Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien has launched a passionate defense of his coaching credentials after the Knights slumped to their eighth home loss in nine games against the Bulldogs.
The 24-10 defeat ensured the Knights still have the worst defensive record in the NRL after 20 rounds, but O’Brien used his history with grand final teams at the Storm and Roosters as evidence he knows how to turn things around.
“It is a hard one for me as well,” O’Brien said.
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“Previous to getting this job here I was involved in four grand finals.
“I know how those teams prepared. I know the systems they used defensively.
“You don’t unlearn that knowledge. Applying it and getting it ingrained is going to take some time clearly.
“Week to week we can talk about one area of that defense and we can fix it in seven days, but then we will let another area of our defense down.
“It is going to take a bit of time and I know some people don’t want to wait that long, but it is.”
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Newcastle Knights coach Adam O’Brien.Source: FOX SPORTS
O’Brien believes if the Knights had made the finals this season it would have papered over the cracks of a deeper issue within the team.
“I have seen how the teams prepare in those four grand finals,” O’Brien said.
How the players performed. How the club prepares. How it performs.
“I have seen all that stuff and I haven’t unlearnt that, but it is going to take some time.
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“We have got the right people in the job. We just need to have a plan and we need to coach the hell out of it and hopefully we look back at this season as a year that helped us grow.
“Had we scraped into the finals this year it would have stuck a bandaid on a problem that is still there.
“We need to stick tight and work our way out of it.”
“The forecast is concerning, and we’re watching it very closely, obviously. We also are sending out warnings and making sure everyone knows,” said Col. Jeremy Slinker, the Kentucky emergency management director.
“We’re preparing for it and making sure all the residents there are prepared for it because we just don’t want to lose anyone else or have any more tragedy,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown Saturday.
A flood watch is in effect through at least Monday morning for parts of southern and eastern Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service, and there is a Level 3 of 4 moderate risk for excessive rainfall Sunday across southeastern Kentucky, per the Weather Prediction Center, escalating the concern of additional flooding.
Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 3 inches are forecast over the next 24 to 48 hours, but as much as 4 or 5 inches is possible in localized areas. As little as 1 to 2 inches can revive flooding concerns, particularly in areas already inundated with heavy rain where the soil is saturated.
The ominous forecast comes as crews in eastern Kentucky continue their search for people who remained unaccounted for after the devastating flooding last Thursday inundated homes and swept some from their foundations, sending residents fleeing for higher ground.
Twenty-six people have been confirmed dead, Gov. Andy Beshear said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday, in what officials described as unprecedented flooding for the region. The death toll is expected to climb as crews gain more access to currently impassable areas, Beshear told CNN Saturday.
“There are still so many people unaccounted for,” Beshear said. “It’s going to get worse.”
Officials believe thousands have been affected, and efforts to rebuild some areas may take years, the governor has said. The state’s estimated losses are potentially in the “tens if not the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Beshear noted Saturday.
After the rain, excessive heat is expected to build over the region Tuesday as many people are currently struggling with no access to clean drinking water, power outages and cell service still out in some counties Saturday.
More than 10,000 homes and businesses in the region were in the dark early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us; three drinking water systems were totally out of operation Saturday, the governor said.
“The water is still high in some counties. It’s crested in most, but not all. Water systems overwhelmed. So, either no water or water that’s not safe, that you have to boil,” Beshear said.
The federal government sent tractor trailers of bottled water to the region, and more financial assistance is on the way.
The flooding — as with other recent weather disasters — was further amplified by the climate crisis: As global temperatures climb as a result of human-caused fossil fuel emissions, the atmosphere is able to hold more water, making water vapor more abundantly available to fall as rain.
Scientists are increasingly confident in the role the climate crisis plays in extreme weather, and have warned such events will become more and more intense dangerous with every fraction of a degree of warming.
‘Hero’ rescued family from flooded home
Among the tales of heroism emerging from the disaster is an unidentified man who drifted through fast-moving water to get a 98-year-old grandmother, her grandson and another family member out of their home as it was nearly swallowed by the flooding Thursday.
