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Crowds gathered in Barcelona’s historic downtown to watch in awe and snap cellphone photos as teams of people in colorful garb formed human towers rising into the air like the spires on the nearby medieval cathedral. 

A giant figure in bright blue dress and a floral crown paraded through the streets in representation of St. Eulàlia, the city’s patron, a 13-year-old girl who was crucified by Romans in the early fourth century for refusing to renounce Christianity. 

After two years of canceled or muted celebrations due to the pandemic, this Mediterranean city went all-out this past weekend to mark the February 12 feast, or “festa” in the Catalan language, of its longest-celebrated patron. 

With the most recent nationwide outdoor mask mandate lifted by the government just days earlier, Barcelonans were especially eager to revel in the three-day “festes de Santa Eulàlia,” with celebrations that make social distancing impossible and require painstaking choreography and training. 

Celebrated with a specific protocol since the 1600s, the festival has been gaining renewed popularity since the early 1980s. It includes solemn Masses, intricate dances and parades of “gegants,” larger-than-life historical and fantasy figures usually made of papier mâché and borne by revelers. 

While rooted in Catholic liturgy, today the festival is primarily a secular expression of pride and shared cultural identity in the Catalonia region in northeastern Spain, passionately celebrated even if most who take part don’t identify as believers. 

“The resurgence started with ordinary people who wanted to do something that would be their own, belonging to Barcelona,” said Nil Rider, a historian who helped organize an exhibit about St. Eulàlia at the cathedral’s Diocesan Museum. “This is living heritage that gives people an identity.”  

Foremost among the festival’s traditions are the “castells,” or “castles,” as the human towers are called, which have been performed for two centuries by neighborhood groups not only in Barcelona but in local festivals across Catalonia. 

Dozens of “castellers,” or group members, stand packed tightly together, compressing every inch of their bodies into each other to form a base. Progressively lighter-weight members then climb up to establish six or more human tiers until they form a support for the top performer, a young child wearing a mandatory helmet — and, this year, a KN95 face mask. 

“What we like is to achieve a challenge that we only are able to do together. It’s very identity-forming,” said Dan Esteban, a casteller and former head of the group representing the neighborhood of Poble Sec, just outside the medieval core. 

Two years of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns in hard-hit Spain have left people out of practice, and Esteban said the group wasn’t able to train at all until September. Even now fewer people than usual show up for twice-weekly sessions, which are crucial for getting everyone to work in concert since budging just an inch can bring the entire structure crashing down. 

Cristina Velasco also worried about recovering lost ground as she planned for this year’s “correfoc,” another traditional element of the festival in which adults and children parade in horned devil costumes alongside spinning fireworks displays. Sunday night’s would be the first full parade since the pandemic, with fewer children taking part as some turned to other activities and haven’t returned. 

“We have the feeling we have to do it because otherwise we will lose it,” said Velasco, who has been dressing up as a devil for 30 years and is president of the city’s federation of three-dozen neighborhood correfoc groups. 

Teaching youngsters the allegorical and historic origins of the correfoc tradition is vital, she said, even if “99% of people don’t even know where the devil came from.”  

Clutching a statuette of St. Eulàlia, 10-year-old Laia Castro, 10, waited patiently in line under a chilly drizzle to enter the majestic Gothic cathedral Saturday, the day commemorating the saint’s martyrdom. Descending into the crypt where the saint’s remains have been venerated since the 1330s, she signed a registry kept in the sacristy for girls named with the common diminutive for Eulàlia. 

“Really we’re not religious, but we like this celebration,” said her father, Albert Castro. 

He hopes for Laia to know the saint’s history and then make her own decision about faith: “And if she believes, she will know she did something extra today.”  

The Rev. Robert Baró Cabrera, director of the Cathedral’s cultural heritage patrimony, said the festival’s spotlight on identity and devotion to the saint offers “a powerful environment for evangelization” even as secularism continues to grow. 

“Our churches are both cultural and identity references,” he said. “If people want to find the roots of their identity, they can’t help but go into the church.”  

