WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) Nearly three weeks after an angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., remains at high alert.

Just this week, two men, one of them armed with a loaded gun and carrying a list of lawmakers, were arrested near the Capitol. The Department of Homeland Security warned domestic terrorism threats are increasing.

This is not right, Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., said of looming concerns about more violence, going on to say she feels a sense of sadness. I certainly wouldve hoped that it wouldnt come to having to put fencing up all around what is called the temple of democracy.

U.S. Capitol Police on Friday urged lawmakers and their staff to be vigilant. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said they were given specific instructions, though he would not provide details.

Ive been advised by Capitol Police and others not to talk about my own security or the security of my staff, Brown said. I trust that law enforcement figures out the best way to keep us safe.

Authorities are beefing up security at D.C. airports on busy travel days.

Capitol Police are also calling for a permanent fence to be installed around the building, replacing the temporary one that has been there since the Jan. 6 riot. But Washingtons mayor is not on board, nor are many Republicans.

Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., said in a statement that hearings should be held to discuss any new security measures and suggested that members of Congress should get classified briefings to understand the threat levels.

Nearly 5,000 National Guardsmen are expected to remain on patrol in Washington through March.

Originally posted here:
US Capitol surrounded by fence, troops as threats continue - NEWS10 ABC

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) Hats, gloves, and scarves are a necessity during the winter in Buffalo.

For the past three years, Peoples Park on Main Street in Buffalo has been making sure Queen City residents have access to the warm items they need. During the winter, people can drop off or pick up items hanging on a clothesline on the parks fence.

We thought this was a nice way to serve the community and expand community involvement during the winter when the part is closed, park director Mara Montante said.

Items should be placed in a bag to prevent them from getting wet. You can also reach out to the Peoples Park Facebook page if you have a larger donation to make.

This year, the fence has seen an increase in both donations and items being taken.

I think with everything going on with the pandemic, people are more aware that some people dont have what they need to get the basics, Montante said. Theres more of a need, but people are much more aware.

The line usually stays up until March.

The park (2435 Main St.) is open from April to October.

Its really a place where people from the neighborhood can gather and get to know each other, said Montante.

The former vacant lot hosts activities like concerts, poetry readings, and education programs, and is home to a community garden.

Its a space in the community where people can get some fresh air and be outside and enjoy the green space, Montante said.

Kaley Lynch is a digital reporter who has been part of the News 4 team since 2017. See more of her work here.

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Take a pair, leave a pair: The Mitten Fence at Buffalos Peoples Park is helping keep the Queen City warm - WIVB.com - News 4

The board of directors of the North County Transit District awarded a $407,841 contract last week to Exbon Development Inc. of Garden Grove to install a 6-foot-tall, black vinyl-coated, chain-link fence on both sides of the railroad tracks from Cassidy Street to the Buena Vista Lagoon.

Oceanside is one of three cities, including Del Mar and Encinitas, where the transit district plans to install fencing to keep people off the tracks and prevent injuries and deaths. The number of daily passenger, commuter and freight trains on the coastal rail corridor is expected to almost double in the next 10 years.

Also, trains are becoming faster and quieter with new, more advanced locomotives and track improvements, which makes them more difficult for trespassers to avoid. Fencing is among a number of safety measures that the district is installing, along with cameras, lights, speakers and signs. In all, the project is expected to cost between $2.4 million and $2.8 million for all three cities.

Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez, the citys representative on the NCTD board of directors, said at the boards meeting Thursday that her city approves the installation, but would like to move the right-of-way closer to the tracks in the area of Morse and Cassidy streets to get more room for parking and recreation. Transit officials said that would not interfere with railroad operations and could be worked out.

Unlike in Oceanside, the proposed safety measures have met significant opposition in Solana Beach and Del Mar. The tracks are closest to the coast in Del Mar, where people cross the railroad right-of-way daily to exercise, enjoy the view or go to the beach.

Hundreds of people have written letters to the transit district opposing the plan. The transit district originally announced it would install the fence by the end of 2020, but placed the effort on hold in an attempt to reach a compromise with the cities.

