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LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has swung back on top of the box office during a holiday weekend where American theaters aimed to lure moviegoers with discounted $3 tickets.
The first “National Cinema Day” nationwide promotion became the highest-attended day of the year, drawing an estimated 8.1 million moviegoers on Saturday, according to The Cinema Foundation. The one-day event – offered on more than 30,000 screens and held in more than 3,000 theaters, including major chains AMC and Regal Cinemas – collected preliminary box office returns of $24.3 million, according to data firm Comscore.
National Cinema Day was intended to flood theaters with moviegoers during a Labor Day weekend, which is traditionally one of the slowest weekends in the industry. The promotion looked to prompt people to return in the fall, inspired by a sizzle reel of the upcoming films from major studios including Disney, Lionsgate, Sony and A24.
“This event outstripped our biggest expectations,” said Jackie Brenneman, president of the Cinema Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the National Association of Theater Owners, in a statement. “The idea of the day was to thank moviegoers for an amazing summer, and now we have to thank them for an amazing day.”
Some other countries have experimented with a similar day of cheap movie tickets, but Saturday’s promotion was the first of its kind on such a large scale in the U.S. Organizers of the National Cinema Day said the event could become an annual fixture.
“This proves that people love going to the theaters,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “Pricing is always a consideration.”
The top three performing movie titles for the day included Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” The Rock and Kevin Hart’s “DC League of Super Pets” and Brad Pitt’s “Bullet Train.” Another top draw was “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which recaptured the No. 1 box office spot for the weekend.
With never-seen footage, the re-release of the Sony and Marvel blockbuster superhero film starring Tom Holland and Zendaya brought in an estimated $6 million. “Top Gun” followed with $5.5 million, “Super Pets” garnered $5.45 million, “Bullet Train” pulled in $5.4 million and last week’s top earner “The Invitation” grossed $4.7 million to round out the top five.
The re-release of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic “Jaws,” on big screens for the first time in 3D, nabbed the final spot among the weekend’s top 10 performers.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” $6 million.
2. “Top Gun: Maverick,” $5.5 million.
3. “DC League of Super Pets,” $5.45 million.
4. “Bullet Train,” $5.4 million.
5. “The Invitation,” $4.7 million.
6. “Beast,” $3.6 million.
7. “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” $3.1 million.
8. “Thor: Love and Thunder,” $2.4 million.
9. “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero,” $2.4 million.
10. “Jaws” (1975), $2.3 million.
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| 2022-09-21T11:42:49Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Sterling Lord, the uniquely enduring literary agent who worked for years to find a publisher for Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and over the following decades arranged deals for everyone from true crime writer Joe McGinniss to the creators of the Berenstain Bears, has died. He had just turned 102.
Lord died Saturday in a nursing home in Ocala, Florida, according to his daughter, Rebecca Lord.
“He had a good death and died peacefully of old age,” she told The Associated Press.
Sterling Lord, who started his own agency in 1952 and later merged with rival Literistic to form Sterling Lord Literistic Inc., was a failed magazine publisher who became, almost surely, the longest-serving agent in the book business. He stayed with the company he founded until he was nearly 100 — and then decided to launch a new one.
He was well-spoken and athletic, a most able negotiator who dressed in tweed and avoided most vices. But he was alert to new trends and an early ambassador for a revolutionary cultural movement: the Beats. With rare persistence, he endured the initial unwillingness of publishers to take on Kerouac’s unorthodox narrative and was later the longtime agent for poet and playwright Amiri Baraka, novelist Ken Kesey and poet and City Lights bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
His full roster of clients produced works about sports, politics, murder and the travails of illustrated animals.
Thanks to his friendship with Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, Lord helped launch Stan and Jan Berenstain’s multimillion-selling books about an anthropomorphic bear family. He negotiated terms between McGinniss and accused killer Jeffrey MacDonald, later convicted, for the true crime classic “Fatal Vision.” He found a publisher for Nicholas Pileggi’s mob story “Wiseguy” and helped arrange the deal for its celebrated film adaptation, “Goodfellas.”
In the early 1960s, Viking had asked Lord to get a blurb from Kerouac for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Kesey’s first and most famous novel. Kerouac declined, but Lord was so impressed by the book that he ended up representing Kesey for his next work, “Sometimes a Great Notion.”
He represented former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Judge John Sirica of Watergate fame and worked often with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis during her time as an editor with Doubleday and Viking. Some of the great sports books of the 20th century, from “North Dallas Forty” to “Secretariat,” were written by his clients.
“A number of things about this business have really caught me and made it a compelling interest,” Lord told the AP in 2013. “First, I’m interested in good writing. Second, I am interested in new and good ideas. And third, I’ve been able to meet some extraordinarily interesting people.”
Lord would also speak proudly of a project he declined: Lyndon Johnson’s memoir. Representatives for the former president informed Lord in the late 1960s that Johnson wanted $1 million for the book and that Lord should accept less than his usual commission for the honor of working with him. Lord turned them down, much to their surprise and anger.
Johnson’s “The Vantage Point,” ultimately published in 1971, was dismissed by critics as bland and uninformative. Lord instead found a deal for “Quotations from Chairman LBJ,” a bestselling parody.
Lord was married four times, and had one child, Rebecca.
Books and tennis were lifelong passions for Lord, born in Burlington, Iowa, in 1920. It began when his mother would read to him after dinner; he went on to edit his high school newspaper and work as a sports stringer around the same time for the Des Moines Register. He also became a tennis star at Grinnell College, and later a good enough player to compete against Don Budge, among others.
His upbringing, he would later write, was the kind of “pleasant, orderly” world “the Beats were trampling on in the fifties and sixties.”
After serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Lord co-owned the Germany-based magazine Weekend, which soon folded. Back in the U.S., he served as an editor at True and Cosmopolitan, from which he was fired, before founding the Sterling Lord Literary Agency. Lord had met many agents during his magazine years and believed they failed to understand that the American public was becoming more urban and sophisticated. He also prided himself on his sympathy for writers who lived far more wildly than he did.
His first marriage, he would acknowledge, helped inspire him to go into business for himself.
“Frankly, I didn’t want to deal with the situation at home,” he told the Des Moines Register in 2015.
Lord had quick success by selling film rights to two popular sports books, Rocky Graziano’s “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and Jimmy Piersall’s “Fear Strikes Out.” But Lord’s “On the Road” quest would prove bumpier.
In his 2013 memoir “Lord of Publishing,” Lord remembered first meeting Kerouac in 1952. Kerouac already had completed a conventional novel, “The Town and the City,” but had no agent and surely needed one for his next book: “On the Road” was typed, as Lord was among the first to know, “on a 120-foot scroll of architectural tracing paper.”
Lord believed that Kerouac had “a fresh, distinctive voice that should be heard.” But the industry was not in the mood. Even younger editors who may have related to Kerouac’s jazzy celebration of youth and personal freedom turned him down. One editor wrote to Lord that “Kerouac does have enormous talent of a very special kind. But this is not a well-made novel, nor a saleable one nor even, I think, a good one.”
By 1955, Kerouac was ready to give up — but Lord was not. The agent eventually sold excerpts to The Paris Review and the periodical New World Writing. An editor from Viking Press contacted Lord, offering an advance of $900. Lord held out for $1,000. In 1957, the book was released, The New York Times raved and “On the Road” soon entered the American canon.
But Kerouac was a shy and fragile man, Lord wrote. Fame magnified a drinking problem that killed him by 1969. Lord even recruited a doctor who unsuccessfully attempted to get Kerouac to clean up, but the businessman eventually backed away since he was his “literary agent, not his life agent.”
Lord attended Kerouac’s funeral, sharing a limousine ride with his client Jimmy Breslin and standing by the grave alongside Allen Ginsberg, “the sunlight filtering through the trees, the leaves brown after losing their fall colors.”
Lord oversaw Kerouac’s numerous posthumous releases even as he battled the author’s family for control of the estate. After years of failed attempts, a filmed version of “On the Road” was released in 2012. But Lord had little involvement in the project, directed by Walter Salles and starring Sam Riley and Kristen Stewart. He didn’t bother to attend a special screening, citing mixed early reviews, and didn’t show up for a private party for the film.
“I decided to go home,” he told the AP in 2013.
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| 2022-09-21T11:42:57Z
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Weeknd suddenly ended his sold-out concert in Southern California after losing his voice during a mid-song performance.
The four-time Grammy winner was performing his third song “Can’t Feel My Face” before he abruptly stopped his show Saturday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. He then walked off stage, eventually returned and told the audience he lost his voice.
While onstage, the Weeknd apologized for canceling the show and promised the audience a refund.
“I’m going to make sure everyone is good, you’ll get your money back,” he told the crowd. “But I’ll do a show real soon for you guys.”
The singer added: “I can’t give you what I want to give you.”
The Weeknd went on social media to explain that he’s devastated after his “voice went out” during the first song.
“Felt it go and my heart dropped,” he wrote. “My deepest apologies to my fans here. I promise I’ll make it up to you with a new date.”
The next tour date scheduled for the “After Hours Til Dawn” tour is Sept. 22 in Toronto.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:04Z
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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Love watching scary movies? You could be paid $1,300 to binge-watch 13 movies based on Stephen King novels this year.
With Halloween right around the corner, USDish.com is inviting Stephen King fans to apply for their ‘Stephen King Scream Job.’
Applications will be accepted until Sept. 16. To apply, head to the website. In addition to being 18 years old and a U.S. resident, you’ll need to share why you want to be frightened by the films in less than 200 words.
“For bonus points, they can include a video of why this is the scream job for them,” USDish.com said in a press release.
If selected for the Scream Job, you’ll receive a ‘survival kit’ swag bag and a Fitbit to help you track your heart rate while watching the films.
The winner will be asked to note how things are going during their movie-watching experience, like their heart rate, what movies are their favorite or least favorite, if they’re watching the movies alone, and more.
While there are dozens of films based on King’s books, USDISH.com narrowed its list down to 13 spooky classics for the Scream Job:
- “Carrie” (original or 2013 remake)
- “Christine”
- “Creepshow”
- “Cujo”
- “Doctor Sleep”
- “Firestarter” (original or 2022 remake)
- “It” (original or 2017 remake)
- “It Chapter Two”
- “Misery”
- “The Mist”
- “Pet Sematary” (original or 2019 remake)
- “Salem’s Lot”
- “The Shining”
The website has also created a “Stephen King Watch Guide” that any fan of the films can follow.
You can visit USDish.com for more information and how to apply.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:12Z
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(NEXSTAR) – Nirvana’s 1991 album “Nevermind” is back in the news thanks to a lawsuit filed by Spencer Elden, the now-grown man whose baby photo graces the album’s cover art.
Elden, 30, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging that the photo — in which he’s depicted naked, underwater and swimming toward a dollar bill on a fish hook — constitutes child pornography. He’s seeking $150,000 from each of the 17 named defendants, which include the band members, record executives and Courtney Love, the former wife of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, Variety reported.
Elden also claims his parents were only compensated $200 for the rights to the photo but never actually signed a release, though a representative for the named defendants has not responded publicly.
It is well documented, however, that Geffen Records at least expressed some concern when they saw the proposed album artwork back in 1991. According to a band biographer Michael Azerrad, who wrote “Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana,” Geffen’s art director Robert Fisher was even preparing to airbrush the infant’s genitals from the photo to alleviate the sales’ department’s concerns.
Cobain responded with a suggestion of his own: placing a sticker over the baby’s penis. But not just any sticker — Cobain specifically conceived of a sticker reading, “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.” Elden’s lawsuit, too, mentions this quote directly.
The record was ultimately released without the sticker, and Cobain even claimed that the now-defunct Parents Music Resource Center (responsible for the Parental Advisory stickers included on explicit albums) didn’t really have a problem with the photo, per an archived interview with Hot Metal cited by Snopes.
The album cover went on to become one of the most iconic of all time. Elden, too, appeared to embrace his contribution, recreating the pose several times for the album’s anniversaries.
At times, however, he admitted to at least feeling “creepy” upon realizing so many people have seen him naked.
“I feel like I’m the world’s biggest porn star,” he told MTV in 2007.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:19Z
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John Wherry will wait until later in the fall to consider getting an updated COVID-19 booster. The University of Pennsylvania immunologist knows it’s too soon after his shot late this summer, especially since he’s not at high risk from the virus.
It’s the kind of calculation many Americans will face as booster shots that target currently circulating omicron strains become available to a population with widely varying risks and levels of immunity.
Here are some things to know:
HOW ARE THE NEW BOOSTERS DIFFERENT?
They’re combination or “bivalent” shots that contain half the original vaccine that’s been used since December 2020 and half protection against today’s dominant omicron versions, BA.4 and BA.5. It’s the first update to COVID-19 vaccines ever cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.
WHO’S ELIGIBLE?
Updated shots made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are authorized for anyone 12 and older, and rival Moderna’s version is for adults. They’re to be used as a booster for anyone who’s already had their primary vaccination series — using shots from any U.S.-cleared company — and regardless of how many boosters they’ve already gotten.
IF I JUST GOT ONE OF THE ORIGINAL BOOSTERS, SHOULD I GET THE NEW KIND RIGHT AWAY?
No. The FDA set the minimum wait time at two months. But advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s better to wait longer. Some advise at least three months, another said someone who’s not at high risk might wait as long as six months.
“If you wait a little more time, you get a better immunologic response,” said CDC adviser Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University.
That’s because someone who recently got a booster already has more virus-fighting antibodies in their bloodstream. Antibodies gradually wane over time, and another shot too soon won’t offer much extra benefit, explained Wherry, who wasn’t involved with the government’s decision-making.
