholstery, Watkins, then a reporter at Politico, almost immediately spotted the man she was supposed to meet: He was wearing a corduroy blazer and jeans and had a distinctive gap between his teeth.

I wont tell you my name, but I work for the U.S. government, he said, according to her account later provided to government investigators.

It was June 1, 2017, and Watkins was a rising star in the world of national security journalism, breaking big stories about the investigation into President Trumps alleged ties to Russia. She had hopped from the Huffington Post to BuzzFeed and then Politico, when a man writing under the pseudonym Jack Bentley had reached out, wanting to meet with her. She agreed, as journalists often do, thinking he might be a potential source.

Ali Watkins during a PBS interview about her reporting on Russian espionage, June 1, 2017. (PBS/YouTube)

Once at the bar, however, she found that the man seemed more interested in gathering information about her than in providing her with information. And he appeared to know a lot about her, including details of her travels and her relationship with James Wolfe, an older man who worked on Capitol Hill.

The meeting, which lasted almost four hours, would change both of their lives. Late the following year, Wolfe, the onetime boyfriend of Watkins, was sentenced to two months in prison for lying to the FBI about his relationship with reporters. And Watkins, by then at the New York Times, faced ethical questions about her relationship with Wolfe, even though she denied he had been a source for her stories while they were involved.

The true mystery of the saga was the role of the man at the bar. He was portrayed in subsequent articles as something of a rogue actor who had taken it upon himself to conduct a Trump-era leak investigation, and he subsequently faced an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security, where he worked.

Story continues

Yet documents obtained by Yahoo News, including an inspector general report that spans more than 500 pages and includes transcripts of interviews that investigators conducted with those involved, emails and other records reveal a far more disturbing story than the targeting of a single journalist. The man, whose real name is Jeffrey Rambo, worked at a secretive Customs and Border Protection division. The division, which still operates today, had few rules and routinely used the countrys most sensitive databases to obtain the travel records and financial and personal information of journalists, government officials, congressional members and their staff, NGO workers and others.

As many as 20 journalists were investigated as part of the divisions work, which eventually led to referrals for criminal prosecution against Rambo, his boss and a co-worker. None were charged, however.

Rambo, who believes he was unfairly vilified for seeking out Watkins, said in a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Yahoo News that he acted legally and appropriately. He agreed to speak amid what he describes as escalating threats against him in San Diego, where he now lives, and after Yahoo News obtained a copy of the inspector general investigation into Rambo and his colleagues.

Im being accused of blackmailing a journalist and trying to sign her up as an FBI informant, which is whats being plastered all around San Diego at the moment because of misinformation reported by the news media, he said in the interview.

The story Rambo tells is even stranger than the one already in the public view, which is strange enough. His meeting with Watkins, he says, was the result of a Trump-era White House assignment to Customs and Border Protection to combat forced labor. Rambo, the lead on the project, was authorized to reach out to anyone who he thought might be useful, including journalists and other people inside and outside the government.

As part of that process, he and others he worked with vetted those potential contacts, pulling email addresses, phone numbers and photos from passport applications and checking that information through numerous sensitive government databases, including the terrorism watchlist.

Jeffrey Rambo in his San Diego coffee shop, Storymakers Coffee Roasters. (Sandy Huffaker for Yahoo News)

There is no specific guidance on how to vet someone, Rambo later told investigators. In terms of policy and procedure, to be 100 percent frank there, there's no policy and procedure on vetting.

Those swept up in the divisions vetting included journalists from national news organizations, ranging from the Associated Press to the New York Times.Even Arianna Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post, was flagged in those searches.

When a name comes across your desk you run it through every system you have access to, that's just status quo, that's what everyone does, Rambo told investigators.

But the idea of government officials trawling through government databases, looking at the private lives and even romantic relationships of U.S. citizens not suspected of any crime, is precisely what civil liberties experts have warned about for years.

For two decades, weve seen how the collect-it-all, share-it-all philosophy underlying post-9/11 law enforcement floods agencies with sensitive personal information on millions of Americans, Hugh Handeyside, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties National Security Project, told Yahoo News. When agencies give their employees access to this ocean of information, especially without training or rigorous oversight, the potential for abuse goes through the roof.

Rambo, however, doesnt see his story as one of abuse. He was doing precisely what his higher-ups authorized him to do.

Im called a rogue Border Patrol agent, Im called a right-hand man of the Trump administration, I accessed data improperly, I violated her constitutional rights all of these things are untrue, Rambo told Yahoo News. All these things are standard practices that let me rephrase that. All of the things that led up to my interest in Ali Watkins were standard practice of what we do and what we did and probably whats still done to this day.

CBPs National Targeting Center was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help identify potential threats crossing the borders of the United States, whether people, drugs or weapons. When Rambo was detailed to the center in 2017, he was assigned to the newly launched Counter Network Division, a unit designed as a bridge between law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community that prided itself on taking out of the box approaches.

Freed from the constraints of bureaucracy, those inside were supposed to think creatively about how to solve problems. According to testimony in the inspector general report, Rambos supervisor, Dan White, fostered a freewheeling atmosphere at the division, calling his team WOLF, short for way out in left field. White even had a water bottle with a WOLF sticker. He himself would later tell investigators: We are pushing the limits and so there is no norm, there is no guidelines, we are the ones making the guidelines.

The divisions assignments were high-level and came directly from the CBP commissioner, the secretary of Homeland Security or the White House, which in May 2017 asked the division to look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the U.S. believed companies were using cobalt mined by forced labor to produce consumer goods in China. Rambo, one of few Border Patrol agents assigned to the division, where he worked alongside representatives from across law enforcement and intelligence agencies, was asked to lead the project. My orders were to tackle a problem set that we were given from the White House, he told Yahoo News.

