diversity visa lottery
diversity visa lottery
Matt Gaetz says he won’t return to Congress next year after withdrawing name for attorney general
Scheffler goes on a run of birdies in the Bahamas and leads by 2
Pep Guardiola says Man City ‘innocent until proven guilty’ after Mourinho jibeEAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — The New York Giants have been losing on the field for months, and the sign of another potential loss might have been on the horizon this past weekend. A small plane circled MetLife Stadium roughly 90 minutes before the New Orleans Saints beat the Giants 14-11 on Sunday, urging co-owner John Mara to overhaul a team that has made the playoffs twice since winning the Super Bowl in February 2012. “Mr. Mara, enough. Please fix this dumpster fire!” read the message on a banner towed by the plane. While Mara declined to comment on the aerial message, its content was clear. Someone — probably a disgruntled fan — was sick of seeing the Giants (2-11) lose week after week. Their skid now is at eight games, one shy of the team record. Having one fan and probably scores or more upset has to be a concern for Mara and co-owner Steve Tisch. No owner wants his fan base unhappy, and it's not just about this season. Seven of the last eight seasons have ended with losing records, including the 2019 season, which featured a franchise record-tying nine straight losses. There have been two other nine-game skids, the first in 1976 and the second in 2003-04. Mara and Tisch need to make changes, but what should they do? The knee-jerk reaction would be to fire coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen, who came in together in 2022 and led New York to the playoffs with a 9-7-1 record. That season began with seven wins in nine games. Since then, the Giants have posted an 11-28-1 record. The late Robert E. Mulcahy, the former head of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and later the athletic director at Rutgers, once said that the hardest decision he had to make was to keep Greg Schiano as the Scarlet Knights' coach after posting a 12-34 record in his first four seasons. Everyone wanted him fired. Mulcahy felt he had the right guy and held pat. It worked out. Mara and Tisch face a similar decision with the guys they brought in from Buffalo. If they feel Schoen and Daboll will turn around the Giants, they should stick with them. If not, change things. What they can't do is let an emotional fan base make the decision for them. What’s working The new defensive line. Pro Bowler Dexter Lawrence and D.J Davidson went on injured reserve last week and fellow defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches was out with neck and shoulder injuries. That left backups Elijah Chatman and Jordon Riley, newcomer Corey Durdon, and Elijah Garcia and Casey Rogers — who were signed off the practice squad to the active roster — to handle Alvin Kamara and the Saints. New Orleans was limited to 92 yards rushing. Giants opponents had been averaging almost 146 yards. What needs help The Giants remain the NFL's lowest-scoring team. They have hit the 20-point mark four times in 13 games. They have scored 18 points or fewer nine times and were held to single digits in four games. After taking over the play-calling from Mike Kafka this season, maybe Daboll should give quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney an opportunity to call plays. It couldn't hurt. Stock up Micah McFadden. With fellow inside linebacker Bobby Okereke out with a back issue, McFadden had a team-high 11 tackles, including five for losses. Rookie Darius Muasau, who replaced Okereke, had eight tackles. Stock down The offensive line, which was without left tackle Jermaine Eluemunor for the second straight week and saw left guard Jon Runyan (ankle) and center John Michael Schmitz (neck) leave in the second half. The Saints pounded Drew Lock, recording two sacks and 13 quarterback hits. The Giants rushed for 112 yards, but most of that was Lock scrambling for 59 yards to avoid more hits. Injuries In addition to Runyan and Schmitz, safety Tyler Nubin (ankle) and cornerback Tre Hawkins, who was hurt after making a tackle, left the game. Lock was banged up and needed postgame X-rays and an MRI on Monday. Daboll said Lock will start this weekend if healthy. Key number 9 — The Giants are one loss away from matching their franchise-worst skid. Next steps To end the losing streak and win for the first time in eight games at MetLife Stadium this season, the Giants have to beat Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens (8-5) on Sunday. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
