Council Secretary Bhagwati Singh has said that all necessary arrangements have been ensured to maintain fairness and transparency of evaluation. Evaluation will be conducted at 250 centers in the state from March 18 to April 1.

Answer sheets from 75 collection centers have been sent to the evaluation centres. Training has also been conducted for the teachers and employees appointed on Tuesday. 75 Chief Controllers and 250 Deputy Controllers have been appointed to conduct the evaluation work.

About 4300 auditors, 8550 sub-principal examiners and 83,800 examiners have been appointed to evaluate high school answer sheets. At the intermediate level, about 2590 auditors, 5300 sub-principal examiners and 48,990 examiners have been deployed.

The 2026–27 NFL season will reportedly begin on a Wednesday this year, with the usual Thursday game played in Melbourne, Australia.

Unlike the past two seasons, the league cannot schedule a game on the opening Friday of the season because it falls in the second week of September (not the first). The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 prohibits the NFL from broadcasting games from the second Friday in September until the second Saturday in December, protecting both high school and college football from professional competition. 

The Wednesday game will air on NBC, according to Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal, featuring the Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks. The Melbourne game will likely be part of a new four-game package the NFL is shopping to a streamer as a result of the league’s equity deal with ESPN.

The package is also expected to include an annual Wednesday game on the night before Thanksgiving. YouTube is believed to be the frontrunner for the new slate.

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But while Americans are reluctant to concede there is such a thing as – wait for it — too much football, we maintain that the NFL is diluting its product by further stretching out its national schedule.

The added windows have undermined the NFL’s tradition of a robust Sunday slate. Opening weekend is, put simply, not as strong when four teams have already played by Sunday morning. What’s more, 10 teams will have already played by the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.

With games on Wednesday and Thursday, there is simply less excitement for Sunday’s early, afternoon, and prime-time windows. By Monday, Americans will have already spent three to four days, including Saturday for college football, watching the sport.

Scarcity helped elevate football to America’s new pastime. The NFL is taking that away.

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As the Christmas Day slate last year proved, there are not enough compelling teams to expand the national schedule much further. Adding games on Wednesdays and Fridays only increases the likelihood of sloppy play, uneven rest between opponents, and injuries – all of which hurt the product last season.

International games also tend to be lower quality, as long travel and added obligations interfere with normal practice time. Consider how flat the Kansas City Chiefs looked opening weekend last year in Brazil against the Chargers. That was not a strong showcase for the league. 

Traveling back across the ocean also hinders preparation for the following week.

In theory, the NFL would schedule teams that open on Wednesday against teams that open on Thursday. But the league will likely prioritize scheduling the juiciest matchups instead, creating scenarios in which a team on 11 days of rest faces one on just seven.

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We understand these complaints fall on deaf ears. The NFL is the biggest brand in entertainment in the United States and sees growth potential in expanding internationally and adding more streaming partners. Still, the league ought to consider the toll that pursuing every available form of monetization has on the game itself.

The NFL is not as good as it used to be. There are too many games, windows, and networks involved. The product is undeniably diluted. And yet, the league plans to dilute it even further by adding Wednesday games to the schedule.

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A convicted cybercriminal in Georgia is accused of targeting professional athletes in a brazen phishing scheme that prosecutors say escalated into fraud, identity theft and a disturbing sex trafficking operation.

Kwamaine Jerell Ford, 34, of Buford, Georgia, is charged with nine counts of wire fraud, seven counts of computer fraud, one count of access device fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of sex trafficking, according to a news release from the Northern District of Georgia. 

Ford pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court and will be held without bail pending trial.

The alleged fraud began in November 2020, while Ford was in Federal Bureau of Prisons custody following his 2019 conviction for phishing attacks and spending nearly $325,000 using stolen financial information.

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Prosecutors claim Ford obtained login credentials for Apple accounts belonging to NBA and NFL players by posing online as a well-known adult film star, offering to send sexually explicit videos to the athletes. 

At the same time, he allegedly spoofed legitimate Apple customer service accounts, posed as an Apple support representative, and used victims’ personal information to access videos that his fraudulent adult film star persona had purportedly offered to send, according to court documents.

Through the phishing scheme, dozens of victims were allegedly tricked into providing their login credentials, which Ford then used to access credit and debit card information. Using the stolen financial data, prosecutors say he spent thousands of dollars on personal purchases.

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Months later, Ford began posing as an adult film star and coerced a female victim into engaging in commercial sex acts with numerous professional athletes by falsely promising to advance her modeling career, according to court documents.