Rambo, according to documents included in the inspector general report, was told to gather the evidence needed to hit companies with sanctions under the rarely used Tariff Act of 1930. He proposed using information from experts in academia, NGOs, humanitarian groups, officials at other government agencies and journalists specializing in forced labor reporting. The plan was greenlighted by his boss, he later told investigators, with one caveat. "Make sure you vet whoever you contact, Rambo said White told him.

In late May 2017, Rambo and one of his co-workers began reaching out to people, including Martha Mendoza, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter who covered forced labor. On May 31, Rambo, using his government email, wrote to Mendoza explaining that CBP was trying to identify companies that were importing goods possibly linked to forced labor. We are hoping to connect with subject matter experts outside of the traditional government circles as your rules of engagement are a bit different than ours, he wrote Mendoza, and can perhaps help in pointing us in the right direction to U.S. companies that meet such criteria or are suspected of such.

Associated Press journalist Martha Mendoza. (Khairil Yusof/Flickr)

Another reporter who caught his eye was Ali Watkins. On June 1, he spotted a Politico story by Watkins on how Russias spy games were heating up inside the United States. Her story, which came at the height of Trump administration concerns over leaks relating to the FBIs Russia investigation, cited a half-dozen anonymouscurrent and former intelligence officials. Ali Watkins was, for lack of a better word, the hot-topic reporter at the time, Rambo told Yahoo News.

Rambo, who was later pressed repeatedly about why he chose to reach out to Watkins, a reporter who had never written about forced labor, said he was looking for prominent journalists with access and buzz. He told investigators he wanted to identify national security journalists who could not just tell CBP about forced labor but also publish stories thatwould allow him to overstate U.S. enforcement capabilities. Rambo believed these stories inflating U.S. capabilities would prompt shippers to alter their routes, proving they were involved in illegal activities.

I thought, OK, Ill use Ali Watkins, he said.

A former senior DHS official told Yahoo News that forced labor was indeed a concern of CBP.

Forced labor was a priority of the administration. Its a priority of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection," the former official added. "It remains a bipartisan priority both for the anticompetitive aspects and trade perspective, but more importantly for the humanitarian aspects."

(Committee staff are not aware of the Counter Network Division working on forced labor, Keith Chu, a spokesman for Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told Yahoo News. The staff were also not aware that Rambos leak investigation was done under the auspices of working on the forced labor issue, he added.)

Asked about Rambos plan, however, the official expressed surprise that such a thing would be pursued at CBP.

I can tell you at minimum that is an overexuberant interpretation. CBP does not conduct psychological ops or misinformation campaigns. CBP is not a member of the intelligence community. CBP does not have the authorities to do those kinds of things, the former senior official said.

Rambo believed he did have the authority, and he had certainly had his bosss approval to contact Watkins. After reading her story, he did something that most journalists probably dont expect government officials to do: He ran Watkins through an assortment of databases. Those included, among others, CBPs Automated Targeting System, a tool that compares travelers against law enforcement and intelligence data; TECS, which tracks people entering and exiting the country; the Treasury Departments FinCEN, used for identifying financial crimes; and the State Department consular database, which included details of her passport application.

When you say vet someone, you vet them. Theres no parameters on what that means, Rambo said.

Vet the reporters you use, Rambo said his boss told him, vet them through our systems. I vet them no different than I vet a terrorist.

On his screen was Watkinss international travel, color-coded blue in a format similar to an Excel spreadsheet. He saw a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, sandwiched between two trips with the same person, a man more than 30 years her senior named James Wolfe. Together they traveled to Cancn, London and Spain, according to the inspector general report.

Recounting his search of Watkinss travel, Rambo began to reenact what he saw as his aha moment.

I know what suspicious travel looks like, he said, recalling the moment he thought he had stumbled on something big: the mystery male companion.

Who is James Wolfe? he recalled asking himself, mimicking typing when describing his efforts to identify Watkinss traveling companion.

James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, leaves the federal courthouse in Washington on June 13, 2018. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Then he queried Watkinss family members, thinking he might be related to her. Wolfe, he found, was not a family member but a senior staff member on Capitol Hill.

Why is Ali Watkins flying with the head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee? Rambo recalled wondering, excited by his find.

But he already had a theory, one that would later be denied by Watkins. Wolfe, he surmised, was giving her information and access in exchange for a personal relationship with her.

Its reasonable for me to believe in exchange for personal trips she was given access to Guantnamo, he recounted, unaware that the Pentagon regularly offers journalists the opportunity to travel to the U.S. naval base there to report on legal proceedings related to 9/11 detainees.

Rambo then went to his boss. I say, This person is great in terms of access, but based on my vetting she may be receiving classified info,' he recalled to Yahoo News.

White later told investigators that the division would regularly conduct checks on journalists to determine their personal connections, to establish if they were someone CBP could trust.

Figure it out, White told Rambo. If you can use her, use her. If not, dont.

That afternoon, Rambo reached out to Watkins using the address jackbentleyesq@gmail.com, which he later described as an off network account sanctioned by the Counter Network Division. It wasnt just some random alias I created just then to meet her,he said during an interview in San Diego, where lives with his two dogs, father-and-son beagles named Jack and Bentley.

He would later defend using the Gmail account and a fake name, he said, because he didn't want to provide information on where he worked unless he deemed her trustworthy. He and his boss even discussed signing her up as a confidential human source a highly unusual proposal for a journalist so she would be locked into a confidentiality agreement, though the idea was never pursued.

Rambo and Watkins agreed to meet in Dupont Circle that evening.

As Rambo prepped for his meeting, he reached out to an old FBI counterterrorism contact, now at the bureaus headquarters. Can you give me a call, Rambo wrote in an email. If possible ASAP. I need to run something by you that I *believe* might be in your swim lane.

At the bar, Rambo sipped WhistlePig old fashioneds and fired off questions to Watkins. Could he trust her? Had she ever burned a source? The questions began to unnerve Watkins, particularly when they revealed that Rambo appeared to know private details about her life, like where she had lived in New Jersey for a short period, and where she traveled. And yet they stayed in the bar for nearly two hours talking.