Fencing may cause more harm than good, Del Mar Mayor Terry Gaasterland said in a presentation Thursday to the NCTD board.

The railroad tracks have been on the Del Mar bluffs since 1915, and residents are accustomed to crossing when and where they want. People say theyve learned to look both ways and cross safely. The bluff itself provides a natural barrier in many areas where there is no need to add a fence, Gaasterland said.

It would be incredibly ugly, she said. It will destroy ocean views and coastal sightlines.

In Encinitas, the tracks are not adjacent to the beach, but are parallel to North Coast Highway in the Leucadia community. Residents the say the fence would prevent them from walking across the tracks to reach an area of restaurants, bars and shops known for its funky charm.

Building a fence around the railroad track would degrade the charm we love, wrote resident Kristin Bisely in a Nov. 18 letter to the transit district board. Fences are erected to divide, to privatize and to keep people off and out. That is not charming and that is certainly not the Leucadia way.

The transit district is negotiating possible changes to the plan for Encinitas and Del Mar, but no agreement has been reached so far.

Read more:
Contract approved to fence Oceanside railroad tracks - The San Diego Union-Tribune

By Brendan LaChance on January 14, 2021

CASPER, Wyo. The Bureau of Land Management Wyoming is partnering with the new Absaroka Fence Initiative which is working to ensure fences are safe for wildlife and also functional for livestock management.

BLM Wyoming says the initiative brings together landowners, the local community, non-governmental organizations and government agencies in Park County.

The Absorka Fence Initiative says that adding, modifying or removing fences can more effectively enhance wildlife movement and livestock functionality.

Article continues below...

The initiative has gathered information resources regarding fencing and ecology as well as stories of completed projects. They will also be organizing volunteer events where people can help with fencing projects in the area.

In addition to BLM Wyoming, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation have contributed to the initiative.

Were so pleased to be a part of this worthwhile effort and look forward to some fun projects in 2021, BLM Wyoming said on Thursday.

Related Stories from Oil City News:

Report a correction or typo.

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PHOTOS: New initiative helping Wyoming landowners fix fences to protect wildlife - Oil City News

By CAROL ROIG

You might recall the old saying, Good fences make good neighbors, from studying the Robert Frost poem Mending Wall in school. First published in 1914, the iconic work explores the notion of walls and fences as protective barriers and instruments of division, as a rueful narrator describes his annual encounter with a crusty neighbor who fends off his musings about whether the stone wall that divides their farm fields serves any useful purpose. Before I built a wall, the narrator says, Id ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense. But his neighbor puts up a metaphorical wall against deeper meanings and can only repeat the old clich, Good fences make good neighbors.

Frost was considering fences that divide peoplephysically, politically, intellectually, spiritually. However, another kind of fence has entered our vocabulary, a fence that symbolizes not division but proximity, contained in the expression fenceline community. Its a central concept of the environmental justice movement, describing a residential community immediately adjacent to a commercial or industrial site (or multiple sites) that produces noise, traffic, chemical emissions, toxic waste, light pollution and other environmental impacts that damage residents health and quality of life. Those effects also destroy property values, making it impossible for homeowners to relocate out of danger.

Historically, the residents of fenceline communities are disproportionately African-American, Latino and low-income, a fact confirmed by a strong body of research, starting with a 1983 study by the Government Accounting Office. The study found that three out of four hazardous waste landfills in the U.S. were located in communities of color with average incomes below the poverty line. In 1987, the United Church of Christ Committee on Racial Injustice found that 15 million Black Americans and 8 million Latinos lived in counties with at least one abandoned or uncontrolled toxic waste site. According to the 2018 research report Life at the Fenceline: Understanding Cumulative Health Hazards in Environmental Justice Communities, 39 percent or roughly 124 million Americans live within three miles of one of the nearly 12,500 high-risk chemical facilities in the U.S. Further, the vulnerability zones for these industrial and commercial siteswhere homes, schools, nursing homes, medical facilities and workplaces are locatedcan extend up to 25 miles in radius.

