Stefan Fatsis

Stefan Fatsis (/ˈstɛfən ˈfætsᵻs/; Greek: Στέφανος Φάτσης; born April 1, 1963) is an author and journalist. He regularly appears as a guest on National Public Radio's All Things Considered daily radio news program and as a panelist on Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen. He is a former staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Biography

Fatsis grew up in Pelham, New York. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985 with a degree in American Civilization. He was a staff writer for the Daily Pennsylvanian as an undergraduate. From 1985 to 1994 he was a reporter for The Associated Press in Athens, Greece; Philadelphia; Boston and New York. He wrote about sports for The Wall Street Journal from 1995 to 2006.

He is the author of three books: Wild and Outside: How a Renegade Minor League Revived the Spirit of Baseball in America's Heartland (1995); Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players (2001), about the subculture of tournament Scrabble, in which Fatsis immersed himself as a player; and A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL (2008). That book was published in paperback with the abbreviated title A Few Seconds of Panic: A Sportswriter Plays in the NFL (2009). Fatsis trained as a placekicker and spent the summer of 2006 as a member of the Denver Broncos during the team's training camp (similar to the premise of George Plimpton's 1966 book Paper Lion).

Andy Abraham

Andrew "Andy" Abraham (born 16 July 1964 in North London, England) is a British singer. He was the runner-up in the second UK series of TV talent show The X Factor in 2005 to Shayne Ward, and also represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.

Before applying for The X Factor, Abraham was a refuse collector. Prior to this he worked as a bus driver for Arriva London North based at Palmers Green bus garage. Abraham has two children by his wife Denise, a daughter called Tara and a son called Jacob. He is of Grenadian descent.

Career

2005: The X Factor

Abraham was narrowly beaten to the top spot on The X Factor by Shayne Ward by 1.2% of the national public vote. Abraham was mentored throughout the competition by Sharon Osbourne although fellow judges Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh also praised the singer highly throughout the competition. Other performers who came to prominence in the same series of The X Factor were finalists Journey South and quarter-finalist Chico Slimani.

Mike Pesca

Mike Pesca (born December 29, 1971) is an American radio journalist and podcaster based in New York City. He is the host of Slate magazine's daily podcast, The Gist.

Radio career

Pesca first appeared on radio as a ten-year-old caller to a local New York City sports program, offering his opinion on the New York Jets. In 1997, Pesca got his first job in radio as an intern at the station working on New York & Co which would later become The Leonard Lopate Show.

Pesca went on to work as Producer-At-Large for the WNYC and NPR program On the Media (OTM). He had a recurring segment on OTM called "Mike's Pockets", in which he would "disgorge little bits of media fluff" he encountered. In late 2005, he became the first NPR reporter to have his own podcast, On Gambling with Mike Pesca on which he discussed topics related to gambling. He served as a reporter for NPR and Slate's mid-day show Day to Day, on which he also occasionally filled in as host. Other public radio programs he has guest hosted include The Bryant Park Project, Talk of the Nation, On Point, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and The Brian Lehrer Show.

Slate (magazine)

Slate is an English-language online current affairs, politics and culture magazine in the United States created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company, later renamed the Graham Holdings Company. Since 4 June 2008, Slate has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by the Graham Holdings Company to develop and manage web-only magazines. Slate is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington DC.

A French version (slate.fr) was launched in February 2009 by a group of four journalists, including Jean-Marie Colombani, Eric Leser, and economist Jacques Attali. Among them, the founders hold 50% in the publishing company, while The Slate Group holds 15%. In 2011, slate.fr started a separate site covering African news, Slate Afrique, with a Paris-based editorial staff.

In July 2014, Julia Turner replaced David Plotz who had been editor of Slate since 2008. Plotz had been the deputy editor to Jacob Weisberg, Slate's editor from 2002 until his designation as the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The Slate Group. The Washington Post Company's John Alderman is Slate's publisher.

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.