Dallas Cowboys won’t likely get a deal done with Dak Prescott until NFL sets 2021 cap

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
Clarence E. Hill Jr.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

It’s Dak Prescott news all time and there appears to be no end in sight until his contract situation is cleared up with the Dallas Cowboys, whether such news is trivial or legitimate.

So buckle up.

Consider just this week, there was the viral news of the Cowboys quarterback erroneously being left out of the team 2021 hype video as well as him shockingly following The Washington Football Team on Instagram.

He is also following Rihanna. Smart man.

ESPN’s Get Up morning show actually did a new hype 2021 video for the Cowboys, “Guess who’s Dak?” that met the social media approval of Prescott’s brother Tad.

In separate interviews with USA Today and The Dallas Morning News, Cowboys’ Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman said he believes that a new deal for Prescott will get done, but if he plays on a franchise tag in 2021, it would be the last we see of him with a star on his helmet.

And former NFL executive Mike Lombardi told a local radio show on 105.3 The Fan that the Cowboys need to offer Dak Prescott around $40 million per year to get a deal done.

And of course, the sight of owner Jerry Jones buying wine in Prosper had some folks joking that he was on his way to Prescott’s home to celebrate. (The quarterback bought a house in Prosper last year.)

Again, there appears to be no end in sight to the Dak talk.

A popular comment from Cowboys fans on social media is: “today would be a good day for the Cowboys to sign Dak Prescott.”

But let’s put some logic on the parameters and the timeline.

The Cowboys were allowed to resume negotiations and thus come to terms with Prescott as soon as the 2021 season ended.

But there is no way they are going to do a deal before the NFL sets the salary cap for 2021 and that may not come until right before the start of the league year on March 17, according to the NFL Network.

That means that number might not be known before the start of free agency on March 15 and thus not before the deadline for the Cowboys to place a second franchise tag on Prescott.

The tag period opens Feb. 23 and ends March 9.

So the Cowboys will likely have to tag him first and then begin negotiations in earnest.

And now CNBC is reporting that the NFL would like to “finalize frameworks” of new TV deals before setting the 2021 salary cap.

The new TV broadcasting deals could be worth more than $100 billion.

What does this have to do with the Prescott negotiations?

Everything.

Remember, the main reason Prescott has been lobbying for a four-year over a five-year deal — the main sticking point in negotiations that caused an impasse last season, resulting in him playing in 2020 on a one-year franchise tag of $31.4 million — is because he wanted to get back on the market sooner in anticipation of the new TV deals that would drive up salaries.

Most importantly, however, is the timing and amount of the 2021 salary cap.

The 2021 NFL salary cap floor was set at $175 million before the season due to the expected massive revenue hit caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was $198 million in 2020 so that’s a drop of nearly $25 million that teams had no time to plan for.

Most contracts had been structured with the understanding that the cap would go up almost $10 million a year.

It has everyone in a cap crunch for 2021 and that is especially crucial to the Cowboys, who currently don’t have the cap room to carry a $37.7 million franchise tag for Prescott.

It was reported during the Super Bowl that team officials believe the 2021 NFL salary cap will land between $180 million-$185 million per club.

That would be more money on the cap and more room to configure a deal.

Now with the NFL trying to finalize the new TV deals, there is a chance they bump up the salary cap even more by moving some future earnings into 2021.

They may be “robbing Peter to pay Paul” but it also lifts all boats, as team owner Jerry Jones likes to say.

And that is particularly true when trying to do a deal with Prescott.

Getting Prescott signed on the dotted line won’t be cheap.

That was known last year when he turned down a five-year deal worth roughly $35 million annually with $100 million guaranteed.

While there is no indication that he has budged on the four-year length — the Cowboys want to do at least five years to spread out the cap hit — it’s understood by everyone involved that the overall cost of the deal has gone up.

There is little chance he will do a deal for less than the $37.7 million franchise tag.

And with Houston’s Deshaun Watson and Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes signing deals averaging $39 and $45 million annually, respectively, the value of a franchise quarterback has increased.

Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones readily has already acknowledged that it will cost more to get a deal done.

