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S&P 500 companies that maintained their diversity, equity and inclusion commitments performed as well as or better than their peers that rolled back DEI commitments in the face of political pressure, University of California, Berkeley public policy scholar Jacob Grumbach posited in a recently published report.
Grumbach determined the health of the companies by looking at both company revenue and abnormal stock returns to measure company performance relative to the broader market trends. Both metrics indicated that organizations that retained DEI programs performed as well as or better than their competitors.
These findings come contrary to the current corporate logic du jour, which maintains that DEI programming presents a legal risk under the current presidential administration.
"Markets Do Not Punish Firms for Maintaining DEI," published on Aug. 14, highlighted the performance of companies such as Apple, Cisco, Costco, Delta Airlines, Dollar Tree, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft and Pfizer, which maintained their DEI commitments — compared to companies such as Citigroup, Dollar General, IBM, Target and Walmart, which all scaled back.

#dollar

A 34-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following a fatal fire in west London.
The Met was called to a residential address on Berkeley Avenue, Hounslow, at about 01:15 BST on Wednesday following reports of the blaze. A 48-year-old woman died in hospital and eight others were injured.
Another woman, aged 40, remains in hospital in a life-threatening condition.
Officers from Kent Police arrested the man on Sunday while he was travelling to France by train. He remains in custody, the Metropolitan Police said.
Nine patients were taken to hospital for treatment [BBC]

#police #arrested #following #berkeley

Jayden Maiava of USC, Dante Moore of Oregon, and Julian Sayin of Ohio State all played a full Big Ten football season in 2025. Josh Hoover of Indiana did not. He was with TCU last year. This instantly makes Hoover one of the most compelling and consequential figures in the Big Ten in 2026.
Those of us who follow West Coast football knew that Fernando Mendoza was a good player at California. With Curt Cignetti's coaching and Indiana's overall talent, Mendoza was placed in a position to succeed. He had in Indiana what he lacked in Berkeley as a Golden Bear.
The thought process for Cignetti and Indiana with Josh Hoover is similar to what we saw with Mendoza. Take a talented player away from TCU - a medicore team and a struggling program - and put him in Bloomington with other well-coached Hoosiers. The hope for Indiana is that Hoover takes off much as Mendoza did.
Purely as an athlete, Josh Hoover can compare with Fernando Mendoza. He can run. He can throw. He can make plays. However, Mendoza was special - elite and even legendary - as a crunch-time performer. Mendoza got bigger, not smaller, in late-game pressure situations. He shrugged off huge mistakes in multiple games. He could play poorly for a quarter or two but then regroup and deliver when his team needed it. The mental toughness of Fernando Mendoza, shown on his iconic touchdown run to win the national championship against Miami, is what we can't ***** ign to Josh Hoover right now. Hoover needs to show he has the inner steel Mendoza displayed. Until then, it's all speculation.
Josh Hoover has not earned the benefit of the doubt. Curt Cignetti, however, has. It's a question of whether the coach can lift the quarterback or if the QB drags down the best coach in college football. The way this situation breaks in Indiana will have a profound domino effect on the Big Ten, and very possibly USC, in 2026.

#mendoza #indiana #fernando #player

The entry deadline for the 2026 Charleston Senior Men's City Championship is 5 p.m. Aug. 21. The tournament will be played Sept. 11-13 at Charleston Municipal Golf Course.
The tournament is open to male amateurs 50 and older who have resided in Charleston, Berkeley or Dorchester counties as of Aug. 21.
There are three divisions — Senior Championship for ages 50-59 playing from the white tees; Super Senior Championship for ages 60-69 playing from the gold tees; and Super Super Senior Championship for ages 70-plus playing from the red tees. The tournament will be flighted after 36 holes.
Matt Wood is the defending champion, having won his second City Senior ****** le in 2025 with a score of 220, one shot better than Matt Laydon. Tadd Brown won the Super Senior division in a playoff with Tony Morelli and Sean McAvoy after the three tied at 227. John Frye shot 219 and scored a three-shot victory over Warren Peper in the Super Super Seniors division.
Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach will hold its 33rd annual golf tournament and second annual Ralph Mastrangelo Golf Classic Sept. 21 at Crooked Oaks on Seabrook Island Club. Proceeds from the tournament directly benefit Our Lady of Mercy Community Outreach's programs and services, which provide food ****** istance, healthcare, education, employment support, and emergency resources to thousands of neighbors across the Lowcountry each year.