WHAT IF I RECENTLY RECOVERED FROM COVID-19?
It’s still important to get vaccinated even if you’ve already been infected — but timing matters here, too.
The CDC has long told people to defer vaccination until they’ve recovered but also that people may consider waiting for three months after recovering to get a vaccination. And several CDC advisers say waiting the three months is important, both for potentially more benefit from the shot and to reduce chances of a rare side effect, heart inflammation, that sometimes affects teen boys and young men.
HOW MUCH BENEFIT WILL THE NEW BOOSTERS OFFER?
That’s not clear, because tests of this exact recipe have only just begun in people.
The FDA cleared the new boosters based in large part on human studies of a similarly tweaked vaccine that’s just been recommended by regulators in Europe. Those tweaked shots target an earlier omicron strain, BA.1, that circulated last winter, and studies found they revved up people’s virus-fighting antibodies.
With that earlier omicron version now replaced by BA.4 and BA.5, the FDA ordered an additional tweak to the shots — and tests in mice showed they spark an equally good immune response.
There’s no way to know if antibodies produced by an omicron-matched booster might last longer than a few months. But a booster also is supposed to strengthen immune system memory, adding to protection against serious illness from the ever-mutating virus.
HOW DO WE KNOW THEY’RE SAFE?
The basic ingredients used in both omicron-targeting updated vaccines are the same. Testing by Pfizer and Moderna of their BA.1-targeted versions proved safe in human studies and CDC’s advisers concluded the additional small recipe change should be no different.
Flu vaccines are updated every year without human trials.
CAN I GET A NEW COVID-19 BOOSTER AND A FLU SHOT AT THE SAME TIME?
Yes, one in each arm.
WHAT IF I WANT TO WAIT?
People at high risk from COVID-19 are encouraged to get the new booster when they’re due. After all, BA.5 still is spreading widely and hospitalization rates in older adults have increased since spring.
Most Americans eligible for an updated booster have gone at least six months since their last shot, according to the CDC — plenty of time that another shot should trigger a good immune response.
But the original formula still offers good protection against severe illness and death, especially after that all-important first booster. So it’s not uncommon for younger and healthier people to time boosters to take advantage of a shot’s temporary jump in protection against even a mild infection, like Wherry did.
A healthy 51-year-old, Wherry said he postponed the second booster recommended for his age for seven months, until late summer — just before an international trip that he knew would increase his risk from unmasked crowds.
With the updated boosters now rolling out, he plans to evaluate in four or five months — when presumably his antibody level starts waning and he’s planning holiday gatherings, whether he’d benefit from another shot.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:26Z
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — Updated COVID-19 boosters are expected to be available in Texas by next week, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Doses of the vaccine booster are expected to be shipped to clinics, health departments, hospitals, and pharmacies across the state over the next few days. The department said the upgraded vaccines are authorized and recommended for use.
About 900,000 doses of the updated vaccine were allocated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total included 502,500 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 192,800 doses of the Moderna vaccine, according to DSHS.
A release said retail pharmacies like H-E-B, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart would have about 200,000 doses available.
According to DSHS, the upgraded booster helps protect against the original COVID-19 strain as well as the omicron variant.
“The updated Pfizer booster is authorized for people at least 12 years old, and the Moderna booster is for people 18 and older,” DSHS said. “People can get the updated booster as long as it has been at least two months since they completed any primary COVID-19 vaccine series or gotten a previous booster.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:32Z
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(The Conversation) – Abortion travel isn’t new. People have been crossing national and state borders to get abortion care since the 1960s when air travel became more common and affordable.
The number of people who need to travel and the distances they must travel for care will increase following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
As a sociologist who studies gender, reproduction and health, I have interviewed hundreds of women who have sought abortions, many of whom had to travel for care. My recent study on the experiences of people who had to travel across state lines for abortion care can help people better understand what costs abortion patients face when they have to travel. For those living in states that have restricted abortion, traveling for a procedure can be expensive, daunting, and lonely.
1. Why do people travel for abortion care?
People travel for medical care for many reasons. In the case of abortion travel, they are typically traveling because abortion is either legally restricted or unavailable in their home area. To get an abortion, they have no choice but to travel.
As of late August 2022, about half of the states in the U.S. have already restricted or are expected to heavily restrict abortion. Abortion seekers in those states may opt to travel to another state where abortion remains legal, as many Texans did following the implementation of their state’s highly restrictive law in 2021.
2. What are the main costs of traveling for abortion care?
Most people rightly anticipate that abortion travel entails expenses like gas money or plane tickets, and hotel charges. As research shows that most abortion patients are at or just above the federal poverty line, it is easy to see that these costs alone could represent a substantial burden.
But traveling for an abortion often also includes numerous other costs. For instance, most abortion patients are already parenting children, so they must figure out childcare logistics when they have to travel for abortion care. People who do not have access to a reliable vehicle may need to rent a car to make a long-distance drive across state borders.
Abortion funds – nonprofit organizations that provide practical and financial support to people seeking abortion care – can help people who are financially struggling navigate some of these costs. But often, this aid isn’t sufficient to cover all costs. There are also real questions about whether funds can meet the growing demand.
And then there is the issue of lost wages during the time a patient must spend traveling. For many people engaged in hourly work, when you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Some companies, like Starbucks and Dick’s Sporting Goods, are offering financial support to employees who travel for an abortion.
Abortion travel can also entail emotional costs. I’m currently working on a new study based on interviews with 30 women from around the U.S. about the emotional impacts of having to travel out of state for abortion care. Based on these interviews, I’ve learned that having to travel for abortion care can mean the stress of having to navigate a new place. For some people, this could be their first time in that city or even away from home. It also means being removed from their usual support systems and the physical and emotional comforts of home. This, too, can take an emotional toll.
And, of course, having to travel means having to explain to others – including co-workers and family members – why they are traveling, which can also come at a high personal and emotional cost.
3. Are there any positives to traveling for abortion care?
There is not much work on this question to date. Most research on abortion travel has focused on its negative aspects. But in my research, some of the women who had to travel for abortion care talked about how much they appreciated the emotional support they received in their destination clinic – especially after the hostility to abortion they had experienced in their home communities.
Seeking out nonjudgmental, compassionate care might motivate someone to prefer to travel for abortion care. But in the post-Roe landscape, few will have that luxury. Rather, travel will be a necessity, not a choice. Even with the possibility of emotional benefits, travel for abortion care exacts clear and substantial costs.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:38Z
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AUSTIN (KXAN) – More than $31 million in grants will be distributed to veterans across Texas, according to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Veterans Commission.
“This grant funding was approved by TVC Commissioners in May and will total 139 grants awarded to 121 organizations across Texas. These grants are estimated to serve more than 22,000 Texas veterans,” Abbott said.
According to a release, the grants support a wide range of services, including emergency financial assistance, transportation, legal services, family support services, home modification, and rental and mortgage assistance.
There are five categories where the TVC awards the grants: General Assistance, Housing for Texas Heroes, Veterans Mental Health Grants, Veterans Treatment Courts, and Veteran County Service Officers.
Abbott said the first round of grants was given to 16 organizations this week for financial assistance, peer support, treatment court, home modification, and other services to veterans and their families.
Stops listed for grant distribution were Edinburg, New Braunfels, San Marcos, Houston, Tyler, Dallas, Lubbock and El Paso.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:46Z
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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include additional comments from Amazon.
(NEXSTAR) – It isn’t just inflation that will be driving up the price of your holiday shopping. Some companies and delivery services are adding extra fees to cover the cost of getting your package where it needs to go. Amazon is among them, adding a “Holiday Peak Fulfillment Fee.”
The fulfillment fee for third-party sellers that use Amazon fulfillment kicks in Oct. 15 and lasts until Jan. 14 of next year. Amazon says the average surcharge will be about 35 cents per item, though the exact amount varies by size and weight.
While customers aren’t being hit with the surcharge directly, it’s another cost that may be passed on.
“The sellers eventually will increase their prices to the consumer in order to make up those prices,” explained Brendan Heegan, founder of logistics and fulfillment company Boxzooka. “Those prices may not be that noticeable at first, but they will continue to add up.”
An Amazon spokesperson said the company does not anticipate customers will be impacted by the fee for sellers.
The United States Postal Service, FedEx, and UPS have all announced similar holiday surcharges this year.
“Our selling partners are incredibly important to us, and this is not a decision we made lightly,” Amazon said in a letter to sellers affected by the price hike. “The entire industry sees increases in fulfillment and logistics costs during the holiday peak period due to the concentrated volume of shipments. We have previously absorbed these cost increases, but seasonal expenses are reaching new heights.”
An Amazon spokesperson told Nexstar it’s the first time the company has implemented such a fee. The company said that even with the temporary surcharge, its fulfillment services are faster and cheaper than services provided by its competitors.
Even as we continue to hear news of rising prices on goods and services across sectors, there is hope we may have seen the worst of it. Inflation eased in July as energy prices tumbled.
“Inflation appears to have peaked in mid-2022 and should slow on a year-over-year basis through the rest of this year and in 2023,″ said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services.
Shipping costs have gone down for at least one business. Nick Zawitz, who runs Tangle Creations, a South San Francisco company that makes Fidget Toys, among others, said that shipping costs have plunged and raw materials prices have dropped slightly. Meanwhile, the company’s sales are up 45% over the past year. “Things are chugging along,’’ Zawitz said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:43:53Z
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BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets declined Monday after Wall Street ended last week lower and China tightened anti-virus controls.
Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and South Korea declined. Oil prices rose more than $1 per barrel while the euro edged lower.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index ended down 1.1% on Friday after U.S. government data showed hiring slowed in August. The number of jobs added still was big enough that forecasters said the Federal Reserve might see it as evidence more interest rate hikes are needed to bring down inflation that is at a four-decade high.
Asian trading may be “muted to lower” after Wall Street’s “failed attempt” at a rebound following the jobs report, said Yeap Jun Rong of IG in a report.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost less than 0.1% to 3,185.29 after the Chinese government tightened controls on movement in the southern business center of Shenzhen following virus outbreaks.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost 0.1% to 27,610.75 while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong tumbled 1.8% to 19,105.24.
The Kospi in Seoul lost 0.1% to 2,406.58 while Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 added 0.1% to 6,837.50.
New Zealand declined while Singapore and Indonesia advanced.
Traders are uneasily watching the Fed after chair Jerome Powell said Aug. 26 that interest rates have to stay elevated to extinguish pressure for prices to rise. That dashed hopes the Fed might back of due to signs U.S. economic activity is cooling.
The Fed has raised interest rates four times this year, twice by 0.75 percentage points, triple its usual margin.
Central banks in Europe and Asia also have raised rates, fueling worries they might derail global economic growth.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell 1.1% on Friday after the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added 315,000 jobs in August. That was down markedly from July’s 526,000, but average hourly pay also jumped by an unusually wide margin of 5.2% compared with a year earlier.
Forecasters warned that high wage gains might reinforce the Fed’s belief that more aggressive rate hikes are needed.
The Nasdaq composite lost 1.3%.
The U.S. market has given up much of the gains made in July and August when traders hoped the Fed might ease up.
Traders expect another 0.75 percentage point rate hike at this month’s Fed meeting, according to CME Group.
Also Friday, Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom announced a suspension of gas supply through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany might be prolonged. The company said last Wednesday the flow of gas would be stopped for three days due to urgent maintenance work.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude gained $1.48 to $88.35 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 26 cents to $86.87 on Friday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, added $1.59 to $94.61 per barrel in London. It advanced 66 cents the previous session to $93.02.
The dollar advanced to 140.28 yen from Friday’s 140.13 yen. The euro declined to 99.18 cents from 99.64 cents.
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| 2022-09-21T11:44:08Z
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BERLIN (AP) — Germany will invest an additional 65 billion euros (dollars) in a new round of measures aimed at easing the sting of inflation and high energy prices for consumers, the country’s governing coalition announced Sunday.
“Germany stands together in a difficult time. As a country, we will get through this difficult time,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a Sunday news conference with leaders from the Greens and the pro-business FDP, the two coalition partners of his center-left Social Democrats.
Among the measures announced Sunday are additional one-time payments to help consumers cover energy costs, a planned price cap on a basic amount of energy consumption for families and individuals, and a successor to the country’s popular “9-euro ticket” for nationwide public transit.
Scholz said he’s “very aware” many Germans are struggling to cope with the rising prices and that the government is prepared to help. “We take these concerns very, very seriously,” he said.
In addition to the previously announced one-off 300-euro payments for workers to help offset energy costs, the government plans to offer one-time payments for other groups. Retirees will receive 300 euros, for example, while students will receive 200 euros.
To keep energy costs lower for individuals and families, the government announced a “price brake” on energy prices, saying it plans to offer a to-be-determined basic amount of energy to all at a lower rate.
The government will also develop a successor to its “9-euro ticket,” a nationwide ticket allowing unlimited travel on local and regional public transit. The 9-euro-per-month ticket was announced for three months at the beginning of June as part of a government program intended to help combat high inflation and fuel prices.
Although officials did not announce the new monthly price for this ticket going forward, the agreement released by the coalition pointed to suggestions of 49 euros or 69 euros and said it aims to offer something in this range.
Additional measures planned as part of the package include higher subsidies for families with children, a reform of housing subsidies and larger payments for low-income individuals receiving government aid.
Scholz’s government has faced pressure in recent weeks to indicate how it planned to follow through on its promise to help consumers shoulder the costs of inflation and higher energy prices.
In addition to rising wholesale prices for natural gas caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, German consumers will have to pay a new surcharge to prop up energy companies scrambling to find new supplies on the global market.