In the years since the groundbreaking GAO Report, numerous grassroots community groups, regional networks and legal clinics have sprung up to help affected communities oppose harmful projects and to lobby for legal protections at the state and federal level. Today, the movement also recognizes the pioneering role played by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in awakening our awareness of the ways that racial equity, economic and political justice, safe housing and working conditions, and access to health care are all related and encompassed within the concept of civil rights. The watershed event in this process of realization is the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968. There, Dr. Kings leadership helped connect issues of racial discrimination and unequal pay with recognition of sanitation workers extremely hazardous working conditions associated with waste disposal, lack of protective gear and the broader harms to their families and communities. Today, Dr. Kings larger and more visionary conception of civil rights is credited as a catalyst for the environmental justice movement.

Environmental justice is now intertwined with climate justice as we recognize that, just as communities of color and low-income communities have historically been subjected to a higher level of toxic pollution and an indifferent record of environmental enforcement, their status as fenceline communities makes them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Economic barriers make them less likely to benefit from equal investment and assistance as we transition to renewable energy and a fossil-free economy. The expansive concept of civil rights, as propounded by Dr. King, is central to effective climate action, embodied in the concepts of climate protections for all communities, and a just transition to new technologies that preserves workers rights and strives to ensure that investment benefits, as well as climate burdens, are shared equitably.

http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/environmental-justice-timeline

http://www.ej4all.org/life-at-the-fenceline

Read more Mixed Greens.

Read more:
Fences and neighbors - The River Reporter

Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage

If eating an entire chocolate cake by yourself and being thrown over a fence by Emma Thompson sounds like a fun way to spend an evening, it sounds like Netflix has the perfect Matilda adaptation for you. According to Variety, the Cruella actress is strapping on her weightlifting belt to play the despotic principal of Crunchem Hall Elementary School, across from Darklands Alisha Weir as Matilda herself, in the streamers movie adaptation of the multi-Tony and Olivier-winning Broadway show.

Theyre joined in the film, directed by Matthew Warchus, by No Time to Die and Captain Marvel actress Lashana Lynch, who will reportedly portray the storys benevolent Miss Honey. Dennis Kelly is adapting the films screenplay from the Matilda stage show, which premiered on the West End in 2011 and Broadway in 2013, which is itself adapted from the 1988 childrens novel of the same name by Roald Dahl.

See more here:
Emma Thompson to Hurl You Over the Fence as Miss Trunchbull in Netflixs Musical Matilda - Vulture

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) The Mitten Fence in People's Park on Main Street in Buffalo typically gives out 400 items a year. This winter, things are flying off the fence faster than usual.

I come by about once a week, but I often come by and I see things I know I havent hung up. It really makes me feel like its a community effort, its a community park and its supposed to bring people together, said Mara Montante, People's Park Director.

Montante says it's often overlooked how many people in our area don't have the winter gear they need to stay warm. That's why People's Park started the Mitten Fence in 2018.

"And we thought this was a really nice way to help people in the community during winter," said Montante.

People's park is known for bringing people together in their garden, hosting reading groups and free libraries during the summer and now, putting up this Mitten Fence during the winter months.

"People can come and leave items. Some people knit things and leave them on the fence. Then people stop by and take what they need, its a give what you can and take what you need," said Montante.

Taylor Epps

She thinks the high need for winter items and the extra help from the community are both effects of the pandemic.

Im hoping this fills kind of a necessary thing people need during the winter," said Montante.

After this years positive response, theyre considering bringing a second peoples park and Mitten Fence to Niagara Falls in the future.

"Hopefully, more people can come and donate and if you need something you can stop by and get what you need," said Montante.

The fence will be up through March. If you want to donate, just bring your items in a plastic bag to keep them dry and hang them up.And if you need something to keep warm out here, just stop by and grab what you need.