#playing

Last week's attempt to boost the sagging yen wasn't the first time the U.S. and ****** an took such joint action, but the way they did it revealed weakness in the dollar's global status, according to a top currency expert.
In a Financial Times op-ed on Tuesday, University of California at Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen pointed to both sides of the currency intervention, which he said reflected concern about long-term yields going up.
On the U.S. end, the New York Fed sold euros instead of dollar-denominated ****** ets to buy yen. Eichengreen said that allowed the U.S. to avoid calling on financial markets to absorb more Treasury securities.
That's as the federal government must finance a $2 trillion budget deficit this fiscal year, meaning it's already issuing a flood of Treasury debt. Meanwhile, it's also competing against AI hyperscalers who are selling a mountain of their own bonds.
The tsunami of public and private debt as well as the competition for investor demand have put upward pressure on yields, which adds to interest costs and the federal deficit.

#treasury #deficit #Japan

USC football is dropping Texas Tech from future schedules. You know that the national media reaction will focus on Lincoln Riley being soft or weak. We aren't going to deal with that well-worn topic here. Let's simply pivot to what the Trojans should do to replace that game on their schedule before, it should be noted, Notre Dame comes back onto the slate in 2030. This is not a long-term plan, but a short-term deal.
The obvious answers: Stanford and Cal. USC regularly played the San Francisco Bay Area schools for a long time. Now that both the Trees and the Golden Bears are out of USC's conference, a nonconference meeting with those schools makes all the sense in the world. What makes even more sense is that since Stanford and Cal have to make cross-country trips to play ACC road games, they can surely use a nonconference game in which they don't have to travel a long distance. A home-and-home with USC is such a logical and obvious solution to a problem the Cardinal and Bears have in Palo Alto and Berkeley, respectively.
Stanford or Cal versus USC. This is the nonconference game which obviously needs to happen in the coming years. If people are upset about the Texas Tech series getting nixed, having Stanford or Cal step in as a replacement would be welcome and happy news for a lot of Trojan fans.
Contact/Follow TrojansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of USC Trojans news, notes and opinion.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Stanford and Cal make natural USC replacements for Texas Tech

#texas

A couple weeks after losing draft pick and development player Justine ******* ott to the Las Vegas Aces, the Indiana Fever filled their second development spot.
The Fever announced Friday that they have signed Ugonne "Michelle" Onyiah to their development roster, joining Bree Hall on the Fever's development squad.
Onyiah, a 6-3 forward, played at the University of California-Berkeley from 2020-25. She was a key rotational player for all five of her years at Cal, and shot a conference-leading 60.3% from the field as a full-time starter in her final season in 2024-25. She was not picked in the 2025 WNBA Draft, then spent a year overseas playing in Belgium with Basket Namur Capitale, averaging 11.1 points and 8.4 rebounds per game.
She got her first shot in the WNBA in New York this year, signing a rookie-scale contract with the Liberty ahead of 2026 training camp, but she was not able to make either of the Liberty's preseason games because of overseas commitments and was ultimately waived ahead of the regular season on May 7.
Onyiah then signed with the Upshot League, a new women's basketball league that started in 2026. She played on the Charlotte Crown, averaging 9.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game.

