It has become a staple of every NFL game’s pre-show coverage — footage of players strutting their way to stadium locker rooms wearing the latest daring sartorial choices.And a VIP fashion show Saturday ahead of the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl clash with the Seattle Seahawks was the latest bet by the league that indulging its players’ penchant for high-end designers is also good for the NFL’s bottom line.A sport for decades associated with no-nonsense jocks has in recent years encouraged its stars’ newfound obsession with attire as a way to capture new fans beyond the sport’s traditional base.Female and global supporters are particularly coveted by a league that has essentially saturated its core, male-heavy demographic, with some 125 million Americans already tuning into last year’s Super Bowl.”People who love fashion are paying attention to it. Brands are getting involved. So I think it’s opened another element to the game,” Detroit Lions star wide receiver Amon-Ra St Brown told AFP at the event.NFL marketing bosses have been pursuing a broader “helmets off” strategy, including behind-the-scenes documentaries and social media clips, that seeks to make players more relatable by emphasizing their personalities and off-field interests.Clubs regularly share footage of their players in designer outfits, or attending events like an Abercrombie & Fitch fashion event in San Francisco, hosted the night before Sunday’s Super Bowl. Guests included league boss Roger Goodell and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence.”Fashion is global,” the San Francisco 49ers’ All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey, also in attendance, told AFP.”Especially when you talk about the European market, a lot of the Asian markets where fashion is such a big part of culture.”I think when you add a lot of our walk-out or entrance outfits that guys wear now, it helps reach a global audience.”- ‘Gives us that swagger’ -Abercrombie & Fitch was last year named the NFL’s first official fashion partner, and athletes have countless personal tie-ins with brands like American Eagle.Some of the game’s top players, including Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, have dedicated personal stylists and have popped up at global fashion shows in Paris and at the Met Gala.According to Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, experimenting with haute couture can serve as a confidence booster.”We don’t just do it when we go to the games,” he said. “We put this stuff on because it makes us feel good personally, and just gives us that little swagger, just to go about our day like that.”The adventures into fashion can relax players in the locker room prior to games, as athletes rib one another for their more brash selections.”You’ll always get some comments, especially when your outfit is pretty loud. But guys have fun with it, man,” said McCaffrey.Still, St Brown added, the fun stops when game time arrives.”At the end of the day I’m still there to play football. It’s not a fashion show,” he said.”But I still want to dress nice and feel good.”

The Washington Post said Saturday its CEO and publisher Will Lewis was leaving effective immediately, just days after the storied newspaper owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made drastic job cuts that angered readers.Though newspapers across the United States have been facing brutal industry headwinds, Lewis’s management of the outlet was sharply criticized by subscribers and employees alike during his two-year tenure as he tried to reverse financial losses at the daily.Lewis, who is English, has been replaced by Jeff D’Onofrio, a former CEO of social media platform Tumblr who had joined the Post as chief financial officer last year, the paper announced.In an email to staff shared on social media by one of the newspaper’s reporters, Lewis said it was “the right time for me to step aside.” A statement from the Post said only that D’Onofrio was succeeding Lewis “effective immediately.”Hundreds of Post journalists — including most of its overseas, local and sports staff — were let go in the sweeping cuts announced on Wednesday.The Post did not disclose the number of jobs being eliminated, but The New York Times reported approximately 300 of its 800 journalists were laid off.The paper’s entire Middle East roster was let go as was its Kyiv-based Ukraine correspondent as the war with Russia grinds on.  Sports, graphics and local news departments were sharply scaled back and the paper’s daily podcast, Post Reports, was suspended, local media reported.Hundreds turned out Thursday at a protest in front of the paper’s headquarters in downtown Washington.- Editorial interference -Newspapers across the country have cratered under falling revenues and subscriptions as they compete for eyeballs with social media, and as internet revenue pales in comparison to what print advertising once commanded.However, national papers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have managed to weather the storm and come out financially solid — something the Post, even with a billionaire backer, has failed to do.In Lewis’s note to staff, shared on X by White House bureau chief Matt Viser, Lewis said “difficult decisions have been taken” during his tenure “in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news.”Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, was quoted in the Post’s statement saying that the paper has “an extraordinary opportunity. Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”He and Lewis have come under scrutiny for intervening directly in the paper’s editorial processes.Bezos reined in the newspaper’s liberal-leaning editorial page and blocked an endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris days before the 2024 election — breaking the so-called firewall of editorial independence. He was widely seen as bowing to Donald Trump, who went on to win the election.The decision also apparently had financial consequences: The Wall Street Journal reported that 250,000 digital subscribers left the Post after it refrained from endorsing Harris, and the paper lost around $100 million in 2024 as advertising and subscription revenues fell.As president, Trump has heaped direct pressure on journalists, launching multiple lawsuits against media organizations.A withered Post, critics worry, will leave the country’s press corps less able to hold the government accountable.Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor until 2021, said that the job cuts ranked “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”

A detention center in rural Texas has become a harsh symbol of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with disease breaking out among the throng of people held, including some families who entered the United States legally. The Dilley Immigration Processing Center sits in a small town of just 3,200 people, just about 85 miles (135 kilometers) from the Mexico border, but has become a grim global melting pot.Many detainees were picked up as their asylum claims were being processed or as they were checking in with authorities on their cases, lawyers told AFP, as Trump massively expands the scope of who can be targeted for detention and deportation.”I cry all the time. My son tries to wipe the tear from my eyes,” said W, a Haitian woman who along with her son crossed the border legally to seek asylum, under a program run by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.Historically, asylum seekers have generally been allowed to live and work in the United States while their claims work their way through the court system. But W and her son were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and sent to Dilley in October, where W says authorities have tried to force her to sign a deportation order.Her testimony, like that of others in this report, was taken by the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), a legal advocacy group, and shown to AFP. Many names have been fully or partially withheld.- Bugs in food -Protests have erupted over bugs being found in the detention center’s food, W said, while lights are kept on 24 hours a day, making it difficult to sleep.On Monday, Texas health authorities warned of two measles cases at the facility, prompting ICE to quarantine some people held there.”These families have become a political pawn,” Javier Hidalgo, legal director at RAICES, told AFP.”They were in a process. They had future court dates… there’s no purpose to (detention) other than trying to convince them to give up their legal cases.”CoreCivic, the private company that the government contracts to run the facility, told AFP “the health and safety of those entrusted to our care is the (company’s) top priority.”The Dilley center is the same facility that held Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old Ecuadoran boy who lawyers allege was detained as bait to lure his mother to agents.Liam has since been ordered released, though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking to dismiss the family’s asylum claim — lodged after they entered the country legally in 2024 — and deport them.- Family held over father’s arrest -Also held at the facility is the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who is accused of firebombing a protest in support of Israeli hostages last year in Colorado.The Egyptian national told authorities that no one knew of his plans, CNN reported, but his wife and five children have been held at Dilley for months while the government claims it is “investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack.””Why would the government insist on detaining us with no evidence?” his daughter Habiba wrote in a letter shared by immigration attorney Eric Lee last month.The family entered the country legally in 2022 and filed for asylum. DHS has said the family is “in our country illegally” and is trying to deport them. None of the other family members has been charged with a crime.Days after speaking to CNN, Habiba was separated from her family.DHS told the broadcaster it was because she had turned 18 and needed to be moved to the adult section, though her birthday had passed months before without any action.- Alleged medical neglect -Other detainees complain of medical neglect. “One of the children had appendicitis last year, and it took days to get him medical care,” lawyer Chris Godshall-Bennett told AFP, adding that the child was told “to take a Tylenol and get over it.”Diana, a Colombian woman, is detained with her 10-year-old daughter who suffers from Hirschsprung’s disease, which causes blocked bowels and can require a special diet.But a doctor “told me that I needed to remember they are not there to accommodate me… that their only responsibility is to ensure that detainees do not go hungry,” she said.CoreCivic said that its medical staff “meet the highest standards of care.””We will be detained for who knows how long,” Habiba Soliman wrote in her letter.”We have been falling apart.”