Jimmy Butler Is Always Keeping Score

On a bright yet wintry afternoon at an expansive manor in Philadelphia’s suburbs, Jimmy Butler is adding things up.

“Whatever you want from this game, win and you can have it,” he says while wearing a 76ers hoodie and sweats, having recently left the team’s practice facility. “Name it. You want money? You want a max deal? If you win, I guarantee you have a better chance of that. You want the finest woman in the world? I guarantee: If you win, you’re going to have a chance at that. You want all the cars, you want the big house—whatever it is—if you win, I guarantee you’ll have a chance at that. Winning is that trump card that everything can be at your fingertips, but you got to win.”

Butler has done plenty of winning but is aiming for a destination where legacies are earned. He’s reached the playoffs six times in his seven completed seasons and likely is headed back there this spring. Only twice has he gotten as far as the second round, however, and after a first-round loss with the Timberwolves last spring, he made it clear he wanted to play somewhere else—somewhere that winning didn’t have to be taught but was expected.

In November, Butler and the Timberwolves publicly divorced when Minnesota dealt the four-time All-Star to the Sixers, a team that seemingly fit what Butler wanted. The famed Process is over. The Sixers’ expectations are now. Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons didn’t need a teacher so much as a partner. Philly is 20-9 with Butler in the lineup. Butler is averaging 19.6 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. But it is difficult to engineer a championship chemistry in the throes of a season. After the trade, Embiid groused about the shots he was getting. It was also reported that Butler aggressively confronted coach Brett Brown about his role in the Sixers offense, an event Brown chalked up to communicating “candidly.”

“We’re still figuring each other out,” Butler says of his transition to the team. “I’m still figuring out our schemes, [and] the coaches are still figuring me out as a person and a player. … What our [coaches] see and what you see and what you expect, sometimes it’s a tad bit different … so you try to talk that out. … I’m cool with it, too. I understand it, but we’re still working towards everything.”

They need to work fast. The season is well past the halfway point, there are three teams in front of the Sixers in the Eastern Conference standings and the Celtics are close behind. Of greater concern to the franchise is that Butler can be a free agent this summer, which doesn’t give the team much time to extend him the five-year, $190 million offer he can command from it this offseason. It doesn’t give Butler much time, either, to determine if Philly is a place he wants to remain.

“Whatever you want from this game, win and you can have it,” Jimmy Butler says.Darryl Omar

I promise, it’s going to work itself out, Butler tells himself each day. It’s going to work itself out. You’re going to figure it out. When? I don’t know, but you’ll figure it out.

Again, Butler is adding up the pluses and minuses.

“We still can be better in so many areas,” he says. “When you see flashes of it in the game when I’m playing, I’m like, Damn, we could be really good if we do this consistently, or, Damn, we could be really good if we don’t make this mistake all the time. It’s special because I think everybody sees it, but then once you go over and you look at it yourself, you’re like, Man, I can actually see what everybody else is talking about.“

Some moments in some games he thinks he has it solved. At other times, he cycles through the play calls in his head to make sure he is on the same page as his teammates.

“Guys really enjoy playing with one another,” he says. “We’re smiling. We’re having fun, and that’s the biggest part of the game. You know talentwise what you’re going to get, but when you can have fun, it makes it a lot easier because you’re getting along with your coworkers/teammates. You’re coming in and you’re smiling. You’re loving to be there to learn. You like being around one another. It’s good. It’s refreshing because it’s a long season, and you’ve got be around the same group of people, players, coaches, everybody for what? I don’t know, six, seven months?”

Basketball is basketball, he says. It will work itself out. Butler believes that.

The stories are out there. Tales of how the Bulls didn’t see Butler as the kind of alpha dog worthy of a max contract. Or the lack of patience he apparently had in grooming some of his teammates in Minnesota—so much so that he led the T-Wolves’ bench players over the starters in a fiery scrimmage before this season. The reportedly “disrespectful” discussion with Brown over Philly’s style of offense,

But there are other tales—not nearly as juicy but more a reflection of who Butler is, or at least is trying to be.

He overhears a teammate requesting a suite for family and friends before a recent game against the Rockets, but when he hears the teammate ultimately deciding to not pay the $7,500 cost, Butler, unprompted, foots the bill.

Butler made another expensive gesture earlier in the season, while still in Minnesota, when he paid for a private flight so his Timberwolves teammate, Tyus Jones, could watch his younger brother, Tre, play his first college game for Duke.

And then there was his arrival in Philadelphia, when he delivered 67 pairs of Air Jordan sneakers to the organization’s operations staff.

“I don’t want them to ever feel like we’re not the same type of people,” Butler says. “We all have really, really good days. We all have some really shitty days. We all have families that are in our hair all the time. We all have friends. We all want to go have a glass of wine on the weekends; whatever it may be. We’re one in the same. I just may be a tad bit more athletic, but I’m telling you: If you tell me a joke that I think is funny, I’m going to laugh. If you tell me a joke that I think is corny, I’m going to be like, ‘Nah, that one wasn’t the one,’ just like anybody else would do. I think it’s great just for them to be able to see me outside of the fierce competitor because I’m more than just that.”

“You look around the stands when you’re playing [in Philadelphia] and see people so joyful that just got off a tremendously long day of work,” Butler says. “They’re there to watch some people really, really compete.”Chris Szagola/Associated Press/Associated Press

Butler knows his talent makes him different from those working for the team or those paying to watch him. He’s also cognizant that his rise from the last pick in the first round of the 2011 draft to a place among the NBA‘s elites is a bit atypical, especially for someone who feels his career easily could have gone another way.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Butler says, “I know I’m extremely blessed, but I caught a lot of breaks and people that entered my life at the right point in time. I could easily be in their shoes, you know; a gruesome day at work and then coming home and taking my kids to watch what I ‘could have been.’ … Maybe you’re just going just because you’ve never been to a game before, or maybe it’s just like, You know what? I’ll watch it on TV; long week at work. This is my time to go have a beer and just watch some really good basketball. I don’t know what it is, but I look at it like that could be me.”

Butler does not often revisit his upbringing, even if it is well-chronicled. He grew up in Texas, admiring Tracy McGrady. His father left the family when Butler was an infant. His mother asked him to leave the house as a teenager. Few colleges granted Butler a second look before he played for Tyler Junior College. He caught the eye of then-Marquette coach Buzz Williams, where he worked himself from the bench to the leading man for a Sweet 16 team in his senior season. He followed a similar path after the Bulls drafted him in 2011, maneuvering through limited minutes his first two seasons into a four-time All-Star.