Scholz blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for Germany’s high energy prices, saying Russia “has broken its contract” and “is no longer a reliable energy supplier.”
Back in July, when the government first began implementing measures to head off an energy crisis, Scholz promised to ease the sting on consumers, saying “you’ll never walk alone.”
In recent weeks, the government had announced other actions to aid consumers, including the one-time payments of 300 euros for workers and lowering value-added tax on gas from 19% to 7% until the end of March 2024.
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| 2022-09-21T11:44:22Z
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At a 131-year-old maritime academy along Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, people who will build the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm are learning the skills to stay safe while working around turbines at sea.
Some take to the tasks fairly easily since they’re veterans of marine fields or construction. For others, it’s totally new to be using fall protection and sea survival equipment, climbing from a boat onto a ladder to get to a turbine and learning how to work hundreds of feet in the air.
Offshore wind developers are hiring, after years of touting the promise of tens of thousands of jobs the industry could create in the United States. To launch this new clean energy industry, they now need plenty of workers with the right training and skills.
“It’s the sheer number of people we’re going to need in the timeframe that we need them,” said Jennifer Cullen, senior manager of labor relations and workforce development at Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts. “We’re combating this sense of, we’ve been talking about it for so long, … is it actually coming? We’re telling people, yes, it’s here, it’s now.
“We’re building the turbines next year and we’re going to be building many more wind farms after this,” she added.
Vineyard Wind is on track to be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S. The development follows the Cape Wind project, which would’ve been closer to the Massachusetts shore but failed after years of litigation and local opposition.
The Massachusetts Maritime Academy is the only place in Massachusetts currently offering the basic safety training designed by a nonprofit founded by wind turbine manufacturers and operators — the Global Wind Organisation — though training is offered in other states. Everyone who will go to a wind farm offshore must complete safety training, and most developers meet the requirement with the GWO program.
The course draws union workers and others eager to work on future wind farms that the Biden administration wants to dot U.S. coastlines to help fight climate change. President Joe Biden set a goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, to power more than 10 million homes and create 80,000 jobs.
The payoff for offshore wind trainees is jobs with an average salary approaching $80,000 a year.
Before arriving at the academy, students complete about six hours of online coursework.
Then, wearing waterproof suits, they practice stepping off a vessel in Buzzards Bay and onto a boarding ladder connected to a turbine — a dangerous part of the job, especially in rough seas.
The students step off the pier into the chilly bay waters to learn how to safely abandon a vessel or the turbine in an emergency. They inflate a life raft, climb in, and right it when it’s upside down.
To prepare for working at heights, they use a harness and fall protection gear to ascend and descend a turbine’s ladder. They practice lowering themselves by ropes from a 20-foot (6.1-meter) platform in case of emergency evacuation. And they rescue a fellow student who feigns being injured.
A day is devoted to first aid basics and CPR, and they put out a small fire with extinguishers.
Many trainees will be headed to work on Vineyard Wind, 15 miles (24 kilometers) off the Massachusetts coast. With 62 turbines, the project is expected to produce 800 megawatts — enough electricity annually to power more than 400,000 homes, beginning in late 2023. Work began onshore late last year.
Daniel Szymkowiak, a 36-year-old engineer, used to work offshore in the oil and gas industry. He took the maritime academy course in August, and now works on wind farm subsea cables for Vineyard Wind.
Szymkowiak changed careers, he said, because working in renewable, wind energy made him feel better about the world’s future.
“It’s up and coming. To be the first commercial project in the states, that’s exciting,” he said. “To make a positive change for our country, to bring across new opportunities, that’s exactly why I’m here.”
The maritime academy, founded in 1891, has historically focused on Coast Guard-approved training for professional mariners. Anticipating needs of the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry, it expanded its courses in support of offshore wind in 2019.
Over 200 people have completed the basic safety training at the academy’s Maritime Center for Responsible Energy, in collaboration with RelyOn Nutec. The center plans to use grant funding to expand its offshore wind courses with basic technical training, enhanced first aid and advanced rescue, said Michael Burns, executive director of the maritime center. The safety course, offered twice a month, is booked through the end of the year.
In the classes, there’s a sense of excitement to work offshore, take on a new challenge and help launch the industry, Burns said. He expects to see more schools and companies offering the training to meet the growing demand.
“We want to do everything in our power to do our part to help ensure these projects are able to go off on their intended timelines,” Burns said.
In neighboring Rhode Island, Danish wind developer Orsted and utility Eversource are partnering with the state, the Community College of Rhode Island and union leaders to start a basic safety training course there too. Orsted and Eversource are planning to build Revolution Wind, a 400-megawatt wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, to provide power for Connecticut and Rhode Island.
The first U.S. offshore wind farm opened off Rhode Island’s Block Island in late 2016. But with five turbines, it’s not commercial scale.
Cullen, of Vineyard Wind, said the role of the training is to qualify people to work for a variety of developers and to ramp up the workforce. Vineyard Wind is also working with a Martha’s Vineyard program to prepare local residents for jobs as technicians.
Tyler Spofford has been working for GE Offshore Wind since January. The 35-year-old left his job as a tugboat captain to spend more time with his family.
Spofford said he’s excited the offshore wind industry is creating jobs, especially for mariners in the Northeast. There were few workboat jobs in the region after he earned his degree and license in 2009 at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. That led him to the Gulf of Mexico, where he worked in the oil and gas industry.
“Pretty much since I got out of school, offshore wind was always a thing that was kind of being discussed, but nothing was really ever happening that was to scale,” he said.
Then, Spofford said, the “stars aligned.” He now helps assess the Vineyard Wind project’s needs for vessels, assists in sourcing and contracting for the vessels, and will manage them. He took the maritime academy course in August.
“It kind of feels like we’re a part of this startup in a way,” he said. “We’re up against a lot of challenges. It’s kind of fun to think them through and solve them and come up with a product and something that’s going to work, a solution.”
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Follow Jennifer McDermott on Twitter: @JenMcDermottAP
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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| 2022-09-21T11:44:30Z
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NORRTALJE, Sweden (AP) — Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Sunday was on the campaign trail a week before Sweden’s national election to tackle fears over gang violence and rising electricity bills.
Andersson traveled by bus to communities near Stockholm to try to reassure voters. The election on Sept. 11 comes amid a sense of rising insecurity, with a spate of shootings in Sweden making crime a key campaign issue.
Russia’s war against Ukraine led Sweden, along with Finland, to take the historic step of applying to join NATO. That step has reassured many, and is so uncontested it hasn’t been an issue in the campaign before the election.
But Andersson said that Russia’s energy “warfare” against Europe, including a cutoff of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany, has become an issue that voters keep raising with her as she campaigns for her left-wing Swedish Democratic party.
“Many people are concerned with their electricity bills given Putin’s warfare on energy,” the 55-year-old leader said in comments to The Associated Press after a visit at a senior community center in Norrtalje, a town to the north of Stockholm.
“I mean he has a military invasion in Ukraine, but he also has energy warfare against Europe, so people are very concerned with electricity bills but also with criminality and climate.”
Her government pledged Saturday to provide $23 billion in liquidity guarantees to electricity companies, a step that followed the cutoff to Nord Stream 1, and was meant to prevent a financial crisis.
Another concern for Andersson is the rising popularity of a populist far-right party with its historical roots in the Nazi movement, the Sweden Democrats.
The party, which has worked to mainstream its image, is closer to power than it has ever been, causing many Swedish voters to fear that it could end up with a key position of power in a right-wing coalition. The anti-migrant party has gained in popularity as the country has struggled to integrate large numbers of migrants. Critics fear its roots in the extreme far right make it a threat to the county’s democratic foundations.
Polls show that a right-wing coalition including the Sweden Democrats has a chance at winning power, though the race is expected to be close.
Andersson told the AP she is concerned, noting that an employee of the right-wing party sent out an email last week inviting people to celebrate the Nazi invasion of Poland 83 years ago.
“That kind of invitation would never happen in any other parties in Sweden. Having said that, many of the voters of the Sweden Democratic party, they are decent people that are disappointed with the development,” she said.
Against the backdrop of shootings and the challenge from the right, the Social Democrats have been toughening up their stance in recent years. In this campaign, the party has been promising tougher measures to fight crime along with promises to preserve the Scandinavian country’s famous welfare protections.
Andersson and her party said she believes the problems can be tackled together, and that the welfare system is one of the best weapons for fighting crime.
Andersson told the AP that her solution to crime involves building up the police force and putting more of the criminals behind bars, while also tackling the social roots of the problem.
“We also have to work harder to prevent new generations from choosing a criminal life. And I think the only way to do that is to stop the segregation that we have in Sweden,” she said.
Andersson traveled in a large red bus emblazoned with the words “our Sweden can do better.” After leaving the senior center, she headed to a fair on park grounds in Botkyrka where party campaigners wore T-shirts saying “I vote for Magdalena” and where families from multicultural immigrant backgrounds lined up for pony rides and other attractions.
Andersson is Sweden’s first-ever female prime minister. She took job last November after her predecessor, Stefan Lofven, resigned after leading the party and country since 2014.
While she has to fight the perception that her party hasn’t managed to stem the gang violence ailing the country. In her favor is a reputation for being a steady and competent hand who has governed with a thin majority and through a time of geopolitical upheaval.
At the party fair, Annelie Gustafsson, a 45-year-old mother carrying her daughter on her shoulders, wouldn’t say who she was voting for. But she made clear her vote was meant to keep the Sweden Democrats out of power. She opposes their unwelcoming stance to migrants, which Gustafsson feels undermines the country’s tradition of being a humanitarian refuge.
“This year it was about which party I don’t want to see running the country, and that’s really important for me,” she said. “I’m proud of being Swedish, I’m proud of the people here, and that we help other people. … So closing the country, that’s not for me.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:44:45Z
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ABOARD USS KEARSARGE (AP) — U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge is taking part in international training in the Baltic Sea amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and tensions in the region.
The Kearsarge is the first ship of the Wasp class to take part in international training in the Baltic in at least two decades. Associated Press journalists visited the ship last week.
“It’s a first off for us in recent memory and it’s been very exciting,” said Capt. Tom Foster, the commanding officer of the Kearsarge.
With some other U.S. Navy ships, the Kearsarge has been training for several months with the militaries of Sweden and Finland, which formally applied to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The training mission is to promote safety and security in the region.
“In the past several months, we have been operating in the Baltics and in the Mediterranean,” said Capt. Aaron Kelley, commander of the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group.
“We’ll continue to operate in those areas. And always the goal there is promoting safety and security in those regions and in international waters,” Kelley said.
The USS Kearsarge allows for training by such aircraft as AV-8B Harriers, UH-1 Y Venom and AH- 1Z Viper helicopters as well as MV-22 Osprey planes.
The Baltic Sea countries are Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Denmark.
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| 2022-09-21T11:44:52Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (NewsNation) — New details in the abduction of Eliza Fletcher were revealed Sunday morning when NewsNation affiliate WREG obtained a copy of the police affidavit. The records indicate that the abduction was violent and caught on camera.
A man riding his bike around 6:45 a.m. on Sept. 2 discovered Fletcher’s cell phone and a pair of Champion brand slides. WREG reported the items were later turned over to the Memphis Police for testing and analysis.
Police said surveillance footage showed a man violently and quickly approach Fletcher before forcing her into the passenger side of a GMC Terrain with passenger-side tail light damage.
According to police records, the vehicle sat in the parking lot for 4 minutes before driving away. Records also state the GMC Terrain in question was seen 24 minutes before the abduction in surveillance footage.
DNA found on the slides belonged to Cleotha Abston, the individual Memphis Police charged in connection to the abduction earlier Sunday morning.
“At this point in the investigation, Cleotha Abston, 38, has been charged with Especially Aggravated Kidnapping and Tampering with Evidence,” the Memphis police tweeted.
Cleotha was detained on Saturday in connection to Fletcher’s abduction.
Investigators also managed to recover surveillance video showing Abston wearing the same slides days before the abduction. In addition, investigators tracked Abston’s cell phone number and location history, which placed him in the vicinity of the abduction at approximately the same time it happened.
When authorities arrived at Abston’s last known address on Saturday, they found the GMC Terrain in question, with passenger-side tail light damage backed into a parking space.
Abston immediately tried to run from the police but was eventually captured by the U.S. Marshals.
Investigators also interviewed a woman who said after the abduction, Abston was behaving in an odd manner. The witness advised investigators Abston was in a strange mood and vigourously cleaning the interior of his car with carpet cleaner as well as washing his clothes in the house’s sink.
After his arrest, Abston refused to provide Fletcher’s location.
Fletcher remains missing and investigators continue a rigorous search with speculation Fletcher suffered serious injury during the abduction.
According to police records, “As the abduction was violent with, as captured on video, the suspect waiting for, then rushing toward the victim, then forcing the victim into the vehicle, where she was confined and removed and continues to be missing, it is believed and supported by the facts and physical evidence that she suffered serious injury. Further, it is probable and apparent from witness statements that these injuries left evidence, e.g. blood, in the vehicle that the Defendant cleaned.”
A second person has been charged during the investigation but is not believed to be connected to Fletcher’s abduction.
Police said 36-year-old Mario Abston was charged with “Possession of a Controlled Substance w/ Intent to Manufacture & Sell Fentanyl, Possession of a Controlled Substance w/ Intent to Manufacture and Sell Heroin, & Convicted Felon in Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Dangerous Felony.”
Memphis police, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI have been urgently searching for Fletcher, 34, who was last seen at about 4:20 a.m. Friday.
Fletcher was jogging near the University of Memphis campus when a man approached her and forced her into an SUV after a brief struggle, university police said. Authorities said she was reported missing when she did not return home from her regular morning run.