Randy Polly, who witnessed the rescue in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and recorded parts of it on his cellphone, told CNN he got stuck a distance away from home on his way to get gas Thursday morning.
Polly said he heard people yelling across the flooded road, “Get me help, get help.” He called 911, but first responders were overwhelmed and unresponsive to his calls from him.
Around 9 am, he saw a man he described as a hero drift over to the house and start banging on the door and window.
The man eventually helped get three people out of the home and guided them through rushing water, the videos show. The rescue took about 30 minutes, Polly said.
Missy Crovetti, who lives in Green Oaks, Illinois, told CNN the people rescued in the video are her grandmother Mae Amburgey, uncle Larry Amburgey and brother Gregory Amburgey. They are safe and doing well, she said.
Crovetti said she does not know the name of the man who rescued her family. Polly also said he does not know the man’s name.
Financial help in progress
Officials have moved swiftly to approve financial assistance, given the scores of people in need of relief after losing everything.
The federal government greenlighted funding for people in five counties “at a pace that we’ve never seen before,” Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman told CNN’s Pamela Brown Saturday.
“Residents will actually receive direct payments, which is some really good news in what will be a very long tunnel to see the light,” Coleman said.
Coleman did not provide an exact date on when those payments are expected to reach residents, though she said they will be dispersed as soon as the state receives the money.
Additionally, nearly $700,000 has been raised for relief efforts, Beshear said Saturday. He noted funeral expenses for those killed in the flooding will be paid for.
“We value ensuring that these loved ones can be reconnected with their family members, and to make sure that these folks are able to have a proper funeral for their loved ones,” Coleman said.
Additionally, the state is prioritizing placing generators at the shelters for flood survivors as temperatures are expected to soar Tuesday following the rain.
CNN’s Sharif Paget, Gene Norman, Derek Van Dam, Haley Brink, Jalen Beckford, Angela Fritz and Raja Razek contributed to this report.
Australians have been warned about using increasingly popular “pay advance” services over concerns they may be exposing themselves to excessive debt and unregulated products.
Pay advance services offer workers access to their pay ahead of time, with users able to withdraw anywhere between $50 to $2000, which they then repay – along with a flat rate or a percentage fee – to the lender come payday. The services operate similar to payday lending, albeit with fewer fees and shorter repayment timeframes.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones has said Labor will look to regulate buy now, pay later services and pay advance industry.Credit:alex ellinghausen
A number of large pay advance companies have sprung up recently, including Australian Securities Exchange-listed Beforepay, MyPayNow, and Commonwealth Bank’s AdvancePay. Their number of customers has been rising, spurred on by a surging cost of living and higher interest rates.
However, despite their growing popularity, cash-strapped workers have been warned to avoid these services.
A spokesperson for financial regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s MoneySmart financial advice division said while they may seem like a “quick fix”, users should seek other options.
“If you need money quickly, a pay advance service may seem convenient,” the spokesperson said. “[However]using a pay advance service means that you’ll have less money in your next pay and, if you over-use it, it can be hard to keep up with repayments when managing other financial commitments”
“Keep in mind that every time you use the service, you are charged a fee. While pay advance providers have limits on what they can charge you, your bank might charge a fee if you don’t have enough money in your account to cover your repayment.”
Borrowing money through a pay advance service can also affect your ability to borrow money, such as a home loan, in the future, as lenders often take a dim view of pay advance and buy now, pay later services when assessing a borrower’s spending habits.
Another key concern of ASIC is that pay advance services are unregulated, operating under a loophole in credit laws which allows providers to bypass the need for credit checks or hardship processes.
Asked once about the most difficult part of her research, Danna Freedman could not stop referring to obstacles as opportunities, and to challenges as excitement. “Every time we hit a barrier it enables us to discover new science,” she told an interviewer at Northwestern University in 2017, describing difficulties encountered in her research as among her most “rewarding” moments of her.