In one of the festival’s most evocative celebrations, a performer bearing a giant eagle figure with flowering branches in its beak paraded Friday night from city hall through the old quarter, accompanied by drums, bagpipes and flutes. 

Arriving at the soaring Gothic basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, built where St. Eulàlia was first buried after her martyrdom, the eagle entered the packed but hushed sanctuary and proceeded to pirouette in front of the altar in a six-century-old ritual. 

On hand were Loli García and her 4-year-old granddaughter, Ona, whom she brought to teach her about their roots and culture. 

“It’s one thing not to be religious, but they have to know the history,” García said as Ona stood on a pew and watched, spellbound. “I take her to all traditional Catalan celebrations, as I used to do with my daughter.”   

 
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P.J. O’Rourke, the prolific author and satirist who refashioned the irreverence and “gonzo” journalism of the 1960s counterculture into a distinctive brand of conservative and libertarian commentary, has died at age 74. 

O’Rourke died Tuesday morning, according to Grove Atlantic Inc. Books publisher and president Morgan Entrekin. He did not cite a specific cause but said O’Rourke had been ill in recent months.  

Patrick Jake O’Rourke was a Toledo, Ohio, native who evolved from long-haired student activist to wavy-haired scourge of his old liberal ideals, with some of his more widely read takedowns appearing in a founding counterculture publication, Rolling Stone. His career otherwise extended from serving as editor in chief of National Lampoon to a brief stint on “60 Minutes,” in which he represented the conservative take on “Point/Counterpoint,” to frequent appearances on NPR’s game show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”  

“Most well-known people try to be nicer than they are in public than they are in private life. PJ was the only man I knew to be the opposite. He was a deeply kind and generous man who pretended to be a curmudgeon for public consumption,” tweeted Peter Sagal, the host of “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” 

“He told the best stories. He had the most remarkable friends. And he devoted himself to them and his family in a way that would have totally ruined his shtick had anyone ever found out,” Sagal said. 

His writing style suggested a cross between the hedonism of Hunter S. Thompson and the patrician mockery of Tom Wolfe: Self-importance was a reliable target. But his greatest disdain was often for the government — not just a specific administration, but government itself. As a young man, he opposed the government as a maker of war and laws against drugs. Later on, he went after what he called “the silken threads of entitlement spending.” 

In a 2018 column for the venerable conservative publication, The Weekly Standard, he looked on with scorn at Washington’s gentrification. 

“People are flocking to the seat of government power. One would say ‘dogs returning to their vomit’ except that’s too hard on dogs. Too hard on people, also. They come to Washington because they have no choice — diligent working breeds compelled to eat their regurgitated tax dollars,” he wrote. 

O’Rourke’s other books included “Give War a Chance,” “Driving Like Crazy,” “None of My Business” and “A Cry from the Middle.” Entrekin told The Associated Press that O’Rourke had been working on a one-volume look at the United States as seen from his hometown: “A History of Toledo, Ohio: From the Beginning of Time Til the End of the Universe.” 

O’Rourke was an undergraduate at Miami University and received a master’s degree in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1970. He started out writing for such underground publications as the New York Ace and joined National Lampoon in 1973, where his colleagues included Douglas Kenney, who later co-wrote “Animal House” and “Caddyshack” and with O’Rourke edited the parody “National Lampoon’s 1964 High School Yearbook.” 

Over the following decades, he became a familiar presence as a writer and on-air pundit. He covered war and unrest everywhere from El Salvador to the Philippines, while mocking “The Dictatorship of Boredom” back home. 

“In July 1988, I covered the specious, entropic, criminally trivial, boring stupid Democratic National Convention, a numb suckhole stuffed with political bulk filler held in that place where bad malls go to die, Atlanta,” reads a dispatch from “Parliament of Whores,” a bestseller published in 1991. “Then … I flew to that other oleo-high colonic, the Republican convention, an event with the intellectual content of a Guns N’ Roses lyric.”  