The mother of two is described as being 5-foot-6 and 137 pounds with brown hair and green eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink jogging top and purple running shorts.
Fletcher’s cellphone and water bottle were discovered in front of a house owned by the university, police said.
Fletcher is the granddaughter of the late Joseph Orgill III, an extremely wealthy businessman who owned hardware distributor Orgill Inc., a company worth an estimated $3.2 billion, according to Forbes. Fletcher is the heiress of the company.
“We look forward to Eliza’s safe return and hope that this award will help the police capture those who committed this crime,” Fletcher’s family said in a statement released Friday night through Crimestoppers.
A $50,000 reward is being offered for information on the case.
Authorities have asked the public for assistance, stating that if anyone has any information concerning the investigation, they should report it immediately to the police.
This remains to be an active and ongoing investigation.
NewsNation affiliate WREG contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:44:59Z
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Disclaimer: All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – A man who was arrested on Sunday after Shreveport police responded to a call for shots fired is also charged with other weapons charges in connection with a shooting on August 8.
Da’mon Lewis, 33, was taken into custody after SPD officers responded to shots fired call just before 2 p.m. Sunday in the 6100 block of Linwood Avenue.
Lews was also identified by witnesses as a person who fired shots in the 6500 block of Central Street on the morning of August 8.
Lewis, who pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder when he was only 17 years old, was taken into custody at the scene.
According to Shreveport police booking information, Lewis is charged with illegally possessing a firearm, a felon in possession of a firearm, and one count of aggravated assault with a firearm.
In a Bill of Information dated Sept. 7, 2006, the then 17-year-old Lewis was charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of an attempted armed robbery on May 23, 2006.
He also had five additional armed robbery charges and an aggravated burglary charge that stemmed from a crime spree over the three days of May, 31-June 2, 2006.
It is unknown whether Lewis had any prior criminal convictions, as he turned 17 on Apr. 15, 2006, and anything before that would have been a juvenile offense. Juvenile records are sealed in the state of Louisiana.
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:07Z
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WELDON, Saskatchewan (AP) — One of the suspects in the stabbing deaths of 10 people in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan has been found dead, and his injuries are not self inflicted, police said Monday as they continued the search for a second suspect.
Regina Police Chief Evan Bray said Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead near the stabbing sites and they believe his brother, Myles Sanderson, 30, is injured, on the run and likely in the provincial capital of Regina. It was the first time police have identified the two as brothers.
“His body was located outdoors in a heavily grassed area in proximity to a house that was being examined. We can confirm he has visible injuries. These injuries are not believed to be self inflicted at this point,” said RCMP Commanding Officer Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, adding they were not sure of the exact cause of death yet.
Asked if Myles Sanderson was responsible for his brother’s death, Blackmore said police are investigating that possibility, but “we can’t say that definitively at this point in time.″
The discovery of the body came on the second day of a massive manhunt for the pair, who are suspected of carrying out a series of stabbings in an Indigenous community and a nearby town, which also left 18 people injured. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the nation’s history.
Authorities have said some of the victims were targeted and others appeared to have been chosen at random on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the town of Weldon in Saskatchewan. They have given no motive for the crimes— but senior Indigenous leaders suggested drugs were somehow involved.
James Smith Cree Nation resident Darryl Burns and his brother, Ivor Wayne Burns, said their sister, Gloria Lydia Burns, was a first responder who was killed while trying responding to a call. Burns said his 62-year-old sister was on a crisis response team.
“She went on a call to a house and she got caught up in the violence,” he said. “She was there to help. She was a hero.”
He blamed drugs and pointed to the colonization of Indigenous people for the rampant drug and alcohol use on reserves.
“We had a murder suicide here three years ago. My granddaughter and her boyfriend. Last year we had a double homicide. Now this year we have 10 more that have passed away and all because of drugs and alcohol,” Darryl Burns said.
Ivor Wayne Burns also blamed drugs for his sister’s death and said the suspect brothers should not be hated.
“We have to forgive them boys,” he said. “When you are doing hard drugs, when you are doing coke, and when you are doing heroin and crystal meth and those things, you are incapable of feeling. You stab somebody and you think it’s funny. You stab them again and you laugh.”
While authorities believe Myles is in Regina, about 335 kilometers (210 miles) south of where the stabbings happened, they have issued alerts in Canada’s three vast prairie provinces — which also include Manitoba and Alberta — and contacted U.S. border officials.
With one suspect still at large, fear still gripped communities in the rural, working class area of Saskatchewan surrounded by farmland that were terrorized by the crimes. One witness who said he lost family members described seeing people with bloody wounds scattered throughout the Indigenous reserve.
“No one in this town is ever going to sleep again. They’re going to be terrified to open their door,” said Ruby Works, who also lost someone close to her and is a resident of Weldon, which has a population of about 200 and is home to many retirees.
As the Labor Day holiday weekend drew to a close Monday, police urged Saskatchewan residents who were returning from trips away to look for suspicious activity around their homes before entering.
Arrest warrants have been issued for the pair of suspects and both men faced at least one count each of murder and attempted murder. More charges were expected.
Police have given few details about the men. Last May, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers issued a wanted list that included Myles Sanderson, writing that he was “unlawfully at large.”
While the manhunt continued, police also issued a provincewide alert for suspects in a shooting on the Witchekan Lake First Nation. Officials said the shooting was not believed to be connected to the stabbings, but such alerts are unusual and the fact that a second occurred while authorities were already scouring the Saskatchewan for the stabbing suspects was notable.
The stabbing attack was among the deadliest mass killings in Canada, where such crimes are less common than in the United States. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020, when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. In 2019, a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.
Deadly mass stabbings are rarer than mass shootings, but have happened around the world. In 2014, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in China’s southwestern city of Kunming. In 2016, a mass stabbing at a facility for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, left 19 people dead. A year later, three men killed eight people in a vehicle and stabbing attack at London Bridge.
Police in Saskatchewan got their first call about a stabbing at 5:40 a.m. on Sunday, and within minutes heard about several more. In all, dead or wounded people were found at 13 different locations on the sparsely populated reserve and in the town, Blackmore said. James Smith Cree Nation is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Weldon.
On Monday, Blackmore said police were still determining the motive, but on Sunday the chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations echoes suggestions the stabbings could be drug-related.
“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the chiefs and councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people,” said Chief Bobby Cameron.
Blackmore said the criminal record of Myles Sanderson dates back years and includes violence.
The elected leaders of the three communities that make up the James Smith Cree Nation declared a local state of emergency.
Chakastaypasin Chief Calvin Sanderson — who apparently is not related to the suspects — said everyone has been affected by the tragic events.
“They were our relatives, friends,” Sanderson said of the victims. “It’s pretty horrific.”
Among the 10 killed was Lana Head, who is the former partner of Michael Brett Burns and the mother of their two daughters.
“It’s sick how jail time, drugs and alcohol can destroy many lives,” Burns told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. “I’m hurt for all this loss.”
Burns later posted on Facebook that there were dead and wounded people everywhere on the reserve, making it look like “a war zone.”
“The look in their eyes couldn’t express the pain and suffering for all those who were assaulted,” he posted.
Weldon residents have identified one of the dead as Wes Petterson, a retired widower who made he coffee every morning at the senior center. He loved gardening, picking berries, canning, and making jam and cakes, recalled William Works, 47, and his mother, Sharon Works, 64.
“He would give you the shirt off his back if he could,” William Works said, describing his neighbor as a “gentle old fellow” and “community first.”
Sharon Works was baffled: “I don’t understand why they would target someone like him anyway, because he was just a poor, helpless little man, 100 pounds soaking wet. And he could hardly breathe because he had asthma and emphysema and everybody cared about him because that’s the way he was. He cared about everybody else. And they cared about him.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the flag above Canada’s parliament building in Ottawa would be flown at half-staff to honor the victims.
“Saskatchewanians and Canadians will do what we always do in times of difficulty and anguish, we will be there for each other,” Trudeau said.
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Gillies reported from Toronto.
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:14Z
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(The Hill) – A federal judge on Friday tossed out a “child pornography” lawsuit filed by the man who appeared as the naked baby on the cover of Nirvana’s iconic 1991 album “Nevermind,” handing a victory to the band after a yearlong legal battle.
The ruling is likely the end of 31-year-old Spencer Elden’s litigation against Nirvana. Elden first sued the grunge rock band last year, alleging they had engaged in “child pornography” because the album cover featured a photo of him as a naked baby, swimming in a pool toward a dollar bill on a fish hook.
U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Olguin in the Central District of California dismissed the case because Elden did not file the complaint within the 10-year statute of limitations for victims of sexual assaults or offenses. That statute requires him to file a complaint within 10 years of becoming reasonably aware of the personal injury.
“Plaintiff does not dispute that he knew of injuries arising from defendant’s activities related to their use of his image on the ‘Nevermind’ album cover more than ten years before he filed this action,” Olguin wrote in his opinion, agreeing with the defendants, who asked for a dismissal because of the statute limitation.
Elden was four months old when Nirvana hired Kirk Weddle to photograph him in a California pool for the album.
Upon its release, “Nevermind” brought the band international fame and is widely considered to be one of the best rock albums of all time.
In August 2021, Elden sued Nirvana; Weddle; the estate of the late Kurt Cobain; Dave Grohl, the band’s former drummer; bassist Krist Novoselic and Universal Music Group, among other defendants.
In January, Olguin ordered the case would be dismissed unless Elden filed an amended complaint, which he did that month, seeking $150,000 in damages.
In the amended complaint, Elden argues the album cover features a “lascivious exhibition” of his “genitals on the cover.”
“The conduct depicted, particularly the activation of Spencer’s gag reflex and the prominence and positioning of his genitals in the image, suggests sexual coyness or a willingness to engage in sexual activity,” the complaint reads. “The image was intended and designed to elicit a sexual response.”
Nirvana and the other defendants pushed back, saying the now-famous photograph is protected by artistic expression and the photo evokes images of a cherub, or an angelic baby.
The defendants also accused Elden of “profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed ‘Nirvana Baby'” and picking up women with the title.
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:22Z
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Citing an “immediate threat to human life,” Cloudflare has dropped the notorious stalking and harassment site Kiwi Farms from its internet security services following an online campaign started by transgender Twitch streamer Clara Sorrenti to pressure it to do so.
“This is an extraordinary decision for us to make and given Cloudflare’s role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with,” CEO Matthew Prince wrote in a blog post Saturday in an about-face after earlier insisting that the company would not block the site. “However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike what we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.”
For years, members of the site created and operated by Joshua Conner Moon, 29, have congregated on what they call a “lighthearted discussion forum” to organize vicious harassment campaigns against transgender people, feminists and others they deem mockable. They gang up on victims and pool their personal details such as addresses and phone numbers in a practice called “doxxing,” spreading vile rumors and targeting workplaces, friends, families and homes. Another favorite tactic has been “swatting” — making false emergency calls to provoke an armed police response at a target’s home. Some people subjected to the group’s abuse have died by suicide.
Sorrenti, who goes by “Keffals” online, has been leading a campaign to pressure Cloudflare to drop Kiwi Farms. In August, she fled her home in Canada for Europe after she was doxxed and swatted. Her online stalkers, however, found her in Belfast, Ireland, as well and continued to intensify their harassment campaign against her just as her campaign against Kiwi Farms and its enablers was gaining momentum.
“When a multi-billion dollar corporation like Cloudflare has to drop Kiwi Farms because of an ‘imminent and emergency threat to human life’ it is no longer a matter of free speech. Removing Kiwi Farms from the internet is a matter of public safety for every single person online,” she tweeted on Saturday.
On Sunday, Kiwi Farms was inaccessible. But a version of the site with a .ru domain name was intermittently up and running, though it was not clear whether it would remain up.
The decision to drop Kiwi Farms Saturday was an about-face for Cloudflare and Prince, who earlier in the week put out a 2,600-word blog post — without mentioning the site by name — doubling down on the decision to protect it and comparing Cloudflare to a phone company that “doesn’t terminate your line if you say awful, racist, bigoted things.”
But Sorrenti and other targets of the site say it was far worse than that, as trolls on the site relentlessly pursued their victims offline — often for years on end.
“They are trying to get people to lose their jobs. They’re trying to get people to lose their housing, to be starving and homeless,” Liz Fong-Jones, a former Google engineer and cloud computing expert who is transgender, told the AP last week. “And then they go after people’s families and then they tell people that the only way out is to kill themselves.”
Moon started Kiwi Farms nearly a decade ago as a wiki site dedicated to harassing a transgender woman; Moon even used the woman’s initials in an early version of the site’s name. Over time its users began to target other people — mostly active online users who are transgender, have autism or other mental conditions. Kiwi Farms in its current form was born in 2015.
An overarching theme of the site’s discussions centers on users’ fierce opposition to transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care. Members typically refer to those who support such treatment as “groomers” and “pedophiles,” rhetoric that is also used increasingly by conservatives in their opposition to LGBTQ rights.
“There has never been a violent incident in our history, which cannot be said for many other sites still on Cloudflare. This narrative feels like a lie spun up to save face,” Moon, who posts on Kiwi Farms under the pseudonym “Null,” posted Saturday in response to Cloudflare’s cutoff. Reached earlier by The Associated Press to comment on the campaign against his site, Moon replied only “the press are scum.”
KiwiFarms.ru is registered to and protected by the Russian company DDoS-Guard, whose customers have in the past included Russian government websites including the Defense Ministry and cybercriminal forums where stolen credit cards are bought and sold.
Last year, DDoS-Guard protected the pro-Trump social media website Parler.com for a time after Amazon withdrew hosting services. KiwiFarms.ru was registered on July 12, suggesting Moon, was aware Cloudflare could drop his site and thus created a backup plan.