China on Monday launched an investigation into US chip giant Nvidia for allegedly violating its anti-monopoly laws, a top government agency said, as the two countries race for global chipmaking dominance. Beijing's state administration for market regulation, the authority on antitrust issues, launched the probe "in accordance with the law," according to a statement shared online. Nvidia is also suspected of violating commitments it made in 2020, the statement said, when it acquired Israeli data center firm Mellanox. After Beijing announced the probe, shares in Nvidia dropped 2.6 percent by Wall Street's close on Monday, precipitating a US stocks retreat. The artificial intelligence giant did not respond to a request for comment. China and the United States have in recent weeks clashed over exports of key chipmaking technology, where Nvidia is a major player. Beijing last week said it would restrict exports to the United States of some components critical to making semiconductors, after Washington announced curbs targeting China's ability to make advanced chips. Among the materials banned from export are the metals gallium, antimony and germanium, China's commerce ministry said in a statement that cited "national security" concerns. In its own latest curbs, Washington has announced restrictions on sales to 140 companies, including Chinese chip firms Piotech and SiCarrier, without additional permission. The move expands Washington's efforts to restrict exports of state-of-the-art chips to China, which can be used in advanced weapons systems and artificial intelligence. The new US rules also include controls on two dozen types of chipmaking equipment and three kinds of software tools for developing or producing semiconductors. The US tech behemoth has seen its profits soar on the back of strong demand for its artificial intelligence technology. In November, Nvidia surpassed Apple to become the highest-valued company in the world as the AI boom continues to excite Wall Street. But the Chinese market has been a rare weak spot. The US government in 2023 restricted Nvidia from selling some of its top AI chips to China, which the United States sees as a strategic competitor in the field of advanced semiconductors. Although Nvidia in November reported record high quarterly revenue, investors were wary of US-China tensions reheating with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. But during an event in Hong Kong last month, Nvidia's Taiwan-born CEO Jensen Huang told reporters "open science and open research in AI is absolutely global" and that "nothing" would stop that. mya/sn/mlm/jgc
Facebook X Email Print Save Story The film “Paid in Full,” from 2002, is a fictionalized retelling of the brief but titanic reign of three real-life New York drug kingpins during the crack era of the mid-eighties. As in many films about the Black drug kingpin, or the Black mobster, or the Black power player, lording over a city or a block through sometimes nefarious means, the protagonists Rico, Mitch, and Ace—based on the life and death of Rich Porter and his partners Azie Faizon and Alpo Martinez—are certainly not heroes, but no matter their misdeeds, which in this case were abundant, they’re not entirely villains, either. When I first saw the movie, two decades ago, the men’s quest for power felt not unfamiliar to me, from the blocks I knew growing up and the people who populated them, hustling against odds that were sometimes as small as a summer storm and other times as vast as an ocean of neon-blue police lights. Whatever its material or human costs, the hustle could feel heroic if you emerged as a survivor. In a scene from the film’s final act, Mitch (Mekhi Phifer), goes to see Ace (Wood Harris), while Ace is recovering from nine bullet wounds that he sustained during a robbery attempt, including a shot in the head at close range. Rico (Cam’ron) has chided Ace for being less than enthused about reëntering the drug trade before storming off, exiting the room, and Ace turns to Rico and says that he sees the world differently now—he’s out of the game, no turning back. Rico nods, appreciatively, but resists the newfound clarity of his wounded friend. Rico loves the game, he insists. He loves the hustle. It’s not even about the money; it’s about the love. He provides the streets with what they need, and the streets love him in return. He’ll never depart from the game, because it is within the game that he sees a kind of code, a type of honor to which one must adhere. To me, his comments seemed to apply not just to hustling but to broader aspects of worldly success. Once you’ve fulfilled every desire, or once you’ve surpassed certain levels of dreaming, you have to find something else to show up for. You didn’t have fame, and now you have it. You didn’t have money, and now it comes in so fast that you can’t spend it. No one has anything you desire, and so it might be easy to fall victim to a kind of apathy, a loss of principles. You have to be motivated by something else. Among the things that have made Kendrick Lamar both fascinating and a bit dangerous, for those who have chosen to cross him this year, is the fact that he doesn’t seem to desire anything that his peers have. He also doesn’t appear to be especially afraid of anyone. Lamar has always been fearless and eager to antagonize, though it feels like a lifetime ago in the Arc of Kendrick that we heard his verse on Big Sean’s 2013 song “Control,” exuding the same kind of combative bravado that he’s spent much of 2024 pushing forward. In “Control,” Kendrick challenged his