For Freedman, MIT’s FG Keyes Professor of Chemistry, focusing on a difficult problem seems to be her idea of nirvana. Currently, her research group at Ella is using inorganic chemistry to create molecules for quantum information science, generating a new class of quantum units that can be readily tuned for quantum communication. But at any given time, her idea of a favorite breakthrough is generally the challenge at hand.
“I love the most recent result, the thing I am struggling to understand and improve at a particular moment in time,” Freedman says.
Her determination and enthusiasm for the unsolved problem began as she was growing up in a small town in upstate New York, where early on she showed a strong interest in science and the questions scientists work to answer.
Freedman says her parents “patiently participated in hours of conversation about the best way to drop an egg an arbitrary number of stories without breaking it.”
“Unfortunately, I hear bungee egg drop is no longer a Science Olympiad event,” she jokes.
Referring to her more recent endeavors, Freedman says her lab’s bottom-up design of molecules that can function as tunable, scalable, versatile, and robust qubits is an important step toward full realization of quantum sensing and communication. Such quantum operations could uncover new information about the world around us, sense dark matter, lead to insight in biological systems, or help transmit information across complex messy interfaces in a quantum state.
“We have developed a different approach to such a goal,” Freedman says. “It will take a long, dedicated, interdisciplinary effort to bring these ideas to fruition, and I am incredibly excited to make that happen.”
One of the ways Freedman and her lab are working collaboratively across disciplines is through the Q-NEXT National Quantum Information Science Research Center, which is led by the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. With support from Q-NEXT and others, Freedman and members of her team as well as researchers from the University of Chicago and Columbia University recently published a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society demonstrating that a specific group of qubits – in this case Molecules designed with a central chromium atom surrounded by four hydrocarbon molecules – could be customized for specific targets within quantum sensing and communication.
“As part of Q-NEXT and other research centers, we are incorporating these molecules into the larger quantum ecosystem,” says Freedman, whose work has garnered her many honors, including Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers through the US Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation.
Freedman’s lab also works on applying extreme pressure, sometimes comparable to the pressures at the Earth’s core, to synthesize new materials. Her team de ella is exploring one such material, the first iron-bismuth binary compound, for its magnetic properties and potential as a superconductor, both aspects that could have broad ramifications in such areas as energy generation and transport.
Freedman’s characteristic ambition also shines through in her teaching and mentoring. She says that helping young researchers to develop involves “providing them with a foundation to excel and then throwing them into the deep end and asking them to swim.” But if they don’t succeed, she says, then “the foundation isn’t there, and I need to work harder, and try different approaches to prepare them.”
With her determination to seek new and expanding challenges, Freedman came to MIT in 2021, having moved from Northwestern University, where she was a professor of chemistry. She says the potential for collaboration at MIT enhanced her motivation for her.
“I am about 10 years into my career, and as our research expands in new directions, I wanted to form teams that extend beyond my own research and to connect in different directions,” Freedman says. “When I spoke with faculty at MIT, every idea that I had expanded and became more achievable. The visions of the scientists and engineers at MIT spur me to have better ideas and to be a better scientist.”
She says she is “invigorated by the culture of the Institute. I continue to be impressed with the kindness and dedication and equitable culture that I have observed here. It is incumbent upon me to continue to improve it, but it is a phenomenal starting point.”
And from that starting point, proceeding despite obstacles is obvious. Her great forward momentum is perhaps also evidenced by her great love of walking and running, which she tries to do every day.
“In Boston, I have walked along most train lines,” she says, adding that she also enjoys running “from Harvard Square down North Harvard Street to Coolidge Corner, on to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and back along Commonwealth. I like running from MIT to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and back … and in Belmont, running on the Minuteman trail.”
“While walking or running,” Freedman says, “I turn existing thoughts into coherent sentences, create talks and refine ideas.”
/University Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) may be of a point-in-time nature, edited for clarity, style and length. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s).