#fever #draft #league #signed

BECKLEY, W.Va. — Potomac Valley Post 64 kicks off its West Virginia American Legion state tournament run on Thursday.
Post 64 (11-9-1) opens against 19-time state champion and two-time defending **** le-winner Wheeling Post 1 (24-7) at 1 p.m.
All games during the double-elimination tournament will be played at Linda K. Epling Stadium in Beckley, West Virginia.
Potomac Valley advanced to states by virtue of finishing second in the Area 4 tournament, falling to Berkeley Post 14, 2-1, in a best-of-three series last week in Martinsburg.
Berkeley (17-7) plays in the tourney's first game against Parkersburg Post 15 (17-9) at 10 a.m.

#post #tournament #valley #state

Cynt Marshall has lived a life full of firsts.
She was the first Black cheerleader in the history of UC Berkeley before a 36-year tenure as a trailblazing executive at AT&T, where she rose to the ranks of senior vice president of human resources and chief diversity officer. When the Dallas Mavericks were rocked by a shocking 2018 scandal surrounding a decadeslong toxic work environment that included allegations of ******* ual harassment and domestic violence, Mark Cuban brought Marshall in to change the culture and right the ship. The Bay Area native became the NBA’s first female Black CEO.
So when Lyda Hill Philanthropies set out to commission and install 26 3D-printed life-sized lime green statues at Dallas’ FIFA fan festival at Fair Park during the World Cup, Marshall’s inclusion was a no-brainer as someone who has impacted the business of sports through creating more inclusive, people-first organizations.
The exhibit, ******* led #IfThenSheCan — Game Changers, highlights leaders in STEM who are transforming the game behind the scenes and championing the next generation of athletes, scientists, educators and leaders. Other honorees include U.S. Women’s National Team legend Julie Foudy, current USWNT superstar Naomi Girma and Moolah Kicks founder and CEO Natalie White.
“It's extremely heartwarming and touching to be included in this next iteration of If/Then,” Marshall told Yahoo Sports. “When you look across the country, you don’t see a lot of efforts promoting women in STEM. So it’s important for us to be role models and showcase role models so that when some little girl or boy will look at that statue, they can know that women have a place in science and sports.”

With the high school sports season behind us, it's time to look back.
This is the second poll in a series the Journal Star will roll out this summer, asking readers to select various superlatives across the 2025-26 season — including top teams, coaches, plus male and female athletes.
It's time to name the Peoria-area high school girls team of the year. Head to pjstar.com/sports to vote. The poll closes at noon Thursday. Information about the nominees is below.
If you have a nominee for next week's male athlete of the year honor, email us at sportspjstar.com or tag us on X pjstarsports. Last week, the Tremont baseball team was named the fans' choice for 2026 Journal Star Boys Team of the Year.
The Eagles not only made program history, but also put themselves into the Peoria-area record books. Dunlap finished second in Class 1A, becoming the highest finisher for a local girls team at the tennis state finals. Sophomore Anna Yu, the Journal Star Girls Tennis Player of the Year, led the charge with her second-place singles finish, making her the first-ever Peoria-area singles player to play for a tennis state championship. Yu (12 points), sixth-place doubles finishers Isabella Gusso and Katherine Brewer (eight points), singles player Alassea Michel (five points) and doubles duo Melaina Humbles and Berkeley Stigall (three points) accounted for Dunlap's 28 points.

From the Golden State to the Islands to the Sunshine State, back to the Islands and now back to the Golden State.
It is a full circle moment for Mililani (Hawaii) receiver Zion White.
White announced his commitment to Cal after taking an official visit to Berkeley.
It winds down a ride that saw him move from Southern California to Hawaii as a youngster, then make the move to Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy for his junior season.
White chose to return to Hawaii for his senior season but will return to his native California for college.