DDoS-Guard did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Sunday. Kiwi Farms’ internet connection is provided by VegasNAP, a Las Vegas-based company that said in response to queries last week that it does not disclose information about its clients. Contacted again Sunday, the company did not immediately respond.
“In the past, DDoS-Guard has been known to discontinue support for some seriously problematic websites, apparently as a result of press inquiries. That very well may happen again, in this instance, but I wouldn’t bet on it,” said independent internet expert Ron Guilmette. “Obviously, a lot has changed in the world since February 24, 2022, and I do believe that, in general, Russians these days, and over the past 6 months in particular, have learned to care a whole lot less about what the rest of the world thinks of them and/or their actions.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:29Z
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Federal officials approved a new plan to improve the broadband infrastructure in Arkansas, especially for rural communities.
The United States Department of Treasury announced Tuesday the approval of $47.5 million in funding for Arkansas broadband infrastructure. The approval was of a state-submitted plan to provide broadband to rural communities or those without adequate service.
The money is from the federal Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund, put in place to address challenges that became visible during the pandemic, mainly in rural America.
“I appreciate the Treasury Department’s approval of this funding as we continue our work toward expanding broadband access in Arkansas,” Governor Asa Hutchinson said. “Ensuring access to high-speed internet presents a challenge in rural states, and this funding will provide us an opportunity to build on the work we’ve already done through the Arkansas Rural Connect Program.”
Estimates have the broadband improvement bringing or improving service to approximately 5,500 locations. It will provide internet connection of at least 100/20 Mbps with an emphasis on rural and disadvantaged locations.
Internet service providers funded by this program will participate in the FCC’s Affordably Connectivity Program, which has a $30 per month subsidy for low-income families.
The announcement was part of a $408 million approval package. Connecticut, Indiana, Nebraska, and North Dakota also received broadband funding.
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:35Z
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NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio (WJW) — Police say an Ohio father has been charged with murder after allegedly leaving his baby son in a hot car on purpose.
Landon Parrott, 19, is charged with murder, endangering children and involuntary manslaughter, according to New Philadelphia Police Det. Capt. Ty Norris.
Around 2 p.m. on Thursday, Norris says Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital notified them that a 14-month-old boy was brought into the emergency room by his father and was unresponsive. Attempts to revive the child failed and staffers told police that the father’s story was inconsistent with the child’s symptoms.
“Dad’s version essentially was that he found the child after he exited the restroom and the child was unconscious,” said Norris.
Police say Parrott confessed when confronted with surveillance video recorded across the street from the family’s apartment on Ashwood Lane in New Philadelphia.
Investigators say the video shows Parrott leaving the child in the car alone in the vehicle while his mom was at work, with temperatures around 86 to 87 degrees.
“We estimate that would’ve made the interior of the car about 130 degrees and this child was in there strapped into a car seat with no fluids, no air conditioning, nothing,” said Norris, “Heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking to see this unfold before your eyes.”
On the video, the last time Parrott is seen with the child is around 8:30 a.m. and the next time he saw the child was at 1:50 p.m. when he went to the car to pick his wife up from work.
During a police interview, Norris says Parrott admitted that he was aware of the dangers of hot cars and had seen news reports where children had died, but he chose to leave his son in the car so he wouldn’t be a disturbance in the apartment.
Norris asked for prayers for the child’s mother and family members while seeking justice for the little boy.
“This is about this poor child and this poor mother who was just trying to work and pay bills and finding justice for both of them.”
Parrott is being held in the Tuscarawas County Jail on $250,000 bond.
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:41Z
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — Enrollment in the Texas Tuition Promise Fund, the state’s prepaid college tuition plan, began Thursday and runs through Feb. 28, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said in an announcement Friday.
According to a release, the fund offers a way to prepay for a child’s future higher education in Texas. The fund is administered by the Texas Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board.
“Participants in the plan purchase ‘tuition units’ that can be used later toward undergraduate resident tuition and schoolwide required fees at Texas public colleges and universities, excluding medical and dental institutions,” the release said. “Prices are based on 2022-23 academic year costs for the state’s public colleges and universities.”
Hegar also said the $25 application fee to enroll in the plan would be waived for September and October enrollments, but it must be postmarked by Oct. 31, 2022.
According to the Texas Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board, the plan has flexible payment options available with each contract.
For more information about the prepaid college tuition plan, go to TuitionPromise.org or call 800-445-4723, option 5.
The release said residency restrictions, age requirements, eligibility criteria, household income restrictions and contribution requirements would apply.
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| 2022-09-21T11:45:49Z
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CANFIELD, Ohio (WKBN) – Eleven people were arrested Saturday night after fights broke out and shots were fired at the Canfield Fair in eastern Ohio.
According to Mahoning County Sheriff Jerry Greene, seven of the people arrested were juveniles and four were adults.
Around 10 p.m. at the fair, chaos and fights started to break out, according to WKBN reporters who were on scene at the time. The fair was locked down before law enforcement evacuated all fairgoers.
Two vehicles on the scene were hit with gunfire, but the sheriff’s office said they weren’t aware of any injuries.
Greene said the sheriff’s office is still investigating the underlying causes of the fight.
The sheriff’s office said the fair would go on Sunday with increased security. Country singer Sam Hunt is expected to perform.
The Canfield Fair released a statement in a press release Sunday morning:
“The fair board will not tolerate conduct like that which occurred Saturday night and will take all steps necessary to ensure the safety of all those attending and working at the Fair including an enhanced police presence for the remainder of this year’s fair. We thank the Fair Police Department, the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Canfield Police Department, and other law enforcement agencies for all their work in keeping the fair a safe place. As the incident of Saturday night is the subject of criminal investigation, the board will have no further comment at this time.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:04Z
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CHICAGO (WGN) — At least one person was killed and 11 others were injured in overnight shootings in Chicago.
A man, 29, was inside a home at the 6600 block of South Evans St. around 11:15 p.m. Saturday night when he got into a verbal fight with another man who then fired shots and fled. According to police, officers entered and discovered the first man on the floor with a gunshot wound to his right neck and arm area. He was pronounced dead on the scene. No one is currently in custody and police are investigating.
In another shooting, two men were walking near the 200 block of South Wabash St. in the Loop around 12:05 a.m. Saturday night when they got into an argument with another man who was accompanied by a woman wearing all pink. According to police the man shot both men and fled the scene with the woman. Both men are in critical condition and police are investigating.
Officers also responded to a shots fired call near the 6000 block of South Ada St. in Englewood around 12:20 a.m., where a 22 -year-old man was running on the sidewalk. He said he had just been shot. According to police, the man sustained a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen and was transported to the hospital in critical condition. The man refused to answer questions, police said. No one is in custody and police are investigating.
Officers responding to a shots fired call near the 5700 block of West Grand Ave. around 4:43 a.m. noticed a man running towards their squad car. The man had a gunshot wound to his left thigh and was transported to the hospital in critical condition. There is no other information provided and police are investigating.
All other shootings are being investigated by the Chicago Police Department.
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:11Z
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NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – Two people are dead after a late-night shooting in Norfolk, Virginia, that involved college students.
Norfolk Police officers were called to the 5000 block of Killam Ave. to investigate the shooting around midnight Saturday night.
When officers arrived on scene, they found four women and three men with gunshot wounds. All victims were transported to the hospital. Two of the victims, a man and a woman, sustained life-threatening injuries and later died at the hospital.
The victims were later identified as 25-year Zabre Miler and 19-year-old Angelia McKnight.
In a Sunday press conference, Interim Chief of Police Michael Goldsmith said some gunshot victims were already being taken to the hospital by people on the scene.
The shooting occurred a couple blocks from Old Dominion University. The school says although the incident happened near campus, no ODU students were injured.
However, Norfolk State University confirmed in a tweet that several of its students were injured in the off-campus shooting.
The full tweet says, “Norfolk Police have informed us that several NSU students have been the victims of a shooting at an isolated off-campus location near 50th Street and Hampton Blvd. NSU Police have secured the NSU campus. Counseling is being made available for any student in need of services.”
According to NSU, the Norfolk Police investigation has revealed that the shooting happened at a house party that had been advertised on social media and the injured NSU students were bystanders.
“Apparently, a fight broke out at the party and once the fight started, someone pulled out a gun and started shooting,” Goldsmith said. Multiple firearms were involved, he added, including a pistol and a long gun.
Authorities say they are still investigating the incident.
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:19Z
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LANGLEY, Wash. (AP) — One person was killed and nine people remained missing, including a child, after a floatplane crashed Sunday afternoon in Puget Sound in Washington state, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The agency said in a press release the plane was flying from Friday Harbor, a popular tourist destination in the San Juan Islands, to Renton, a southern suburb of Seattle.
Four Coast Guard vessels, a rescue helicopter and an aircraft were involved in the extensive search, along with nearby rescue and law enforcement agencies. Two vessels were to continue searching during the night and air patrols would resume at first light, the Coast Guard said late Sunday.
The crash was reported at 3:11 p.m. The Coast Guard said one body had been recovered and nine people were still missing. The cause of the crash is unknown, authorities said.
The plane went down in Mutiny Bay off Whidbey Island, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of downtown Seattle and about halfway between Friday Harbor and Renton.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane was a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter, a single-engine propeller plane.
Floatplanes, which have pontoons allowing them to land on water, are a common sight around Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. There are multiple, daily flights between the Seattle area and the San Juan Islands, a scenic archipelago northwest of Seattle that draws tourists from around the world.
These aircraft, which also fly between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, frequently travel over Seattle and land in Lake Washington, not far from the city’s iconic Space Needle.
Renton, where authorities say the flight was headed Sunday, is at the southern tip of Lake Washington, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Seattle.
In 2019, a midair crash in Alaska between two sightseeing planes killed six people. The Ketchikan-based floatplanes were carrying passengers from the same cruise ship, the Royal Princess, and were returning from tours of Misty Fjords National Monument.
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:26Z
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An activist said Monday he has again flown huge balloons carrying COVID-19 relief items and an anti-North Korea placard across the tense inter-Korean border, despite the North’s recent warning of a deadly attack over his activities.
Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, said the 20 balloons launched from a South Korean border town on Sunday carried 20,000 masks and tens of thousands of Tylenol and Vitamin C tablets.
He said one of the balloons carried a placard with a message that reads “Let’s eradicate Kim Jong Un and (his sister) Kim Yo Jong,” along with their photos. He said no other propaganda statements were carried by the balloons.
For years, Park has floated helium-filled balloons with numerous, small anti-Pyongyang leaflets with harsh criticism of the Kim family’s authoritarian rule in North Korea. But he’s recently changed his cargo to masks and other health products amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
North Korea is deeply angered by such activism and has made the highly questionable claim that leaflets, banknotes and booklets flown from South Korea caused the country’s COVID-19 outbreak this year. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the country’s leader, said last month that North Korea would respond by “wiping out the South Korean authorities” if “rubbish” continued to be flown from South Korea.
Days after Kim Yo Jong’s warning, a man wielding a steel pipe attacked Park at a rally in Seoul, breaking the activist’s arm.
Police said Monday the attacker was detained but didn’t immediately provide further details. Park said he believes North Korea has ordered pro-Pyongyang forces in South Korea to attack his group, a claim that cannot be independently confirmed.
In a failed assassination attempt in 2011, South Korean authorities captured a North Korean agent who tried to kill Park with a pen equipped with a poison needle.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to leafleting campaigns and other outside attempts to criticize the Kim family’s authoritarian rule of its people, most of whom have little access to foreign news. In 2014, North Korea fired at balloons flying toward its territory, and in 2020 it destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in the North to express its anger over leafleting.
Last year, South Korea, under its previous liberal government that sought to improve ties with North Korea, enforced a contentious new law criminalizing civilian leafleting campaigns. Park still kept launching propaganda balloons, becoming the first person to be indicted over the law that punishes flying leaflets, USB drives or money into North Korea with up to three years in prison.
But Park’s trial has virtually been suspended after he filed a petition requesting the Constitutional Court to rule whether the new law is unconstitutional, according to Park’s lawyer, Lee Hun.
Opponents of the law say it’s sacrificing South Korea’s freedom of speech to seek improved ties with North Korea. But supporters say the law is aimed at avoiding unnecessarily provoking North Korea and promoting the safety of front-line South Korean residents.
Park faced separate police questioning over his balloon flights conducted before the law’s enforcement.
In March, he was handed a suspended fine of 3 million won ($2,190) for violating the law on donations. Prosecutors, citing a lack of evidence, had earlier decided not to indict him over other charges including an alleged violation of a law on inter-Korean cooperation. The suspended fine means Park doesn’t need to pay penalty unless he breaks law again and receives a prison sentence or bigger punishment during the one-year period, according to Lee, the lawyer.
Sunday’s balloon launches were Park’s fourth campaign to scatter medical relief items to North Korea. After his third launch in July, South Korean police said they were investigating his activities. On Monday, police weren’t immediately available for comment and Park said he hasn’t been contacted by police.
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:34Z
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VIENNA (AP) — A man killed a woman with an ax in the German capital on Sunday morning before being shot dead by police, officials said.
Police said that they were called to an apartment in Berlin’s Lichtenberg neighborhood shortly before 8 a.m. As they arrived, they saw a man striking a woman with an ax.
Officers shot and killed the suspect, according to a police statement. The victim died on the scene of her injuries.
As of Sunday afternoon, police were still investigating the crime. They hadn’t yet released details on the identities of the suspect or the victim, nor on the motive for the attack.