Like other longtime conservatives, O’Rourke’s loyalties were tested by the rise of Donald Trump. O’Rourke had little use for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, but he found he could live with her “lies and all her empty promises.” 

“It’s the second worst thing that can happen to this country. But she’s way behind in second place. I mean, she’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters,” he said on NPR.  

“I mean, this man (Trump) just can’t be president,” he said. “They’ve got this button, you know, in the briefcase. He’s going to find it.” 

 
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The family of a cinematographer shot and killed on the set of the film “Rust” is suing Alec Baldwin and the movie’s producers for wrongful death, their attorneys said Tuesday.

Lawyers for the family of Halyna Hutchins announced the lawsuit filed in New Mexico in the name of Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son, Andros, at a Los Angeles news conference.

At least three other lawsuits have been filed over the shooting, but this is the first directly tied to one of the two people shot.

The “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures” of Baldwin and the film’s producers “led to the death of Halyna Hutchins,” attorney Brian Panish said.

A video created by the attorneys showed an animated recreation of the shooting.

Baldwin was pointing a gun at Hutchins during the setup for the filming of a scene for the western in New Mexico on Oct. 21 when it went off, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza.

Baldwin has said he was pointing the gun at Hutchins at her instruction and it went off without him pulling the trigger.

The attorneys said in the video that Baldwin had turned down training for the kind of gun draw he was doing when he shot Hutchins.

It said industry standards call for using a rubber or similar prop gun during the setup that was happening, and there was no call for a real gun.

Last month, nearly three months after the shooting, Baldwin turned over his cellphone to authorities in his home state of New York. They gathered information from the phone and provided it to Santa Fe County investigators, who had obtained a warrant for it.

Investigators have described “some complacency” in how weapons were handled on the “Rust” set. They have said it is too soon to determine whether charges will be filed.

Baldwin said he does not believe he will be criminally charged in the shooting.

The film’s script supervisor and its lead camera operator, both of whom were standing a few feet away when Hutchins was shot, each filed a lawsuit over the trauma they went through.

And the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was named as a defendant in those lawsuits and blamed by some for the shooting, filed her own suit saying an ammunition supplier created dangerous conditions by including live ammunition in a box that was supposed to include only dummy rounds.

In an interview with ABC News in December, Baldwin said he felt incredible sadness over the the shooting, but not guilt.

“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me,” Baldwin said.

He said Hutchins had asked him to point the gun just off camera and toward her armpit before it went off.

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.”

He called Hutchins “somebody who was loved by everybody and admired by everybody who worked with her.”

Hutchins, 42, grew up on a remote Soviet military base and worked on documentary films in Eastern Europe before studying film in Los Angeles and embarking on a promising movie-making career.

On her Instagram page, Hutchins identified herself as a “restless dreamer” and “adrenaline junkie.”

In a 2019 interview with American Cinematographer, which named her one of the year’s rising stars, she described herself as an “army brat” drawn to movies because “there wasn’t that much to do outside.” She would document herself parachuting and exploring caves, among other adventures, and through her work with British filmmakers, became “fascinated with storytelling based on real characters.”
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Comic actors Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes will host this year’s Academy Awards ceremony as producers try to attract new viewers after record-low ratings in 2021, Hollywood publication Variety and other media outlets reported on Monday. 

The actors are finalizing details and an announcement will be made on Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Variety said. ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co, will broadcast the Oscars ceremony on March 27. 

The film industry’s highest honors, which are handed out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, have not had a host since 2018. 

Schumer won an Emmy in 2015 for her variety sketch show “Inside Amy Schumer.” Hall is known for movies including “Girls Trip” and “Little.” Sykes stars in and created “The Upshaws” and played a recurring role on “Black-ish.” 

Representatives for the actors, the academy and ABC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The Oscars were handed out by celebrity presenters but had no host in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Ratings for the telecast have fallen in recent years, dropping to a low of 10.4 million people in the United States in 2021. Viewership of other entertainment awards shows also has declined. 