That’s well understood by all parties.

But before they get down to the nitty gritty, they need to know what the cap is going to be in 2021.

That may not be until March.

The good news is that any possible increase in the cap for 2021 will give the Cowboys more flexibility to do a deal.

And if they don’t do a deal and he plays on the franchise tag, look out.

A departure in 2022 would be more likely, as a third tag would cost $54 million, which means the Cowboys may have to consider drafting a quarterback in 2021.

Until then, brace yourself for wild daily speculation and assumptions that might go viral.

Latest Stories

  • Trump acquittal: What verdict means for Trump, Biden and America

    Reputations were burnished and tarnished - and a tumultuous stage was set for political battles to come.

  • Fake rallies in made-for-Putin videos tell Russia's leader how popular he is

    They came from all walks of life - paramedics, footballers, steelworkers and students - to march in a huge column for their leader, Vladimir Putin. At least that's how it seemed. A slick new video showing young and old congregating under the name of the Russian leader has been exposed as one of a number of fake rallies concocted by the Kremlin. Rattled by protests in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny that have swept across the country, Mr Putin's government appears desperate to prove his popularity is unscathed in a series of dubious demonstrations. In Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, where one of the videos was filmed, the crowd joins together after leaving their workplaces and football pitches to flash the torches on their phones at the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War. The clip, shared by local MPs from Mr Putin's United Russia, wrapped up with a strapline across the screen: “We stand with you, Vladimir Vladimirovich!”.

  • Biden administration has “deep concerns” about WHO’s COVID-19 probe

    President Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement on Saturday that the administration is concerned by the World Health Organization's (WHO) probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Why it matters: Sullivan said the administration fears the Chinese government may have intervened or altered the findings of the investigation.Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.Context: On the first day of his administration, Biden acted to return the U.S. to the WHO. The Trump administration had started a withdrawal from the organization in July 2020.WHO teams last month conducted the investigation in Wuhan, China, where the virus first emerged. The investigation had been agreed to last May, but it was delayed after Chinese officials withheld authorization to allow the international team's scheduled visit. The delay drew a rare rebuke from WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.The WHO team concluded that it's "extremely unlikely" the virus came from a laboratory accident, and that it most likely jumped to humans via an intermediate species.“Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific, targeted research,” said WHO scientist Peter Ben Embarek.What they're saying: "The mission of the World Health Organization (WHO) has never been more important, and we have deep respect for its experts and the work they are doing every day to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and advance global health and health security," Sullivan said in a statement."But re-engaging the WHO also means holding it to the highest standards. And at this critical moment, protecting the WHO’s credibility is a paramount priority." "We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them.""It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government. To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak."The big picture: Going forward, Sullivan said all countries, including China, should be more transparent in order to prevent health emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic and allow other countries to respond to them faster.Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free.

  • Ron Johnson, Mitt Romney reportedly got into a heated discussion after impeachment witness vote

    As the Senate floor transformed into a state of confusion following the surprising vote to hear from witnesses in former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) reportedly got into a heated discussion with his GOP colleague Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who along with four other Republicans joined Democrats in the 55-45 tally. “... They were going back and forth with Sullivan in the middle of them. I heard Johnson tell Romney ‘Blame you.’ Voices were definitely raised.” — Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 13, 2021 Johnson, like most everyone else, was apparently under the assumption the vote would go the other way, setting up a quick end to the trial on Saturday. But Democrats became more interested in hearing from witnesses after more details about a call between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the middle of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot emerged. And shortly after the Senate on Saturday morning, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a House impeachment manager, said he and the other managers wanted to hear from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who described McCarthy's recounting of the call. Trump was and still is headed toward acquittal, as it remains unlikely enough Republicans will be swayed by witnesses to reach the two-thirds majority required for conviction. For instance, it was reported earlier Saturday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was at least publicly on the fence, had told colleagues in an email that he was prepared to vote to acquit. It doesn't seem like that will change, since his reasoning was based on the fact that Trump is already out of office rather than on anything about Trump's alleged role, or lack thereof, on Jan. 6. Other lawmakers are expected to move forward with the same rationale. More stories from theweek.com7 scathingly funny cartoons about Republicans' impeachment cowardiceTrump's acquittal is not foreordainedImpeachment isn't what will hurt Trump most