Read more here:
Mitten fence helping hundreds in Buffalo stay warm this winter - WKBW-TV

The new fence, 7-feet-tall and considered "non-scalable," should eventually find a home in the Smithsonian. Pieces of it would be an appropriate remembrance of just how dangerous and frightening the Trump years have been. Massive protests are nothing new in Washington, of course. In the 1970s, when I was working in the White House, protests against the Vietnam War reached a crescendo. I remember walking through a courtyard at the Old Executive Office Building and finding military tanks secretly stationed there, ready to move if trouble got out of hand. But those protests were wholly legitimate citizens rising up to demand changes in government policy. In this past week, by contrast, we were watching as the leader of the executive branch of government incited mob violence in an attempted takeover of the legislative branch. Through all of our history, although there have been attacks on our Capitol, we have never seen American citizens try to bring down our central government. Attempted overthrows by civilians have been rare as well among major Western democracies.The closest parallel to the Trump years for many has been the Hitler years in Germany. But even there, mobs weren't marching on the Reichstag. Instead the similarity to today is really more about clever deployment of disinformation by both men. As World War I ended, Hitler and his followers invented "The Big Lie": Germany did not lose the war on the battlefields, they argued; rather, its democratically elected leaders undermined the war effort back home. They convinced the electorate that opponents of the war, especially Jews, had delivered a "stab in the back" to German soldiers. That was a huge lie, but its proponents rode it to power. Just as Trump has with his cynical narrative about Biden's election victory. Trump's greatest strength is perhaps his ability to convince large swaths of people that what is true is false and what is false is true. He has become a master of "The Big Lie" namely, that he won the election and Joe Biden lost. A majority of Americans don't believe him, but opinion polls show that roughly a third are still on his side, even after the bloody assault on Congress. It will be extremely difficult for Biden to govern as long as large portions of our electorate believe his presidency is illegitimate. It is disturbing but true that Trump has become even more threatening to our democracy in the past few weeks. With the FBI warning that insurrectionists may stage new marches across 50 state capitols and are personally targeting Biden, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, one would think that Trump would have the decency and good sense to tell his followers to back off, put down your guns, and stay home. How can he continue to be so blind to his own self-interest? Does he really want to leave office with more blood on his hands?Actually, the biggest test at the moment is not about Trump. It is whether the Republican Party will assume serious responsibility for keeping the peace in coming days. That third of the electorate still in Trump's corner won't listen to Biden or any other Democrat, but they might listen if a big chorus of conservative Republicans as well as business leaders now stand up and speak up just as Rep. Liz Cheney has done in the House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling in the Senate.

As a people, we are staring into an abyss; things could well get worse before they get better. It is hugely important to the country now that we de-escalate and search for higher ground. If we can just get through the first hundred days of a Biden presidency with our democracy intact, perhaps we can all catch our breath, welcome in a little sunshine, and send pieces of that fence to the Smithsonian.

Read this article:
The perfect symbol of the Trump years - CNN

In the first Building a Fence: Keeping Washington Blue Chips Home, I looked at how good of a job UW was doing keeping their top players at home since 2000, counting all 4- and 5-star players in the 247 database as "blue chips." To sum up, it turns out the answer is pretty darn good, with 56.16% of all Washington state blue chips in those 22 classes playing for UW. The numbers drop some when you focus on the most elite players, with UW taking in 66.7% of all the "low 4-stars" (those with a decimal rating below the mean of all blue chips), dropping to 42% of high 4/5-star players and 36% of 5-stars alone.

The obvious follow-up question, though, is whether those percentages are actually good compared to other states and schools. I mean, getting more than half of ALL the blue chips in our state over a 22-year period certainly sounds pretty good, but how does it stack up to other schools and states, especially those that are in comparable situations to Washington. Let's take a look.

Note: While the UW-only deep dive in the previous post went back to 2000, for this comparison I'm only going back to 2010. In part this is so we can focus only on the recent and present moment without getting too deep into ancient history, but also to cut in half the amount of work! This study covers 12 recruiting classes, from 2010 to 2021 (JTT is the only as-yet-uncommitted player from this year's class from any of the states I studied; I'm willing to accept that outlier and move on).

WHAT IS WASHINGTON'S SITUATION?

The state of Washington ranks #13 in population among all states, estimated just under 7.7 million people in July 2020. The final census figures aren't in, but since all states are using the same estimates it's a fair point of comparison. The state also has two Power 5 universities in UW and WSU, one of has been historically much more successful than the other, but both have been to multiple bowl games in the last decade, so neither one is a total train wreck.