rivals by name, rattling off a short list of m.c.s who were, at the time, generally considered (more or less) his equals in terms of cultural capital, if not in talent. The antagonizing was done in the name of reinvigorating competition within the genre. Hip-hop is, historically, a competitive sport, and not just the rapping; all of its elements lean on competition, be it breaking, d.j.’ing, or graffiti. Kendrick, it seemed, was eager to ignite a return to form. Though no major flash point came in the aftermath of “Control” (there were small feuds and jabs, but nothing that left a mark), Lamar found something lasting within the approach. He’d nudge his peers, and nudge them repeatedly, until someone pushed back. Lamar has dual critical and commercial bona fides, a pairing that not all of his mainstream rap contemporaries have access to. Famously, he won a Pulitzer Prize for the album “ DAMN. ,” from 2017, a sort of expansion upon “ Good Kid, M.A.A.D City ,” from 2012. Both were records of rich storytelling, detailing what it was like for a young Black person to harden himself in opposition to his circumstances while still maintaining a love for his place and the people in it. Lamar’s more recent “ Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers ,” from 2022, earned the most nominations of any album by a male artist at the Grammy Awards, including a nod for Album of the Year. The record was praised for its intimacy and its thematic tenderness, with Lamar exploring his personal journey with therapy, his struggles with generational trauma, and the ways that trauma might be transferrable to his children. Kendrick hasn’t been steeping only in outright antagonism or provocation, but there is an undercurrent of it in his work, even in something as inward-facing as “Mr. Morale,” that suggests a distaste for those who are coasting on past successes or pandering for easy stardom. In his verse on “Control,” after he lists all the rappers he is poking, he says, “I’ve got love for all y’all, BUT ”—what follows are the words “I’m trynna murder you niggas,” but they could have been anything. The conjunction represented an over-all ethos: I love you, I love this work we are all doing together, and for the sake of sustaining it I need you all to rise to my level, or I will drag some of you there. In 2024, the person he chose to drag was Drake. The saga began when Drake and J. Cole released the song “First Person Shooter,” in the fall of 2023. It was supposed to be a fun, triumphant romp between two of the biggest rappers of the moment, a radio- and club-friendly offering on Drake’s album, “For All the Dogs,” which was commercially successful but critically panned. In the lyrics, J. Cole mentioned himself and Drake as a part of rap’s “Big Three” alongside Lamar. It seemed, to me, like a throwaway line, as forgettable as the song itself. The Kendrick Lamar-Drake feud that ensued has been litigated endlessly , to the point where there isn’t much else interesting to say about its song-by-song minutiae or its beat-by-beat time line. It does seem, though, that Kendrick was ultimately offended to be mentioned in the same category as Drake, a superstar who has, for years, seemed interested in capitalizing on his stardom without actually growing or advancing his craft. Lamar’s initial response reflects an attitude of “I am not like the rest of these guys,” which had festered and grown into a kind of resentment. After a handful of songs traded back and forth between Drake and Lamar, some of them deeply personal, interweaving rumors about each other’s families and children, “Not Like Us” achieved what most diss tracks do not: it became as big of a song as its target. It was the No. 1 rap song in the country, played during sporting events, played while cutting to commercials on national television, played by marching bands at high schools and colleges, a song so big that it wouldn’t die, making it impossible for Drake to fashion a musical response that would hold up alongside the albatross of the tune, with its sharp stabs of synth and relentless, mocking, accusatory lyrics (including Lamar’s accusation that Drake is a user of people, a colonizer of sound, and a pedophile). As of today, Drake has brought one petition claiming that the song was given preferential treatment by Spotify and Universal Music Group—which has called the claims “offensive and untrue”—and another alleging defamation. Such legal retaliation is, to say the least, an uncommon path to chart during a rap battle. It feels like confirmation that Drake was bested musically, bludgeoned by Lamar’s song into a submission that he doesn’t seem, at the moment, to have a plan for recovering from. Rarely is a career of Drake’s magnitude taken down entirely, and I suspect that Drake’s has not been. But the feud caused a hole through which the vessel of Drake’s musical empire began to take on water. One grand miscalculation that continues to be made on the Internet, largely among Drake fans, is that because Drake is a bigger artist he can claim victory. But that does not take into account the central premise that we began with: Drake does not seem to have anything that Kendrick Lamar wants. Lamar is plenty famous, plenty popular, and has plenty accolades. Drake’s stardom is, seemingly in Lamar’s eyes, hollow, built on a foundation of falsehoods, or at least exaggerations, and done without principles. The mansion is big, but it is empty. The voice in it is lonely, even if other people are in the room. In the midst of the months-long Drake and Kendrick back-and-forth, I sat around with friends, musing about the battle, while “Paid in Full” played on a TV in the background of a pal’s house. The talk turned to Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick and to their “Paid in Full” analogues. Drake is Rico, one friend insisted. Reckless, and committed, impervious to downfall until he isn’t. Cole is Ace: not the wounded version of Ace but, perhaps, the version before and after—the hustler who wanted to be good at his hustle, but wanted to lay low, didn’t crave opulence, and then, later, the hustler who knew when it was time to find a slightly different hustle away from the heat. I proposed then, as I propose now, that though those analogies are fine and adequate, what makes Kendrick Lamar who he is this year, in this moment, is that he’s all three of the “Paid in Full” antiheroes tied up into one. He is as exhausted by the game as Ace is, laid up on his couch. He is as abrasive and relentless as Rico, with a flair for the dramatic, which, in 2024, for Kendrick, reached never-before-seen highs, during what felt like a non-stop summer victory tour. (In June, at Lamar’s “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends,” a live-streamed concert, “Not Like Us” was played five times back to back. On July 4th, the song’s music video prémiered.) And, lastly, in spite of (or perhaps because of) his awareness of the game’s inadequacies, he is, perhaps, most like Rico—he loves the game too much to leave it, so he has to find something in it beyond what seems to drive his peers. On “GNX,” the latest Kendrick album, which he surprise-released on November 22nd, what is keeping him going, still, may be the airing of grievances. In a year when Kendrick unequivocally won the most highly publicized rap battle of a generation, he still finds reason to gripe in his lyrics. When Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment company, booked him to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans, some people complained that no legends of New Orleans’s storied hip-hop scene had been granted a chance to play, and Kendrick was miffed. When Snoop Dogg posted a video of one of the Drake disses that used A.I. to re-create Snoop’s own voice and Tupac’s, Kendrick was, understandably, annoyed. The West Coast has lost some of its edge as a rap epicenter, and Kendrick was frustrated enough about it to push the West back to the front lines, putting out an album glossed with G-funk compositions that act not as nostalgia plays but as updates on the foundational sound that made West Coast rap singular. “GNX” feels, to me, like a portrait of someone standing in the aftermath of a needed destruction, deciding what to rebuild and what to leave decimated. On the opening track, “wacced out murals,” the same song where Kendrick mentions the Super Bowl backlash and Snoop’s perceived betrayal, he also sounds exhausted with the machinery of the music industry, and with the requirements of fame. (“Fuck your hip-hop, I watched the party just die,” he raps, referencing his surprise September track “The Day the Party Died”—not included on “GNX”—in which he laments the the rap industry’s glorification of empty, materialist success.) On “Squabble Up,” which has a funk bass line lifted from Debbie Deb’s 1984 song “When I Hear Music,” Kendrick swipes at fake rappers and fake lyrics. In the sprawling “heart pt. 6,” which samples the 1996 SWV song “Use Your Heart,” Kendrick ruminates thoughtfully on the past, his early career, his losses and triumphs, and the cast of folks who made it and didn’t make it alongside him, but even (or perhaps especially) in this moment he sounds simultaneously whimsical and sapped, the way we can sound when reaching for blurred past memories that feel more grounding than present reality. “GNX” is a solid album, with hugely soaring moments. In its first act, the song “tv off” borrows a sound template similar to the one from “Not Like Us,” but in its final moments it detours to a horn-driven high-step that would sound at home leading a victory march. In “hey now,” Kendrick is at his most captivating, over a sparse instrumental of drums and bass that opens up into operatic synths, trading jumpy line-for-line bars with Dody6, not fighting for space but weaving and meshing seamlessly. Yet underneath even its brightest moments, “GNX” feels like the work of an artist still very much wrapped up in the spectacle of the past year, and this doesn’t necessarily make for a thematically rich album. For all of the entertainment value of the Drake feud, I didn’t find its substance especially durable. At its heart was the notion that Kendrick is operating at a higher moral level than Drake. One theme of “Not Like Us” was calling out Drake for keeping Bad Men in his circle. Yet there was Dr. Dre, an alleged abuser , onstage with Kendrick Lamar at the Pop Out in June, introducing the song in which Lamar lashes Drake for his relationship with abusers. Evaluated purely as entertainment, the Drake-Lamar feud was a success, but if we were to peer beneath the surface we’d find that it failed as a conflict fought on the battleground of morality. This is fine, of course. Some shit gotta be catchy, and fun. Sometimes the catchy and fun things are meaningful, as well, but it isn’t a requirement, and much of what we pleasurably consume is overrun with contradictions. At the same time, “GNX,” arriving in the aftermath of the feud, feels, at times, an extension of a spectacle that Kendrick himself doesn’t seem to want to continue, a long victory lap that finds its protagonist exhausted and aggrieved. However captivating the Year in Kendrick Lamar was to witness, I’m more eager to see what comes beyond this particular moment—a moment in which it seems like Lamar got everything he’d been wanting, all at once, and realized he has to find something more yet to keep him in the game. This is not exactly a tale of the hustler at a crossroads; perhaps it’s more of a story of the hustler after the movie ends—feared, respected, still alive. He got what he dreamed of, and so a different version of the same self has to be imagined in order to stay on top. ♦ 2024 in Review The best movies . 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Juan Soto Gets Free Luxury Suite and up to 4 Premium Tickets for Home Games in $765M Mets DealJeremy Barousse is trying to keep everyone calm. The head of an East San Jose immigrant rights nonprofit remembers the last time Donald Trump threatened mass deportations: distraught parents choosing relatives or friends to care for their children if they were swept up in ICE raids; school principals reporting classrooms half empty as terrified students refused to leave their parents’ sides; and dozens of undocumented immigrants lining up outside his office before 8 a.m. every morning hoping for legal advice protecting them from deportation. That was the winter of 2018, and aside from sporadic arrests of those with criminal records, their worst fears never materialized. This time, though, with Trump taking office again in January and confirming this past week that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the military to roundup millions of undocumented immigrants, deportation fears are reaching new levels. “We’re hoping that that doesn’t become a reality,” said Barousse, director of policy for Amigos de Guadalupe that provides immigration, education and other services in the largely Latino Mayfair neighborhood and is nonetheless helping train residents what to do in case of ICE raids. “We’re preparing for the worst-case scenario. But then also, we don’t want to contribute to the panic.” Congressman-elect Sam Liccardo, San Jose’s mayor during Trump’s first term, said just the fear of deportations alone is hurting the immigrant community. “The disruption to the daily lives of millions of families is real, whether he carries out his threat or not,” Liccardo said in an interview from Washington, D.C., where he was moving into his new offices last week. And while the Bay Area is lucky to have a network of nonprofits supporting the immigrant community, he said, “the second coming of Trump has many inevitable challenges, and we won’t be able to mitigate them all.” An operation to remove the estimated 11 million to 13 million undocumented immigrants living within the United States — which Trump says he will start on “day one” — seems a Herculean task for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that has deported from the nation’s interior no more than 237,000 in a single year. That was the high in 2009 under President Obama, after gaining momentum from 9/11. During Trump’s first term, ICE deportations — not including border operations — peaked in 2018 at 96,000, according to ICE data. To achieve Trump’s deportation goals would require more than $300 billion over four years, estimates the American Immigration Council, including new agents and judges and other staffing, and 1,000 new immigration courtrooms, and scores of new detention centers. ACLU lawyers are already concerned that the recently shuttered federal Dublin Women’s Prison in the East Bay could be converted into one of those detention facilities — an easy drop-off spot for Bay Area roundups. But how much is Trumpian hyperbole and how much is reality? Last year, Trump’s former immigration adviser Stephen Miller, now his incoming deputy policy chief, told the New York Times that “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.” But earlier this week, Trump’s new “border czar” Thomas Homan told Fox News that “It’s not going to be a massive sweep of neighborhoods,” adding that “public safety threats and national security threats will be the priority.” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, says that those with criminal histories make up only a fraction of the total, and “if the Trump administration truly wants to deport millions of people, it is going to have to go after people who don’t have criminal records.” And that means ICE agents will likely focus on community arrests — especially in the Bay Area’s sanctuary cities that aren’t handing people over to ICE, he said. So which immigrant groups might be most vulnerable to the new administration? ICE agents will likely start with the “low-hanging fruit,” Reichlin-Melnick said — immigrants already in the system with a paper trail. An estimated 1.3 million people living here who may have missed a court hearing or lost their court cases and re-entered the country, or those given “administrative grace” to stay — perhaps to care for an ill child who is a citizen — and already check in regularly with ICE. Exactly how many undocumented immigrants with criminal histories are living in the country is less certain, although ICE i s keeping track of more than 650,000 of them — some of whom may be in prison, have pending criminal charges or are awaiting immigration proceedings. During the February 2018 raids in Northern California that then-Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf forewarned , ICE announced the arrest of 232 people over four days, including some for violent and sexual offenses. Criminals, however, already are the priority of ICE agents. Prisoners and inmates handed over for deportation have long made up 4 of 5 ICE arrests, according to the American Immigration Council. Although California’s state prisons are allowed to release undocumented prisoners to federal ICE agents when they complete their sentences, local police and sheriffs across the state, whose inmates often have committed lesser offenses, for the most part , are not. As Santa Clara County Sheriff Bob Jonsen puts it: “We haven’t done it. We won’t do it and we’ll continue to stay strong on that front.” The targets of raids will likely be workplaces such as construction sites, restaurants and farms with the largest number of undocumented immigrants in one place that ICE “can arrest in a splashy operation to send a message,” Reichlin-Melnick says. While about 60% of farmworkers have work permits, the remaining 40% are undocumented, making them vulnerable to deportation. Unless they are picked up for criminal offenses, however, they are rarely targeted, often “because of pressure from the business community,” he said. Farmers have been big supporters of Trump. President Obama granted them special status in 2012 as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Most are in their 20s and 30s now, with work permits they renew every two years. More than half a million live in the United States, including about 183,000 in California. Trump tried to shut the program down during his first term, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked him in January 2020. A new conservative majority could rule in his favor this time. “ I’m definitely more worried now,” said Fernando Hernandez, 35, a hardware technician at Google who has been here since he was 5. “It feels like Trump’s got more of a chip on his shoulder this time around.” Including DACA holders, some 1.5 to 2 million people hold some form of temporary status that allows foreigners confronting armed conflicts, natural disasters or other extreme temporary conditions at home to live in the U.S. temporarily. California is home to nearly 70,000 TPS holders, including those from El Salvador and Nicaragua. Bay Area nonprofits are hearing from asylum seekers, who recently crossed the border illegally and are fighting their cases in immigration court. “ICE is not going to be arresting those people,” Reichlin-Melnick says. “They have already been arrested. They are already checking in with ICE.” And the Trump administration cannot ramp up deportations of people already in the system, he said, without increasing the number of immigration judges. Bay Area News Group reporter Grace Hase contributed to this story.The ”concluded with historic moments celebrating the shared legacy of Bermuda and the Caribbean in golf,” the BTA said. A spokesperson said, “The Honourable Kim Swan, JP MP was awarded the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA]. His award presentation was followed by a milestone victory for the Caribbean, as Puerto Rico’s Rafael Campos became the first Caribbean Champion of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship PGA Tour, claiming the coveted Bermuda Triangle Trophy. “The Caribbean connection was further emphasised with the presence of CARICOM representatives, including Prime Minister Mitchell of Grenada, head of Caricom, who joined Bermuda’s Premier at the tournament. Representatives of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation [CTO] were also on-island to witness the event, which underscores Bermuda’s strong ties to the region, particularly as the island advances its bid to upgrade its CARICOM membership from Associate to Full. “The award recognised Kim Swan for his lifelong contributions to the sport of golf, spanning his trailblazing playing career