The 2021 Oscars ceremony was scaled down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The awards were handed out at a historic train station in downtown Los Angeles in front of a small audience of nominees and guests. 

This year, organizers have said the show will return to its longtime home of the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. 

Netflix Inc’s gothic Western, “The Power of the Dog,” leads the field of this year’s Oscar nominations with 12 nods, followed by science-fiction epic “Dune” with 10. 

 
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U.S. first lady Jill Biden on Monday observed Valentine’s Day at the White House with displays of giant hearts on the North Lawn and valentines from local elementary school children inside the mansion. 

The displays include a giant red heart inscribed with a Bible passage, 1 Corinthians 13:13, which says, “Three things will last forever — faith, hope and love — and the greatest of these is love.“ 

Additionally, hand-painted, wooden artwork in the shapes of the first family’s puppy, Commander, and cat, Willow, adorned either side of the giant heart bearing the Bible verse. 

The displays are positioned so they will be seen in the background when White House television correspondents report on the day’s news. 

Additionally, valentines created by second-grade classes from a local Washington elementary school are on display in the East Wing of the White House. 

The children who created them are students of Alejandro Diasgranados, a teacher at Aiton Elementary School and Washington’s 2021 Teacher of the Year. On Monday, the students, accompanied by their teacher, toured the White House. 

Last year, just two weeks after President Joe Biden’s inauguration and in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first lady had large red hearts placed on the North Lawn bearing messages such as “compassion,” “courage,” “healing” and “kindness.” 

Valentine’s Day — annually observed February 14 — has always been special to Jill Biden. Her tradition of decorating goes back to Joe Biden’s days as vice president under President Barack Obama when she decorated every window in her husband’s office. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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For literature lovers in sanction-hit Iran, a new novel has long provided a brief respite from a grinding economic crisis triggered by international pressure imposed over Tehran’s contested nuclear programme.

But now losing yourself in a good book is becoming harder, as cash-strapped publishers struggle because the price of paper is soaring.

“If a 200-page novel sold for 400,000 rials ($1.60) last year, its price today is 1,000,000 rials ($4.10), most of which is the cost of production”, said Reza Hasheminejad, who runs the Ofoq publishing house.

Iran does not produce its own paper pulp for publishing so relies on imports, and while those are not under sanctions, they must be paid for in foreign currency. That means the price of a book depends directly on the fluctuation of Iran’s rial.

So publishers are not only slashing the number of titles published, but also cutting the number of pages of those they do print by shrinking the font size.

“Publishing has suffered a major crisis — which could become existential,” said Emily Amrai, collection director at the Houpa publishing house.

While publishers worldwide face growing challenges to the way people read and consume literature, Iran is facing an extra problem.

The United States, under former president Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from a landmark accord to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb — a goal Tehran has always denied pursuing — with Washington then reimposing tough economic sanctions.

“As soon as the US sanctions were reinstated in 2018, the price of paper rose,” Amrai said.

‘A miracle’

Long-running negotiations to revive a deal with Iran continue in Austria, but until an international agreement turns the page, the impact of sanctions grows worse.

“The devaluation of our currency against the greenback, the global rise in the price of paper paid in dollars and the increase in the cost of transport — also paid in foreign currency — has plunged publishing into the doldrums,” said Hossein Motevali, owner of Houpa, which specialises in children’s books.

Because book prices are fixed in Iran, profits are pegged to the rapidly fluctuating price of paper.

“Between receiving the manuscript, laying it out, and setting the price of the book, I can lose everything if the price of paper has gone up suddenly,” Hasheminejad said.

“That happens because I’m at the mercy of the fluctuation of the currencies.”

As for the authors, they are paid by the number of the pages in the book, whether they are famous or not.

“Selling books is a miracle today, because the majority of customers belong to the middle class — and given the economic conditions, their priority is to obtain essential goods such as food,” said Hasheminejad. “I really wonder how people still buy books at these prices.”

Bookstores in Iran look similar to shops anywhere in the world. As well as shelves of Iranian writers, popular sellers include translations of foreign works — from 20th century European classics to self-help and psychology books.

Farsi translations of Mary Trump’s tell-all on her uncle Donald Trump, as well as the memoir of former US first lady Michelle Obama, have been recent hits.

‘Shock’

But as the crisis deepens, several small publishing houses have been driven out of business.

“Today, many independent publishers, who have published excellent works, have been eliminated from the market”, said Amrai.

Larger publishing houses have had to adapt to survive.

“We have reduced our profits by as much as possible in order to keep our customers, we have reduced printing and pagination, and publish digital books to avoid paper and reduce costs,” said Hasheminejad.

“But that will only last a year or two, for even the most solid companies.”

So far, books printed before recent spikes in paper costs provided a buffer, but those stocks are running low.

“In a few months, when the books stored in the depots are exhausted, it will be a shock for the customer when they see the new prices,” Hasheminejad warned.

On Enghelab Street, Tehran’s main book market, retired teacher Behjat Mazloumi, 60, already struggles to afford second-hand books.

“I haven’t been able to buy a book for years,” said Mazloumi. “Even street vendors sell books at a very high price.”

The cost rise will have wider impacts too, experts say.

Children in poorer areas where access to literature is already limited will soon find themselves priced out completely, Hasheminejad said.

“Today, we see people in some disadvantaged areas who cannot even communicate properly in Farsi,” he said. “They will certainly experience difficulties.”
…

Ivan Reitman, the influential filmmaker and producer behind many of the most beloved comedies of the late 20th century, from “Animal House” to “Ghostbusters,” has died. He was 75. 

Reitman died peacefully in his sleep Saturday night at his home in Montecito, Calif., his family told The Associated Press. 

“Our family is grieving the unexpected loss of a husband, father, and grandfather who taught us to always seek the magic in life,” children Jason Reitman, Catherine Reitman and Caroline Reitman said in a joint statement. “We take comfort that his work as a filmmaker brought laughter and happiness to countless others around the world. While we mourn privately, we hope those who knew him through his films will remember him always.”

Known for bawdy comedies that caught the spirit of their time, Reitman’s big break came with the raucous, college fraternity sendup “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” which he produced. He directed Bill Murray in his first starring role in the summer camp flick “Meatballs,” and then again in 1981′s “Stripes,” but his most significant success came with 1984’s “Ghostbusters.”

Not only did the irreverent supernatural comedy starring Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis gross nearly $300 million worldwide, it earned two Oscar nominations, spawned a veritable franchise, including spinoffs, television shows and a new movie, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” that opened this last year. His son, filmmaker Jason Reitman directed.

Paul Feig, who directed the 2016 reboot of “Ghostbusters” tweeted that he was in shock. 

“I had the honor of working so closely with Ivan and it was always such a learning experience,” Feig wrote. “He directed some of my favorite comedies of all time. All of us in comedy owe him so very much.”

“A legend,” comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani said on Twitter. “The number of great movies he made is absurd.”

Among other notable films he directed are “Twins,” “Kindergarten Cop,” “Dave,” “Junior” and 1998′s “Six Days, Seven Nights.” He also produced “Beethoven,” “Old School” and “EuroTrip,” and many others, including his son’s Oscar-nominated film “Up in the Air.” 

He was born in Komárno, Czechoslovakia, in 1946 where his father owned the country’s biggest vinegar factory. His mother had survived Auschwitz and his father was in the resistance. When the communists began imprisoning capitalists after the war, the Reitmans decided to escape, when Ivan Reitman was only 4. They traveled in the nailed-down hold of a barge headed for Vienna.

“I remember flashes of scenes,” Reitman told the AP in 1979. “Later they told me about how they gave me a couple of sleeping pills so I wouldn’t make any noise. I was so knocked out that I slept with my eyes open. My parents were afraid I was dead.” 

The Reitmans joined a relative in Toronto, where Ivan displayed his show biz inclinations: starting a puppet theater, entertaining at summer camps, playing coffee houses with a folk music group. He studied music and drama at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and began making movie shorts. 