  • Russia says it would be ready to cut EU ties if hit with painful sanctions

    Russia said on Friday it would be ready to sever ties with the European Union if the bloc hit it with painful economic sanctions, a statement that Germany described as disconcerting and incomprehensible. Ties between Russia and the West, already at post-Cold War lows, have come under renewed pressure over the arrest and jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Three European diplomats told Reuters on Thursday the EU was likely to impose travel bans and asset freezes on allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, possibly as soon as this month.

  • BBC director general warns of 'global threat' to media freedom after China bans British broadcaster

    The BBC’s director general has warned of the “growing global threat to the free media” after the corporation was banned from broadcasting in China and Hong Kong. In his first intervention since Beijing announced the ban, Tim Davie said that countries such as China were now trying to expand their “control of information”. Mr Davie, who took up the post of director general in the autumn, said it was of “deep concern” that China was preventing the BBC from doing its job. But he stressed the wider concern that China - and by implication other countries such as Russia - were trying to peddle their own state-controlled news operations abroad while attacking the free press within their borders. Mr Davie last night told The Telegraph: “Media freedom matters. The latest developments in China, including the banning of the World Service in Hong Kong, are deeply worrying developments. The BBC should be able to do its reporting without fear or favour. “It is of deep concern when our journalists are restricted and their work curtailed. Importantly, in these difficult times when misinformation is rife, we have seen growing audiences for trusted news sources - including hundreds of millions coming to the BBC. “This is not just about stopping the BBC from broadcasting news in China, there are significant and growing global threats to the free media as some seek to increase their control of information. Now, more than ever, it is important that we speak out to defend free and fair journalism.” Senior BBC sources said there was now three-fold threat from states such as China and Russia, through manipulation of social media, funding their own biased news operations and shutting down trusted international broadcasters. “These states are actively manipulating social media to undermine legal democracies while at the same time flexing their muscles by pumping millions of rubles or whatever currency into global news services that distort the truth. And now they are preventing the likes of the BBC from broadcasting.” China banned the BBC World News Channel on Thursday in apparent retaliation for Ofcom's decision to revoke the UK broadcasting license of Chinese state broadcaster CGTN after finding the organisation is “ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party”

  • Bidens view Valentine's Day decorations on White House lawn

    First lady Jill Biden has a valentine for the American people: giant pink, white and red hearts bearing calls for “unity,” “hope” and “love” installed early Friday on the North Lawn of the White House. “I just wanted some joy,” the first lady told reporters during a surprise visit to the lawn with President Joe Biden and their two German shepherds, Champ and Major.

  • 12 Best Bedding Sets for Kids

    Sweet dreams are made of theseOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes near site of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster

    At least 14 aftershocks had been recorded and almost 850,000 households left without power, authorities said.

  • Acquittal, but Not Vindication

    The impeachment trial is hurtling toward a conclusion, after brief drama over potentially calling witnesses. Former President Trump is almost certain to get acquitted, but it won’t be much of a vindication. His conduct in the post-election period and on January 6 will blight his reputation forevermore. He waged a dishonest and poisonous campaign to overturn the election that culminated in a mob disrupting the counting of electoral votes at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The new videos played by the House managers at the trial brought home again the national embarrassment of that day, with top elected officials scurrying for safety as the rabble descended. The House managers were at their strongest describing Trump’s conspiracy-laden effort to reverse the election result, his long catalogue of inflammatory comments, and his dereliction of duty in failing to urge the rioters to cease and desist as early and forcefully as possible. All of this is damnable, inarguably so. The weakness in their case stems from the defects of the article of impeachment itself, which both goes too far and not far enough. At the core of the article is the contention that Trump incited the crowd to attack the Capitol, that he “willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol.” This suggests an element of intent that the managers couldn’t prove. On the other hand, incredibly enough, the article doesn’t even mention Trump’s conduct during the riot, when he continued to criticize Mike Pence as he was being targeted by the mob, and that he went AWOL as allies begged him to tell the rioters to stand down. Trump’s defense team didn’t have good answers — or really any answers — when queried in the Q&A about what Trump was doing in these hours. If House Democrats hadn’t rushed to impeach Trump in an afternoon, they might have written a more airtight article. As it is, a number of Republicans will conclude, reasonably enough, that Trump is still guilty. If he hadn’t falsely insisted that he’d really won the election in the most incendiary terms and promoted a protest on January 6, there would have been no rabble to run out of control in the first place. On top of this, his pressure campaign to get Republican officials to throw the election to him in key states was intolerable in its own right. We hope Republicans voting to acquit largely on process grounds — a post-presidency trial is unconstitutional, it’s time to move on, etc. — will at least speak forthrightly about the president’s misconduct. This has been a quickie impeachment, running about a month from beginning to end. But the underlying events, and Trump’s unforgivably reckless behavior, will long reverberate.