What other states have a similar situation?

Washington is the 13th-most populous state in the USA, so I looked first at the states right above and below them Virginia at #12 (with UVa & VA Tech) and Arizona at #14 (with AZ and ASU). Arizona is very close to WA in population, 7.4M to WAs 7.7M and a Western state to boot, so it's easily the best single point of comparison.

VIrginia is farther away population-wise, with 900K more people than WA, but it's the closest to WA on the upper end. Its two P5 schools aren't hugely different in terms of success; Virginia Tech has been better, but not light years better. Still, it's within shouting distance so it's on the list.

That population difference is substantial, though, so I looked for a state that was a similar amount smaller than WA. Massachusetts is about 800K smaller than WA but only has one Power 5 school (Boston College). At first I was going to leave it out but I decided to include it just for regional balance.

Tennessee is almost exactly the same population as Massachusetts, though, and has two P5 teams (Tenn and Vanderbilt), so that gave us another "southern" state to kind of balance VA. Neither has been great lately, but historically speaking UT has absolutely been the "big brother" school to Vandy. It works.

Indiana is almost exactly 900K smaller than WA (as much smaller than WA as Virginia is bigger, population-wise), so I ended up looking at them as well. They are a special case, since they technically have only two Power 5 schools (Indiana and Purdue), neither of which is usually very good, but of course they also have Notre Dame. ND recruits a lot nationally rather than close to home, though, so I figured Id count the ND/UI/Purdue troika as about the same as two typical Power 5s (one stronger than the other).

(FWIW, theres a batch of states in the 5.6-6.1M range that only have one P5 school Missouri, Maryland, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota which might be an interesting comparison in a different way, to see whether having a smaller population base balanced out having only one local school, but they were just too far outside the range Im looking for in population and I wanted to keep the 2-P5-school apples-to-apples comparison.)

Lastly, I rolled in Oregon, which has a much lower population than WA (4.2M, ranked 27th among states), but is right next door and the most geographically and culturally similar to Washington. The Oregon/OSU dynamic is also very similar to the UW/WSU dynamic in terms of historical success.

Review of the Magnificent Seven

Counting Washington, Ill be looking at seven states. None of them are legendary talent hotbeds like CA/TX/FL (which are, frankly, the 3 states with the highest population anyway the only 3 states over 20M people this isnt rocket science as to why they produce the most CFB talent). Other than Oregon, their population is within 1M people of Washingtons, so in sheer potential talent based on how many people live there, they should be comparable (Indiana lowest at 6.8M, Virginia highest at 8.6M). They have fairly similar arrangements of P5 teams (exceptions noted above), and they're spread pretty well around the country.

Arizona (Southwest)Indiana (Midwest)Massachusetts (Northeast)Oregon (Northwest)Tennessee (Southeast)Virginia (Mid-Atlantic)Washington (Northwest)

That feels like a fairly representative slice of states around the country, so it should be a reasonable purposive sampling for comparing to how Washington is doing keeping the blue chips at home.

METHODOLOGY

I used the 247 recruiting database for the years 2010-2021. Scout, Rivals, and others may differ; these are the numbers I used because they were easy to access. I counted all 4- and 5-star players as "blue chip" players, which typically includes those with a decimal ranking of about 0.8900 or above, usually around the top 350-ish players in each class. I included the decimal rating and ordinal ranking of players along with their star rating, plus their year, position, and which school they signed with.

NOTE: These rankings ONLY consider how they were ranked coming out of high school.

How they did in college, whether they were an All-American, a good player who got hurt, a nondescript JAG (Just A Guy) who filled a roster spot with basic competence and not much more, or a total bust for any number of reasons does not matter for this review. This is only about getting the big fish into the boat and protecting your fishing waters from other people poaching.

A little statistic I've added for each state is BCPM (Blue Chips Per Million). It's exactly what it says on the tin: How many blue chip players did your state produce during this 12-year period per 1 million citizens. It just seemed like an amusing bit of trivia to normalize the data across states that are similar but certainly not identical.

Fair warning: There are going to be a lot of tables. Feel free to scroll past if you're not interested in the minutiae of how we got here. If you like the sausage-making, it's on display. Conclusions come toward the end. We'll take the states in alphabetical order.