Around midnight, as the bar was closing, Rambo paid with a credit card, and they began walking together up the street toward Kramerbooks & Afterwords, a popular bookstore and caf near Dupont Circle. Inside, Watkins said, Rambo was holding up books and magazines while talking, as if to conceal his identity.

At around 1 a.m. the two left Kramerbooks together and walked down the street.

Standing in front of a closed Starbucks, Rambo continued to press Watkins about her sources. Had she ever had an inappropriate relationship with a source? Had she ever done anything to compromise her journalistic integrity?

Watkins said no, but eventually told Rambo what he already suspected: She was involved with Wolfe, but she denied he was leaking to her. Ive never received information from that person, she said, according to her account later.

Do you know he is married? Rambo asked, turning the cellphone in his hand around so Watkins could see.

This is his wife, Rambo said, apparently not realizing he was showing her a photo of Wolfes first wife (the two had divorced and Wolfe had remarried).

Rambo continued to ask about her relationship, and what would happen to her career if it was made public.

Are you trying to blackmail me? Watkins asked him. Rambo denied he was.

The two continued talking outside the Starbucks, with Rambo pressing her on Wolfe and her confidential sources. Watkins by then felt spooked, she later told investigators.

Rambo never revealed to Watkins where he was employed or his real name, but she later told investigators he insinuated he was working in the Washington metro area with the FBI.

Heres a tip, he told her not long before they parted ways around 2 a.m. Dont travel together.

The morning after the meeting, both Watkins and Rambo each set out to investigate the other.

Rambo emailed his FBI contact again. Confirmed improper relationship between a member of the SSCI and the press, he wrote, using an abbreviation for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Additional details in person if possible.

[Subject of investigation] is the SSCI Director of Security, he added in another email an hour later.

That same day, Watkins returned to the Sheppard to get Rambos credit card slip, which had his real name. A quick Google search led to a story about a Border Patrol agent starting a brewery. She called CBP, gave his name and asked to be connected. After a brief silence, then a click, a phone rang. No one picked up. Still, she later told investigators, she took this as quasi-confirmation that Jack Bentley was Jeffrey Rambo. (Even several years later, Rambo is still furious at the bar for giving Watkins his credit card receipt. Who owns that place? They gave her my personal information, he fumed.)

Rambo didnt know that she had identified his real name when, a few days after their meeting, he discussed with his boss, White, how to proceed. According to emails included in the inspector general report, Rambo was ready to hand everything over to the FBI, but his boss stopped him. White wanted to run Watkins through more DHS databases to find out if she had any sources inside the department, expanding the investigation. Rambos probe into Watkins and Wolfe also now had a name, taken from the whiskey he drank at the bar where he met Watkins: Operation Whistle Pig.

Rambo said Operation Whistle Pig was focused only on whether Wolfe was providing classified information to Watkins, or anyone else, but it appeared that a large number of journalists were caught up in the probe. After Operation Whistle Pig was approved, Rambo identified 15 to 20 national security reporters and conducted CBP records checks of those reporters, according to a FBI counterintelligence memo included in the inspector general report.

Rambo in the Barrio Logan neighborhood of San Diego. (Sandy Huffaker for Yahoo News)

While the Justice Department has policies on seeking information from journalists or news organizations, the rules apply to records that require a subpoena or warrant, such as phone records, not information that the government already possesses. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department responded to questions about this.

White then introduced Rambo and another member of the team to Charlie Ratliff, a program analyst in the Counter Network Division. Ratliff worked on DOMEX, a program that collects information from the contents of a persons electronic device when they cross a U.S. border. The controversial program sweeps up everything from phone contacts and emails to the contents from encrypted messaging apps and social media.

We know you do high profile, White told Ratliff, introducing him to Rambo.

Rambo explained to Ratliff that Watkins and Wolfe were having an affair and that Wolfe may have been leaking classified information to Watkins. Rambo gave Ratliff what are known as selectors, such as telephone numbers, email addresses and Social Security numbers. Ratliff, in turn, ran those selectors through a number of databases, including the Terrorist Screening Database, a watchlist that has more than 1 million names and has been widely criticized for errors and lack of review.

Watkins didnt have any direct connections in that database, also known as TSDB, but one of her contacts did: Arianna Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post. Oh.and the Huffington Post owner was/is a direct contact to a TSDB on 3 phones and 1 email. LoL, Ratliff wrote in one email to White.

Its impossible for Arianna to comment, as she is completely unclear what her connection to the watchlist is, a spokesperson for Huffington told Yahoo News.

Handeyside, the ACLU attorney, called the database a due process disaster.

The standard for placement on the watchlist is so low, and the safeguards against errors and misplaced suspicion are so deficient, that its no wonder the watchlist has ballooned to well over a million people, he said. Having a connection to someone on the watchlist is not remotely suspicious of itself.

Arianna Huffington at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2020. (David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

But it wasnt just journalists being investigated, or vetted, in the parlance of the Counter Network Division. Ratliff, whose email signature was In God We Trust. For Everyone Else We Vet, created a PDF file later that month that included several Congressional referrals, according to the inspector general report. That PDF was then sent to CBPs Analytical Management Systems Control Office, which is described in congressional testimony as dedicated to finding anomalies among the agencys employees to mitigate any potential threat to the CBP mission.

According to Whites later testimony, Ratliff regularly investigated congressional staffers travel captured by CBP to run against the Terrorist Screening Database. White stated that when Congressional Staffers schedule flights, the numbers they use get captured and analyzed by CBP, the inspector general report says. White told the investigators that Ratliff does this all the time, looking at inappropriate contacts between people. At one point in an email, Ratliff also references sending a PDF package listing several congressional members linked to people on the Terrorism Screening Database. It is unclear, based on the inspector general report, which members were identified.

Rambo then contacted analysts with Deloitte, a government contractor that had employees working directly for CBPs Counter Network Division, who specialized in investigating people using social media and other open sources of information. I sent them the link to that [Russia] article as context as to who Ali Watkins was and basically told them to move on with that to uncover what they could, Rambo told investigators. He identified Watkins as a primary target of Operation Whistle Pig and Wolfe as an associated target.