It’s an inspiring path. He sees the same drive in the people in his new NBA home.

“Man, everything about this city is just grit, hard work, getting where you fit in, grind it out all day long, and by all means, do whatever you can to be successful in any way, shape or form,” Butler says. “Just go give your all—all your heart, blood, sweat and tears. All of that good stuff. That’s what Philly is all about. You look around the stands when you’re playing and see people so joyful that just got off a tremendously long day of work. They’re there to watch some people really, really compete.”

Basketball is basketball.

The rules are rigid. One team plays offense. The other plays defense. A shot is taken. The ball will either sail through the net or not. One team wins. One team loses.

There’s a comfort Butler finds in those expected outcomes, which may be why he repeats the phrase in his conversation with B/R. Basketball is basketball. Whatever messages he’s trying to send or maneuvers he’s making produce results with which no one can argue. There’s no interpreting to be done.

“You know what you’re going to get out of a game of basketball, man,” Butler says.

“You may think that [this] job isn’t hard as a basketball player, but there are days basketball players might want to have the job at Target,” Butler says.Darryl Omar

Like any performance space, the court is an escape.

“What people don’t understand is, outside of basketball, there’s so much stuff going on,” Butler says. “You’ve got family to have to worry about. You’ve got your body to have to worry about. There’s stuff that you can’t see. You don’t know how this person is feeling when he’s out there on the basketball court. He can hide it because he’s hooping, but man, everybody got their own demons. … He’s got his own stuff to deal with, just like you’ve got your own stuff to deal with. You may think that his job isn’t hard as a basketball player, but there are days basketball players might want to have the job at Target. It may not pay as well, but I guarantee you don’t got a gazillion eyes on you that’s making you nervous or that’s worried about every move that you make. That’s the part that I’m saying. Basketball is basketball. You know what you’re going to get, but you can’t predict everything—not when it comes to being a person.”

In a short amount of time, the Philadelphia 76ers are becoming familiar with the person Butler is.

“I think he’s coming in with the right attitude and mentality,” Ben Simmons says. “He’s just trying to make sure he’s doing everything correctly and buying into what we’ve already built here. I think he’s doing an amazing job of that.”

Most first-year general managers take a few seasons before they engineer a league-altering trade. But in Butler, first-year Sixers GM Elton Brand saw a chance to get the kind of closer who had yet to emerge in Philly. “He gives us a chance, later in games as a closer in the fourth quarter,” Brand says. “Regular season, it may not show up, but playoffs, that’s when you need those closers.”

Before making the deal, Brand, who recently ended his 17-year playing career, reached out to some of his former teammates who had also played with Butler. All raved about him. But in deciding to send popular Process mainstays Robert Covington and Dario Saric to Minnesota for Butler, Brand understood he was changing the team’s trajectory. “Like, now the pressure’s on,” Brand says.

The two talk—not just about basketball but life. And while Butler has found Brand to be a reliable sounding board, Brand says Butler has been what he had hoped he was getting.

I think everybody wants to paint a certain picture of me nowadays, which is fine, but unless you’re around me consistently, you don’t know.

— Jimmy Butler

“He’s done everything we’ve asked of him to make this work,” Brand says. “It’s just his work ethic, the way he takes care of his body, way he focuses on his health and just truly wants to win games. I was upset and disappointed how they portrayed him for his past. His past kind of followed him because there was nothing here that warranted articles and all that stuff. He’s done nothing like that. He’s been a great teammate and is well-respected. You talk to his teammates—they love him off the court, on the court. We know what a special player he is.”

Still, an ESPN report of friction between Butler and his new team is out there. Butler did not specifically address the report, although a person within the organization said Butler spoke up to advocate a teammate’s role in the offense.

“I think everybody wants to paint a certain picture of me nowadays, which is fine, but unless you’re around me consistently, you don’t know,” Butler says. “All you hear is ‘this happened,’ but you don’t know the tone that it happened. You don’t know where it happened. You don’t know what was said or how it was said, or what play we were even talking about—if we were even talking about a play at all. I just think somebody says something to somebody and they say something to somebody else, and before you know it … the whole thing just gets blown out of proportion.

“I don’t feel the need to fix any of it. People are going to think what they want to think. I’m cool. I know who I am. I know what I’m about. The people that were there know who I am, know what I’m about. My guys around here, my family know who I am, know what I’m about. That’s all I’m worried about.”

Butler says he doesn’t expect anything different from his teammates, wherever he is. Honesty is what he’s trying to offer, and honesty is what he hopes to get in return.

“[A perfect teammate is] somebody that’s always going to tell you the truth, even if you don’t like to hear it,” Butler says. “[Somebody that] is always going to look out for you. If you need help in any certain situation, they’re going to be there. They’re going to make sure that you can be the best player that you can be, whether they’re telling you something, teaching you something, showing you something or making sure that you’re just doing your job out there on the floor. If you need them to be the voice for you, they’ll be the voice for you. … All in all, I think that you just got to have that person’s best interest at heart, realizing … it is a game, but that teammate, he’s a person, too.”

A teammate knows where he stands with Butler. “He’s never going to be passive about telling you what he sees,” Sixers rookie Landry Shamet says.

“[A perfect teammate is] somebody that’s always going to tell you the truth, even if you don’t like to hear it,” Butler says.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

“That’s my boy, man,” says Taj Gibson, who played with Butler in Chicago and Minnesota. “I’ve been with him my whole career from Chicago to Minnesota. I get Jimmy. Me and him never really butted heads. So for me, it was great. I was with him from the start of his career. Even later on, he was always in my corner; [he’s always] given me good advice. Always holding me down, good or bad. He’s always been a great teammate to me.”

JJ Redick labels Butler a friend. “I wasn’t in Minnesota or Chicago, so I don’t know,” Redick says. “I can only speak to his time in Philly. And even [the Butler-Brown discussion that] was reported about in Portland—this is the NBA. We’re a good team with expectations, with good players, and we’re all trying to figure it out. That’s the shit that happens in the NBA.”

The way Butler has handled that “stuff,” though, doesn’t always translate the way he may have hoped. In Chicago, the Bulls front office decided to trade Butler to kick off a rebuild instead of put pieces around him. In an ESPN report, Kentucky coach John Calipari accused Butler of bullying Karl-Anthony Towns (among others) in Minnesota. Butler bristles at the charge.