  • Social media giants making it 'incredibly difficult' to catch racist trolls, police chief warns

    Social media companies are making catching racist rolls who abuse footballers “incredibly difficult”, a senior police chief has warned as he called for mandatory verification of users. Simon Bailey, the Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary, accused tech giants of putting profit before taking meaningful action to combat racist abuse on their networks. He said if social media sites won’t introduce basic checks when users open new accounts they should be forced to in upcoming online harms legislation. Mr Bailey’s comments come after a week where pressure has mounted on tech companies to take action after high profile players, including Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford, reported receiving racist messages. In response, Facebook-owned Instagram announced it will now ban rather than suspend users who send racist messages, with senior executives at the company saying they were ‘horrified’ by the abuse. However, the FA, Premier League and other football bodies responded by calling for more stringent action, including verification of users, to prevent racist trolls hiding behind anonymity. In a significant intervention by a senior police officer, Mr Bailey called for social networks to verify accounts to deter trolls and help police track down offenders. Speaking to The Telegraph, he said that users could keep their anonymity on the platform but should provide some verifiable details when setting up accounts so they could be traced if they broke the law. “It makes it incredibly difficult for us,” said Mr Bailey, commenting on the impact the lack of verification had on police investigations into racist abuse. “I think we have seen all forms of abuse being perpetrated as people feel they are able to spout bile because of the anonymity they are afforded.” The chief constable also accused the social media companies of resisting verification as it went against their business model of having as many people on their networks as possible. He said if they did not bring in verification themselves, they should be made to as part of the coming Online Harms bill, which proposes huge fines for tech companies that don’t clamp down on harmful behaviour. Mr Bailey added: “The tech companies, in my opinion, are driven solely to make profit and nowhere near enough of that profit is being re-invested into ensuring that the services they provide are safe, secure and not being abused through anonymity - as people are able to racially abuse a footballer. “If that service was being provided in the real world it would be shut down and almost instantly.” Mr Bailey, who is also the UK’s leading child protection officer for the National Police Chiefs Council, said verification would also instantly help protect children from being targeted by paedophiles online.

  • 2 killed, 2 injured when car plunges off Chicago expressway

    Two people were killed and two more were seriously injured early Friday when their vehicle hit a concrete wall and plunged off a Chicago expressway onto a street about 43 feet (13 meters) below, police said. The vehicle “was traveling too fast for road conditions” on Interstate 55 — also known as the Stevenson Expressway — when the accident happened at around 4 a.m., Illinois State Police said. The vehicle tumbled off the highway, struck a light pole and landed on the street in the McKinley Park neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side, Illinois State Police Trooper Omoayena Williams said.

  • Man charged with threatening to kill president Biden and White House staff and ‘chop all your heads off’

    The charges could land the man in a federal prison for up to five years

  • Poll: Most Americans think Trump at least partially responsible for Capitol attack

    Seventy-one percent of American adults, including nearly half of all Republicans, believe former President Donald Trump was at least partially responsible for starting the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Ipsos poll conducted for Reuters. But the national online poll, released on Saturday, also showed that a smaller proportion -- only about half of the country -- thinks Trump should be convicted of inciting insurrection at his Senate impeachment trial or barred from holding public office again. When asked what they thought of Trump’s role, 30% of Americans said he was "fully" responsible for sparking the violent confrontation between police and Trump loyalists who broke into Congress in hopes of stopping lawmakers from certifying the November 2020 presidential election results.

  • Can you go back to living your pre-lockdown life after being vaccinated?

    Vaccinations in the U.S. continue to accelerate. More than 1 million Americans are getting vaccinated per day, which is helping us get one step closer to herd immunity. But with a large portion of the population still ineligible for vaccination, and uncertainty around whether vaccinated people can spread the disease, many immunized Americans are wondering: Is it safe to gather with friends and family? Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains.

  • Six pirate skeletons discovered in 1717 shipwreck off coast of Cape Cod

    A team of investigators has discovered the remains of at least six pirates from a 1717 shipwreck off Cape Cod, Massachusetts that could lead to them to the infamous buccaneer Captain “Black Sam” Bellamy. The remains, entombed in several large concretions – hard, compact mineral masses – were found in the wreck of the Whydah, the world’s only confirmed pirate shipwreck, by a team from the Whydah Pirate Museum in Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The skeletons are currently being examined by underwater explorer Barry Clifford and his team, the museum said in a statement. Mr Clifford discovered the Whydah in 1984. "We hope that modern, cutting-edge technology will help us identify these pirates and reunite them with any descendants who could be out there,” Mr Clifford said in the statement. The Whydah was originally commissioned in London as a cargo and slave-trading ship by Sir Humphrey Morice, an MP and figurehead of Britain’s slave trade, and was named after the Kingdom of Whydah in modern-day Benin.