Deloitte did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

The Deloitte team soon sent back a bulletin pinpointing Watkinss exact location on dates when they knew she was with Wolfe, like their trip to Spain. They also noted other geotagged Facebook check-ins during the time under scrutiny, including domestic travel to three states. The bulletin included information on her mother and brother and links to their profiles. Attached to the email were photos taken from Watkinss Facebook profile showing her in Spain.

Gracias, Rambo replied.

There were conflicting accounts about how many other journalists, beyond Watkins, who were scrutinized by the Counter Network Division. White told investigators that in preparation for speaking with the Associated Presss Mendoza, she was run through multiple databases, and CBP discovered that one of the phone numbers on Mendozas phone was connected with a terrorist.

In a statement to Yahoo, after being told of the investigation into one of its reporters, an AP spokesperson, Lauren Easton, blasted CBP.

The Associated Press demands an immediate explanation from U.S. Customs and Border Protection as to why journalists including AP investigative reporter Martha Mendoza were run through databases used to track terrorists and identified as potential confidential informant recruits, Easton told Yahoo News in a statement. We are deeply concerned about this apparent abuse of power. This appears to be an example of journalists being targeted for simply doing their jobs, which is a violation of the First Amendment.

According to a memo that Troy Miller, then the head of the National Targeting Center, provided to investigators, the division reached out to reporters at the Huffington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press. These entities were analyzed further to determine nexus to the information being provided to CBP in order to validate any future information that would be provided on alleged forced labor practices, wrote Miller, who went on to become the acting CBP commissioner.

According to records included in the inspector general report, such vetting was standard practice at the division.

I would just remove journalists from that question, to begin with, Rambo later said when asked about the vetting process for journalists. Just through day-to-day practice of how we operate, when you're told to vet somebody, that you vet them through all of those systems.

A former New York Times reporter confirmed to Yahoo News that they met with Dan White and others at CBP to discuss trade-based money laundering, among other issues. They also pitched me on the labor abuse work that CBP was doing, the former Times reporter said.

"We are deeply troubled to learn how U.S. Customs and Border Protection ran this investigation into a journalist's sources, Danielle Rhoades Ha, a New York Times spokesperson, wrote to Yahoo News. As the Attorney General has said clearly, the government needs to stop using leak investigations as an excuse to interfere with journalism. It is time for Customs and Border Protection to make public a full record of what happened in this investigation so this sort of improper conduct is not repeated."

The Justice Department and the White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including about the appropriateness of investigating journalists. A spokesperson for DHS referred requests for comment to CBP.

CBP vetting and investigatory operations, including those conducted by the Counter Network Division, are strictly governed by well-established protocols and best practices, a spokesperson for the agency said in a written statement to Yahoo News. The Counter Network Division within U.S. Customs and Border Protections (CBP) National Targeting Center (NTC) shares information with key partners, analyze threats, and enhances the U.S. governments operational ability to combat illicit networks, including those associated with terrorists and transnational criminal organizations.

Read more from the original source:

Operation Whistle Pig: Inside the secret CBP unit with no rules that investigates Americans - Yahoo News

Lane Kiffin is realizing that college football players are now able to act like coaches every offseason.

With the regular season over and the early signing period for high school recruits set to begin Wednesday, many players who are looking to transfer have been actively searching for their new schools this month. As players put their names in the transfer portal, coaching staffs have to keep an eye out for players they want to add for the upcoming season while also prepping for bowl games if their teams are eligible for the postseason.

Players are also now able to make money off their name and image rights. This is the first offseason where transferring players can consider how much money they can make in endorsements when choosing their new schools. And Kiffin says that money is now an overriding factor for many players when it comes to their transfer decisions.

"I don't think people really say it this way, but let's not make a mistake: We have free agency in college football," the Ole Miss coach told the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. "The kids a lot of times go to where they're going to get paid the most. No one else is saying that, maybe. But the kids say, 'This is what I'm getting here from [name, image and likeness].' "

It's easy to see why Kiffin isn't exactly thrilled with the reality of the transfer portal. Thanks to new NCAA rules, players can transfer and immediately be eligible at their new schools. The loosening of the transfer rules has led to more players searching for better opportunities, even before they were able to make endorsement and sponsorship income. More transfers has led to more work for coaches to keep players from transferring and actively recruit transferring players to upgrade their teams.

"Right now you're practicing for bowl games," Kiffin said. "We had a player not here [Monday] because he's still on his official visit to another place. Just really think about that. It's very strange. I had a recruiting weekend this weekend where I had to fly out really quick to go see someone that's at another school but is in the portal."

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But why shouldn't players be afforded the same offseason reality that coaches have been experiencing for years? Coaches have been free to change jobs this time of the year for decades. And money has often been a driving factor. Former Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly left the Irish while the team still had a chance at making the College Football Playoff. Ex-Louisiana coach Billy Napier was hired by Florida before the Ragin' Cajuns played in the Sun Belt title game.

Oh, Kiffin left Florida Atlantic for Ole Miss before the Owls played in the Boca Raton Bowl at the end of the 2019 season.

Look, there's a lot of things that aren't perfect in college football but the ability for players to play right away and make money off their own likenesses are two huge steps toward fixing the longtime systemic inequities in the sport. Coaches like Kiffin and Mississippi State coach Mike Leach are far more used to a college football where those inequities were an unaddressed reality and simply the way things were and should always be.

And let's be real, the transfer portal and name, image and likeness process would probably be a lot less messy for players and coaches if the NCAA and its member schools had been proactive to make incremental and well-thought-out change. Instead, the portal and the current NIL rules are the products of rash decisions after years of procrastination by those in charge of college sports.

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Lane Kiffin on the transfer portal: Players transfer to where 'they're going to get paid the most' - Yahoo Sports

Investment programs are gaining popularity in the U.S. and internationally, as more millennials shift their money into cryptocurrency.

The dynamic represents both an opportunity for citizens to obtain a second passport, and an option to claim permanent residency in a foreign country, according to one market observer. He cited the Caribbean and Europe as prime destinations for nascent crypto investors.

We're looking specifically at the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, as well as countries such as Portugal that offer golden visas, which are residency by investment programs, Armand Tannous, vice president of North America and Latin America for Apex Capital Partners, told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday.

Investors approved for the Caribbean will have to wait three to four months for citizenship, while those applying for European nations will have to wait six to 18 months.

Additionally, Tannous noted that if a citizen decides to renounce their U.S. citizenship, even though they have a second citizenship, they don't have access to the tax benefits that the other countries offer.

Still, there's been an increase of 36% of individuals who have renounced their citizenship within the last year. [Thats] a huge number, Tannous said.

As more countries allow investment into their nation by foreign nationals and offer them substantial benefits in return, Tannous explained that citizenship by investment programs (CIP) do a lot of "due dilligence" when it comes to vetting applicants.

Successful applicants need to present a clean criminal record and also show a legal source of funds or source of wealth as well as invest in one of the government approved investment opportunities, Tannous said. That could range from real estate to government bonds, or even a donation to the national economic fund of a specific country.

According to data compiled by Apex Capital Partners, the pandemic fueled a 200% surge in applications from U.S. citizens applying for citizenship and residency by investment programs, with strong growth in Canadian applications (47%).

The interest fueled by crypto comes during what has been a volatile yet monumental year for digital coins. Bitcoin (BTC) the leading cryptocurrency soared to new highs, but has since retreated amid fears about the Omicron variant of COVID-19, as well as concerns about Federal Reserve monetary policy.

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However, the sector is still booming amid sustained interest by small investors in smaller crypto units, and soaring institutional buy-in from major companies. Meanwhile, digital currency enthusiasts many of whom are millennials are driving interest in dual citizenship.

Over the last 24 months, with the pandemic, [we have seen]that you don't necessarily need to be living in your country of which you're were born in to be able to continue [or] actively [be] running your business, whether it's a crypto business, simple trading, or even having access to different investment opportunities internationally, Tannous said.

The reasons for why the crypto crowd is gravitating toward having a second home country are related to opportunity cost, tax exposure, as well as a lot of uncertainty in the field, the investor said.

They see that trend of where you're treated best and that's when they look at being global citizens, he added.

Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @daniromerotv

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Over the shoulder view of a young woman checking the stock market on smartphone, having coffee at home. Business on the go concept.

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How crypto is boosting investor education, dual citizenship hopes - Yahoo Finance

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Thursday, December 10, 2021

Last Sunday, after nearly suffering a heart-attack watching Pittsburgh play Baltimore in a classic Steelers-Ravens thriller, I attended my first concert of the pandemic era: Genesis, which played to a packed-to-the-rafters crowd at Madison Square Garden.

Tomorrow afternoon, Ill be indulging in yet-another COVID-era first thats also been on my personal bucket list for years. Ill be watching the Black Knights play the Midshipmen in the annual Army-Navy game.

Im also an entertainment junkie whos in the movie theater at least once a week, and Im known to dine indoors a LOT. And it bears mentioning that all of the above, at least in New York City, require full vaccination (in the interest of full disclosure, I am).

Believe it or not, my reason for sharing this information is not to boast about my social life, or virtue signal about vaccinations. It's meant to illustrate an important point about the virus and human behavior, which have played an integral part in propelling the economy for the better part of the last two years.

The appearance of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 rocked markets, which up until Thursdays retreat that squashed a 3-day rally, had recouped nearly all of its gains a reversal so dramatic investors had begun dismissing it as Omi-whatever.

It's still very early days and caution is advised. Yet signs, including price action in major markets, are pointing to the variant being less fatal, even if it's significantly more communicable than Delta. Case counts are already jumping everywhere even among highly vaccinated populations so more restrictions on public life (or the unlikely but still non-zero probability of full-on lockdowns) cant be entirely ruled out.

But with all that being said

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Amid the battles breaking out over vaccine mandates and the impact on those who have chosen not to be inoculated against COVID, theres strong evidence to suggest that people are over it, as the kids say these days.

None of this is meant to dismiss the toll the virus continues to take on the globe, where the death toll has spiraled inexorably higher (over 5 million worldwide and counting), even with the presence of vaccines. To be sure, there are many with underlying conditions, or loved ones considered high risk, who are still cautious or outright paranoid, and with good reason.

Yet evidence everywhere suggests that vast numbers of people and not just the mostly maskless hordes gathered to watch Phil Collins and Company at the Garden are moving beyond living in self-imposed exile to a strategy of risk assessment and mitigation. Holiday gatherings, including office parties, are starting to look a lot like they did pre-COVID.

To wit:

And all over the world, more people are getting out and about. Global mobility data from Deutsche Bank suggests that on a population-weighted basis, most of the world is back close to pre-pandemic levels of mobility, the bank said in a research note this week.

People are moving about their respective countries, and the world, at an increasingly rapid pace.

As the winter COVID wave and Omicron hit us, in aggregate mobility hasnt yet dipped, chief economist Jim Reid wrote. This either shows people are learning to live with the virus more or that its too early to tell as travel and domestic restrictions, only very recently imposed, have yet to fully take their toll, with more possibly to come.

Perhaps, but the learning to live aspect is what is most important to understanding why stocks have recouped their losses from the Black Friday sell-off. In fact, Matt Roberts, newly publicly-traded Vacasa's (VCSA) CEO, told Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous this week that bookings continue to outperform, even with Omicron swirling.

"We posted amazing Q3 results when the Delta variant was spiking. It's partly because we're domestic focused and whole homed. So, if anything, we are quite insulated from any new variants," Roberts said.