“I don’t think that’s a good choice of words,” Butler says of Calipari’s accusation. “Maybe I was hard on him. OK, cool, but to say bullying, no, man, I didn’t do that.

I would tell anybody the truth. I would tell anybody what I thought.

— Butler

“I just think that when you have so many talented guys, there ain’t too much that you can say. … They’re all talented. You know they’re going to be a No. 1 pick, No. 2, No. 5, whatever it may be, but to say that I’m bullying somebody, that’s different.

“If that’s the case, then you got to say that I was like that with everybody. I would tell anybody the truth. I would tell anybody what I thought, but everybody just made, once again, a bigger story out of nothing. … I just think we were coached differently whenever we were in college. I’m sure my coach [Williams] would have my back, like [Calipari] got KAT’s back. Just leave it at that because I just think you’re great at what you do, man, at the college level.”

At 29, Butler isn’t sure how much remains in his basketball career. Maybe five years. Maybe eight. Maybe more. Maybe less.

He wants to leave while still intact enough to teach his kids how to play the right way. Not that he has any children, although he wears a ring on his wedding finger because he likes the look. He weighs the risks and rewards in all his choices, calculating the reactions to actions before purposefully deciding.

“I could still beat my kids [on the court] till like the seventh, eighth grade,” he ponders, sifting the odds of playing another half-dozen seasons, adding: “You start going into 38; man, that’s tough.”

First, though, there’s this summer and free agency.

Aside from a wrist injury that sidelined him for three games before his Tuesday return, Butler says he’s enjoying his time in Philly. “To tell you the truth, man … I don’t even know what I’m going to have for lunch tomorrow, so I can’t tell you what the future brings, and I don’t worry about it,” Butler says. “I live for the right now. … I smile and have fun. I hoop. … I hope wherever I am, I’m happy. I can tell you that. Am I happy here right now? Yeah. I guess, when [free-agency] time comes around, we’ll figure it out.”

That “we” doesn’t just include the Sixers and his agent. It also encompasses friends—people he refers to as brothers and spends time with daily. Some work for him, some don’t. He trusts them all.

“I’m going to sit down and talk with all my guys. See where their heads are at. A lot of them got kids; a lot of them got families. I got to make sure that they’re happy in order for me to be happy and for my body to be right and for my training to go the right way. If they’re miserable, they’re not going to want to do their job, so I’ve got to keep them happy. With them happy, I can continually be the player that I am.

Butler at his home near Philadelphia in mid-January 2019.Darryl Omar

“My people mean the world to me. If you’re around me enough, you will know that I really do care what they think. I take their opinions and what they say to heart, so I’ve got to worry about that. I’ve got to worry about everything around me: the city, the organization, the players. You sit down, and you map it all out, and you come to a decision. Obviously, I’m the biggest part of their decision, but I think everybody has a little bit of say in it.”

There’s a lot to consider for Butler. There are his teammates and their ability to help him go deep in the playoffs. There are his off-court interests, like the winery he hopes to open when his playing days are through, a passion sparked when actor and friend Mark Wahlberg introduced Butler to some better vintages soon after they met a few years ago when Butler was still in Chicago. Or the kids in that city he occasionally mentors (when his travel allows) through the Youth Guidance program.

Most important, however, is Butler himself, and whether he believes the Sixers, or some other team, are willing to meet him on his terms.

“I know what goal I’m going to have, and I can’t do it by myself,” Butler says. “I need the team to have those same goals. We got that shit here, man. Everybody wants to win. That’s why you can smile knowing whatever your role is, if we win, your role is going to grow a little more.

“I can’t change who I am. I’m not going to. Some people are going to like it. Some people are not going to like it. That’s just me in a nutshell. I get it. I understand it. I accept it, but you’re not going to sit here and say that I’m a bad person because of it, because then you just say that somebody is a bad person just because you don’t like the color of their shoelaces. You’re just making up stuff to say why they’re a bad person because they’re different, because they handle things differently than you would, because they were raised differently than you were? You don’t understand why they do what they do. That don’t make them a bad person. That just makes them different from you.”

Jonathan Abrams is a senior writer for B/R Mag. A former staff writer at Grantland and sports reporter at the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, Abrams is also the best-selling author of All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire—available right here, right now. Follow him on Twitter: @jpdabrams.

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Trump backs off attempt to rebrand his border wall plan: ‘A WALL is a WALL!’

President Donald Trump appeared on Thursday to back off his administration’s efforts to rebrand his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, calling the semantics discussion “political games” and insisting that “A WALL is a WALL!”

“Large sections of WALL have already been built with much more either under construction or ready to go,” he falsely claimed in a tweet. “Renovation of existing WALLS is also a very big part of the plan to finally, after many decades, properly Secure Our Border. The Wall is getting done one way or the other!”

Story Continued Below

In a separate tweet, he added: “Lets [sic] just call them WALLS from now on and stop playing political games! A WALL is a WALL!”

Trump’s prior shift in rhetoric away from the concrete wall he originally promised had drawn praise from Democrats and Republicans alike who say that a concrete structure running the entire length of the border is inefficient and a poor use of resources.

The finer details of any extensive barrier along the border are a key point of debate in bipartisan border security negotiations taking place in Congress over the next two weeks. Members of the conference committee tasked with crafting a Homeland Security spending proposal have generally avoided using the term “wall,” opting instead to use words like “barrier” or “fencing.”

Prior to the group’s first meeting Wednesday, Trump set the bar by declaring in a tweet that the lawmakers would be “wasting their time” if a border wall or “physical barrier” wasn’t discussed.

He reiterated that position Thursday, predicting that “Democrats, despite all of the evidence, proof and Caravans coming, are not going to give money to build the DESPERATELY needed WALL.”

But addressing Republican members of the committee, he hinted at unilateral action should a deal not emerge. “I’ve got you covered,” he said, adding, “I don’t expect much help!”

Later in the morning, he revived his scare tactics regarding migrant caravans to again insist that a “Wall” is needed.

“More troops being sent to the Southern Border to stop the attempted Invasion of Illegals, through large Caravans, into our Country,” he wrote. “We have stopped the previous Caravans, and we will stop these also. With a Wall it would be soooo much easier and less expensive. Being Built!”

The White House has struggled to rebrand Trump’s proposed “big, beautiful wall” as a structure that is more politically palatable, in part because Trump himself has not stuck to that plan.

In a nationally televised address during this year’s partial government shutdown, Trump abandoned his use of the word “wall” in favor of a steel barrier, and in a formal request to appropriators asked for funding for a “steel slat barrier” but has frequently indicated he could care less what the structure is labeled.

