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Haiti’s armed-gang crisis just got worse — and even more complicated. A new report by the United Nations’ leading child welfare agency, UNICEF, says the number of children being recruited by the country’s violent gangs has soared by 70% in the last year. The unprecedented spike, registered between the second quarter of 2023 and this year, is yet another example of how children in Haiti, already kept out of school due to violence and rape by gangs, are increasingly being robbed of their childhood. “Children in Haiti are trapped in a vicious cycle — recruited into the very armed groups that are fueling their desperation, and the numbers are growing,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “This unacceptable trend must be reversed by ensuring children’s safety and welfare are prioritized by all parties.” As many as half of all members of armed gangs in Haiti are children, the U.N. said. This revelations come as Haiti sees an escalation in violence by armed groups and rising vigilantism by residents desperate to protect their neighborhoods from being overtaken. A separate report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime says that as the country finds itself trapped between escalating violence and political paralysis, criminal groups are taking advantage of the institutional collapse and political vacuum to expand their territories. “In a political-institutional vacuum, the gangs have weaponized violence to exert pressure on the system,” the report said. Last week, dozens of suspected gang leaders were killed by police and residents during an attempt to invade the upscale community of Pétion-Ville in the capital. While police put the official death toll at 28, Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network said the actual number killed after police intercepted three vehicles on Tuesday was 90. Overall, at least 108 people were killed over a three-day span of violence involving gangs and communities fighting back. In one of the photos of the Tuesday incident, the charred body of a young child could be seen in the back of a vehicle. A 43-year-old resident in the Bourdon community of the capital, who spoke to the Miami Herald on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety, said that among three armed gang members he saw running through the community fleeing police was a boy around 12 years old toting an automatic rifle and wearing flip flops. “A 12-year-old child with a huge Galil in his hands, that is sad,” said the man, who like most people in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood was awakened by the sounds of gunfire and screams as police attempted to capture the invaders. “These children are the most dangerous.” A father of three between the ages of 4 and 18, the man said he is still shaken by the site of the heavily armed child, who was lost inside the community and trying to find his way out. “Children should not be living these kinds of things,” he said, blaming the recruitment of children by armed gangs on the government, which has failed to protect children and for years ignored an epidemic of street kids who have presumably been recruited into the armed groups. “The state has not taken responsibility.” UNICEF says that the rise in child recruitment by armed groups has been fueled by escalating violence, pervasive poverty, lack of education and near collapse of critical infrastructure and social services in Haiti. “Children are often coerced into joining to support their families, or under threats to their safety,” the agency said in a statement. “Many are recruited after being separated from their caretakers, stripped of protection and survival options.” The recruitment of kids, as well as the rape of girls in Haiti by armed gangs, is a grave violation of children’s rights, said UNICEF, calling on Haitian authorities to prioritize the protection of children. In Port-au-Prince, 1.2 million children live under the threat of armed violence. An estimated 25% of the more than 703,000 internally displaced people — of whom 365,000 are children — are currently in the city living under dire conditions and exposed to multiple threats. “Children in many parts of Haiti are subjected to atrocities no child should ever have to experience, leaving them with psychological and emotional scars that might haunt them for a lifetime,” Russell said. “Chaos and horror have become part of daily life.” ©2024 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Navy quarterback Blake Horvath read the play perfectly and turned it into the longest in school history, a 95-yard touchdown run in the Armed Forces Bowl. “By somebody that’s not really that fast,” Horvath said