Ford allegedly advertised the woman to athletes, coordinated her travel and negotiated payments for sex, according to filings.

Prosecutors say he used fraudulent personas to threaten the woman and maintain her involvement in commercial sex acts, taking a financial cut from the encounters — which were often filmed without the athletes’ knowledge or consent.

APPLE APP PASSWORD SCAM EMAIL WARNING

The alleged scheme took place while Ford was incarcerated for a similar crime.

“While serving time for stealing credit card numbers from athletes and celebrities to fund his lifestyle, Ford allegedly engaged in the same conduct again,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg wrote in a statement. “Disturbingly, the indictment alleges that Ford went even further and used a fraudulent online persona to traffic a young woman and coerce her to produce hidden camera videos of commercial sex acts with unknowing individuals.”

FBI Georgia Acting Special Agent in Charge Peter Ellis said agents remain committed to stopping similar schemes.

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“Kwamaine Ford clearly did not learn from his prior conviction for a similar scheme. This time, he allegedly escalated his criminal activity—stealing identities and money while also moving into coercion and sex trafficking,” Ellis said. “The FBI’s dedicated agents remain committed to staying ahead of schemes like this and protecting the public from individuals who exploit and harm others for personal gain.”

The FBI is continuing to investigate.

White House officials balked at reporting that Vice President JD Vance had been distant from Operation Epic Fury as strikes continued from both Iran and U.S.-Israeli forces in the Middle East Tuesday. 

Critics have claimed that Vance has intentionally distanced himself from public appearances and potentially negotiations related to U.S. active military engagement in Iran and the Middle East. 

“This fake narrative is absolutely laughable to every single person who is in the know in Washington,” a White House official told Fox News Digital. “It’s a classic mainstream media creation.”

ABC News had reported that a senior White House official punched back at the idea that Vance wasn’t present during the early days of the strikes, saying the national security team had been huddled “all day” and “was deliberate on letting the president’s statements and addresses to the nation stand as the operation unfolded.”

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“The vice president and other administration officials conducted multiple media interviews and will continue to do so,” the senior White House official told ABC. “The national security team also held multiple briefing calls with members of the press and key stakeholders after the operation began.”

Vance appeared on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” March 2, making him the first Trump administration official outside of President Donald Trump’s pre-recorded announcement to speak on live TV about the strikes. The interview was one of nine reported public appearances Vance has made since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

During the interview, Vance emphasized the White House’s reasoning behind striking Iran and addressed the idea of an unnecessary, elongated war.

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“President Trump will not get the United States into a years-long conflict with no clear objective,” Vance told Watters. 

“The vice president hasn’t been keeping a low profile,” a spokesperson for Vice President Vance’s office told Fox News Digital. “He’s attended two dignified transfers at Dover Air Force Base, went on primetime TV after the start of Operation Epic Fury, held a press gaggle and delivered two speeches in which he discussed the heroic sacrifice of America’s service members.”

Dignified transfers at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware took place after American soldiers were killed during the beginning days of the U.S. military operation against Iran.

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Reports have also indicated that Vance has been averse to the idea of a war with Iran and alluded to comments the former Ohio senator made about some of the basis for his support for Trump stemming from Trump not having started a war during his first presidential term.

Vance joined Bill Hemmer on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” for a State of the Union reaction on Feb. 25, days before the strike on Iran, and Vance echoed the president’s condemnation of the Middle Eastern country obtaining nuclear weapons. 

“You can’t let the craziest and worst regime in the world have nuclear weapons,” Vance told Hemmer. “That’s what the president is accomplishing. That’s what the president has set as our goal. He’s going to try to accomplish it diplomatically.

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“The president has a number of other tools at his disposal to ensure this doesn’t happen,” Vance continued. “He’s shown a willingness to use them, and I hope the Iranians take it seriously in their negotiations tomorrow, because that’s certainly what the president prefers.”

With regard to the status of the ongoing conflict and his involvement with strategy itself, Vance addressed reporters at an event in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Friday, saying negotiations among White House officials are classified but noting he has been involved with discussions.

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“I sit there with [Secretary of War] Pete Hegseth and [Joint Chiefs Air Force] Gen. [Dan] Caine and [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio and the entire White House team, and the president and I and the entire senior team are talking about the options and about what we need to do and about how we must best protect the American people,” Vance told reporters. 

“I’m not going to show up here and in front of God and everybody else, tell you exactly what I said in that classified room, partially because I don’t want to go to prison and partially because I think it’s important for the president of the United States to be able to talk to his advisors without those advisors running their mouth to the American media.”

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston