News of the day

A peaceful mountain lion took shelter from the storm earlier this week in a Los Gatos backyard before wildlife officials released it back into its habitat Wednesday morning.

The nearly 100-pound cat was spotted sleeping on a fence between Roberts and Blossom Hill roads in Los Gatos Tuesday by residents who called Los Gatos police.

After determining it wasn’t a public safety issue, officers contacted the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Initially we wanted to give it a shot to leave on its own,” said DFW spokesperson Ken Paglia. “Our preferred option is for a wild animal, like a mountain lion, to leave on its own and go back to its habitat on its own. That’s the least invasive means.”

By Wednesday morning the cat was still in the backyard, and wildlife officials used a dart to tranquilize it and transport it back to its habitat for release.

The Los Gatos Monte Sereno Police Department contacted local schools Tuesday after the mountain lion was spotted on the fence, which borders Los Gatos Luxury Cars on Blossom Hill Road.

It’s not totally uncommon to see wildlife in your backyard if you live near the mountains, Paglia said, adding that he’s seen about five mountain lions a year in residential areas.

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“You can imagine that mountain lions’ ranges are splintered by urbanization,” Paglia said. “They sometimes have to travel from one patch of suitable habitat to another patch of suitable habitat, and they have to get there through a residential …read more

Source:: The Mercury News

      

Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer says copycat behavior is a key factor in the mass layoffs sweeping tech, finance, and other industries.

Nancy Rothstein

Industries like tech, media, and finance have slashed thousands of jobs in the past few months.
Companies have cited an economic downturn and a drop in demand for the job cuts.
A Stanford professor says there’s another simpler reason: Companies are blindly copying each other.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. It has been edited for length and clarity.

The idea that human behavior is influenced by what others do is really old. If you’re a pedestrian and you see a stop signal, but no cars are coming and somebody steps into the street, you’ll probably do it too. It’s almost automatic behavior.

We should expect this to also be true in business. A lot of companies were hiring during the pandemic, so everybody decided to hire. Now, companies are laying off, and everybody decided to follow each other and lay people off. A lot of this is just imitation.

Companies don’t throw out their capital equipment the minute market turns down. Hiring and firing like this is expensive. First you pay severance, then you go back into the market and pay recruiters and head hunters. You may also pay bonuses to get people to come work for you.

And when the economy turns down, you do this all over again. These are all extra expenses that companies wouldn’t incur if they had a long-term idea of how many people they needed instead of hiring and firing with every economic fluctuation. If you think about it, companies are essentially buying high and selling low with their employees, which doesn’t make sense.

A lot of companies doing layoffs cite the economic downturn, but many of them aren’t going to run out of money if they avoid layoffs. This is a choice.

When people no longer have jobs, their purchasing power and purchasing activity goes down. So these layoffs help create the very economic downturn that they’re supposedly protecting against.

The companies also try to justify the layoffs by saying there’s been a drop in demand, but you could argue that one of the reasons for that is that all this talk about layoffs has scared everybody. That means fewer companies want to advertise, for example, which …read more

Source:: Business Insider

      

TAMPA — While Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza have been locked in a high-profile competition to become the Yankees’ starting shortstop this spring, the two have also made it a point to get acquainted.

The Yankees had already promoted Peraza to the majors for a cup of coffee last September by the time Volpe reached Triple-A, so they had not had a chance to play together – or hang out – until camp began this year. Both things have changed in Florida, with the 21-year-old Volpe and the 22-year-old Peraza playing up the middle simultaneously on occasion and even taking in a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game together.

“It’s our first time really playing together and being in the same clubhouse, but it’s been amazing,” Volpe told the Daily News. “He’s a great teammate, and someone I want to play with.”

As spring training winds down, however, the Yankees have some decisions to make pertaining to Volpe’s sentiment.

Which prospect – Volpe ranks as the organization’s best, while Peraza is third – will be the shortstop? Could both make the team? Will the trade of a veteran infielder clear space for that? And which would-be rookie would transition to second base, whether it be now or down the road, if the Yankees’ goal is to have the two serve as their middle infield of the future?

While Peraza entered camp with an edge in experience – he appeared in 18 major league games last season, while Volpe logged 22 games at Triple-A – Volpe has enjoyed a superior spring.

Volpe, who led off and manned short behind Opening Day starter Gerrit Cole on Friday in Tampa, began the day slashing .279/.404/.535 with five doubles, two longballs, three RBI and five stolen bases. He then proceeded to homer off the Twins’ own Opening Day starter, Pablo Lopez, belting a first-pitch sweeper to center field for a two-run shot after the Minnesota southpaw struck Volpe out with the same pitch in his first at-bat.

“He’s looked the part,” Aaron Boone said afterward while heaping praise upon the youngster’s in-game adjustment.

Peraza, meanwhile, has had far less success at the plate this spring after he hit .306 over 18 MLB games last season, plus a few postseason starts. He was slashing .171/.293/.314 with two doubles, one dinger, one RBI and two stolen bases before starting at short and hitting second in the Yankees’ Friday night “B” game against the Orioles.

“In both …read more

Source:: The Mercury News

      

There’s a place in the less travelled central region of British Columbia, northwest of Kamloops, where ranch culture lives on. This beautiful area of hills and plateaus hugs the Cariboo and Coastal mountains and offers beautiful scenery and great terrain for horseback riding. It is the traditional territory of many First Nations and there are more than a dozen guest ranches there. Last summer, I spent a week exploring three ranches that offer completely different experiences – each with unique insights and ways to connect in this part of Canada.

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