Back in 2015, Frank Moore held a team off-site meeting where members of his staff at the Southern California Golf ***** ociation were asked to draw a picture of their ideal workday.
One of those staffers, Julia Pine, a Bay Area native, drew herself at U.S. Open Final Qualifying site, sketching TV trucks and reporters that she ***** isted at "Golf's Longest Day."
"We talked about it and she said she loved the energy of the day, the human-interest stories that she helped uncover for Golf Channel and other national golf publications," recalled Moore, the longtime communications and marketing director for the SCGA. "It's no surprise that she looked to the USGA for her next opportunity."
Indeed, just a few years later, Pine manifested her dream day into her full-time job, including overseeing the communications strategy for U.S. Open Final Qualifying, not to mention the U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open, among the 15 championships the ***** ociation oversees. In October, she was promoted to the USGA's senior director of communications and content, adding responsibilities for the brand side, including handicapping and Green Section. She'll attend upwards of six championships in person, highlighted by a three-week stretch in June that will take her from coast to coast: the U.S. Women's Open and Curtis Cup in Los Angeles and the U.S. Open on Long Island.
Pine cut her teeth at the SCGA but she has Northern California roots so we count her as one of our own. She moved from New York to Berkeley when she was 10, which was a return to the Bay Area for her father who had grown up in San Francisco. She still speaks fondly of attending the Athenian School, a non-traditional high school in Danville, that helped shape her world view while shepherding a dream of being an ESPN SportsCenter anchor. Golf wasn't yet part of the picture, and her dream evolved from in front of the camera to something more behind the scenes at Loyola Marymount University, where she became the sports editor by the second half of her sophomore year and majored in English with minors in Journalism and Ethical Studies. She served as beat writer for the men's basketball team and treated the school paper as if it was a full-time job. However, when she graduated, journalism jobs were sparse and so she decided to cast a wider net after asking herself a critical question: Is it journalism or sports that she wanted to pursue?

After graduating from UC Berkeley, I felt prepared to enter the workforce with a job lined up.
Within months, my position was eliminated, forcing me to rethink and find something new quickly.
After cold emailing targeted companies in my field, I landed a new job.
After landing an entry-level position at a PR firm specializing in hospitality, I eagerly awaited my start date, which was just weeks after my graduation from UC Berkeley.
Seven months later, I joined a Zoom call with my manager, expecting to discuss my growth, coming prepared with questions about my performance and future with the firm. Within minutes, the tone had shifted completely: my role was being eliminated with budget cuts.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) — A new regional forensic laboratory is now complete in the Lowcountry, with local leaders saying it could help reduce DNA backlogs and move criminal investigations through the justice system more quickly.
The Tri-County Biological Science Center will eventually handle forensic biology and chemistry work for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties. That includes DNA evidence and drug ***** ysis that has traditionally been sent out of the area for processing.
Officials say sending evidence elsewhere often led to long waits for results, sometimes lasting mont

The era of easily detectable botnets is coming to an end, according to a new report published in Science on Thursday. In the study, researchers warned that misinformation campaigns are shifting toward autonomous AI swarms that can imitate human behavior, adapt in real time, and require little human oversight, complicating efforts to detect and stop them.
Written by a consortium of researchers, including those from Oxford, Cambridge, UC Berkeley, NYU, and the Max Planck Institute, the paper describes a digital environment in which manipulation becomes harder to identify. Instead of short burst

A curious and paradoxical intolerance for lactose across the South Asian subcontinent could help explain why the ability for adults to consume fresh milk from other animals developed in other populations.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, led a team of scientists in a genome-wide study of people across the Asian subcontinent to better understand how and why the ability to digest the sugar common in dairy products spread.
Despite being the world's biggest producers and consumers of dairy, most adults in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh do not produce enough lactase, an e

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have watched our planet's seasons from **** e and discovered that spring, summer, winter, and fall are surprisingly out of sync.
Just because two places exist in the same hemisphere, at similar altitudes, or at the same latitude doesn't guarantee they'll experience the same seasonal changes at the same time.
Even regions that are side by side can experience different weather and ecological patterns, sculpting wildly different neighboring habitats.
Related: Scientists Detected Signs of a Structure Hiding Inside Earth's Core
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West Virginia added 1,352 new businesses in April 2025! Top counties include Kanawha, Berkeley & Monongalia. Programs like Boots to Business & Young Entrepreneur helped 171 owners save on fees. #WVBusiness #entrepreneurship #WVNews