The rise of new variants is a very real risk. Yet all the high frequency data that continue to defy expectations, especially those showing how hot the labor market remains, suggest that demand is sky high. That means even people fearful of COVID are still coming out of their bubbles.

The response to Omicron may dampen the economic outlook in the near term, wrote Thomas Torgerson, co-head of sovereign ratings at DBRS Morningstar, in research this week.

At present, we view these risks as contained and unlikely to derail the global economic recovery as consumers and businesses continue to adapt and learn to live with the risks, he added.

For many (but certainly not all), "learning to live" with COVID has become something of a credo. So whether vaccinated, unvaccinated, or just plain over it (I count myself firmly in the latter camp), people are weighing the risks, but seem to be erring on the side of enjoying lifes creature comforts.

Oh, and Go Army!

By Javier E. David, editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him at @Teflongeek

Why Apple's stock is on fire right now

Omicron variant is starting to hurt consumer spending: BofA data

Supply chain disruption has brought massive change to beer market: CEO

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Vaxxed or not, data suggests people are over Omicron/Delta, and COVID altogether - Yahoo Finance

As we enter the final four weeks of the regular season, the focus slowly shifts to the postseason. The playoff hunt will dominate the backstory of every game with each team's fate continuing to evolve every time the scoreboard hits 0:00. The importance of each game gets magnified as fans start to roll out the dreaded "must-win" label. It used to justify an expectation that a team will over-perform simply because the stakes are raised. You see coaches cringe during interviews the second it rolls off the tongue of a reporter. Additional pressure rarely translates to success. That's exactly why coaches spent the last 14 weeks ingraining the idea into their team that each game is equally important.

Bettors are wired differently. We are not coaches. We spend each week trying to capture any possible edge we can find. Sometimes it can be data-driven or just news and information. Every sports bettor will tell you that a week doesn't go by where they aren't trying to project where a team is mentally and how that will impact their play. It can be a player prop when facing his old team, or a team looking ahead to a game the following week. It's part of the handicap. Understanding its predictive value is the key.

We grow up watching our favorite sports-themed movies and they all have one thing in common a happy ending. When the pressure peaked, the team responded to defeat adversity and secure the victory. The NFL is highly entertaining, but it's not a movie. Credits don't roll when the games end. More often than not, when a team is in a "must-win" situation, it ends with disappointment and frustration for fans. Bettors need to keep that in mind as we wind down the NFL season. Don't give teams a bump simply because their backs are against the wall. Players respond differently to pressure. I targeted two games that feature at least one team that's feeling the heat as the season winds down. Here is the best way to bet how they will respond on Sunday.

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The Steelers at 6-6-1 are behind 10 other AFC teams in the playoff standings. If Pittsburgh plans to push its way to the top seven, it has to start this week against Tennessee. The Steelers have the Chiefs, Browns, and Ravens waiting for them in a brutal stretch to end the season. Mike Tomlin's record of 14 straight seasons without a losing record is in serious jeopardy.

The Titans are coming off a 20-0 win over the Jaguars. It already sounds like it's "1-2-3 Cancun" time in Jacksonville. Regardless of what we think of the Jaguars, the shutout speaks to how the Titans' defense has improved down the stretch. Mike Vrabel's unit ranks 11th in EPA/Play allowed while the formerly formidable Steelers defense ranks an uncharacteristic 27th. In a matchup in which both teams will rely heavily on its ground game, Tennessee's defense is top 10 in terms of rushing success rate allowed. If Big Ben has to win this one with his arm, I'm betting the Steelers fall deeper out of the playoff picture.

What a difference a year makes. After being swept during the season by the Saints, Tom Brady's Bucs headed to New Orleans as three-point underdogs in last year's playoff divisional round. It's been downhill for the Saints ever since.

Fast forward 11 months. The defending champion Buccaneers are double-digit favorites at home against a Saints team struggling to stay above water in the playoff race. The Saints continue to be a puzzle Brady has yet to solve in the regular season. New Orleans took down Tampa 36-27 as a four-point underdog in late October. Tampa is now laying 6.5 more points in the rematch. Are 10.5 points too many to lay with the best team in football? Tampa Bay is 5-0 as a double-digit favorite this season, while the Saints lost their last three as underdogs.

As strong as the Bucs have been at home (6-0 S/U, 5-1 ATS), I do think we see the best version of the Saints we have seen in a while. It's not that New Orleans was impressive in beating the Jets, but it's that the game served a purpose in getting some key reps for players returning from injury.

Running back Alvin Kamara gets the attention, but DE Marcus Davenport and OT Terron Armstead are the valuable pieces that make this Saints team a playoff contender. We saw Tampa take its foot off the gas against Buffalo at home last week, and I think they let the Saints hang around long enough to cover. I'm not daring enough to grab the moneyline at +400, but I am happy to get a 10.5-point head start in this one.

Stats provided by Ben Baldwin and teamrankings.com.

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NFL betting: It could be a prime spot to fade Tom Brady and the Bucs - Yahoo Sports

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Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Donning my Captain Obvious hat, Ill connect a few dots that by now are fairly apparent: inflation remains implacable in the face of rising COVID-19 infections. That is likely to make the Federal Reserve announce that its slowing the spigot of monetary policy, which is also making markets temperamental.

Across the board, we are seeing rising and accelerating inflation, Clearnomics CEO James Liu told Yahoo Finance Live on Tuesday.

Most likely [the Fed is] going to accelerate the rate of tapering, and then were looking at probably the first rate hike in the first half of next year, he said.

However, Tuesdays hot wholesale prices data which showed headline inflation skyrocketing nearly 10% year-over-year, a record and a central bank struggling to get ahead of inflation gives us an opportunity to reiterate something that often gets lost in the debate about price pressures.

That is to say, our current inflationary moment is entirely driven by voracious consumer demand, a high-class problem that's actually buttressed the economy in ways that can only be described as Herculean. At the risk of oversimplifying, people want to get out, buy things and see people after spending most of 2020 cooped up at home.