after the 21-20 win over Oklahoma on Friday. The Midshipmen (10-3) fell behind by two touchdowns less than 10 minutes into the game, but Horvath's record run late in the third quarter tied the game at 14-all. He put them ahead on a 6-yard TD with 4:34 left before Navy’s defense stopped an Oklahoma 2-point conversion with six seconds left in the game. “Probably over-pursued by them,” Horvath said of the 95-yarder. “Some tendencies they showed earlier, just thought I could get a pull.” After faking a handoff on the read-option play, Horvath ran straight up the middle into the open field. Brandon Chatman cut off a pursing defender around the Sooners 20. By time another defender, cornerback Woodi Washington, was able to catch up and started to bring him down, Horvath stretched the ball over the goal line — though he was initially ruled short before a replay review resulted in the touchdown. “Brandon Chatman actually busted his tail to get his butt down the field,” Horvath said. “I can see him out of the corner of my eye busting his butt. And honestly, it’s almost not even my touchdown without him and the offensive line blocking.” The previous longest play for the Midshipmen came during the Roger Staubach era, when Johnny Sai had a 93-yard run against Duke in 1963. Horvath also had a 90-yard TD run against Memphis, making him only the second Navy player with two 90-yard runs in the same season. The other was quarterback Malcolm Perry in 2017, when he had runs of 92 and 91 yards. “That’s a play we know can hit big and it did, and definitely exciting to see,” fullback Alex Tecza said. “I was getting tired just chasing him. ... It's great. He's being doing that all year.” Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Arizona Cardinals Go routes have accounted for 26.8 percent of Marvin Harrison Jr.’s targets The NFL average is 14.4 percent for all wide receivers. Marv is good at these routes, so you’d expect him to earn more looks on them. But the Cardinals are also giving him a disproportionate amount of clearout routes. He has run a go route on 26.4 percent of his passing plays compared to 17.4 percent for all wide receivers. Atlanta Falcons Kyle Pitts has run a route on 70 percent of the Falcons’ dropbacks since Week 8 That would put Pitts at 19th among tight ends on the season. It’s not a terrible rank, but one of the biggest selling points with Pitts early in the year was that he ran every route, covering up his poor target rate of .16 on the season. Despite running fewer routes, his target rate has fallen to .13 since Week 8, tanking his target share to 11 percent. Buffalo Bills Josh Allen has topped 283 passing yards once The Bills have a negative pass rate over expected this year and rank 26th in pace. Allen has only attempted 40 passes in a game on time as well. He did so six times last year and five times in 2022. Carolina Panthers Bryce Young is Pro Football Focus’s No. 3 graded quarterback over the past three weeks Young is also eighth in EPA per play and 12th in CPOE over that stretch. He is taking fewer sacks and doesn’t have a single turnover since the Panthers’ bye (which was Week 11 so “past three weeks” is only two games but it sounds more impressive and we’re trying to give the guy his flowers here). Young did this against a solid Kansas City defense and a putrid Tampa Bay squad. He gets a tough test with a surging Philly defense this week. Chicago Bears Caleb Williams is 11th in EPA per play since Thomas Brown took over as interim offensive coordinator Williams was the QB27 before Brown took over. The rookie has put two of his best games on tape over the past two weeks with 596 yards, five touchdowns, and zero picks. PFF has charted him with a 74.1 passing grade since Brown donned the headset. That was at 61.5 before Brown. Cincinnati Bengals Chase Brown has seen all but one running back carry for the Bengals since Zack Moss was placed on injured reserve He also has the only running back target as well. Brown is a locked-in RB1 with Moss out of the lineup. Brown is 24 years old with two years left on his rookie deal and Moss is a cut candidate in the offseason. He has a strong case to be ranked as an RB1 in dynasty. Cleveland Browns Jameis Winston is averaging 336 yards per game That would be good for 5,712 yards over a 17-game season, 235 yards more than any other campaign in NFL history. His attempts pace would also be good for the NFL record over a full season. This fueled the trio of Cedric Tillman, Jerry Jeudy, and Elijah Moore to weekly WR3 rankings for a few weeks. With Tillman out, both Jeudy and Moore can be treated as WR2s. Dallas Cowboys Rico Dowdle has seen 70 percent of the Cowboys’ carries over the past two weeks Dowdle isn’t