With friends and $12,000, Reitman made a nine-day movie, “Cannibal Girls,” which American International agreed to release. He produced on a $500 budget a weekly TV revue, “Greed,” with Dan Aykroyd, and became associated with the Lampoon group in its off-Broadway revue that featured John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Murray. That soon led to “Animal House.”

Reitman seized the moment after “Animal House’s” massive success and raised money to direct “Meatballs,” which would be tamer than the hard-R “Animal House.” 

He hand picked Murray to star, which would prove to be a significant break for the comedian, but Ramis later said that Reitman didn’t know if Murray would actually show up until the first day of the shoot. But it was the beginning of a fruitful and longrunning partnership that would produce the war comedy “Stripes,” which Reitman said he thought up on the way to the “Meatballs” premiere, and “Ghostbusters.” 

Reitman also put Schwarzenegger in his first major comedy, opposite Danny DeVito in “Twins.” There was such uncertainty around the project that all forfeited their fees for a share of the profits, which would prove to be a lucrative deal when the film earned $216 million against an $18 million production budget. In Sept. 2021, it was announced that a sequel, “Triplets” was in the works with Reitman directing his original cast, plus Tracy Morgan as their long lost brother. 

By the time 1990′s “Kindergarten Cop” came around, Reitman had established himself as the most successful comedy director in history. Though not even being the father of three children could have prepared him for the arduous task of directing 30 children between the ages of 4 and 7 in the Schwarzenegger comedy.

The political comedy “Dave,” starring Kevin Kline as an ordinary man who has to double for the US President, provided a bit of a departure for Reitman. Roger Ebert wrote at the time that “The movie is more proof that it isn’t what you do, it’s how you do it: Ivan Reitman’s direction and Gary Ross’ screenplay use intelligence and warmhearted sentiment to make Dave into wonderful lighthearted entertainment.”

Reitman slowed down as a director after “Six Days, Seven Nights,” the 1998 adventure comedy with Harrison Ford and Anne Heche — only four films would follow “Evolution,” “My Super Ex-Girlfriend,” “No Strings Attached” and “Draft Day,” from 2014.

But he continued producing. His company, the Montecito Picture Co., produced Todd Phillips’ first movie, “Road Trip.” And with “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” even found himself on the press circuit with his son, providing emotional moments for both with the passing of the baton. Jason Reitman, who was only 7 when the original came out, included some nods to his father’s films like “Beethoven” and “Cannibal Girls” in “Afterlife.”

“Directing ‘Ghostbusters Afterlife’ was completely intimidating,” Jason Reitman said last year. “I was lucky enough to do it sitting next to my dad.” 

When asked why the 1984 film continued to fascinate, Reitman told the AP that it was hard to define.

“I always had a sort of sincere approach to the comedy,” he said. “I took it seriously even though, it was a horror movie and a comedy, I felt you had to sort of deal with it in a kind of realistic and honest way.”

He always took comedy and the power of laughter seriously.

“The great cliche is about how damn tough comedy is. But of course, nobody really gives that any respect,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “It’s such a visceral thing, laughing. So, getting to the point where you can get an audience of 600 people laughing is really precise and intricate work. … My sense is we’re laughing at the same things we’ve always laughed at, but the language of the filmmaker and the performer shifts.” 
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A star-studded Los Angeles Rams team will seek to deny the giant-killing Cincinnati Bengals a Hollywood ending in the Super Bowl on Sunday as an NFL season full of plot twists reaches its climax.

The first NFL championship game of the post-Tom Brady era sees the Rams play host at their gleaming $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium against a Bengals side chasing a first Super Bowl crown.

Around 100 million Americans are expected to tune in for the biggest annual event on the U.S. sporting calendar, which kicks off at 3:30 p.m. local time (2330 GMT).

“It’s game day!” the National Football League proclaimed on Twitter. “It all comes down to this moment.”