Ione Sky is an actor, best known for the films Say Anything and Gas Food Lodging. The 51-year-old talks about becoming friends with her teenage crush, marrying young, and her wild years with Anthony Kiedis.
My maternal grandfather, Benjamin Stulberger, was a big part of my childhood as my parents were separated when I was born, and I was raised solely by my mother. His Hungarian roots meant his family was very important to him and my relationship with him made me feel very confident. My grandfather served in World War II and taught me songs from the 1930s and 1940s. He was left-leaning and actively political, a classic New York Jew.
Ione Skye on her relationship with Anthony Kiedis: “I was 17, so innocent, and I didn’t know what was coming my way.”Credit:Louie Douvis
my mumEnid Karl, never complained about my father [British folk singer Donovan]. My paternal grandparents were very proud of their son of him and I grew up listening to his music of him. As a kid in school, I wanted to brag that he was my father but he never did. It was a strange feeling to be proud of my dad but also wonder, “Who is this guy?” I ended up having a relationship with Dad when I was a teenager and it has continued since.
My brother Donovan and I are like yin and yang. He was born tap-dancing out of the womb. He started acting as soon as he could. He has an infectious personality. He got me into my career because he came home one day saying they were auditioning teenagers for a movie and wrangled me in. It was a lead role in River’s Edge [1986]. It was my first job and it started my career.
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My first boyfriend was a rich kid called Sean. I was 14 and he was 15. I grew up in a bohemian home, but I wanted to get the most popular guy that everyone at my all-girls’ school was talking about, and I did. We dated for a year. I liked being chased but felt more comfortable being the one in control. I didn’t want things to come out of the blue. I wanted to decide when we’d kiss or not.
I had a crush on John Taylor from Duran Duran when I was growing up. If you’d told me at that age that I’d be friends with him later, I’d be like, “No way.” My friend Amanda de Cadenet was married to him in the 1990s.
“My first husband was Adam Horowitz from Beastie Boys. We were madly in love but we were too young. It didn’t last.”
I worked with director Cameron Crowe when I made the film Say Anything in 1989. He reminds me of my husband, musician Ben Lee. He loves women and is a confident man. Sometimes I don’t like it when men are too confident because I get jealous, but there is a natural and loving way he treats women which I like.
North Queensland have secured their seventh away win of the season to stay outright second on the Telstra Premiership ladder following a 34-8 victory over the Dragons on Sunday.
It was the first time in almost 20 years the Cowboys beat the Dragons in Kogarah with forwards Jason Taumalolo and Jeremiah Nanai outstanding in the win.
The visitors held a 10-8 lead early before Taumalolo sent Griffin Neame over under the sticks in the 58th minute to push the visitors’ lead to eight.
A further two tries to Nanai and Scott Drinkwater, who both finished with doubles, ensured the side’s 14th win of the year.
Earlier, back-to-back tries to Drinkwater and Kyle Feldt in the first half set up an eight-point advantage before the Dragons struck back through Jack de Belin to make the match evenly poised after 40 minutes.
The Cowboys welcomed back Reuben Cotter from a hamstring injury that left him out of Queensland’s last two Origin matches with the dynamic lock playing his part in rotation with Taumalolo.
Dragons coach Anthony Griffin opted to use Moses Mbye at fullback with Tyrell Sloan coming off the interchange but the rookie didn’t get on the field until the game was well and truly gone.
match snapshot
The Cowboys’ win was their first at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium since 2003. They’ve now won three out of 10 at the venue.
The Dragons have now lost eight of 11 games this season against current top eight teams.
Dragons forward Jaydn Su’A was placed on report in the second half for a hair pull on Luciano Leilua.
Cowboys winger Kyle Feldt picked up a hamstring injury in the victory.
Cowboys forward Jason Taumalolo was placed on report for a shoulder charge on Blake Lawrie at the 63rd minute.
Jeremiah Nanai scored his 15th and 16th tries of the season, the most by a Cowboys forward in their club history.