“This is where I ask the Democrats to come back to Washington and to vote for money for the wall, the barrier, whatever you want to call it, it’s OK with me,” Trump said earlier this month at the White House. “They can name it whatever. They can name it ‘peaches.’ I don’t care what they name it. But we need money for that barrier.”

Last week, senior counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway chided reporters and pollsters for referring to the White House’s proposed barrier as a wall, despite Trump continuing to use the term repeatedly. In interviews on cable news, she has accused Democrats of trying to make the wall a “four-letter word.”

In a separate tweet Thursday, Trump accurately pointed out that murder cases in Mexico rose by a third in 2017, claiming that “this is a big contributor to the Humanitarian Crises taking place on our Southern Border and then spreading throughout our Country” and alleging without evidence that the murder rate was “worse even than Afghanistan.”

“With Murders up 33% in Mexico, a record, why wouldn’t any sane person want to build a Wall!” he said, again falsely claiming that “construction has started and will not stop until it is finished” and tagging Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs, who the previous night had rejected Democratic calls for “fencing” along the border.

“The national security crisis in our Mexican border demands a border wall,” Dobbs said in a segment Wednesday night.

Trump’s tweets on Thursday appear to be responses to multiple segments of Dobbs’ Wednesday night show.

The president has said that if congressional appropriators cannot come up with a border security plan that includes wall money in the next two weeks, he is prepared to declare a national emergency to unlock military resources for wall construction, a politically and legally shaky proposition.

Trump’s pessimism about negotiations in Congress are a stark contrast with the cautious optimism from lawmakers on the conference committee.

In an interview on CNN’s “New Day,” on Thursday, the top Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee for Homeland Security urged compromise and acknowledged that each side would likely make concessions in any deal but was confident that one could be struck.

“I believe that everyone in that room would draw a slightly different or maybe a markedly different bill,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) said, but he added he was hopeful that lawmakers would be able to reach a “reasonable compromise” that Trump would feel comfortable signing off on.

“And the tone in the room really from every member, whether they were Republican or Democratic, senators or House members was very positive, very cordial,” he said. “I think we have set the tone for a very good — good time for negotiations.”

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), another member of the conference committee and the Appropriations Homeland Security subcommittee, said he was surprised to see how determined his colleagues were to strike a deal and avert another government shutdown.

“I think all 17 of us, you know, really want to come to a conclusion on this. And so I think just, you know, all of our colleagues being very cordial and focused on getting this done, that was the message of the day,” he said in an interview on “New Day.”

He echoed Republican Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who the previous day boiled down border security priorities to three things: personnel, technology and barriers.

“I thought Sen. Hoeven actually got it right,” Aguilar said, though he was vague about whether he supported new barriers at the border.

Lawmakers have made clear that while they are looking to compromise on a border security package, their primary objective is avoiding another partial shutdown just three weeks after the longest shutdown ever came to a close.

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Polar vortex puts US Midwest in a deep freeze

The blast of Arctic cold that hit the United States Midwest this week will linger on Thursday, but it is pushing east and losing much of its bite after causing at least a dozen deaths.

Schools were closed for Wednesday and Thursday across the Midwest, including Chicago, and police warned of the heightened risk of accidents on icy highways.

At least 12 deaths related to extreme cold weather conditions have been reported since Saturday in Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Illinois State Police officers rescued 21 people stranded in a charter bus that broke down in sub-zero temperatures along Interstate 55 near Auburn after the vehicle’s diesel fuel turned to gel in its engine.

More than a thousand flights, close to two-thirds of those scheduled, were cancelled on Wednesday into or out of Chicago O’Hare and Chicago Midway international airports.

The bitter cold was caused by a displacement of the polar vortex, a stream of air that normally spins around the stratosphere over the North Pole but whose current was disrupted and was now pushing south.

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Ally Brooke Slays An Audition Beside Ricky Alvarez And Tyga In ‘Low Key’ Music Video

YouTube

If Ally Brooke‘s debut solo music video for “Low Key” featuring Tyga is an audition for success, she’s totally got the part.

The former Fifth Harmony member just released the dance-heavy visuals alongside her sultry debut single, which also dropped today (January 31). Flirty and fun, “Low Key” offers Brooke’s long-standing fanbase a glimpse into the Latin-meets-urban-pop genre she’s been mastering in the studio. And with the addition of Tyga, who’s featured on “Like Mariah” off Fifth Harmony’s 2015 album, Reflection, Brooke keeps things familiar while developing her own sound, too.

And just as Brooke reintroduces herself to the world, the “Low Key” video features the San Antonio native literally auditioning with some of the best choreography she’s executed to date. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Brooke shares some major chemistry with her love interest, played by Ricky Alvarez, as she slays look after look in the video.

With a catchy chorus, an eye-catching video, and Tyga’s and Alvarez’s added star power, Brooke has everything she needs for “Low Key” to be a hit. Check it out (and sing the hook non-stop) yourself above.

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Name row: Greece, North Macedonia have work cut out for them

Athens, Greece – NATO and the European Union celebrated Greece’s ratification of the Prespes Agreement last week that recognises its northern neighbour as North Macedonia.

WATCH: Macedonian parliament agrees to change country’s name

But the deal has yet to enter into force.

“It has been adopted but not implemented. It’s an interim period,” says Greek foreign ministry spokesman Alexandros Gennimatas. “As soon as we ratify the NATO Induction Protocol, we shall inform Skopje and they will reply saying ‘we are now called North Macedonia’.”

This is to happen over the next 10 days. Then North Macedonia‘s induction will have to be ratified by the parliaments of all 29 NATO members. “Last time this took a year,” says Gennimatas, referring to Montenegro’s induction in 2017.

In the weeks following, Greece is also expected to notify the EU that it supports accession talks with North Macedonia. The two countries will upgrade their liaison offices to full embassies.

Within five years, North Macedonia is to rename all its public bodies, adjust its internal official documents, and replace all passports currently in circulation.

Identity and culture

It is not surprising, then, the prickliest issues emanating from the Prespes Agreement are also cultural.

Within six months, North Macedonia must convene a committee to review its monuments and public buildings and how they “refer in any way to ancient Hellenic history and civilisation” and take appropriate “corrective action”, according to the agreement.

This essentially means that gigantic bronzes of Alexander and his parents, King Philip II and Olympias, must come down.

They were part of a $1bn public buildings programme undertaken by the previous nationalist government of North Macedonia, which Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has criticised.