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:41Z
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REGINA, Saskatchewan (AP) — A series of stabbings at an Indigenous community and at another town nearby in Saskatchewan left 10 people dead and 15 wounded, Canadian police said Sunday as they searched across the expansive province for two suspects.
The stabbings took place in multiple locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, police said.
Rhonda Blackmore, the Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP in Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects but others appear to have been attacked at random. She couldn’t provide a motive.
“It is horrific what has occurred in our province today,” Blackmore said, adding there were 13 crime scenes where either deceased or injured people were found.
It is among the deadliest mass killings in Canadian history. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020 when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. A man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto in 2019. But mass killings are less common in Canada than in the United States.
Blackmore said police began receiving reports before 6 a.m. of stabbings on the First Nation community. More reports of attacks quickly followed and by midday police issued a warning that a vehicle reportedly carrying the two suspects had been spotted in Regina, about 335 kilometers (208 miles) south of the communities where the stabbings occurred.
Police said the last information they had from the public was that the suspects were sighted there around lunchtime. There have been no sightings since.
Regina Police Evan Bray said late Sunday they still believe the suspects are in the city of Regina and urged residents to follow alerts and provide information if they have.
“If in the Regina area, take precautions & consider sheltering in place. Do not leave a secure location. DO NOT APPROACH suspicious persons. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Report suspicious persons, emergencies or info to 9-1-1. Do not disclose police locations,” the RCMP said in a message on Twitter.
The suspects were identified as Damien Sanderson, 31, and Myles Sanderson, 30. Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers issued a wanted list last May that included Myles, writing that he was “unlawfully at large.”
Doreen Lees, an 89-year grandmother from Weldon, said she and her daughter thought they saw one of the suspects when a car came barreling down her street early in the morning as her daughter was having coffee on her deck. Lees said a man approached them and said he was hurt and needed help.
But Lees said the man took off and ran after her daughter said she would call for help.
“He wouldn’t show his face. He had a big jacket over his face. We asked his name and he kind of mumbled his name twice and we still couldn’t get it,” she said. “He said his face was injured so bad he couldn’t show it.”
She said the man was by himself and “kind of a little wobbly.”
“I followed him a little ways to see if he was going to be OK. My daughter said ‘Don’t follow him, get back here.’”
Weldon residents have identified one of the victims as Wes Petterson. Ruby Works said the 77-year-old widower was like an uncle to her.
“I collapsed and hit the ground. I’ve known him since I was just a little girl,″ she said, describing the moment she heard the news. She said he loved his cats, was proud of his homemade Saskatoon berry jam and frequently helped out his neighbors.
“He didn’t do anything. He didn’t deserve this. He was a good, kind hearted man,″ said Works.
She said the event has shaken a community where the sounds of sirens are rarely heard.
“No one in this town is ever going to sleep again. They’re going to be terrified to open their door,″ she said
Weldon resident Robert Rush also described the victim as a gentle, widowed man in his 70s.
“He wouldn’t hurt a fly,″ he said.
Rush said Petterson’s adult grandson was in the basement at the time and phoned police.
At the Weldon Christian Tabernacle Church the congregation began their regular Sunday service by saying a special prayer to the victims and their families.
At the James Smith Cree Nation, a convenience store that also serves as a gas station became a gathering place for community members, who greeted each other with tears and hugs.
A sign on the door said: “Due to safety concerns with our community we will remain closed until further notice.”
The elected leaders of the three communities that make up the James Smith Cree Nation, including the Chakastaypasin Band and the Peter Chapman Band, declared a local state of emergency on Sunday.
Chakastaypasin Chief Calvin Sanderson said he’d left his phone off on Sunday morning and only learned of the tragic events when community members came to his door to check on him. He is not related to the two suspects.
Everyone’s been affected, he said.
“They were our relatives, friends. Mostly we’re all related here, so it’s pretty hard,″ Sanderson said. “It’s pretty horrific.”
The emergency declaration, which was released by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, said two emergency operations centers have been set up.
“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the Chiefs and Councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people,” said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.
The search for suspects was carried out as fans descended on Regina for a sold out annual Labor Day game between the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The Regina Police Service said in a news release that with the help of Mounties, it was working on several fronts to locate and arrest the suspects and had “deployed additional resources for public safety throughout the city, including the football game at Mosaic Stadium.″
The alert first issued by Melfort, Saskatchewan RCMP about 7 a.m. was extended hours later to cover Manitoba and Alberta, as the two suspects remained at large.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority said multiple patients were being treated at several sites.
“A call for additional staff was issued to respond to the influx of casualties,” authority spokeswoman Anne Linemann said in an email.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement he was “shocked and devastated by the horrific attacks.”
“As Canadians, we mourn with everyone affected by this tragic violence, and with the people of Saskatchewan,” Trudeau said.
Deadly mass stabbings are more rare than mass shootings but have happened around the world. In 2014, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in China’s southwestern city of Kunming. In 2016, a mass stabbing at a facility for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, left 19 people dead. A year later, three men killed eight people in a vehicle and stabbing attack at London Bridge.
____
Associated Press journalist Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:49Z
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PAWTUCKET, R.I. (WPRI) — Three people charged in connection with the death of a Pawtucket toddler late last year, including his mother, are set to face a judge on Wednesday.
Earlier this month the Providence County Grand Jury handed up an indictment charging Jessaline Andrade, 27, Yara Chum, 34, and Stephano Castro, 31, with second-degree murder.
Andrade has also been charged with two counts of cruelty to or neglect of a child.
The two-year-old boy was rushed to the hospital last December after he was found unresponsive inside of a Sayles Avenue apartment, where he was later pronuonced dead.
The apartment was in deplorable condition and lacked basic furniture, investigators said, adding that they also discovered equipment for manufacturing and distributing drugs.
Investigators said the toddler died from acute fentanyl intoxication. His 8-year-old brother also tested positive for fentanyl exposure but survived, according to police.
12 News confirmed the Department of Children, Youth and Families was previously involved with the family, but not at the time of the boy’s death.
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Pedro Castillo’s surprise election brought hopes for change in Peru’s unstable and corrupt political system, but the impoverished rural teacher and political neophyte has found himself so engulfed in impeachment votes and corruption allegations that his presidency has become an exercise in political survival.
Chances the leftist leader could accomplish a signature policy such as improving education or health care were slim to begin with, given his lack of support in Congress, and have evaporated as he focuses on staying in office and his family’s freedom.
In just over one year as president, Castillo has survived two congressional votes to oust him, named more than 60 ministers to the 19 agencies that make up his cabinet and confronted six criminal investigations into accusations ranging from influence peddling to plagiarism, one that recently saw a close relative imprisoned. The probes are in their initial stages and no formal charges have been filed.
Castillo says he has not had a “single minute of truce” since taking office and blames it on Peru’s political elite wanting him gone.
“I don’t speak like them, I don’t sit at those opulent tables like them,” he told people gathered at a remote desert community. Later, he told a group of mothers outside a recently restored school that he comes from the lower class and that the accusations will not “break” him.
But Castillo’s tribulations follow a pattern in Peru, which recently had three different presidents in a single week after one was impeached by Congress and protests forced his successor to resign. Almost all former Peruvian presidents who governed since 1985 have been ensnared in corruption allegations, some imprisoned or arrested in their mansions. One died by suicide before police could arrest him. Castillo defeated the daughter of one of those presidents, Alberto Fujimori, during last year’s elections.
The preliminary investigations by prosecutors against Castillo are a first for a sitting president in Peru, as is the preventative detention of his sister-in-law stemming from money laundering allegations.
Peru’s constitution does not specifically say whether a sitting president can be investigated for crimes, and in the last two decades, attorneys general had proposed initiating initial investigations of three acting presidents. One against then-president Martín Vizcarra was opened in October 2020, but the attorney general immediately froze it until the end of the presidential term.
Now, however, there is a new attorney general, Patricia Benavides, who has promised to go “after the investigation of any criminal act, whether it be by the most powerful or any ordinary citizen.”
When he assumed power, Castillo not only faced a fragmented Congress and his own political inexperience, but a distrustful elite upset with controversial campaign promises that included nationalizing key industries.
Castillo was a rural schoolteacher in Peru’s third poorest district before he moved into the presidential palace. His only leadership experience before becoming president was as the head of a teachers’ strike in 2017.
That inexperience makes some doubt whether he is the “ringleader” of corruption scheme, as critics allege.
“That said, you can’t look at Castillo’s record and say, ‘Hey, this guy is honest.’ So, how do we put those together?” said Cynthia McClintock, a political science professor at George Washington University who has studied Peru extensively. “My sense of it is that part of him doesn’t quite understand how careful he should be. Whether he just sort of thought this was the way you do business? It’s unclear at this point.”
Five of the probes against Castillo are linked to what prosecutors describe as a criminal network led by the president, involving influence peddling and other crimes. A sixth investigation accuses him and his wife of plagiarizing their master’s degree theses a decade ago.
One case involves a contract won by a group of businessmen in 2021 to build a bridge. Authorities say an informant claims former Transportation Minister Juan Silva told him late last year that Castillo was “happy” when he received $12,900 after the contract was awarded. Silva is considered a fugitive.
In another case, prosecutors allege that Castillo, his former personal secretary and a former minister of defense requested the promotion of several military or police officers because those moves would net them money. Authorities say they have statements from the ex-head of the Army, José Vizcarra, claiming he was pressured to promote military personnel close to the government.
Authorities also suspect Castillo of obstructing justice for removing an interior minister who had set up a team to capture Silva and one of the president’s nephews, who is also linked to the bridge contract investigation.
“Ideally, the president would resign,” Lady Camones, head of Peru’s Congress, said last month. “He has been asked to do so… It would be the ideal scenario. But let’s hope in any case that the evaluation is made by the president.”
In a separate preliminary investigation, agents of the prosecutor’s office last month entered the presidential palace in Lima to arrest Yenifer Paredes, Castillo’s sister-in-law, whom he raised and considers a daughter. They searched under Castillo’s bed and in the closets of the presidential bedroom, according to a search report obtained by The Associated Press.
Paredes turned herself in a day later. A judge then ruled she can be detained until February 2025 while authorities investigate her alleged involvement in money laundering.
“They don’t mind breaking the family. They don’t mind leaving our children orphaned, a situation has been designed with the purpose of breaking us,” Castillo said.
Paredes’ attorney, José Dionicio, said prosecutors have no evidence against his client.
Historian Charles Walker, director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas at the University of California, Davis, said Castillo’s position is a reflection of the ingrained corruption surrounding government and an implacable opposition that feels it is losing power.
“It’s a perfectly wretched storm,” Walker said. “It does seem that, around him, there is a circle of people getting contracts, doing shoddy work — I mean classic, almost traditional corruption.
“But on the other hand, you have this right wing that feels like it’s besieged Vietnam, that the ultra-left has taken over … and there’s this incredible paranoia. I think this almost needs psychological explanation because most of their benefits are still intact; the elite economy is doing quite well.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:46:56Z
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s chance of power outages will grow in the coming days, as the state prepares to enter the most brutal stretch yet of an ongoing heat wave, officials said Sunday.
Energy demand is expected to outpace supply starting Monday evening, and predictions for Tuesday show the state rivaling its all-time high for electricity demand, said Elliot Mainzer, president and chief executive officer of the California Independent System Operator.
“This is about to get significantly more intense,” Mainzer told reporters.
The system operator is in charge of managing and maintaining reliability on the electric grid, a challenging job during hot weather when energy demand soars as people crank up their air conditioners.
Grid managers have several options available before power outages, like tapping backup generators, buying more power from other states and using so-called demand response programs, where people are paid to use less energy. But keeping the lights on will also require Californians to continue conserving as they have been, even as temperatures rise.
Most of California’s 39 million people are facing extremely hot weather. Temperatures in the Central Valley are expected to be as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius) for several days. In Los Angeles, meanwhile, temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), unusually warm temperatures for September.
Energy officials and power companies have been urging people since Wednesday to use less power from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. by keeping air conditioners at 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25.5 degrees Celsius) or higher and avoiding using major appliances like ovens and dishwashers. Those so-called flex alerts have allowed the grid operator to keep the lights on so far.
On Saturday night, the state used about 44,000 megawatts of electricity, Mainzer said. By Tuesday, that’s supposed to ramp up to more than 50,000 megawatts, nearing record levels of energy use set in 2006. But the state would rather curb demand to avoid that number than test the power grid’s capability to respond.
“Our goal is to make sure that we do not reach that number,” Mainzer said.
During the day, California’s energy grid runs on a mix of mostly solar and natural gas, as well as some imports of power from other states. But solar power begins to fall off during the late afternoon and into the evening, which is the hottest time of day in some parts of the state.
Meanwhile, some of the aging natural gas plants that California relies on for backup power aren’t as reliable in hot weather. As of Sunday afternoon, three of the state’s coastal power plants were experiencing partial outages, though they make up just a small fraction of the state’s supply, officials said.
At the same time, some hydropower resources are limited due to drought. Dry conditions and heat are hitting California as the state heads into what traditionally is the worst of the fire season, with large fires already burning and turning deadly. Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Several hundred thousand Californians lost power in rolling blackouts in August 2020 amid hot weather. The state avoided a similar scenario last summer. Newsom on Friday signed legislation potentially allowing the state’s last remaining nuclear plant to stay open beyond its planned 2025 closure in order to ensure more power for the energy grid.
On Sunday evening, nuclear power accounted for about 5% of California’s energy supply.
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| 2022-09-21T11:47:04Z
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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chilean leaders on Monday began trying to chart a fresh course toward updating the country’s dictatorship-era constitution after voters overwhelmingly rejected a progressive proposal that many felt went too far.