getting the full complement of routes but still has a healthy 10 percent target share in those games. He has 41 carries for 198 yards and a touchdown in his previous two games with an extra 23 yards on six receptions. Week 13 RB Fantasy Usage 1. Bijan Robinson (25.1 exp HPPR) 2. Jonathan Taylor (23.3) 3. Bucky Irving (22.4) 4. Josh Jacobs (21.6) 5. Alvin Kamara (19.5) 6. David Montgomery (18.7) 7. De'Von Achane (17.6) 8. Joe Mixon (17.5) 9. Rico Dowdle (17.2) This is RB1 stuff, folks. Detroit Lions Jahmyr Gibbs ran a season-low nine times Gibbs’ 27 percent carry share was also a season-low. His second-worst mark came two weeks ago. Both contests presented favorable game scripts for the Lions’ ground game, but that has been more beneficial for David Montgomery as of late. Montgomery had 36 carries for 163 yards and two scores in the pair of low-volume games for Gibbs. Green Bay Packers The Packers haven’t had a 20-point fantasy game from a receiver since Week 4 Green Bay has only had three such games this year and two came in Week 4. Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks both broke out in a frantic comeback effort versus the Vikings. The Packers’ pass volume has remained low over the past two months and the targets are spread out nearly every week. Romeo Doubs is the only wideout with a target share north of 25 percent in even one game since Week 4. Doub is comfortably behind Reed and Christian Watson in yards per route run, so his high-volume games don’t always translate to spike weeks. Jacksonville Jaguars Mac Jones has still not completed a deep throw Jones is 0-of-11 on throws 20+ yards downfield this year. He is the only quarterback with more than eight such throws but no completions. Jones is also third-to-last in YPA on intermediate passes. He is, however, top-10 in YPA on attempts between one and nine yards downfield. Brian Thomas Jr. got home for fantasy managers last week with four catches for 76 yards and a score, all of which came from Jones, giving fantasy managers some hope that he will survive the Mac Jones era to close out the 2024 season. Kansas City Chiefs Isiah Pacheco saw 47 percent of the Chiefs’ carries in his first game in 10 weeks Pacheco returned from his leg and ankle injuries to run seven times for 44 yards. Kareem Hunt saw just as many carries but only ran for 15 yards. With Hunt offering no surplus value outside of a few yards and a cloud of dust, I fully expect Pacheco to take over the backfield by the end of the season. Las Vegas Raiders Brock Bowers’ 30.2 PPR points were the most for a rookie tight end since... Brock Bowers in Week 11 Bowers’ Week 11 total of 31.3 points is the most for a rookie tight end since 1995 while his Week 13 mark is a high dating back to 2006. He is one of seven tight ends to catch 10+ passes three times in one season and is on pace to set the record for receptions by a tight end. Los Angeles Chargers Ladd McConkey is 10th in total EPA among wide receivers For reference, McConkey is just ahead of Drake London, A.J. Brown, Zay Flowers, Garrett Wilson, and CeeDee Lamb on the list. As impressive as this is for Ladd, it’s also wildly concerning for Justin Herbert and the Chargers, who may be without the rookie this week. McConkey suffered a knee injury on Sunday and was listed as questionable to return late in the game. Los Angeles Rams Puka Nacua is third among wide receivers in yards per route run (3.1) and PFF receiving grade (90.4) Ncaua easily leads the league in targets per route run at .34. His knee injury robbed us of an incredible sophomore season, but all of the nerdy metrics say Nacua is a superstar. Miami Dolphins Tua Tagovailoa has the lowest time to throw (min. 300 dropbacks) for a quarterback under 38 years old in the past 14 years Tua’s 2.31 time to throw is a fraction of a second quicker than his 2023 mark. It’s faster than every quarterback with 300 dropbacks over the past nearly 15 years except for: 2020s Ben Roethlisberger Broncos Peyton Manning Bucs Tom Brady His 6.2 aDOT trails only Alex Smith’s mark of 5.9, set in 2015 with the Chiefs. That should give you an idea of what type of offense Miami is running. Minnesota Vikings Justin Jefferson has a 25 percent target share since T.J. Hockenson returned in Week 9 Jefferson’s air yards share is down to 30 percent. His splits pre and post-Hockenson are hard to look at. There are loads of other factors at play here. Jordan Addison missed time in the pre-Hockenson split, further juicing the numbers. Sam Darnold’s play has taken a hit lately. And Jefferson isn’t running as hot on touchdowns in recent weeks. Still, the volume metrics show a meaningful hit to Jefferson’s workload with the increase in target competition. New Orleans