  • Andrew Yang’s Baseless Call to Retire the New York City Flag

    On February 1, Andrew Yang — the New York author, entrepreneur, nonprofiteer, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate now running for New York City mayor — tweeted that the official flag of his adopted city, a flag that has iconically flown over the New York skyline since 1915, should be offhandedly retired and replaced with a less “old” design. “The colors are based on the Dutch Prince’s flag. . . . The seal is old,” Yang asserted, referring to the official NYC seal borne by the flag. “Corey Johnson [speaker of the NYC Council] proposed having a new flag designed by artists in New York as a symbol of civic pride,” Yang declared — and Yang apparently agrees with him: “I like the idea of a more modern flag for NYC.” In Mr. Yang’s philosophy, longevity is evidently no sign of success. Forget the flag design for a moment. Why the worry about the flag’s age? New York City itself was first settled in 1624 and is, therefore, centuries older than the flag Yang thinks is too geriatric to represent it. Should New York City, or New York State itself, therefore be abolished? Surely not. Oldness qua oldness is not an argument against the NYC banner. Yang needs a better argument to convince New York to abolish the iconic flag designed by the 1915 mayor’s committee. So enough with mere age as an argument. What of the flag itself? Should New York City’s banner be cast into the dustbin of history? Before June 1915, New York City had no official flag, and used, on an ad hoc basis, an unofficial white banner bearing the city seal. “Up to the present time,” as reported in Seal and Flag of the City of New York (published in 1915), “the City of New York has never possessed an official flag in any true sense of the term.” Mayor John Purroy Mitchel appointed a citizen-led committee to produce an official flag and to introduce a historically informed, standardized version of the city seal. The occasion was the 250th anniversary of the installation of the first mayor and board of aldermen of the City of New York in 1665, marking the beginning of “New York City” under the English and the end of Dutch rule over New Amsterdam — aside from a period in 1673–74 when the Netherlands regained control. The blue-white-orange tricolor produced by the mayor’s committee and approved by the city aldermen in 1915 was a smashing victory of design, and has flown proudly and distinctively over New York’s skyline for the last 105 years. The city flag and the seal that it bears combine the colors of the Dutch Republic’s flag with a “distinctively American” eagle crest on the city’s English-style arms, creating a bold emblem that unmistakably represents New York and its past. The flag was intended to showcase the identity and genesis of a fiercely proud American city. It was consciously created to evoke the heritage and history of New York and of New Amsterdam before it. The apparent “oldness” of the emblem is intentional, not accidental. But it appears that all this history is lost on today’s anti-flag crowd. Flag of New York City The design coup of the New York City flag is that it succeeds as a bold and energetic-looking symbol in a way that is in fact fostered, not obscured, by its roots in the past. It also has the official bearing necessary for a city such as New York. While modern flag designers often criticize the practice of putting seals on flags, if any design were an exception to this rule, the NYC flag would be it. The design works, and has for 105 years. Why punish this flag for its success? The same can be said of the design of the seal itself. When introducing their version of the city seal to the board of aldermen for approval, the 1915 Art Committee answered an expected criticism of the design. The committee’s response anticipated the complaints made by Yang over a century later: “It is in no sense a new design,” John B. Pine of the official Art Committee said, “and any criticism that it is not beautiful or that it does not meet heraldic requirements is irrelevant.” He added, No doubt, a more beautiful seal could be designed, but we regard it as of far more importance to perpetuate the seal which was adopted by the Common Council in 1686 and which ever since that date has been used by the City but with slight modification as the symbol of its corporate entity. (These words are found in the above-mentioned book, Seal and Flag of the City of New York. As it happens, John B. Pine himself edited the handsomely bound volume, which was officially authorized by the mayor’s seal and flag committee. It is a great read for anyone interested in the history of Gotham’s civic symbols. One can find it both at the NYC Public Library and online. It gives an in-depth background of the city’s emblems and brand-new official flag. Fittingly, it is bound in the blue and orange tinctures of the city flag. Evidently, the publisher did not share Yang’s qualms about the “Dutch Prince’s” colors.) Anyone concerned that the seal on the city flag is “old” has missed the boat with his concern by a good hundred years. The seal was already of venerable age in 1915, when the art committee and aldermen enthusiastically affixed it to the new Gotham tricolor. Far from deficient in civic pride, the flag was meant from the start to be a grand, civic-minded project that would foster pride in a great American city. Citizen-artists already designed the current flag, so retiring it would achieve nothing but to obscure their work. It would create the same wrong that a “new flag” would supposedly remedy. This suggests that those opposed to the flag do not understand its history, and view it as fair game to create excitement and novelty for a civic pet project. Finally, New York City is far from the only city or county that features the old Dutch, New Amsterdam colors. I am a lifelong resident of Dutchess County, New York, which draws from this aesthetic as well. But at least the NYC flag incorporates the Dutch colors in upright bars. With its orange-white-blue horizontal tricolor, the Dutchess County flag is an exact reproduction of the Dutch Prinsenvlag, distinguished only by the county seal. Ulster County is in the same predicament, as is Albany, the capital of New York State. Yang’s home county of Westchester, fittingly enough, also conspicuously bears the Dutch kleuren on its flag. Americans have stubbornly showcased their heritage through civic symbols throughout the nation’s history. Before sounding another flat-noted judgment on a classic American emblem like the NYC flag, Mr. Yang and his anti-flag allies should recognize that fact. After all, the American flag itself bears the title “Old Glory” — and not as an insult. Editor’s note: This article has been updated since its original publication.

  • Louise Linton complains she’s been ‘villainised’ because of association with Trump administration

    ‘I’ve faced a lot of criticism over the years...by being so closely tied to such a controversial administration’

  • Dozens hurt by huge blaze close to Iran-Afghanistan border

    At least 60 people were injured as hundreds of fuel vehicles exploded in a massive blaze that tore through a customs post in Afghanistan close to the Iranian border, disrupting power supplies and causing millions of dollars of damage. Iranian authorities sent fire engines and ambulances across the border, while scores of locals fought the blaze in the border town of Islam Qala before it was brought under control. Waheed Qatali, governor of the western province of Herat, said Iranian authorities and NATO-led personnel in Afghanistan were asked for assistance to help contain the fire, which damaged electricity infrastructure, leaving much of Herat's capital city without power.

  • Hours after new CDC guidance for schools released, teachers give nod of approval

    The guidelines released Friday don't require Covid-19 vaccinations for all educators before returning to classrooms.