The heavy loss was a a blow to youthful President Gabriel Boric, who met with congressional leaders Monday to begin hammering out a way to create another proposal or modify the current constitution.
Although rejection had been expected in Sunday’s plebiscite, the almost 24-point margin was a shocking repudiation of a document that was three years in the making and had been promoted as a democratic effort to replace the constitution imposed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet 41 years ago.
The constitution, written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates, characterized Chile as a plurinational state, would have established autonomous Indigenous territories and prioritized the environment and gender parity.
With 99.9% of the votes counted, the rejection camp led by 61.9% to 38.1% and turnout was heavy, with voting mandatory.
The Chilean peso strengthened and stocks in the Santiago market soared Monday after rejection of a constitution that would have increased environmental regulations on businesses.
Boric, who had lobbied hard for the new constitution, said the results made it evident the Chilean people “were not satisfied with the constitutional proposal.”
The president said there would now likely be “adjustments to our governing team” as he seeks to find a path forward.
Despite the loss, the large majority believe the current constitution needs changing; they just felt the proposed one was not a suitable replacement, analysts say.
Boric made clear the process to amend it would not end with Sunday’s vote. He said it was necessary for leaders to “work with more determination, more dialogue, more respect” to reach a new proposal “that unites us as a country.”
To that end, Boric met with the heads of both chambers of Congress Monday to start determining a path forward.
After the sit-down with Boric, Sen. Álvaro Elizalde, the head of the Senate, said that he and his counterpart in the lower house, Raúl Soto, will call for meetings with the country’s political parties and social movements to start a dialogue that will launch a new constitutional process.
The meetings will seek to “to move forward toward a new constitution that will unite all Chileans,” Elizalde said. “We hope to move quickly in this process, listening to the different views and proposals.”
In Chile’s capital of Santiago, horns blared in celebration Sunday night as people gathered in numerous intersections to celebrate the results.
“We’re happy because, really, we all want a new constitution, but one that is done right and this one didn’t fulfil the expectations of the majority,” said Lorena Cornejo, 34, while waving a Chilean flag. “Now we have to work for a new one that unites us, this one didn’t represent us and that was clear in the vote.”
Even some who were in favor of the proposed constitution put a positive spin on the defeat.
“Although it’s true that I wanted it to be approved, this is a new opportunity to reform everything that people didn’t agree with,” said Alain Olivares, 36. “We’re just going to have to wait longer to change the constitution.”
Carlos Salinas, a spokesman for the Citizens’ House for Rejection, said the majority of Chileans saw rejection as “a path of hope.”
Despite polls that foresaw the defeat, no analyst had predicted such a large margin for rejection of what would have been one of the most progressive constitutions in the world and would have fundamentally changed the South American country.
“The constitution that was written now leans too far to one side and does not have the vision of all Chileans,” Roberto Briones, 41, said after voting in Chile’s capital of Santiago. “We all want a new constitution, but it needs to have a better structure.”
But others had fervently hoped it would pass and wipe away strong vestiges of the dictatorship.
Boric, 36 is Chile’s youngest-ever president and a former student protest leader. He had tied his fortunes so closely to the new document that analysts said it was likely some voters saw the plebiscite as a referendum on his government at a time when his approval ratings have been plunging since he took office in March.
Chilean political leaders of all stripes agree the constitution, which dates from the country’s 1973-1990 dictatorship, must change. But just how will likely be the subject of hard-fought negotiations within the country’s political leadership.
The vote marked the climax of a process that began when the country once seen as a paragon of stability in the region exploded in student-led street protests in 2019. The unrest was sparked by a hike in public transportation prices, but it quickly expanded into broader demands for greater equality and more social protections.
The following year, just under 80% of Chileans voted in favor of changing the constitution. Then in 2021, they elected delegates to a constitutional convention.
The 388-article proposed charter, besides focusing on social issues and the environment, also introduced rights to free education, health care and housing. It would have established autonomous Indigenous territories and recognized a parallel justice system in those areas, although lawmakers would decide how far-reaching that would be.
In contrast, the current constitution is a market-friendly document that favors the private sector over the state in aspects like education, pensions and health care. It also makes no reference to the country’s Indigenous population, which makes up almost 13% of the population.
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| 2022-09-21T11:47:11Z
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SUMMERVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Thunderstorms and heavy rain pounded parts of northwest Georgia on Sunday, sparking flash flooding in some areas. Local news reports showed roads under water and homeowners struggling to keep water out.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Sunday afternoon in Chattooga and Floyd Counties, directing all state resources to help with “preparation, response and recovery activities.” The National Weather Service said rainfall of up to one inch per hour was causing creeks, streams, roadways and urban areas to experience unusually high levels of water. Up to 12 inches of rain was estimated to have fallen in the area, according to Kemp’s executive order.
“This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order,” the service said.
The service declared a “flash flood emergency” for Summerville, Lyerly and James H. Floyd State Park in Chattooga County. Floyd County — just to the south — was also under a flash flood warning.
At 3:10 p.m., the service advised locals to avoid non-emergency travel as another round of emergency rainfall entered the area.
The city of Summerville advised residents who use the city’s water utility services to boil water prior to drinking, cooking or preparing baby food due to flash flooding at the Raccoon Creek Filter plant.
“Water should be boiled for at least one minute after reaching a rolling boil. Citizens should continue to boil their water until they are notified by their drinking water utility that the water system has been restored to full operation, and that the microbiological quality of the water in the distribution system is safe for human consumption,” the city said on its website.
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| 2022-09-21T11:47:26Z
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WEED, Calif. (AP) — Two people have died in a blaze that ripped through a Northern California town, said Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue.
LaRue shared the news of the fatalities Sunday afternoon during a community meeting held at an elementary school north of Weed, the rural Northern California community charred by one of California’s latest wildfires. He did not immediately provide names or other details including age or gender of the two people who died.
“There’s no easy way of putting it,” he said before calling for a moment of silence.
Both LaRue and other officials acknowledged uncertainties facing the community, such as when people would be allowed back into their homes and power would be restored. About 1,000 people were still under evacuation orders Sunday as firefighters worked to contain the blaze that had sparked out of control Friday at the start of the holiday weekend.
The blaze, known as the Mill Fire, hadn’t expanded since Saturday morning, covering about 6.6 square miles (17 square kilometers) with 25% containment, according to Cal Fire. But the nearby Mountain Fire grew in size on Sunday, officials said. It also started Friday, though in a less populated area. More than 300 people were under evacuation orders.
Power outages, smoky skies and uncertainty about what the day would bring left a feeling of emptiness around the town of Weed the morning after evacuation orders were lifted for thousands of other residents.
“It’s eerily quiet,” said Susan Tavalero, a city councilor who was driving to a meeting with fire officials.
She was joined by Mayor Kim Greene, and the two hoped to get more details on how many homes had been lost. A total of 132 structures were destroyed or damaged, fire officials said Sunday, though it wasn’t clear whether they were homes, businesses, or other buildings.
Three people were injured, according to Cal Fire, but no other details were available. Two people were brought to Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta, Cal Fire Siskiyou Unit Chief Phil Anzo said Saturday. One was in stable condition and the other was transferred to UC Davis Medical Center, which has a burn unit. It’s unclear if these injuries were related to the deaths reported Sunday.
Weed, home to fewer than 3,000 people about 280 miles (451 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, has long been seen by passersby as a whimsical spot to stop along Interstate 5. But the town, nestled in the shadow of Mt. Shasta, is no stranger to wildfires.
Phil Anzo, Cal Fire’s Siskiyou Unit Chief, acknowledged the toll fires have taken on the rural region in recent years.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen lots of fires in this community, we’ve seen lots of fires in this county, and we’ve suffered lots of devastation,” Anzo said.
Dominique Mathes, 37, said he’s had some close calls with wildfires since he has lived in Weed. Though fire dangers are becoming more frequent, he’s not interested in leaving.
“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Everybody has risks everywhere, like Florida’s got hurricanes and floods, Louisiana has got tornadoes and all that stuff. So, it happens everywhere. Unfortunately here, it’s fires.”
The winds make Weed and the surrounding area a perilous place for wildfires, whipping small flames into a frenzy. Weed has seen three major fires since 2014, a period of extreme drought that has prompted the largest and most destructive fires in California history.
That drought persists as California heads into what traditionally is the worst of the fire season. Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Crews battled flames while much of the state baked in a Labor Day weekend heat wave, with temperatures expected to top 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in Los Angeles, exceptionally warm weather for Southern California. Temperatures were expected to be even hotter through the Central Valley up to the capital of Sacramento.
The California Independent System Operator issued its fifth “flex alert,” a plea for people to use their air conditioners and other appliances sparingly from 4 to 9 p.m. to protect the power grid.
___
Ronayne reported from Sacramento, California. Associated Press journalist Stefanie Dazio contributed from Los Angeles.
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| 2022-09-21T11:47:41Z
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JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli military body has released a list of rules and restrictions for foreigners wanting to enter Palestinian areas of the West Bank, extending its control of daily life and movement in and out of the occupied territory.
COGAT, the Israeli body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, stepped back from a number of controversial restrictions that had appeared in a draft of the rules published earlier this year, such as a requirement that people who form romantic relationships with local Palestinians register with Israeli authorities.
But many of the changes in the 90-page document released late Sunday appeared to be largely cosmetic. The U.S. ambassador expressed concern over the rules, and critics said they merely entrenched Israel’s 55-year control over the Palestinian population in the territory.
“The Israeli military is proposing new restrictions in order to isolate Palestinian society from the outside world and keep Palestinian families from living together,” said Jessica Montell, executive director of HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group that has challenged the rules in court.
“In response to criticism they have removed the most outrageous elements. Yet they are keeping the basic structure of this very invasive and harmful procedure in place,” she added. The rules are set to go into effect on Oct. 20.
The wide-ranging policy imposes rules on foreigners who marry Palestinians or who come to the West Bank to work, volunteer, study or teach. The rules do not apply to people visiting Israel or the more than 130 Jewish settlements scattered across the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war — territories Palestinians seek for an independent state.
The initial draft included a requirement that a foreigner who forms a serious romantic relationship with a local Palestinian notify the Israeli military within 30 days of the “start of the relationship,” defined as an engagement, wedding or moving in together.
The 30-day notice was removed from Sunday’s rules. But it nonetheless says that if a foreigner starts a relationship with a Palestinian, “the appointed COGAT official must be informed as part of their request to renew or extend the existing visa.”
The new rules also dropped earlier limits on the number of foreign students and teachers allowed to study or work in the West Bank. The amount of time they can stay in the territory was also lengthened.
Yet COGAT continues to hold great discretion over who is allowed in. It must approve the academic credentials of a university lecturer invited by a Palestinian institution, and holds the right to screen potential students if there is “suspicion of misuse” of a visa.
Tough restrictions on foreign spouses of Palestinians also remain in place. Spouses are only entitled to short-term visits and can be required to deposit up to 70,000 shekels (about $20,000) to guarantee they will leave the territory.
The new rules offer some potential relief for foreign spouses, including a longer-term visa of 27 months that can be renewed and include multiple visits in and out of the territory. It also drops a previous “cooling off” period that required spouses to leave for lengthy periods between visas.
But these new and improved visas require an application through the Palestinian Authority to Israel — a process that is uncertain and notoriously opaque, Montell said. The document says a final decision also is subject to approval by Israel’s “political echelon.”
U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides expressed disappointment with the rules, and said he had “aggressively engaged” with Israel on the draft and would continue to do so ahead of the rules’ formal implementation.
“I continue to have concerns with the published protocols, particularly regarding COGAT’s role in determining whether individuals invited by Palestinian academic institutions are qualified to enter the West Bank, and the potential negative impact on family unity,” he said. “I fully expect the Government of Israel to make necessary adjustments” during a two-year pilot program to ensure “fair and equal treatment of all U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals traveling to the West Bank.”
Israel hopes to reach a visa-waiver program with the United States, which has long resisted the move in part because Israel treats Palestinian-Americans differently than other U.S. citizens.
The European Union, which sends hundreds of students and professors on academic exchanges to the West Bank each year, did not immediately comment on the Israeli announcement.
COGAT officials declined further comment, while the Palestinian Authority had no immediate reaction. Montell said her group would continue its legal challenges.
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| 2022-09-21T11:47:56Z
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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday beatified one of his predecessors, John Paul I, a briefly serving pontiff who distinguished himself with his humility and cheerfulness, and whose abrupt death in his bedroom in 1978 shocked the world and fueled suspicions for years about his demise.
The ceremony in St. Peter’s Square constituted the last formal step in the Vatican before possible sainthood for Albino Luciani, an Italian who died 33 days after being elected pontiff.
“With a smile, Pope John Paul managed to communicate the goodness of the Lord,” Francis said in his homily.
“How beautiful is a church with a happy, serene and smiling face, that never closes doors, never hardens hearts, never complains or harbors resentments, isn’t angry, does not look dour or suffer nostalgia for the past,” the pontiff said.
Francis then encouraged people to pray to the newly beatified churchman to “obtain for us the smile of the soul.”
Last year, Francis approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of John Paul I — that of the recovery of a critically ill 11-year-old girl in 2011 in Buenos Aires, the hometown of the current pope. Now a young woman, Candela Giarda told a Vatican press conference last week via a video message that she had wanted to attend the ceremony but couldn’t because she recently broke a foot working out in a gym.
For Luciani to be declared a saint, another miracle, following his beatification, must be attributed to his intercession and certified by the Vatican.
Seated under a canopy outside St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis led the ceremony, which was punctuated by booms of thunder, flashes of lightning and pouring rain, prompting cardinals, bishops, the choir and thousands of rank-and-file faithful in the square to open umbrellas.