A separate, Joint Inter-Disciplinary Committee of Experts on historic, archaeological and educational matters formed last year is currently revising North Macedonia’s school textbooks, maps and teaching guides to remove “irredentist /revisionist references” to ancient Macedonia or other Greek heritage.

In the process, it is redesigning the next North Macedonian generation’s identity. It is doubtful whether such a dramatic re-orientation of national identity has ever been undertaken in modern times.

“The special point is that [the North Macedonian] national narrative is now being shaped in conversation with Greece,” says Ioannis Armakolas, professor of comparative politics at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki.

“I don’t know if Greeks understand how great this is. Imagine another neighbour coming along and deciding with us how we perceive our history and identity. Instead of seeing them competitively, we need to recognise that they, too, have taken a big step with this agreement and help them.”

Commercial issues

The Greek parliament on January 25 ratified the Prespes Agreement with 153 votes in the 300-seat chamber – a large majority by Greek political standards these days.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called it “an important contribution to the stability and prosperity of the region”. European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted of prime ministers Alexis Tsipras and Zaev, “They had imagination, they took the risk, they were ready to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good. Zoran, Alexis – well done! Mission impossible accomplished.”

They had imagination, they took the risk, they were ready to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good. Zoran, Alexis – well done! Mission impossible accomplished. #PrespaAgreement @Zoran_Zaev @tsipras_eu

— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) January 25, 2019

The wording of the Prespes Agreement makes clear that Greece and North Macedonia are to become the best of friends. The two parties are to establish an action plan on a range of issues such as transport, civil protection, agriculture, energy, the environment, infrastructure, investments and defence. And they are to establish a High Level Cooperation Council to oversee that plan.

Such ambitious goals look good on paper, but there are legal and practical issues to be resolved.

The two countries are to set up a joint committee this year to discuss trademarks and brand names containing the term Macedonia or Macedonian. The committee must conclude an agreement within three years.

Economic dynamics

“As it stands, this agreement doesn’t add value, it takes value away, because we’re sharing the brand name Macedonia,” says Vasilis Korkidis, head of the Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and a leading voice in Greek trade. “It will make little difference to European consumers to see an “N” in front of that word.”

Korkidis is concerned that only 24 Greek companies have trademarked products with the term Macedonia in the EU, and only two have trademarked their products internationally.

Economic dynamics suggest a quick resolution is in everyone’s interest. North Macedonia sends more than 80 percent of its exports to the European Union, and buys about 60 percent of its imports from the EU. Its strongest trade relationship by far within the bloc is with Greece, which has been the biggest foreign investor in the country since the late 1990s.

Only during the depths of its financial crisis in 2013 was Greece overtaken by Austria, and in 2016 by Britian, which quadrupled investment in the fledgling nation that year. Even so, Greece still sank more than $500m into North Macedonia in 2017, accounting for 10 percent of foreign direct investment. It still provides North Macedonia’s main access to the sea through the port of Thessaloniki, and Greece can still veto North Macedonia’s EU entry – a weapon the conservative opposition warns it is willing to use.

WATCH: Greece: The debt challenge

Greece has another concern – its high taxes have inflated costs and lowered competitiveness, as Greece struggles to pay off almost $500bn of public debt. Its corporate tax stands at 29 percent, and minimum wage was just raised to $743.

In North Macedonia corporate tax is 10 percent, and the average wage stands at $454. As a result, Greek companies are going bankrupt or moving abroad – many of them to neighbouring countries.

Grass is greener?

Korkidis estimates there are 400 Greek companies in Skopje representing investments worth $1.7bn euros.

The chamber studied cross-border trade. “We found a trade deficit of 500mn euros a year in fuel, farm produce, car mechanics, accounting services, gynaecologists, hairdressers, you name it,” says Korkidis.

Zaev sees it differently. “In the past 10 months, trade between our countries increased by 18.7 percent, mostly in Greece’s favour,” he recently told a Greek newspaper.

“These issues existed before the agreement, and the business world hadn’t done much about it,” says Armakolas. “Perhaps the agreement is an opportunity for businesses to brand themselves.”

He also doesn’t believe capital flight is affected by the agreement. “The fact that some businesses might think the grass is greener on the other side was never an argument against resolving the name issue. This is about what sort of business climate Greece offers. It is no different if businesses flee to Albania or Bulgaria.”

Political issues have got in the way of commerce before. Greece’s national carrier, Aegean Airlines, instituted an Athens-Skopje flight in 2003, only to abolish it four years later. “We were waiting for the two countries to resolve serious differences,” says the airline’s spokesperson Stavroula Saloutsi.

Last November Aegean reinstated the flight “after Skopje renamed its international airport”, says Saloutsi. Greece had complained publicly when the airport was named Alexander the Great in December 2006. As a goodwill gesture to restart the dialogue with Greece last year, Zaev renamed it Skopje International Airport.

“It’s our impression that it is in Greece’s interest to have more connections with all countries, even those with which it has a problematic relationship, because improvement of the two countries’ economic relationship always helps,” said Aegean’s President Eftychios Vassilakis.

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Pennsylvania Democrats rocked by indictment of top political boss

Philadelphia union official Johnny “Doc” Dougherty’s tentacles spread so far that Republicans already think it could be a boon for President Donald Trump’s election chances in 2020.

2020 Elections

The powerful union leader known as ‘Johnny Doc’ heads ‘the single-most effective political organization’ in the key 2020 state.

The indictment of one of Pennsylvania’s most powerful behind-the-scenes political players is rattling Democrats in a state that’s expected to be a key 2020 battleground.

The bombshell charges announced Wednesday against building trades leader John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty — a Philadelphia labor kingpin whose union is the single biggest independent source of campaign funding in the state — threaten to sap statehouse and congressional Democrats of a mega-donor, slow the party’s momentum in the Philadelphia suburbs, and sideline the man who orchestrated the Democratic takeover of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Story Continued Below

That court radically redrew the state’s congressional map last year, leading to the Democratic pickup of a handful of congressional seats in November.

Dougherty’s tentacles spread so far that Republicans already think it could be a boon for President Donald Trump’s election chances in 2020.

“Anytime there’s a vacuum, it gets filled, and I believe there’s an opportunity for the Republicans to take advantage of the fact that the Democratic machinery is minus one piece,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based GOP consultant.

It’s hard to overstate Dougherty’s power in Pennsylvania: His union’s heavy purse and legendary get-out-the-vote operation helped elect congressmen, governors, judges, mayors, state legislators, and city council members. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 was a major donor to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, played a critical role in putting Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle in office, and was almost single-handedly responsible for making Jim Kenney the mayor of Philadelphia.

