August 6, 2016 – AssociatedNews.info

Sports August 6, 2016

U.S. Women Edge France, Passing A Tough Test In Olympic Soccer

U.S. women’s soccer player Crystal Dunn (in white) contends with Amel Majri of France during their match at Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The U.S. earned a 1-0 victory in the the Group G first-round meeting in the Rio Summer Olympics tournament. Pedro Vilela/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Pedro Vilela/Getty Images

It was a match that lived up to its billing: the U.S., the world’s top-ranked women’s soccer team, taking on No. 3 France in a close contest that saw stellar play from both goalkeepers and ended with a 1-0 American victory.

The tense tone was set in the first minutes, with both offenses putting the ball into the penalty area for scoring chances – and both defenses quickly defusing those threats. That pattern held for all of the first half, and for part of the second.

The U.S. broke the 0-0 tie nearly 20 minutes into the second half, with Carli Lloyd putting away a ricochet that had eluded French goalie Sarah Bouhaddi’s grasp after a hard shot on the near post by Tobin Heath.

Shortly after that score, U.S. coach Jill Ellis moved to preserve the lead, inserting defender Ali Krieger into the game in place of Crystal Dunn — who had just been given a yellow card for a sliding tackle.

The U.S. was playing without another stalwart of its back line, as defender Julie Johnston wasn’t in the starting lineup. France repeatedly sought to exploit this by lofting corners and free kicks to the 6-foot-2 Wendie Renard.

France used a flurry of substitutions to try to equalize late in the second half, but the French side was unable to convert several scoring chances.

As in the U.S. victory over New Zealand on Wednesday, many spectators in Belo Horizonte seized every opportunity to jeer U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo. In what’s now become a familiar pattern, whistles rained down on the field as Solo handled the ball. When she kicked it away, fans yelled in unison, “Zika!”

That jeering is how many Brazilian fans have chosen to respond to Solo’s posting of a selfie last month that showed her wearing a protective hat and holding a can of bug spray.

Solo faced at least three dangerous shots in the first half, and she negated them all, getting her gloves on a header off a free kick; a close-range shot on a breakaway, and on another point-blank blast from a French attacker who had eluded the Americans’ defense. More threats came in the second, but Solo turned them away, and in some cases the shots dinged off the goal’s pipes.

France used an organized defense and a solid midfield to dominate possession in the game’s first 20 minutes, owning the ball for nearly 60 percent of the time. But the U.S. team leveled that statistic as the game wore on, and controlled possession in the second half.

With the win, the United States is 2-0 in Group G ahead of Tuesday’s match against Colombia at Amazonia Arena. The Americans are assured of advancing to the tournament’s knockout stage, which begins Friday.

The Americans are going for their fourth straight Olympic gold and their fifth in the last six Summer Games.

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Business August 6, 2016

At This English Bar, An Old-School Solution To Rude Cellphones

Liam Norris/Getty Images/Cultura Exclusive

There was a time when people went to bars to talk to other people, maybe even meet someone new. But that was in the BC era — before cellphones.

“I’ve been in the pub industry for a long time, and progressively it’s become less and less social and more and more antisocial,” Steve Tyler, the owner of the Gin Tub in Sussex, England, tells NPR’s Scott Simon.

And that’s bad for business. So Tyler wanted to bring back the conversation, and he did by turning his bar into a Faraday cage — a 19th-century invention that reflects electromagnetic fields and conducts currents around, rather than inside, an enclosure.

He installed copper wire mesh in the bar’s ceiling and tin foil on the walls, effectively blocking cell phone signals from getting into the establishment.

A woman sits in a Faraday cage that is struck by lightning that was produced by a large transformer the Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany, on Aug. 24, 2007. A Faraday cage is a 19th-century invention that reflects electromagnetic fields and conducts currents around, rather than inside, an enclosure. Fabian Bimmer/AP hide caption

toggle caption Fabian Bimmer/AP

“It’s not military grade,” Tyler says, but “it does its job.”

Tyler says that, because it doesn’t send a signal to jam phones, the setup is totally legal. But just in case, the Gin Tub has a sign at its entrance that tells people exactly what they’re getting into: “No Wi-Fi, no signal, just friends.”

A week in, Tyler says that people are loving the change.

“I think I’ve hit a nerve in the world, that I think it’s rude, and I think society has accepted people on their phones in bars and in places where it’s socially unacceptable,” he says.

He hasn’t seen sight of any imitators, but Tyler is confident that his approach — or at least the general idea — will win out.

“I think this is gonna be the new way forward for restaurants and bars and clubs,” he says.

Without phones in their hands, people are no longer drinking in silence but instead talking with each other. Tyler says that’s how bars were intended.

“It’s like Cheers, the TV program, when you walk in everyone knows your name,” Tyler says. “Well, there are no pubs now where everyone knows your name.”

That is, except within the Faraday cage.

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