Dragons forward Josh McGuire was the next to be placed on report in the 72nd minute.
Play of the game
Valentine Holmes has found a home at left center this season and continues to go from strength to strength. His effort by him to come back on the inside and find Scott Drinkwater among the highlights of the second half.
“I was pleased with a lot of it, when we had the ball and when we didn’t have the ball. I challenged the lads to play our way and they did that tonight. I’ve learned a bit about our team over the last 6-10 weeks around the type of language we use. We’ve got a really talented and excitable group. We play our best when we move the ball but we have to be clear around what that looks like.” – Cowboys coach Todd Payten.
“I thought even with 15 to go at 16-8 we had our opportunity to get back into it. We didn’t get much out of our first half. We had opportunity to be in front at half-time and they got a couple of tries back-to-back. It was the story of the night, then they got three back-to-back in the last 15 minutes defensively for us.” – Dragons coach Anthony Griffin.
Most adults wouldn’t even think of “playing” outside, but with parkour, Amy Han does just that.
Amy is not jumping off any buildings though. She’s there for the softer side of parkour, that almost anyone can do.
“I can’t think of a better way to incorporate movement and exercise and play into life,” she said.
“I don’t really think about it as training, I just think about it as going outside. I’m just going outside to move.”
The discipline was founded in Paris in the 1990s.
“Parkour is based on functional movements like running, climbing, jumping, etc., and in play and curiosity,” Women of Parkour Melbourne coach Kel Glaister said.
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“It’s all about using the capacity of your own body to explore and play in your environment.”
‘It felt like being on a playground’
Amy’s introduction to parkour was in a gym room in London, about 10 years ago. A friend invited her to a class because he thought she’d like it. Curious, Amy went along with her friend of hers.
They entered a room full of gymnastics equipment and watched as the instructor moved across the obstacles to get to the other side. Amy had never been sporty, but for the next two hours she moved, people helped her and they helped each other.
“Although it was hard, it didn’t feel like exercise — it felt like being on a playground,” she said.
Amy Han does parkour on some wooden poles in a park. (Supplied: Amy Han)
The parkour class came at a pivotal time in Amy’s life when things were heavy and disheartening. She said she connected with parkour in a metaphorical sense.
“I came to this class and [said to myself]: ‘Here are all the obstacles, it doesn’t matter how you go over them, just find your way. It doesn’t matter if you scramble over them, if it takes you a long time, if you have to try a few times, just get through to the end’,” she said.
The power of visibility
After that first class, Amy moved rapidly from participant to instructor, working with Melbourne Parkour for several years.
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She said people were often surprised to see her as an instructor because they weren’t expecting a woman. But Amy believes a lot of women stayed because of her.
The taller and stronger male instructors would be able to step up and pop themselves over a wall, but Amy would have to take a big run-up and use a rail as a step before hopping up onto the wall.
“I’d say: ‘This is the way that this person would move over the obstacle because that’s the most-efficient way for them, but for me, I’m going to have to find another way because I’m not 6- foot tall, and I don’t have the same level of upper body strength’,” she explained.
“If you have a female instructor, more girls will join because it shows it’s for them too. And I think that applies for all kinds of diversity.”
Women of Melbourne Parkour is an organization working to diversify the sport.
“It’s a discipline that remains dominated by young men,” Glaister said.
“But there are loads of people and organizations worldwide working to change that, to make space for more people — of all genders, ages, abilities and backgrounds — within parkour.
“Women of Melbourne Parkour is one of those organisations, and we have regular training sessions that [cater for] women and other genders.”
Growing up, Amy said she was told not to do the types of jumping and climbing inherent in parkour because they were dangerous, and she would hurt herself.
However, her brother was never given the same caution.
“For me, it was a huge ‘unlearning’ and almost like a new childhood when I discovered parkour,” she said.
Amy Han coaches a younger girl to do parkour on some concrete steps.(Supplied: Amy Han)
For Amy, parkour is more about play and movement than rigid training.
“As adults, we don’t give ourselves permission to play enough,” she said.
“It’s always, ‘I’m going out to train’ or ‘I’m going to the gym’, for a specific purpose. But how many adults just go out to play?”
‘Possible but scary’ — learning how to dance
Amy said she believed in the maxim “find your own way”, not just in parkour, but in life.
There’s a common misconception that parkour is just big jumps and jumping off rooftops.
However, Amy said, parkour was different for each person. It doesn’t have to be about the big jumps. It can also be about smaller movements.
“It can be just walking around on a rail,” she said..
“It can be just going to a playground and finding a challenge for yourself, it can be a park bench. It can be just looking at a park bench and thinking, ‘How many ways can I move over this park bench’?”
Amy Han does a handstand against a park bench. (Supplied: Mel Lyons Photography)
Amy’s favorite technique, she said, was balancing. She walks on rails a lot and, often, if she’s on her own de ella, she’ll go to a local oval and set herself the challenge of walking on the fence around the oval without falling off.
“You need to be strong, but you need to have fun with it. It’s just a balance of all different things,” she said.
Amy said it was also about gaining the confidence to approach things that might look uncomfortable, with the knowledge that they were still possible.
“Every training session I try to find that point where it looks possible but scary,” she said.
Parkour is also about learning how to dance.
If Amy slightly misses a jump, she knows how to fall in a way that doesn’t end in hurting herself.
This means reminding herself that the worst thing that can happen is landing on her bum.
“In parkour, you will fall sometimes, but we learn very early how to fall,” she said.
Existing fitness base isn’t necessary
While many people believe they need to get fit before they start parkour, Amy said that was not the case.
“You get stronger by starting,” she said. “Just start. Everybody in the parkour community is super friendly. If you feel drawn to it, just give it a try.”
She recommended finding your local community or classes, like Women of Parkour Melbourne.
Amy Han stretches in front of the Melbourne museum as a woman looks on. (Supplied: Scott Bickle)
These days, there’s an increasing variety of male and female instructors who come from all different backgrounds.
Amy said it would be fantastic to see more girls and women involved in the sport.
“I would love to see more girls doing parkour from a young age and being shown what they’re capable of — that they don’t have to be afraid of everything and they don’t always need someone to help them,” she said .
Although Amy doesn’t coach parkour anymore, parkour is integrated into her life and is a part of her lifestyle.
She still does parkour two to three times a week, both indoors and outdoors, in a class, with friends or by herself.
She said she wanted to keep moving until she gets old, however, she wanted to keep doing it in the playful way she was doing it now.
“I want to just keep having fun with it and challenging myself, but in a sustainable way,” she said. “Always playing.”
ABC Sport is partnering with Siren Sport to elevate the coverage of Australian women in sport.
Julie Dickson is a freelance writer based in Melbourne. She is studying a Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) at Deakin University and was recently an intern with ABC Sport.
Drought has a way of revealing things. Receding waters can highlight the precarity of the crucial systems that keep functioning societies and expose hidden ancient cities.
In the case of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, diminishing waters have in recent months uncovered long buried secrets and other mysterious finds: at least three sets of human remains, including a body inside a barrel that could be linked to a mob killing, and a sunken boat dating back to the second world war.
A grueling drought in the American west has depleted the lake, a crucial water source for 25 million people, drying out tributaries, threatening hydropower production and closing boat ramps at the popular recreation site. It is now at its lowest level since the lake was being filled in 1937.
Officials expect more grim finds, and have already received calls from visitors about possible remains that turned out to be animal bones or prop skeletons left by local scuba divers years earlier.
A formerly sunken boat sits high and dry along the shoreline of Lake Mead in May. Photograph: John Locher/AP
“You will find things in the lake. It’s inevitable,” said Michael Green, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It’s been sad to watch the lake drop, the islands appear, the bathtub ring, the marina being moved out further and further.”