A few years before the nation’s high-stakes midterm elections, the union’s deep pockets helped put three justices on the state Supreme Court, including Dougherty’s brother, Kevin.

“I would argue they’re the single-most effective political organization in the state,” said Ryan Costello, a former Republican congressman from suburban Chester County who was a casualty of the redrawn congressional map. “They’re thinking five, six, seven steps ahead.”

Dougherty was charged with embezzlement, bribery, and theft in a 116-count indictment that alleged he and others stole more than $600,000 in union funds and repeatedly strong-armed public and private officials with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Dougherty, who is the leader of the Philadelphia electricians union as well as the city’s building trades, has long denied any wrongdoing. Several top lieutenants in his union’s political operation were also charged.

Dougherty’s power is so widespread that few would speculate on the record about the potential political aftershocks of today’s charges — on both sides of the aisle. His union gave overwhelmingly to Democrats, but he spread around money to some Republicans too, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, an up-and-coming moderate from Bucks County who won reelection last fall in one of the nation’s most closely contested races.

Privately, many Pennsylvania Democrats described a grim and uncertain mood in the wake of Wednesday’s charges — and many Republicans saw an opportunity.

Democrats speculated about the potential effect on the 2020 Democratic primary. Many old-school members of the Philadelphia building trades support former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn’t announced his presidential intentions but spoke at a fundraiser in November where the host committee included the trade unions. Meanwhile, in a highly competitive congressional primary last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed a key ally of Dougherty’s against the wishes of some local Our Revolution groups, who preferred another candidate.

“When people run for president, John’s on the list of people they call in Pennsylvania,” said Larry Ceisler, a longtime state political observer working in public relations.

In the general election, Ceisler said, “It will have national implications for 2020 in Pennsylvania if John and 98 are sidelined. You’re talking about potentially millions of dollars, let alone their different operations for get-out-the vote.”

Of course, it’s entirely possible — most likely, even — that Dougherty and his union will keep their electoral spending spree going for the near future. Less clear is to what extent elected officials in Pennsylvania will distance themselves from the cash.

Mick McKeown, a Philadelphia-born former Trump administration official who now runs the public affairs firm Pennovia, said that if Dougherty were sidelined it would leave no one at the top of the state’s Democratic machinery carrying the banner for white working class voters.

“I think this puts Pennsylvania more in play for Trump,” he said, adding that without Dougherty, “the power structure of the Democratic Party goes totally to the left.”

Others weren’t so sure it would damage Democratic fortunes in 2020: “There were a lot of IBEW members who voted for Trump,” said Costello. Plus, he said, Democrats will be running to the polls in 2020 even if there’s a hurricane at their door.

Some Democrats worried that without Dougherty, there would be no one left in the state party apparatus with the clout to choreograph complicated, multifaceted political plays — such as a state Supreme Court takeover.

“His leadership was essential to retaking the Supreme Court. That’s four House pickups,” said one Pennsylvania-based Democratic consultant, referring to the ripple effect from the court’s 2018 redrawing of the state’s congressional map. “Now, who is going to do big things?”

Of course, many reform-oriented Democrats who loathe the labor boss’ bare-knuckled tactics celebrated the charges as a beginning of a new era in Philadelphia and state politics.

But it would probably be unwise to count him out either way, officials in both parties cautioned.

“The Philadelphia labor movement and its muscle — there’s been a lot of obituaries written about it,” said Costello. “And they’re still there.”

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Afghan forces lose ground as peace efforts continue: report

The security forces continue to lose grip over parts of Afghanistan and the Taliban are steadily holding their own, despite an increase in the US air attacks against the armed group, a US watchdog agency has said.

The latest quarterly report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) shows 53.8 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts are with the government, covering 63.5 percent of the population by October 2018, with the rest of the country controlled or contested by the Taliban.

The report was released on Thursday, days after the US peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, hailed “significant progress” in six days of talks with the Taliban in the Qatari capital, Doha, aimed at finding a solution to end the 17-year-old war in the South Asian country.

SIGAR said Afghan forces had decreased to 308,693 troops, or 87.7 percent of its strength, the lowest since the start of NATO’s operation to train, advise and assist Afghan National Defence and Security Forces in January 2015.

‘Stuck in the mud’

The US has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led mission, known as Resolute Support, and a separate counterterrorism mission largely directed against armed groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) and the al-Qaeda.

‘Significant progress’ made in US-Taliban talks in Qatar

About 8,000 troops from 38 other countries also participate in Resolute Support.

Intizar Khadim is a political analyst and lecturer at Moraa University in Kabul. He said the report highlights the need for the US to change its tactics.

“It is not just about the Taliban increase in territorial control but why we are not winning this war, why we are just stuck in the mud for the last 17 years … why the US, the international community and the Afghan government are still claiming that they can fight yet they report on the decrease in the territory control of the Afghan government,” Khadim told Al Jazeera.

“For sure the negotiation is on the table, but if we are not going in the right direction [in the peace talks] we are not succeeding.”

Increased air attacks

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was reported as saying at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that 45,000 Afghan security forces have died since September 2014.

As the security crisis continues, SIGAR also noted the US has dramatically increased air attacks, dropping 6,823 bombs in the first 11 months of 2018.

“This year’s figure was already 56 percent higher than the total number of munitions released in 2017 [4,361], and is more than five times the total released in 2016,” SIGAR said in its report.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which has documented civilian casualties in Afghanistan since 2009, said in its latest October report there were 8,050 civilian casualties during the first nine months of the year, including 313 deaths and 336 injuries caused by US and Afghan air attacks.

The Taliban, which was removed from power by the US-led forces in 2001, has waged a bloody armed rebellion to defeat the Western-backed government in Kabul for nearly 18 years.

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Moving to a different city or country can be lonely. Here are some things that helped me cope.

The decision to move from Copenhagen to London was an easy one. I was 26, recently unemployed, and single. So when I was offered a job in a cosmopolitan city with a population twice that of my home country, I said yes without much hesitation. I didn’t know anyone there, but shaking things up was exactly what I needed, so I rented out my apartment and left. I was excited.

We’re told that making big changes in life is invigorating. That exposing yourself to new things and new people is the only way to really get to know yourself. That to grow as a person, you must challenge yourself. I find this to be mostly true, but I’ve also discovered that actually uprooting yourself, thrilling as it may be, comes with its own set of challenges. Challenges that have taken time to develop coping strategies for.

