Robert Sarver, the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns NBA team, has been suspended for one year, and has been fined 10 million dollars. Sarver has been caught using racial slurs and mistreating their female employees.
Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA issued a statement on behalf of the NBA and apologized for the behavior. The NBA began investigation on Sarver after there had been accusations against him back in November of 2021. More than 100 individuals who were interviewed state that his actions “violated applicable standards.” According to the report that was recently released, Sarver made crude sexual references on at least 20 occasions. To defend against himself, Sarver cited his ownership of the Mercury, the WNBA team, as an example of his support for women.
This is news particularly to NBA fans, or in broader terms, sports fans. This falls under the news values of conflict, prominence, and human-interest. It falls under conflict because it is controversial and Sarver has some consequences that he has to deal with due to his actions, and people like to read about conflict. It also falls under prominence because if this were any other individual, it wouldn’t get as much recognition. Since it’s the owner of an NBA team, it is going to be read more. Lastly human interest, because of the casual NBA or sports fan that follows basketball more frequently.
This article on the New York Times talks about the new sport of pickleball. It is a game that combines tennis, badminton, and ping pong. It has grown 40% between 2019 and 2021. It is a lot slower-paced than tennis and the other sports, so that is why almost anyone can play pickleball, and possibly the reason as to why it is growing so quickly. Less than a quarter of US adults get enough physical activity, and social interaction is a big contributor to the motivation, which pickleball provides.
This article is news because it is informing the public about this new sport called pickleball. People reading this article might be looking for some way to exercise and they can do that while playing pickleball. It also allows people to workout with their friends while having fun at the same time. Many sports are hard to play as people age so they can’t get the physical activity that they require, but after reading this article about pickleball, older people might give this a shot.
As we all know, the supply chain issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a huge toll on many food businesses. One of them being General Mills, who makes Totino’s Pizza Rolls. During the pandemic, these snacks where flying off the shelves since the population was looking for something easy to make that would satisfy their needs. To make a Totino’s Pizza Roll, it takes 21 ingredients. These ingredients were easy to obtain before the pandemic because the packaged food industry was a pretty stable market. Now, that there are certain supply chain issues, it is hard to get certain ingredients for these pizza rolls, resulting in shortages in many stores. When General Mills would finally receive more of 1 ingredient, they would almost be out of another ingredient, so there were always set backs. They needed to find a solution to keep up with the increasing demand, so that they were bringing in as much money as possible.
General Mills’ solution is to make 25 different recipes, all resulting in a pizza roll. The recipes aren’t changing drastically, only fiddling with certain starches and sweeteners within the product. Ingredion, a company that makes sweeteners and starches used by large food companies, had their 500 scientists across 26 labs working on new variations of pizza rolls. Beth Tormey, a vice president and general manager of systems and ingredient solutions at Ingredion, mentions that it’s not as easy as it sounds. “It has to meet parameters of texture and taste so that consumers like it, but it also has to fit into the regulatory box and the nutrition box. It all sounds simple from a distance, but it’s not.”
General Mills was able to come to come up with 25 variations of the pizza roll and they are now stocked back up in freezer sections again. General Mills learned a lot. They now have many different suppliers for each ingredient and are now keeping more of each ingredient on hand.