The recent spate of discoveries began in May when boaters spotted a barrel. Inside were the remains of a man who officials say was shot between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. The killing has the signature of a “mob hit”, the local Mob Museum said, and coincided “with the most violent period in Las Vegas’s past – an era of unprecedented street crime and underworld killings”.
A week after that discovery, two sisters paddle-boarding on the lake came across what they thought were the bones of a bighorn sheep, but which turned out to be another set of human remains.
“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains,” Ray Spencer, a lieutenant with the Las Vegas police, said in May.
Earlier this week, someone alerted park rangers to additional human remains, partially encased in mud, along a beach. The investigation is continuing, the park said in a statement.
But there aren’t just bodies in the water that comes in from the Colorado River, and experts say as the “bathtub ring” around the lake grows, more discoveries are waiting.
This summer a sunken second world war-era boat began to jut out from the water. The Higgins landing craft, models of which were deployed at Normandy, was once used to survey the Colorado River and then sold to the marina before it sank.
A sunken second world war-era Higgins landing craft that used to be nearly 200ft underwater rests on its side near the Lake Mead Marina on Thursday. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
A crashed B-29 plane has been in the water since 1948. It’s still far below the surface, but as the water levels fall light is reaching the plane for the first time in decades, 8NewsNow reported.
Lake Mead is not a natural body of water, Green points out. It was formed with the creation of the Hoover Dam, which submerged St Thomas, a Mormon settlement founded in 1865. One of the town’s final residents left in 1938 when waters reached his front door, according to the Deseret News. Declining lake levels, which have exposed St Thomas several times over the years, have kept the settlement visible for the last 10 years.
The lake also covered archaeological digs, said Green, who teaches about the history of Nevada and Las Vegas, meaning there could be historical items in the water.
“There might actually be some archaeological relics,” Green said, adding that a nearby museum has artifacts from the Puebloan people, who lived in the area about a thousand years earlier. “Archaeologists were working there until the lake was rising around them.”
The vast reservoir’s water level has dropped more than 170ft (52m) since 1983, the same year the Colorado River flooded the dam’s spillways. Over-extraction, extreme heat and decreased snowmelt have burdened the Colorado River Basin and nearly 40 years later, Lake Mead is down to about 27% of its capacity.
The forecast is grim – the Colorado River has endured a drought for two decades and project officials Lake Mead’s water levels will continue to fall, meaning that more discoveries will be unearthed.
“There tends to be plenty of stuff that goes to the bottom and you just wait around,” Green said. “Ideally we’ll get more water and we won’t find more.”
Skoda’s flagship seven-seater Kodiaq straddles the medium and large SUV segments and boasts clever use of space and strong driving dynamics.
Our family of four sampled the mid-grade Sportline, but does the brand and model still represent value and smarts?
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Jules: I’ve a serious soft spot for Skoda’s Kodiaq.
Iain: why?
Jules: It’s hard to pinpoint the rules of attraction. It’s imposing but not too big, stylish without trying hard and lives up to its “Simply Clever” ad slogan.
Iain: Well, quite clever. It just about seats seven and offers reasonable performance. Skoda’s still a fringe brand, so you feel less sheep-like than you would in a Toyota or Kia.
Jules: Our Kodiaq’s the bad boy. Being the Sportline it’s black on black on black.
Iain: Like a middle management Mafioso not yet able to get a black Mercedes AMG for school drop off.
Jules: If you like.
Iain: Goodies include Matrix LED headlights, animated rear indicators, 20-inch alloys and black grille, roof rails, mirrors and badging.
Jules: What’s this all costing me?
Iain: A reasonable $57,990 drive-away, but Skoda value ain’t what it used to be. Option packs quickly add to the bill, too.
THE LIVING SPACE
Jules: It’s seriously luxurious inside.
Iain: Because of the aforementioned options. It’s $1900 to upgrade from Alcantara sports seats to leather with ventilation; the panoramic sunroof’s $1900 and a $3700 Luxury Pack brings heated front and rear seats, an electric passenger seat and advanced driver aids. Without the latter, safety kit is really wanting.