I’ve lived in the UK for seven months now, and I get asked all the time if I’m homesick. I’m not. To me, homesickness is the bittersweet pang of longing you feel when you think about your hometown or country. I don’t wish I were there, or anywhere else for that matter. If I did, I would move. I’m not miserable, and I genuinely enjoy exploring my new city. I’m just… lonely. Not all the time, but sometimes. And even though I’ve come to accept it as a natural part of living far away from the people I love most, it sucks. And it continues to suck despite whatever awesome things I have going on in my “new life” in London.

I’m not miserable, and I genuinely enjoy exploring my new city. I’m just… lonely.

I do have friends here now (two whole friends!). I’ve got an interesting job and a lovely place to live with a group of truly kind housemates. That side of things is great. But, in terms of social life, my life here still doesn’t begin to compare to what I have at home, and the absence of all my best friends is palpable.

Thinking about all of this, one thing in particular pops into my head; when Shoshanna from Girls moved to Japan all on her lonesome. Sitting in a ramen shop, Shoshanna lists all of the exciting things about her new life — her new job; her new boyfriend — but ends up breaking down because she’s just “really fucking lonely.” I know exactly how she feels.

I asked the people of Twitter how others have coped with this particular kind of loneliness, and I discovered that there are so many other people who are currently experiencing what I’m going through, or have in the past. Moving to a new place is as fulfilling as it is challenging. To others, it might seem inspiring, but in reality it can be very isolating. But, I’m happy to say there are ways to cope. The feelings of loneliness don’t always go away exactly, but you can learn to deal with them.

Mental health professional Fatmata Kamara — who’s a specialist nurse adviser with Bupa UK — tells me it’s important to remind yourself that loneliness is a completely common human emotion we all experience sometimes. If you’re concerned your feelings are having a negative impact on your health, you should seek help. “If you’re feeling lonely and you’re worried it’s affecting your health, you should speak to your GP,” Kamara says. “They’ll be able to give you help, should your loneliness be developing into a more serious form, like depression.”

Other than that, here’s a list of achievable, non-scary things that have helped me and others in the same situation cope with being alone in a new place. The focus of these tips isn’t necessarily on making new friends — although there are some links at the bottom of the article for apps that might help with that — but rather a list of self-care acts that can help when you’re feeling a bit lost. They have helped me cope, and I hope they can help you, too.

Be honest about how you feel

Telling the people around you that your calendar is actually brimming with exciting plans is doing yourself a disservice. Having to answer “not much” every time someone asks what you’re doing this weekend is hard, especially in the beginning — but it’s better than pretending, and people have a greater capacity to understand than you know.

According to Kamara, sharing your feelings is really important from a mental health perspective as well. “If you’re struggling with loneliness or if you’re feeling a bit lost, it can help to open up about how you feel to friends and family,” Kamara says. “Even if they’re not close by, they’re only a call or text away.”

Opening up and staying connected with the people in your life back home is definitely the first step you should take to make yourself feel less alone. Tell them that FaceTiming or calling actually means a lot to you. Make appointments to talk, don’t just expect it to happen spontaneously.

Don’t feel pressured to do everything

It’s really typical to feel like you need to say yes to every social opportunity that presents itself to you when your social life is limited – good old beggars-can’t-be-choosers logic. But doing something you aren’t into just because you feel you ought to is not the way forward.

Kenny and Lizzie, who prefer to use their first names, have both relocated in the past. According to both of them, staying true to yourself is important when you’re finding yourself in a new place.

“If you’re into fringe theatre, why go to a rave?” asks consultant Kenny, who lives in London. For him, the way forward is “doing what you love and attracting your natural crew.”

“You don’t have to be besties with the first people that come along,” says retail supervisor Lizzie, who also resides in London. “Make sure they’re good for you first.”

Go on a date with your city

Say what you will about Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, but she was definitely onto something when she invented going on a “date” with your city.

“Dating” your city can be a lot of fun. Embrace being touristy and go explore.

That’s something that helped novelist Kealan Burke, who moved from Ireland to the U.S. “The more I immersed myself in culture and discovery, the less intimidating the experience became,” says Burke, who lives in Columbus, OH.

Whether you’re into parks, museums, or just general urban exploring, get out there. If eating at a restaurant alone scares you (it scares me, too), I’ve found that a picnic of take away is a great way to eat out, solo. Another tangible piece of advice is to take the bus or walk rather than taking the underground. That way, you actually see your city.

Binge on culture

“I found immersing myself in culture (books, film, music) kept the loneliness at bay,” says communications director Rich, from Surrey, who prefers to use his first name. “Immersive TV is great, too. I watched the entirety of Lost and The Wire.”

Podcasts, especially funny, chatty ones, are also a truly great source of company when real life human company is not an option. Find one with hosts you really like (for me, Jonathan Goldstein on “Heavyweight” feels like a close personal friend at this point.)

Retail supervisor Lizzie recommends music as a way to both remind you of home and make you excited for new adventures.

“Make two playlists: one that reminds you of great memories, one to energise you for all the fun you’ll have in the new place,” says Lizzie.

Go to the gym

Exercise feels good, and you know what else feels good? Getting out of the house. Going to the gym kills those two birds with one stone.

“I relocated four years ago and it’s very daunting. My saving grace was joining a gym,” says PR consultant Rae Radford, who lives in London. “I’ve made one amazing friend who is now my gym buddy.”

The same can definitely be said for other sports clubs, running groups, cycling teams, etc. “I turned to running when I moved from Barbados to a small town in Northern Ireland,” says communications manager Clare Hiles, who currently lives in Belfast. “I did it alone, and I did it with people — really helped me to cope!”

According to Kamara, exercise is a genuinely good way to fix your mood by putting your happiness-inducing neurotransmitters to work.

“When you’re feeling a bit low, exercise can feel like the last thing you want to do,” Kamara says. “However, exercise can help boost a low mood because it releases endorphins, which triggers positive feelings within the brain.”

A 2018 study of 1.2 million Americans, conducted by researchers from universities Oxford and Yale and published in the Lancet Psychiatry, found that just 2 hours of exercise a week can have a positive impact on your mental health.

Remember why you moved

You were probably really excited by the thought of your new life before you left, right? Remind yourself of the reasons you decided to make this big change. Try to think back to what motivated you to make the move. Make a list if it helps.