and his impactful work in politics and on industry boards, which have significantly shaped Bermuda’s golf legacy. Swan has been an advocate for making golf more accessible and promoting Bermuda as a premier golfing destination, using the sport as a platform to foster youth development and community engagement. Reflecting on the honour, Kim Swan, JP, MP remarked: “This award is humbling and reminds me of 1987 when I hired Bermuda’s first two women golf professionals and staged an International Ladies Pro Am in their honour – in the spirit of the power of belief, perseverance and in the potential of all – I envisage us hosting the LPGA Tour Pros in Bermuda someday. Golf has been my life’s passion, not just as a sport but as a means to create opportunities for all people and to showcase Bermuda’s beauty and culture to the world.” Wayne Caines, Chairman of the Bermuda Tourism Authority, praised Swan’s enduring influence: “Kim Swan has been a trailblazer in every sense, from his pioneering golf career to his dedication to making golf more inclusive. His vision and commitment have elevated both Bermuda and the region on the world stage. And his work inspires a legacy that will resonate for generations to come.” Tracy Berkeley, CEO of the Bermuda Tourism Authority, highlighted how this recognition aligns with Bermuda’s National Tourism Plan: “Kim Swan’s life’s work perfectly embodies the principles of Bermuda’s National Tourism Plan. His contributions reflect the importance of connecting our cultural and sporting heritage with opportunities for community growth and inclusivity. We are proud to honour him during this extraordinary championship.” A spokesperson added, “Kim Swan’s career has been marked by a commitment to breaking barriers—first as a golfer competing internationally and then as a leader dedicated to preserving Bermuda’s golfing history and expanding its accessibility. His influence continues to inspire young Bermudians, particularly those from underserved communities, to see the sport as a pathway to opportunity and growth. “Rafael Campos’ victory in the Championship is a groundbreaking moment for the region. The 2024 Butterfield Bermuda PGA Tour Championship’s grand finale marked the first time a Caribbean player won the Bermuda Triangle Trophy and only the second time a Puerto Rican—following the legendary Chi Chi Rodriguez—claimed a PGA Tour title. This achievement underscores the tournament’s growing significance as a platform for celebrating regional and global golf excellence. “Ladies and gentlemen, as we close another spectacular chapter of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, we pause to honour a cornerstone of Bermuda’s golfing legacy—a man whose passion, dedication, and vision have elevated the game of golf in our island and beyond. It is my privilege to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to The Honourable Kim Swan, JP MP—a name synonymous with excellence, perseverance, and inspiration in Bermudian sports. His remarkable journey is not just his own; it has shaped the foundation upon which Bermuda’s golfing success now thrives. A Trailblazing Career Kim Swan’s career has been a series of firsts and triumphs. He holds the historic distinction of being the first Bermudian to compete on the prestigious PGA European Tour. His name is etched in local and international records, with victories including three Bermuda Open Championships and representation in global competitions such as the World Amateur Team Championship, the World Cup of Golf, and the Dunhill Cup. As a collegiate golfer at Troy State University, he clinched multiple championship titles, cementing his status as a formidable talent. A Visionary Leader and Mentor Kim’s legacy goes beyond trophies. As former President of the Bermuda Professional Golfers Association, he nurtured a new generation of talent, ensuring young Bermudians could follow in his footsteps. He is also Bermuda’s most enthusiastic golf historian. Through coaching, articles, and golf management ventures, Kim tirelessly championed Bermuda as a premier golfing destination. Connecting the Past to the Present Without Kim Swan’s foundational work in building Bermuda’s golf infrastructure, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship—this flagship event showcasing our island to the world—might never have been possible. His vision and influence brought Bermuda to the global stage, inspiring pride in our nation’s talent and fostering opportunities for future generations. A Legacy That Inspires Kim Swan embodies the spirit of excellence, resilience, and community. His contributions remind us that greatness isn’t just measured by accolades but by the lives impacted and paths paved for others. Today, we celebrate not only his achievements but his enduring legacy for all Bermudians. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in honouring a true trailblazer and ambassador of Bermuda. It is with pride we present this Lifetime Achievement Award to The Honourable Kim Swan, JP MP—a champion in every sense of the word.” : , ,
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