The perfectly scripted season finale will see a duel between two talented quarterbacks playing in the Super Bowl for the first time, with Rams veteran Matthew Stafford pitted against the rising Bengals star Joe Burrow.

A Bengals victory would complete one of the most striking turnarounds in NFL history.

Last season, the team finished with four wins and 11 defeats, only slightly better than their 2019 campaign, which ended in a dismal 2-14 record.

But under head coach Zac Taylor, and buoyed by the arrival of No.1 draft pick Burrow in 2020, the Bengals are a team transformed.

A dogged, never-say-die approach characterized their post-season campaign, which saw them shock AFC top seeds Tennessee before another upset on the road over mighty Kansas City sealed their Super Bowl berth.

Whether Burrow is afforded the time and space to craft one more Bengals upset is another question altogether, however.

A porous offensive line allowed him to be sacked a whopping nine times during the playoff win over Tennessee.

That is a stat that the formidable Rams defense, led by the human wrecking ball Aaron Donald, the best defensive player in the NFL, and veteran pass rusher Von Miller, will have taken note of.

On the offensive side, meanwhile, the Rams have more than enough weapons to puncture the Bengals defense.

The 34-year-old Stafford, playing in his first Super Bowl, has an array of targets to aim for, including Cooper Kupp, the best wide receiver in the NFL this season, and Odell Beckham, Jr., the charismatic former New York Giants and Cleveland Browns receiver who has flourished since joining the Rams in mid-season.

As well as enjoying home advantage in what is the first Los Angeles-area Super Bowl since 1993, the Rams also have the benefit of having recent experience of the NFL Championship game.

Many members of Sunday’s line-up were on the losing side when the Rams were beaten 13-3 by the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in 2019.

Rams head coach Sean McVay — who at 36 years and 20 days old would become the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl with victory on Sunday — was upbeat after overseeing a final team walkthrough Saturday.

“We’re very confident,” McVay said. “We’re ready to go. There’s a good look in their eyes.

“I think there’s a good urgency, but also I just have a good feel about this team. I feel excited to watch them go and do their thing.”

The Rams will be playing in front of a packed crowd of 70,000, while the traditional half-time music concert will feature the likes of Eminem, Mary J. Blige and hip-hop icons Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar.

The capacity crowd also contrasts with last season’s Super Bowl in Tampa, where attendance was limited to around 25,000 fans due to COVID-19.

While the omicron variant surge is in retreat in Los Angeles, authorities are requiring all attendees Sunday to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, with masking mandatory.
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Veteran NFL coach Anthony Lynn appreciates the league policy that requires teams to interview minority candidates for their top jobs, and he has even benefited from it.

Like many of his peers, though, the assistant head coach for the San Francisco 49ers believes the policy has fallen short of its good intentions: There were three non-white head coaches when the rule went into effect in 2003; today, there are five.

The figure has risen and fallen slightly over the past 20 years, but skepticism about NFL hiring practices has remained steady among minority job candidates even after the league introduced the so-called Rooney Rule, named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who oversaw the league’s diversity committee.

Lynn, who is Black, long ago added his own personal amendment to the Rooney Rule: As his star rose as one of the league’s top assistants in the mid-2010s, Lynn would only meet with teams to discuss a head coaching vacancy if they had already brought in at least one other minority candidate, something the Rooney Rule didn’t require until 2021.

“I just didn’t want to be a token interview,” Lynn told The Associated Press. “I really believe in the spirit of the Rooney Rule, but I just saw how people were abusing it and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

The racial discrimination lawsuit filed this month against the NFL and several teams by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores has magnified attention on the league’s hiring practices and stirred up long-simmering frustrations with the Rooney Rule. It has also prompted comparisons from Lynn and others to corporate America, which has also struggled to diversify its leadership ranks.

Lynn’s perseverance paid off in 2017 when the Los Angeles Chargers made him the first Black head coach in team history.

The candidates Lynn beat out for the job included Teryl Austin, who is now a defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Austin’s interview with the Chargers was one of 11 occasions where he earned a face-to-face meeting, but failed to land the head coaching job.