Saints Alvin Kamara is the only running back with over 200 expected fantasy points this year With 234 expected fantasy points to his name, Kamara is miles ahead of the No. 2 back. He is the only back with more than 100 expected points through the air and is on pace for a top-20 season over the past quarter-century in receiving expected points. That is all before the Saints lost Taysom Hill. New York Giants Malik Nabers is the WR6 in expected fantasy points since Week 7 As anyone who has rostered Nabers during that stretch knows, he is not the WR6 in actual fantasy points. In that category, he ranks 28th among wide receivers. With a banged-up line and terrible quarterback play, it’s hard to see how he turns things around this late in the season. Still the volume metrics...speak volumes about just how dominant Nabers could be in a different offense. I’m drafting Nabers at the 1/2 turn next year and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. New York Jets Breece Hall was held without a catch for the first time since Week 2 of the 2023 season Week 13 was just the third time in his career that Hall didn’t catch a pass. The first was when he suffered a torn ACL in 2022 and the second was in his second game back from said ACL tear. This time may also have been injury-related as Hall entered the weekend listed as questionable with a knee issue. The Jets dropped his route rate to 52 percent—his second-lowest mark of the year—and split the remaining routes between Braelon Allen and third-stringer Isaiah Davis. Davis caught his second, third, and fourth passes of the season, one of which was a touchdown. Philadelphia Eagles Grant Calcaterra had a 17 percent target share in three games without Dallas Goedert earlier this year He ran a route on 87 percent of Jalen Hurts’ dropbacks during that stretch and hit eight PPR points twice. His target share also rose in each subsequent start. Goedert is now expected to miss some time with a knee injury. There’s not much of a ceiling with Calcaterra, but there is a TE2 floor. Pittsburgh Steelers Russell Wilson’s 414 yards versus the Bengals are the second-most of his career Wilson is the QB15 in points per game dating back to his first start in Week 7. He ranks 11th in EPA per play and fourth in CPOE since taking over the starting gig. He gets a Browns defense that has fallen from grace this year and ranks 20th in EPA per dropback allowed. San Francisco 49ers Jauan Jennings hasn’t had a target share below 27 percent since Week 6 Jennings went down with an injury in Week 6 and didn’t return until Week 10, so the streak is “only” at four games. Still, that’s wildly impressive for a supposed third receiver playing alongside Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, and Christian McCaffrey. With CMC out of the picture and Deebo looking nothing like he did in previous years, Jennings is the 49ers’ clear No. 1 receiver to close the season. Seattle Seahawks Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s 15.3 aDOT was his highest of the year in games with DK Metcalf active JSN only saw four targets, but two of them were 20+ yards downfield. He had an underwhelming 14 percent target share but 30 percent of the air yards. Seattle has generally used Smith-Njigba as the underneath option and DK Metcalf as the deep threat when both are healthy. That was not the case in Week 13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cade Otton has a 16 percent target share and an eight percent air yards share since Mike Evans returned to the lineup Those numbers were at 30 percent and 26 percent with Evans out of the lineup. Evans and Chris Godwin were both sidelined after Week 7, thrusting Otton into the No. 1 receiver role for three weeks. Though Godwin won’t return, Evans alone is enough to relegate Otton to the TE2 ranks. Tennessee Titans Nick Westbrook-Ikhine has scored on 21 percent of his targets That is the highest rate for a wide receiver with at least 30 targets in the past 24 years, tying Chiefs wideout Marc Boerigter’s exact stat line (of targets and touchdowns) in 2002. NWI will lose the record on 30+ targets the next time he doesn’t catch a touchdown but is still chasing history for higher target thresholds.Three of the five regents at Western New Mexico University are Ph.D.s. Their lofty degrees are listed next to their names on Western's website. A fourth regent is an attorney at a firm in Santa Fe. The other decision-maker is a student. State government decreed long ago that the people paying tuition and fees should have a voice in how their universities are run. On paper, Western's five regents look good. One of them, Daniel H. Lopez, was president of powerhouse research institution New Mexico Tech for 23 