Irrespective of COVID-19 variants rearing their ugly head, those impulses have yet to shift appreciably.

For evidence of this, note the observations of Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) President Daniel Pinto, both of whom were quoted as saying spending and consumer behavior are holding up strongly as new virus infections soar.

"I don't see any impact yet. And if you go out to a restaurant, I don't see people change their behavior, Moynihan was quoted as saying by The Transcript.

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The [air travel] numbers, you can see bounce around a little bit... but the reality is it seems like the vaccines continue to work, and we'll see what that plays out. I'm not the scientist, but it's got time and the data will get better, but we're not seeing any behavior change here, Moynihan said, according to The Transcript.

Meanwhile Pinto cited JPMorgans proprietary credit card spending as being a whopping 17% higher than it was before the pandemic. "So the consumers have a great balance sheet. They have accumulated savings over this time, The Transcript quoted Pinto saying.

And that brings us to Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Multiverse-spanning installment featuring the Wall Crawler from Astoria. Amid all the hand-wringing about Omicron, Marvels latest blockbuster is poised to reap the highest box-office opening of the pandemic, if rapturous early reviews are to be believed (yours truly will be attending an early show on Thursday).

Should the projections hold up, it would reinforce an idea the Morning Brief expounded upon last week, to at least some criticism. People appear to be looking beyond anxiety-inducing headlines about COVID-19, and renewed masking mandates in New York and California.

Whether that changes in the near-term is anyones guess. But with more available jobs than people to fill them and wages on the rise (even if the effect is being offset by surging prices), a consumption driven economy is still eating, shopping and showing up en masse to movies they want to see.

By Javier E. David, editor at Yahoo Finance. Follow him at @Teflongeek

Economy

7:00 a.m. ET: MBA Mortgage Applications, week ended Dec. 10 (2.0% during prior week)

8:30 a.m. ET: Retail sales, month-over-month,December (0.8%. Expected, 1.7% in October).

8:30 a.m. ET: Retail sales excluding autos and gas, month-over-month, November (0.9% expected, 1.4% in October)

8:30 a.m. ET: Import price index, month-over-month, November (0.6% expected, 1.2% in October)

8:30 a.m. ET: Business Inventories, October (1.1% expected, 0.7% in September)

8:30 a.m. ET: NAHB Housing Market Index, December (84 expected, 83 in November)

2:00 p.m. ET: FOMC Rate Decision

Earnings

Politics

The Senate will hear from top airline leaders. CEOs Doug Parker of American Airlines, Gary Kelly of Southwest Airlines, Scott Kirby of United Airlines and others will appear at 2:30 p.m. ET to discuss Oversight of the U.S. Airline Industry."

President Biden is traveling to Kentucky to receive an update on the recent tornadoes. He will visit the towns of Mayfield and Dawson Springs to survey storm damage.

Congress sends Biden $2.5T debt limit hike, avoiding default [AP]

FTSE heads lower as UK inflation soars to decade high of 5.1% [Yahoo Finance UK]

U.S. to add more Chinese firms to investment, export blacklists: FT [Reuters]

Microsoft has biggest drop since Sept. after inflation data [Bloomberg]

Ray Dalio: 'The system is in jeopardy' after events like Jan. 6

Why hedge funds are warming up to crypto

Maybe bad bosses are causing the worker shortage

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

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The Fed, inflation and Spider-Man: Morning Brief - Yahoo Finance

Yasiel Puig has been out of MLB since 2019. (Photo by David Maxwell/Getty Images)

Warning: The following article contains graphic allegations of sexual assault.

A new pair of sexual assault allegations against former MLB outfielder Yasiel Puig have come to light, less than a week after he signed a $1 million deal with a Korean baseball team.

Puig reached legal settlements with two women who accused him of sexually assaulting them on consecutive days in 2017, according to The Washington Post's Gus Garcia-Roberts. The former All-Star reportedly paid the women, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, a total of $325,000 in settlements that included non-disclosure agreements.

MLB was reportedly aware of the allegations against Puig, then with the Dodgers, and opted not to suspend him or place him on administrative leave, unlike their handling of many more public accusations. Los Angeles Dodgers president Stan Kasten claimed to "have no recollection of that at all when asked by the Post.

Puig had previously been accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit by a woman who claimed he accosted her in the bathroom of a suite at a Los Angeles Lakers game. He has since settled the lawsuit.

In a letter Allred reportedly sent to Puig, she claimed the outfielder went to a nightclub on Jan. 27, 2017 with a woman, who lived in Los Angeles.

Puig allegedly offered to take the woman home around the time she realized she was intoxicated. Puig allegedly insisted on walking her to her door, which she said she protested due to their mutual inebriation, then pushed his way into her apartment, started kissing her and pulled off her underwear.

The woman said she repeatedly told Puig to leave and told him she was not interested in sex, but he only stopped after she screamed once he attempted to rape her. Puig then allegedly tried to force her to perform oral sex on him, which she also resisted, at which point Puig ejaculated and left the apartment.

There is reportedly no indication the woman reported the alleged assault to the police.

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A day later, Puig attended the Dodgers' FanFest at Dodger Stadium, where he pledged to focus more on baseball after a turbulent 2016 season. After the event, he allegedly invited a woman to join him at a friend's house in Santa Fe Springs, where they had consensual sex in the bedroom.

During intercourse, the second woman claimed Puig noticed a bruise on her leg and accused her of having sex with someone else. It is unclear what kind of relationship they had before meeting at FanFest, if there was any at all. An angry Puig allegedly slapped the woman "violently and repeatedly" across the face, then choked her with his left hand.

The woman said Puig only released her once she began to pass out. She then reportedly texted a friend to come "rescue" her in messages obtained by the Post.

The alleged assault was reported to Santa Fe Springs police two days later, with the woman showing a bruise on her right shoulder, marks on both sides of her lower neck and bruising on the left of her chin. She reportedly told police she wanted the allegation documented but not prosecuted due to the fame of her alleged attacker.

