When two celebrities, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, took their lives last week, phone numbers for suicide hotlines became ubiquitous in news outlets and on social media. NBC News reported that it brought a surge of calls to crisis hotlines, some of which boosted staffing twice last week. Volunteer suicide prevention group Samaritans of Greater Boston saw calls increase 60 percent between Wednesday, when Spade died, through Saturday, after Bourdain died, over the recent average. “Since these two famous suicides, a lot of people don’t know how to handle this, so it’s great that they pick up the phone and they call the hotlines,” said Angie Kitchell, a volunteer at the Long Island Crisis Center.
Federal investigators have revealed a wide-ranging alleged bribery scheme in men's college basketball, and some experts say the only way to fix the recruiting system is by paying players, NBC News reported.
Prosecutors have alleged that Adidas supplied as much as $150,000 to secure at least three top high school recruits' attendance at two universities sponsored by the shoe company.
College basketball has brought in millions of dollars every year for top-tier colleges, coaches, advertisers and bookmakers, and overhauling it will start with the NCAA.
"There's this underground network already going on of secret deals and corruption," said Marc Edelman, a Baruch College associate law professor who focuses on sports and gambling. "The most reasonable way to resolve this matter would be to overturn the NCAA principle of amateurism, which would force the compensation of college athletes into an open and above-board market."