There were times when Austin felt like he was really in contention, and others when he felt he “was one of those guys where they were checking a box” to comply with the mandate.

Austin’s personal journey is included in Flores’ lawsuit as evidence of a discriminatory system that is failing qualified job candidates.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell partially pushed back on Wednesday, saying the league has made a “tremendous amount of progress in a lot of areas.” He acknowledged, though, that the league is lagging when it comes to head coaches.

“We have more work to do and we’ve got to figure that out,” Goodell said in Los Angeles ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. Goodell said the NFL has already engaged “outside experts” to help it review hiring policies and he didn’t rule out the possibility of eliminating the Rooney Rule.

The two teams playing in this year’s Super Bowl — the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams — are led by offensive-minded, white head coaches in their 30s. There is considerable diversity, however, among the dozens of coaches that oversee their offenses, defenses and special teams. Half of the coaches working for Rams head coach Sean McVay are Black.

Art Rooney II — Dan’s son and the current Steelers president — defended the impact of his father’s eponymous hiring policy.

“While I acknowledge that we have not seen progress in the ranks of head coaches, we have seen marked improvement in the hiring of women and minorities in other key leadership roles,” he said.

In many cases, there was nowhere to go but up.

The NFL is running in place in terms of diversifying its most visible leadership positions. While over a third of assistant coaches are Black, only two teams employed Black offensive coordinators this season, considered the final rung of the ladder before becoming a head coach. Nearly 85% of the league’s general managers and player personnel directors are white, according to a report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

“This is a willingness and heart issue,” said Troy Vincent, a former player who is now the league’s executive vice president of football operations. “You can’t force people, so we have to continue to educate and share with those in the hiring cycle.”

Players also have a role in promoting change, says Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

Lapchick points to the NBA, where players have taken an increasingly public role in social activism. Nearly half of the NBA’s 30 teams are led by Black coaches and over a quarter employ Black general managers.

“I don’t think that the (NFL) office can do it on their own,” Lapchick said. “The impact will only take place … when the athletes themselves raise their voice and say it’s important.” Roughly 70% of NFL players are Black.

Corporate America has run into many of the same diversity challenges as the NFL, and the same legal problems.

“The NFL is no different than the rest of society,” said Lynn of the 49ers. “Look at the top Fortune 500 companies. How many minority CEOs do you have in that industry versus ours? Our percentage may be higher.”

Over 90% of Fortune 500 presidents and CEOs are white and only 3% are Black, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

Former Morgan Stanley chief diversity officer Marilyn Booker sued the bank in 2020 for racial discrimination and retaliation. She alleged that the company’s overwhelmingly white executives stymied her plans to diversify its management structure. The two sides eventually settled out of court.

Last year, five of the largest banks — J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo — agreed to make public commitments to policies that echo the Rooney Rule, according to a spokesman at the AFL-CIO, which helped secure the agreements.

But experts say many of the biggest companies still have further to go.

“Many companies are engaging in these types of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts as performance-art theatrics,” said Nicholas Pearce, clinical professor of management and organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Whether in sports or business, Pearce says one easy way for hiring managers to reduce the effects of implicit bias would be to require more diverse panels to conduct job interviews.

With the exception of Jacksonville’s Shad Khan and Buffalo co-owner Kim Pegula, all NFL teams are privately owned by white men, with the exception of the Green Bay Packers, which is publicly owned.

Jerod Mayo, a 35-year-old linebackers coach for the New England Patriots, has ambitions of one day becoming a head coach. And Mayo, who is Black, is optimistic that by the time he’s ready, many of the challenges that veterans such as Lynn, Austin and Flores have faced, will be a thing of the past.

“You know, that’s a beautiful day where we don’t need the Rooney Rule.”

 
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Americans are getting ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday. It’s the final matchup of the National Football League season and a national celebration. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles, where the Los Angeles Rams will face the Cincinnati Bengals.
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