ARIZONA (Arizona, Arizona State): Blue Chips 64 (5.33/year), BCPM 8.62, 5-stars 7, Top 10 3, Highest #4 Kelee Ringo), Average Rating 0.9363, Average Ranking 165

Table 1a: Arizona Blue Chips by Year

Table 1b: Where Did Arizona Blue Chips Sign?

INDIANA (Indiana, Notre Dame, Purdue): Blue Chips 49 (4.45/year), BCPM 7.25, 5-stars 4, Top 10 1, Highest #2 Jaylon Smith), Average Rating 0.9302, Average Ranking 180

Table 2a: Indiana Blue Chips by Year

Table 2b: Where Did Indiana Blue Chips Sign?

MASSACHUSETTS (Boston College): Blue Chips 15 (1.36/year), BCPM 2.18, 5-stars 0, Top 10 0, Highest #122 Armani Reeves), Average Rating 0.9155, Average Ranking 232

Table 3a: Massachusetts Blue Chips by Year

Table 3b: Where Did Massachusetts Blue Chips Sign?

OREGON (Oregon, Oregon State): Blue Chips 28 (2.33/year), BCPM 6.60, 5-stars 3, Top 10 0, Highest #17 Owamagbe Odighizuwa), Average Rating 0.9278, Average Ranking 196

Table 4a: Oregon Blue Chips by Year

Table 4b: Where Did Oregon Blue Chips Sign?

TENNESSEE (Tennessee, Vanderbilt): Blue Chips 101 (8.42/year), BCPM 14.67, 5-stars 6, Top 10 0, Highest #14 Trey Smith), Average Rating 0.9288, Average Ranking 189

Table 5a: Tennessee Blue Chips by Year

Table 5b: Where Did Tennessee Blue Chips Sign?

VIRGINIA (Virginia, Virginia Tech): Blue Chips 117 (9.75/year), BCPM 13.62, 5-stars 16, Top 10 4, Highest #5 Da'Shawn Hand), Average Rating 0.9348, Average Ranking 170

Table 6a: Virginia Blue Chips by Year

Table 6b: Where Did Virginia Blue Chips Sign?

And, of course, saving the best for last...

WASHINGTON (Washington, Washington State): Blue Chips 50 (4.17/year), BCPM 6.5, 5-stars 7, Top 10 4, Highest #3 J.T. Tuimolau), Average Rating 0.9334, Average Ranking 178

Table 7a: Washington Blue Chips by Year

Table 7b: Where did Washington Blue Chips Sign?

THAT WAS A LOT OF TABLES

Indeed it was. Feel free to go grab a snack. 🙂

A Quick Comparison of States

Looking at these 7 states shows a pretty wide spread of production of blue chips. They're pretty similar to one another in terms of population, but the number of top-level players they produce is definitely not uniform. Ideally, we'd compare Washington to other states that produce about the same number of players per capita, but really in any study where you've got different angles to examine, you just gotta pick one and go with it. In this case, we chose states with similar population and similar distribution of in-state universities. You could slice it other ways, but let's roll with what we've got! What did we learn?

Table 8: State-to-State Comparison

Virginia comes out on top in total blue chips, total 5 stars, and number of top 10 players. They have the highest population, so thats not surprising in and of itself, but they produced more blue chips and 5-stars than Arizona and Washington combined. They might not be the first place you think of as a talent-producing powerhouse, but they are knocking out twice as many BCPM (Blue Chips Per Million) as states like Washington and Oregon, while also maintaining quality, ranking #2 in average rating and ranking of prospects.

As an aside, the 2021 recruiting class from Washington, our best by a mile in at least the past 22 yearsif not everwould be just an average year in Virginia. The three 5-stars we have this year is unusual, but Virginia turned the trick twice (2013 and 2014) and has had produced at least one 5-star in every single class except one (2012).

Tennesssee is the leader in BCPM (Blue Chips Per Million), outpacing Virginia on that score, but interestingly its mostly because they are an absolute factory of low 4-stars. Despite doubling up Washington in terms of overall blue chips, they actually have had fewer 5-stars than Washington, leading to an average rating and ranking about level with Oregon.