And also, enjoy the feeling of actually having followed through on something for yourself. No matter how long you stick with it or how well the whole thing works out for you, this is an amazing, courageous thing you did. So pat yourself on the back.

Remind yourself it’s not forever (unless you want it to be)

Here’s a liberating thought for you: you made the decision to move, and you can make the decision to move right back.

While having to adjust to new living conditions as permanent seems like an insurmountable task, looking at your new life as an adventure you can quit when you want allows you to relax.

Try setting a time limit for yourself (six months, nine months, a year – it’s up to you) and see how you feel at the end of it. If it’s not what you thought it’d be? You can just go home.

“I treated it like an adventure, an expedition, and one that could end if I deemed it necessary,” says novelist Kealan Burke.

By looking at your new life circumstances as temporary rather than permanent, the whole thing becomes infinitely less stressful.

People obviously cope differently with different challenges as they arise, and there’s a myriad of other ways to deal with loneliness. Apps like Bumble BFF or Vina, for example, are great resources for finding friends and connecting with others. Volunteering in your local community is also a good way to feel part of a community through an activity that’s meaningful to you.

But remember, feeling a little blue or lonely after making a big change is completely natural. And you are definitely not alone in feeling lonely.

If you’re experiencing feelings of loneliness and would like to talk to someone, some helpful organisations are The Samaritans (+44 116 123) Mind (+44 300 303 5999), and The Mix (+44 808 808 4994). For a list of U.S. mental health resources, please click here.

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Saudi Arabia: Corruption crackdown ‘ends with $106bn recovered’

Saudi Arabia has ended a sweeping crackdown on corruption ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that it said had recovered more than $106bn through settlements with scores of senior princes, ministers and top businessmen.

A royal court said in a statement on Wednesday authorities had summoned 381 people, some as witnesses, under the campaign launched in November 2017, but it provided no names.

It said 87 people confessed to charges against them and reached settlements that included the forfeiture of real estate, companies, cash and other assets.

The campaign ended as abruptly as it began, despite speculation in the business community that a new round of arrests was imminent.

MBS’s Vision 2030 economic initiative aims to push the Kingdom past fossil fuel dependency through investments in infrastructure and tech, though some say its unrealistic [Zuhair Al-Traifi/Reuters]

The public prosecutor refused to settle the cases of 56 people due to existing criminal charges against them. Eight more who declined settlement offers stand accused of corruption, the court said.

Detainees who were not indicted were freed, but it was unclear when travel bans, bank freezes and electronic monitoring of at least some of those released earlier would end.

For the first three months of the campaign, many members of the kingdom’s economic and political elite were held in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, with some later moved to a prison.

Some detainees were reportedly tortured, which the authorities have denied.

Critics called it a shakedown and power play by Prince Mohammed. It unsettled some foreign investors that he is courting to diversify the economy away from oil.

The October killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate tarnished the crown prince’s reputation in the West and intensified criticism of Riyadh’s human rights record and its role in the Yemen war.

The crown prince, commonly known as MBS, has defended the anti-corruption campaign as “shock therapy” as he tries to overhaul the economy.

His social reforms, including the easing of restrictions such as bans on cinemas and women driving, have been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent, including the arrests of dozens of Islamic scholars, women’s rights activists and intellectuals.

Saudi government wants to ‘move on’

Karen Young, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, told Reuters news agency it was hard to say if the campaign had been successful.

“The good news is that the government seems to be signalling that it wants to move on,” she said. “On Saudi foreign policy and domestic politics, particularly towards citizen activists, there is still deep apprehension in the West.”

Ali Shihabi, head of the Arabia Foundation in Washington which regularly supports Saudi policy, said the end of the campaign reflected a government attempt to address international criticism of a lack of due process and transparency.

UN team probing Jamal Khashoggi killing arrives in Turkey

“Now critics will bemoan lack of names and details on each case but we must remember that individuals themselves have no desire to be named,” he told Reuters.

The figures released on Wednesday were little different from those the government announced in its last update, exactly one year earlier.

It is unclear how much of the money it says was recovered has actually reached state coffers.

Only a month ago, the finance minister told Reuters the authorities had collected some $13bn from settlements in 2018 and expected a similar amount this year.

The initial sweep netted cousins of MBS, such as billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, National Guard minister Prince Miteb bin Abdullah and former Riyadh governor Prince Turki bin Abdullah.

Miteb was freed within weeks after agreeing to pay more than $1bn to settle corruption allegations against him, a Saudi official said at the time.

Two months later, Alwaleed settled after reaching what he called “a confirmed understanding between me and the government”. Turki has not been heard from.

Also detained were senior officials, including ousted economy minister Adel Fakieh, who is believed to be in detention, and former chief of the royal court, Khalid al-Tuwaijri.

Top businessmen were held alongside them. Waleed al-Ibrahim and Saleh Kamel were released early on, while others including Amr Dabbagh and Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi only got out this month. The fate of Bakr bin Laden, released temporarily last week, remains unclear.

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Selling fake followers and likes can land you in trouble with the law

The fake follower business will get you in trouble in New York.

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By Johnny Lieu2019-01-31 06:05:26 UTC

Fake followers, fake likes: they’ve flooded social media in the past few years.

While companies have taken action against fraud accounts, in New York, selling bots and fraudulent social media activity now could land you in hot water. In fact, it’s against the law.

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Wednesday it had settled with U.S. company Devumi, which had been under investigation following a New York Times exposé which revealed its shady social media practices.

The fake followers, likes, & views that Devumi sold came from bot & sock-puppet accounts.

Devumi also supplied fake accounts that copied real people’s social media profiles, and sold endorsements from influencers without disclosing that the influencers had been paid.

— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) January 30, 2019

The settlement makes selling fake likes and followers illegal in the state of New York. It’s one of the first actions taken by a law enforcement agency against the practice.

“As people and companies like Devumi continue to make a quick buck by lying to honest Americans, my office will continue to find and stop anyone who sells online deception,” James said in a statement online.

“With this settlement, we are sending a clear message that anyone profiting off of deception and impersonation is breaking the law and will be held accountable.”

Devumi, which folded last August, was employed by a number of high-profile celebrities to help build their online following. Some clients knew the business used fake activity to boost online profiles, while others thought the increased engagement came from genuine people.

The investigation found in some instances Devumi scraped the accounts of real people without their consent to build fake profiles.

Of course, the fake follower business was a lucrative one: CNN notes that Devumi earned approximately $15 million in revenue, but the negative publicity following the Times‘ revelation led to the decline of its business, and eventually its closure.

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