Both women reached confidential settlements with Puig through Allred in April of that year.

While MLB has frequently sidelined players accused of sexual assault and domestic violence, it apparently took no such action upon learning of the allegations against Puig.

The league reportedly did get Puig to grant the women permission to speak with its investigators despite the NDAs, but it's unclear if the women chose to do so. The investigation was reportedly closed, leaving Puig fully available for what would be one of the better seasons of his career in 2017.

Once considered one of the most exciting talents in all of baseball, Puig has not appeared in an MLB game since the 2017 season. He did reach a deal with the Atlanta Braves in 2020, but that was nixed by a positive COVID-19 test.

The allegations against Puig from the 2018 Lakers game came to light later in 2020. He claimed the allegations to be "totally false" and insisted he and his accuser had consensual sex, which led to his accuser countering she is a lesbian who was attending the game with her female fiance.

Per the Post, the woman's lawsuit was settled for $250,000. One of the reported reasons he settled was a disclosure by his attorneys that his ability to pay a larger sum was limited. While Puig made $51.6 million in MLB salaries alone, documents apparently showed his finances to consist of overdrawn checking accounts and an MLB retirement account with half a million dollars withdrawn.

Free of that lawsuit, Puig has since presented himself as a baseball outsider who was misunderstood by MLB and the media, with the stated aim of returning to the big leagues.

Last Wednesday, Puig signed a $1 million deal with the Kiwoom Heroes. We'll see where that road takes him.

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Report: Yasiel Puig was accused of sexual assault by 2 other women in 2017 - Yahoo Sports

It was around fourth or fifth grade when Las Vegas Aces forward A'ja Wilson went outside in the chilly South Carolina air to find her Christmas present. The shiny new basketball hoop was set atop bricks so it would sit evenly on the slope of the yard, and it was immediately put to use.

"That's where it all started," Wilson told Yahoo Sports. "You had to pull me away from the goal at night because I loved it that much."

It's the sports gift that meant the most to Wilson and it still stands in her parents' yard, the net long wasted away from use, but the rim and backboard intact. She said her dad, Roscoe, doesn't plan on moving it until it falls.

That's the kind of special gift Wilson hoped to help give youth athletes in the warmer Las Vegas area this month as part of the Dick's Sporting Goods Sports Matter #GiftofSportTour. Wilson surprised young athletes on video after they chose sports equipment from the truck for the holiday season.

"Seeing the kids just light up when they receive their gifts is something thats truly special to me, especially giving back to the youth and our next generation of athletes," Wilson told Yahoo Sports. "Its something thats truly special because I know thats how I got started. To partner with them and just seeing everything that theyve done for the community in Vegas, Im just happy to be a part of it honestly."

Wilson said it's exciting to see them with items that "get their blood flowing at the next level," just as her hoop did for her. Her resume in the 15 years since that gift reached her parents' yard already includes an MVP trophy, an Olympic gold medal and off-court work that represents a changing ecosystem around women's sports.

Wilson is a beneficiary of growing attention and space given to the WNBA and women's college basketball. The South Carolina national champion already has a statue on the campus, but she was a few years too late to benefit from the name, image and likeness laws that took effect this summer.

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"I think honestly [NIL] would have enhanced me, of course, because I feel like collegiate athletes now are learning how important their brand really is right out the gates in high school," Wilson, 25, told Yahoo Sports. "And I think because we didnt have that, we kind of got the chance to kind of live a little bit. But theyre finding their brand for now as a pro [while they're] in college."

Wilson said if she played collegiately during the NIL era, she would have come into the WNBA with a better grasp of her brand and how to grow it. (She did admit in her characteristic way, "I'm a little jealous, but it's OK.") It could have also helped create more opportunities once she did turn pro.

"I hope that this is something that starts just a domino effect of women getting sponsorships and deals that they deserve," Wilson said. "And its pretty cool to see how many different ones these collegiate athletes are getting."

Wilson, who closed out her fourth WNBA season in September, is doing fairly well in that regard.

She may not have come into the league with a brand, but she's rocking one now.

The Olympian founded the A'ja Wilson Foundation to support children and their families who struggle with dyslexia. She launched her own candle company run by her mom, Eva. In the 2020 bubble, she and Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier started a popular podcast.

And Wilson has hit more serious, life-altering tones by joining the WNBA Players Association's social justice council and writing "Dear Black Women" about her mental health. Her sponsorships and deals, like Mountain Dew and Dick's Sporting Goods, assist her community in positive, personal ways.

There are many players still going overseas for year-round play, but it feels like a different WNBA offseason in that many players have stayed home and continued to feed their off-court entrepreneurship. There's offseason news, talk and appearances that keep the league relevant, such as Wilson on Tuesday's episode of Kevin Hart's "Cold as Balls" show. Or last spring's Saweetie music video. Is it because WNBA viewership continues to rise?

"I think its a mixture of that and within a couple years its been the 'Year of the Woman,' " Wilson told Yahoo Sports. "And everyone is just wanting to pick your brain, wanting you to be in this. We have so many, 'first females to do this,' 'first woman to do that,' these past couple years. I dont want to say its trendy, but I think companies are understanding how powerful the woman is. And were showing it and were backing it up and it goes from there."

Wilson is a restricted free agent when the offseason officially opens and will garner a large raise from the $70,000 she made in 2021 as a rookie contract holdover from the former collective bargaining agreement. She told Yahoo Sports she hasn't thought much about it and leaves it to her agent.

Instead, she's enjoying "being normal" and spending time with family, including an upcoming birthday for one of her pups. Ace, the elder of her two Aussiedoodles, turns 2 on Dec. 21.

As for offseason training, she said she'll wait a few months before "getting on Chelsea Gray's nerves" to get in the gym with her point guard. The location of the hoop has changed, but the desire to get to the next level hasn't.

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A'ja Wilson continues to hone brand amid 'Year of the Woman' growth in women's sports attention - Yahoo Sports