Arizona is not too far from Washington in total numbers, though they are equal or ahead in all categories except top 10 players. They lead all 7 states in terms of average rating and ranking, with proportionally speaking a lot of high 4-stars (the Byron Murphys and NKeal Harrys of the world) bringing their average up.

Washington is middle of the pack across the board except for top 10 players, where they tied Virginia for the lead (plus Max Browne just missed at #11).

Indiana is the closest comp to Washington, a tiny shade ahead on BCPM and a bit behind on average ranking and rating, mostly due to Washingtons edge in 5-stars and top 10 players.

Oregon produces blue chips at a near-identical rate to Washington (adjusted for their much smaller population base), but the lack of true top-end talent drags down their average scores.

Massachusetts is just sad by comparison. A state with a population nearly identical to Tennessee had 5 seasons with zero blue chips. More than half of the blue chips they did produce came in just two classes, with four each in 2012 and 2020. The other 10 years of the study produced only 7 blue chips, and in 12 years they never had a player ranked higher than 122.

How do Schools Do at Keeping their In-State Blue Chips Home?

The original question to answer was how good of a job is Washington doing at keeping the top in-state blue chips home. Sure, they kept 54% of them home and that sounds good, but how does it compare to other schools and states with comparable situationssimilar population and (mostly) a similar pair of P5 schools with a "big brother/little brother" dynamicsampled from around the country. Turns out theyre doing great by comparison, and it's not particularly close.

Table 9: Retaining Blue Chips by School

This might feel like it biases a bit to situations where one school dominates, so what if we combine all of the in-state schools together as states and compare how well they do at keeping their recruits? Turns out Washington is still at the top and its still not close.

Table 10: Retaining Blue Chips by School and State

What Can We Say About the States?

Overall, this is great. When the state produces top talent, we are getting it more than half the time. That is an absolute win. Percentages can be deceiving, though, as we said in our previous fanpost about the current surge in high school talent in Washington. The past two recruiting classes have produced 16 blue chips and UW has signed 7 (heres hoping for 8 when JTT decides). Thats 3.5 per season, which is great, but it also means 8 (or probably 9) went somewhere else. There are only so many in-state blue chips you can take for a variety of reasons, and if your state produces more top talent than you can absorb theres a rational limit to how many youre going to get. In those cases, your percentages will look bad even if youre pulling in a nice haul of local talent. Virginia and Tennessee are producing far more blue chips than Washington is, and Arizona substantially more. Is that whats happening? Signs suggest the answer is no.

Table 11: Raw Numbers of Blue Chips per Year

Tennessee is the only school besides Washington that is bringing in more than 2 local blue chips per year, and even at that theyre barely ahead despite producing double the number of in-state stars as Washington state does. They have little in-state competition (Vanderbilt 5, Memphis 1 over 12 classes), but 14 different out-of-state colleges have pulled multiple star players out of TN; by comparison, only four out-of-state colleges have pulled more than one player out of WA in the last 12 years. Im leaving off schools that have gotten just one player because fluky commitments happen (10 for TN, 8 for WA), but a school pulling multiple blue chips out of your state means they have established significant recruiting inroads there.

Thats exactly whats happened in Virginia and Arizona. Penn State and Ohio State are plundering Virginia on a regular basis. Florida State (7) and Clemson (6) are not far behind. You could excuse Maryland getting 2 players with the whole "DMV" recruiting area, but an equivalent "solid but nothing special" North Carolina team shouldnt be pulling out five top players. In all, 16 out-of-state colleges have pulled multiple blue chips out of Virginia. True, with all the talent there was no way VA and VA Tech were going to keep all those players at home, but averaging fewer than 2 per year with all that available talent speaks to the pipelines out-of-state schools have built in Virginia.