Jules: So what’s the final bill?
Iain: Wait. There’s more. Paint is $700 and a $2900 Tech Pack adds adaptive chassis control, Canton audio, hands-free tailgate and parking assist. Try $69,160 to drive away.
Jules: Is that Kodiaq RS money?
Iain: It’s $74,990 with those options included, plus you get an extra 48kW from its 180kW 2.0-liter engine.
Jules: That’s me sold. The Sportline’s still lovely though. Great to have a digital dashboard, wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless charging and a 9.2-inch touchscreen.
Iain: It feels sporty. The steering wheel’s chunky, there’s faux carbon dash trim and racy red lighting in the driver display, doors and footwells.
Jules: There’s an umbrella in the door, as well as handy luggage nets and massive storage compartments.
Iain: Not so clever are central cup holders too small for my coffee cup or sports bottle. On the plus side, there’s good storage in the doors, which also house a small waste bin.
THE COMMUTE
Jules: I’m waiting for the Sport in Sportline.
Iain: Keep waiting. There’s only 132kW from the four-cylinder turbo petrol, and it’s got 1750kg to shift.
Jules: It’s an impressive cruiser. Quiet, comfy and the radar cruise control works with the banging sound system to keep me happy.
Iain: I found the seats overly firm, but driver aids are subtly non-invasive. Its dual-clutch gearbox is super slick when up to speed but jerky around town. It’s also sluggish off the line, which caught me out at junctions more than once.
Jules: No chance of a quick three-point-turn, something we mums need at school drop off. There’s a big delay getting between Drive and Reverse.
THE SHOPPING
Iain: They’re cost options, but the hands-free tailgate and birds-eye view camera are brilliant for the supermarket.
Jules: The normal reversing camera is surprisingly poor quality. The massive boot compensates and you can even fit a few shopping bags with all seven seats up.
SUNDAY RUN
Iain: It has impressive cornering skills. The optional adaptive drive mode adjusts things such as damping and steering in Sport mode.
Jules: I love those drive modes. Ambient lighting turns green in Eco, blue in Comfort and red in Sport. There’s even a snow mode and it all turns cool blue. That tickles me.
Iain: It’s good fun to throw into corners and the gearbox is at its best at speed. Steering wheel paddles are a welcome bonus. Grip from the Pirelli tires is good, but they’re quite skinny so you feel harsher bumps through them.
Jules: It is fun on back roads but ours is so closely priced to a Kodiaq RS I’d pay the extra for more power and theatre.
THE FAMILY
Iain: I worry our kids are being brought up in a heated leathery seat bubble.
Jules: They’re spoiled in the middle seats, which recline, slide back and forth and have mini foot rests. The sunblinds are handy, while the huge sunroof bathes the cabin with light.
Iain: Their own climate control is good, but do you know what’s simply not clever? Do not rear USB ports. For a family SUV? That just doesn’t make sense.
Jules: It’s also a bit of a mission accessing the two rear seats.
Yoain: They’re best for kids. I’m six foot and my head’s on the ceiling and knees are jammed in.
Jules: We averaged 8L/100km on the highway and 9.1L/100km overall. Not great as it needs 95 fuel, but at least a $1800 five-year service pack is decent value.
Iain: As for adventuring there’s scope for mild off-roading. It tows 2000kg but the downball weight’s a paltry 80kg.
THE VERDICT
Jules: The Kodiaq is striking to look at and beautiful inside, but those options make it feel expensive compared to Kia, Hyundai and Mazda rivals.
Iain: It’s superb to drive and behold but is missing some standard safety gear, there are no rear USB ports and it’s quite thirsty. It’s not the smart, value pick it once was.
SKODA KODIAQ SPORTLINE VITALS
PRICE From $57,990 drive away
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 5 years/unl’td km warranty, $1800 for 5 years
ENGINE 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo-petrol, 132kW and 320Nm
SAFETY Nine airbags, auto emergency braking, radar cruise control