years. But universities aren't run on paper. Western, in Silver City, is a poorly managed institution. Ultimately the regents are to blame. All five should resign. Instead of looking out for the public interest, the regents too often deferred to Western President Joseph Shepard. Evidence the regents were asleep at the helm was supplied this week by State Auditor Joseph Maestas. He released a lengthy "letter of concern" detailing waste and financial failings by the regents and Shepard, president of Western for 13 years. Maestas' staff found $149,000 in purchases from July 2018 through June 2023 did not comply with university regulations. This included a purchase of more than $17,000 by Shepard of furnishings for the president's official residence. The auditor's investigators said Western employees also skirted rules or policies on $214,000 in travel expenses during the same period. Publicly funded international travel was commonplace for Shepard, his wife Valerie Plame, and certain regents and university employees. Shepard and the regents authorized 47 different trips to 12 different countries in roughly the same five years reviewed by the auditor. Travelers journeyed to Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Greece, Israel, Mexico, Nepal, the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain and Zambia. Mary Hotvedt, chairwoman of Western's board of regents, told me the school has made changes to comply with internal and state financial regulations. Her tone was conciliatory, a change from last spring when she wouldn't take questions, instead referring me to the university's publicity department. Shepard didn't respond this week to a request for comment. In a campus speech 11 months ago, he said, "I'm very proud of every dollar we spent on international students." Expenditures on students appear to be different from publicly funded international travel for Shepard himself, his wife and regents. Western listed its enrollment this fall at more than 3,600. Approximately 70 students are from foreign countries. Nearby Mexico is the biggest source of international students. The mess at Western should inspire immediate and long-term reforms, starting with finances. One man emailed me this week to say he read and reread all of The New Mexican's coverage about Western's misspending of public money. He was struck by an omission. "I didn't see the word 'reimbursement.' Do you think I might in future writings?" he asked. Absent a criminal case, restitution won't happen. Western's regents and Shepard have always closed ranks. That's all the more reason the regents must resign. As for the bigger picture, state lawmakers can point to waste at Western and alleged sexual assaults by former male basketball players at New Mexico State University as flashpoints for change. NMSU paid $8 million to two players who said they were sexually assaulted by teammates. The regents at New Mexico State sat idly as the outgoing chancellor handed a hefty raise and a contract extension to the athletic director. New Mexico's governor nominates regents. The state Senate almost always confirms them. Rarely is any nominee asked a hard question. Campaign contributors and people in certain social tiers often are installed as regents. Many know nothing about overseeing a university. Political pals also have an inside track on becoming regents. Then-Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, nominated conservative Carl Foster to be a regent of New Mexico Highlands University, even though Foster was suing that same school. The Senate Rules Committee for a change showed gumption by refusing to consider Foster's nomination. A year later, though, senators confirmed Foster as a regent of Western. His hearing was perfunctory. No question of substance was asked. Foster's six years as a regent ended in 2021. In sum, governors nominate anyone they like to be regents. There are no qualifications. A better system would be to elect university regents. At least then they would have to answer to the public. Rather than having a board of regents for each university, New Mexico should switch to two super panels. One nine-member board could oversee all the research universities. Nine other regents could supervise the regional universities. Shifting to elections would require an amendment to the state constitution, a difficult but worthy chore. A majority of legislators in each chamber would have to place the proposed amendment on the statewide ballot. There's nothing to lose. In the bubble of the Capitol, governors and senators decided who would oversee Western and New Mexico State University. Voters might do better. They couldn't do worse. Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.