Arizona, though, is by far the worst, as both of the in-state schools are getting out-recruited by Oregon in their own state. Oregon has pulled as many blue chips out of Arizona as Arizona State and Arizona combined. UCLA has matched ASU all by itself, and both USC and Texas have matched Arizona for AZ blue chips. It was frankly shocking to see how few homegrown stars have stayed in Arizona. It wasnt just 12 schools pulling multiple blue chips out of the state but that ASU and AZ had so little gravity. They were the only state whose biggest recruiter wasnt one of their in-state schools. Heck, Boston College kept more Massachusetts kids (out of only 15 total, remember) than Arizona got from its own state with more than 4x as many blue chips. Michigan brought in as many blue chips from Massachusetts as Arizona got from its home state. Florida State got more recruits from Virginia than Arizona State got from their own state as the "big brother" in terms of size and success.

Indiana was kind of an open-ended scrum of the entire Midwest, with 21 of 49 staying in state, 12 more heading to Ohio and Michigan, 9 heading to the South, and the rest scattering. No school really dominated local recruiting.

Oregon was obviously the lead dog in their own state on their own, though more Oregon blue chips went out of state to other Pac-12 schools (13) than stayed in state (12), plus a handful leaving the West. By comparison, only 12 Washington blue chips left the state to go elsewhere in the Pac-12 despite there being nearly twice as many of them.

Massachusetts? Not much to say with just 15 blue chips, other than that Michigan apparently has connections there, nearly matching Boston Colleges recruiting total (4 vs. 5).

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

It means that UW has been and continues to do a terrific job at keeping the top home state talent at home. Other states with similar populations and generally similar setups of two P5 teams dont do nearly as well as we do at that task. Some states produce much more top talent than we do, but they are losing a ton of that talent out of state at a rate that just does not happen here.

If the current talent surge in WA continues, its likely that more players (in absolute terms) will choose to go elsewhere. You cant keep them all. At the same time, you want to keep the exceptions that dont stay home just that: the exceptions. "Building the fence" doesnt mean other teams never get players to leave the state; it just means that other states dont establish permanent pipelines into the state like a dozen or more states have done in Arizona and Virginia (and to a lesser extent Tennessee), where the numbers they are pulling in are rivaling the in-state schools.

We also want to make sure that as we cast our net wider and wider in search of out-of-state talent (the biggest failing in the 2021 Huskies recruiting class, with zero out-of-state blue chips) that we dont take our eye of the ball at home. Oregon may be guilty of this to an extent, as it fires off hundreds of offers around the country while more of its homegrown stars are leaving the state (and usually playing for conference rivals) than are staying home.

The 2022 recruiting class looks strong for Washington, with 6 blue chips in the current 247 rankings and UW considered the odds-on favorite to land more than half of them. Lets keep the borders strong and the purple flame burning bright as we look forward to a great crop of new Huskies next year!

Go Dawgs!

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Building a Fence: Washington and the Magnificent Seven - UW Dawg Pound

PERTH (miningweekly.com) Mining major BHP plans to construct a wind fence at Finucane Island, as part of its Pilbara Air Quality Program.

The fence would be the first of its kind in Australia, and would be designed for the Pilbaras unique weather conditions, said BHP Port GM Nilson Davila.

We recognise we have a shared responsibility to address dust issues at Port Hedland. The wind fence will be constructed using global best practice dust management and air quality control technology.

This planned investment forms part of our Pilbara Air Quality Program and demonstrates our commitment to improve air quality in the area and contribute to the revitalisation of the West End.

Subject to government approvals, the 30 m high fence supports our intention to improve and build on our existing dust control measures as we continue to increase production towards 290 Mtpa in the medium term.

The fence will be located on the western side of BHPs Finucane Island port operations, and will include mesh panels designed to reduce wind speeds, shielding the stockyard and reducing the potential for dust lift-off.

The system has been designed to deal with the extreme wind conditions often experienced in Port Hedland. As the wind speed reaches a certain limit, the mesh curtain opens, to let the air flow through the fence.

We continue to work closely with government, industry and the local community to further improve air quality controls at our operations and for the communities in which we operate. We want to help improve local amenity while also continuing to provide jobs and economic opportunity for the region, said Davila.

The project is still subject to all necessary internal and state government approvals.

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Mining Weekly BHP puts up wind fence in WA - Creamer Media's Mining Weekly