But by the end of the ceremony, the sun was shining, and Francis, waving while seated in a popemobile, toured the square, waving to the crowd, some of whom shouted, “Long live the pope!”
When elected pontiff on Aug. 26, 1978, Luciani, 65, had been serving as patriarch of Venice, one of the church’s more prestigious positions. In that role as well as that previously as a bishop in northeastern Italy, Luciani sounded warnings against corruption, including in banking circles.
In his short-lived papacy, which concluded with the discovery of his body in his bedroom in the Apostolic Palace, John Paul I immediately established a simple, direct way of communicating with the faithful in the addresses he gave, a style change considered revolutionary considering the stuffiness of the environment of church hierarchy.
Those who have campaigned for him to someday be made a saint have stressed his deep spirituality and his tireless emphasis on key Christian virtues — faith, hope and charity.
John Paul “lived without compromise,” Francis said, praising him as mild-tempered, humble pastor.
Luciani overcame “the temptation to his own self at the center and to seek one’s glory,” the pontiff said.
The Vatican said John Paul died of a heart attack, but no autopsy was done. It gave conflicting versions of the circumstances of how his body was discovered. First it said that a priest who served as his secretary found him, but later acknowledged John Paul was found dead by one of the nuns who brought him his customary morning coffee.
With a huge financial scandal developing at the time in Italy involving figures who had links to the Vatican’s bank, suspicions quickly took root in the secular media that perhaps Luciani was poisoned because he intended to root out wrongdoing.
Books speculating on the circumstances surrounding his death sold millions of copies.
___
Alessandra Tarantino contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:03Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A man has been charged with kidnapping in the disappearance of a Tennessee woman who was out jogging last week when she was accosted and forced into an SUV, police said Sunday.
While Eliza Fletcher has not been found, Memphis police said in an arrest affidavit they have evidence that leads them to believe she was seriously injured in the abduction near the University of Memphis campus. Authorities have said they have surveillance video of the abduction.
U.S. Marshals arrested 38-year-old Cleotha Abston on Saturday after police found his DNA on a pair of sandals found near where Fletcher was last seen, according to the affidavit. Police also linked the vehicle they believe Fletcher was forced into to a person living at a residence where Abston was staying.
Abston attempted to flee when U.S. Marshals arrived at that residence but was captured, according to the affidavit. Memphis police said early Sunday morning he was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence. They said that the investigation continues.
Online court records do not show if Abston has a lawyer who can comment on his behalf. An arraignment has been set for Tuesday.
A second person was also arrested but apparently on an unrelated offense since police said they didn’t believe that person was connected to the abduction.
Authorities have said Fletcher, 34, was jogging around 4 a.m. on Friday when a man approached her and forced her into an SUV after a brief struggle. Fletcher was reported missing when she did not return home.
Police said a witness reported seeing Abston cleaning the inside of the SUV in question a few hours after the abduction and that he was “behaving oddly.”
Fletcher is the granddaughter of the late Joseph Orgill III, a Memphis hardware businessman and philanthropist, according to news outlets. The family has released a video statement asking for help in finding Fletcher and offered a $50,000 reward for information in the case.
“We believe someone knows what happened, and can help,” Fletcher’s uncle said in the video.
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:11Z
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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Chris Chen, a former captain in Taiwan’s military, spent a lot of time waiting during his weeklong training for reservists in June. Waiting for assembly, waiting for lunch, waiting for training, he said.
The course, part of Taiwan’s efforts to deter a Chinese invasion, was jam-packed with 200 reservists to one instructor.
“It just became all listening, there was very little time to actually carry out the instructions,” Chen said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the importance of mobilizing civilians when under attack, as Ukraine’s reserve forces helped fend off the invaders. Nearly halfway around the world, it has highlighted Taiwan’s weaknesses on that front, chiefly in two areas: its reserves and civilian defense force.
While an invasion doesn’t appear imminent, China’s recent large-scale military exercises in response to a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan have made the government in Taipei more aware than ever of the hard power behind Beijing’s rhetoric about bringing the self-ruled island under its control.
Experts said that civilian defense and reserve forces have an important deterrent effect, showing a potential aggressor that the risks of invasion are high. Even before the invasion of Ukraine in March, Taiwan was working on reforming both. The question is whether it will be enough.
Taiwan’s reserves are meant to back up its 188,000-person military, which is 90% volunteers and 10% men doing their four months of compulsory military service. On paper, the 2.3 million reservists enable Taiwan to match China’s 2 million-strong military.
Yet, the reserve system has long been criticized. Many, like Chen, felt the seven days of training for the mostly former soldiers was a waste of time that did not prepare them well enough.
The number of combat-ready reservists — those who could immediately join front-line battles — is only about 300,000, said Wang Ting-yu, a lawmaker from the governing Democratic Progressive Party who serves on the defense committee in the legislature.
“In Ukraine, if in the first three days of the war it had fallen apart, no matter how strong your military is, you wouldn’t have been able to fight the war,” Wang said. “A resilient society can meet this challenge. So that when you are met with disasters and war, you will not fall apart.”
Taiwan reorganized its reserve system in January, now coordinated by a new body called the All Out Defense Mobilization Agency, which will also take over the civil defense system in an emergency.
One major change was the pilot launch of a more intensive, two-week training instead of the standard one week, which will eventually be expanded to the 300,000 combat-ready reservists. The remaining reservists can play a more defensive role, such as defending bridges, Wang said.
Dennis Shi joined the revamped training for two weeks in May at an abandoned building site on Taiwan’s northern coast. Half the time it was raining, he said. The rest, it was baking hot. The training coincided with the peak of a COVID-19 outbreak. Wearing raincoats and face masks, the reservists dug trenches and practiced firing mortars and marching.
“Your whole body was covered in mud, and even in your boots there was mud,” Shi said.
Still, he said he got more firing time than during his mandatory four months of service three years ago and felt motivated because senior officers carried out the drills with them.
“The main thing is when it’s time to serve your country, then you have to do it,” he said.
There are plans to reform the civil defense force too, said Wang, though much of the discussion has not been widely publicized yet.
The Civil Defense Force, which falls under the National Police Agency, is a leftover from an era of authoritarian rule before Taiwan transitioned to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s. Its members are mostly people who are too old to qualify as reservists but still want to serve.
“It hasn’t followed the passage of the times and hasn’t kept pace with our fighting ability,” Wang said.
Planned changes include a requirement to include security guards employed by some of Taiwan’s largest companies in the force, and the incorporation of women, who are not required to serve in the military.
About 73% of Taiwanese say they would be willing to fight for Taiwan if China were to invade, according to surveys by Kuan-chen Lee at the Defense Ministry-affiliated Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a number that has remained consistent.
The Ukraine war, at least initially, shook some people’s confidence in the willingness of America to come to Taiwan’s assistance in the event of an attack. Whereas 57% said last September they believed the U.S. would “definitely or probably” send troops if China invaded, that dropped to 40% in March.
The U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity leaves it murky as to whether the U.S. would intervene militarily. Pelosi said during her visit that she wants to help the island defend itself.
Outside of government efforts, some civilians have been inspired to do more on their own.
Last week, the founder of Taiwanese chipmaker United Microelectronics, Robert Tsao, announced he would donate 1 billion New Taiwan Dollars ($32.8 million) to fund the training of a 3 million-person defense force made up of civilians.
More than 1,000 people have attended lectures on civil defense with Open Knowledge Taiwan, according to T.H. Schee, a tech entrepreneur who gives lectures and organizes civil defense courses with the volunteer group, which aims to make specialized knowledge accessible to the public.
Others have signed up for first aid training, and some for firearms courses, though with air guns as Taiwan’s laws do not allow widespread gun ownership.
These efforts need government coordination, said Martin Yang, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Military and Police Tactical Research and Development Association, a group of former police officers and soldiers interested in Taiwan’s defense.
“The civil sector has this idea and they’re using their energy, but I think the government needs to come out and coordinate this, so the energy doesn’t get wasted,” he said.
Yang is critical of the government’s civil defense drills, citing annual exercises in which civilians practice taking shelter.
“When you do this exercise, you want to consider that people will hide in the subway, they need water and food, and may have medical needs. You will possibly have hundreds or thousands of people hiding there,” Yang said. “But were does the water and food come from?”
In July, the New Taipei city government organized a large-scale drill with its disaster services and the Defense Ministry. Included for the first time was urban warfare, such as how first responders would react to an attack on a train station or a port.
The drills had the feeling of a carnival rather than serious preparation for an invasion. An MC excitedly welcomed guests as Korean pop music blared. Recruiters for the military, the coast guard and the military police set up booths to entice visitors, offering tchotchkes such as toy grenade keychains.
Chang Chia-rong guided VIP guests to their seats. The 20-year-old expressed a willingness to defend Taiwan, though she hadn’t felt very worried about a Chinese invasion.
“If there’s a volunteer squad, I hope that I can join and defend my country,” she said. “If there’s a need, I would be very willing to join.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:18Z
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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — When John Tierre launched his restaurant in Jackson’s neglected Farish Street Historic District, he was drawn by the neighborhood’s past as an economically independent cultural hub for Black Mississippians, and the prospect of helping usher in an era of renewed prosperity.
This week he sat on the empty, sun-drenched patio of Johnny T’s Bistro and Blues and lamented all the business he has lost as tainted water flows through his pipes — just like other users in the majority Black city of 150,000, if they were lucky enough to have any pressure at all. The revival he and others envisioned seems very much in doubt.
“The numbers are very low for lunch,” Tierre told The Associated Press. “They’re probably taking their business to the outskirts where they don’t have water woes.”
Torrential rains and flooding of the Pearl River in late August exacerbated problems at one of Jackson’s two treatment plants, leading to a drop in pressure throughout the city, where residents were already under a boil-water order due to poor quality.
Officials said Sunday that most of Jackson should have running water, though residents are still advised not to drink straight from the tap. The city remains under a boil water notice. Officials also said future repairs leave potential for fluctuations in water pressure.
The water crisis has compounded the financial strain caused by an ongoing labor shortage and high inflation. And the flow of consumer dollars from Jackson and its crumbling infrastructure to the city’s outskirts hits Black-owned businesses hardest, the owners say.
Another Black entrepreneur who has taken a hit is Bobbie Fairley, 59, who has lived in Jackson her entire life and owns Magic Hands Hair Design on the city’s south side.
She canceled five appointments Wednesday because she needs high water pressure to rinse her clients’ hair of treatment chemicals. She also has had to purchase water to shampoo hair to try fit and in whatever appointments she can. When customers aren’t coming in, she’s losing money.
“That’s a big burden,” she said. “I can’t afford that. I can’t afford that at all.”
Jackson can’t afford to fix its water problems. The tax base has eroded over the past few decades as the population decreased, the result of primarily white flight to suburbs that began about a decade after public schools integrated in 1970. Today the city is more than 80% black, and 25% of its residents live in poverty.
Some say the uncertainty facing Black businesses fits into a pattern of adversity stemming from both natural disasters and policy decisions.
“It’s punishment for Jackson because it was open to the idea that people should be able to attend public schools and that people should have access to public areas without abuse,” said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music and Bookstore up the block from Johnny T’s. “As a result of that, we have people who ran away to the suburbs.”
Primm thinks Jackson’s longstanding water woes — which some trace to the 1970s when federal spending on water utilities peaked, according to a 2018 Congressional Budget Office report — have been made worse by inaction from Mississippi’s mostly white, conservative-dominated Legislature.
“For decades this has been a malignant attack, not benign. And it’s been purposeful,” Primm said.
Political leaders have not always been on the same page. Jackson’s Democratic mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, has blamed the water problems on decades of deferred maintenance, while Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said they stem from mismanagement at the city level.
Last Monday the governor held a news conference about the crisis, and the mayor was not invited. Another was held later in the week where they both appeared, but Primm said it’s clear that the two are not in concert.
“The lack of cooperation speaks to the continued punishment that Jackson must endure,” she said.
Under normal circumstances, Labor Day weekend is a bustling time at Johnny T’s. The college football season brings out devoted Jackson State fans who watch away games on the bistro’s TVs or mosey over from the stadium after home games. But this weekend many regulars were busy stocking up on bottled water to drink or boiling tap water to cook.
Even as revenue plummeted, Tierre’s expenses increased. He has been spending $300 to $500 per day on ice and bottled water, not to mention canned soft drinks, tonic water and everything else that would typically be served out of a soda gun. He brings staff in a few hours earlier than usual so they can get a head start on boiling water to wash dishes and stacking the extra soda cans.
In total, Tierre estimated, he’s forking over an added $3,500 per week. Customers pay the price.
“You have to pass some of this off to the consumer,” Tierre said. “Now your Coke is $3, and there are no refills.”
At a water distribution site in south Jackson this week, area resident Lisa Jones brought empty paint buckets to fill up so her family could bathe. In a city with crumbling infrastructure, Jones said she felt trapped.
“Everybody can’t move right now. Everyone can’t go to Madison, Flowood, Canton and all these other places,” she said, naming three more affluent suburbs. “If we could, trust me, it would be a dark sight: Houses would be boarded up street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood.”
___
Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:26Z
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DENTON, Texas (AP) — A Texas judge has declared a mistrial in the child sex assault case against former All-Star and World Series MVP pitcher John Wetteland after the jury deadlocked.
The Denton County jury told Judge Lee Ann Breading three times that it was split before she declared a mistrial Friday. Wetteland, who played for the Texas Rangers from 1997 to 2000 and also played for the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners, was being tried on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
When asked if the case will be retried, Denton County First Assistant District Attorney Jamie Beck said in an email Sunday: “We will move forward, whether this means it is resolved through negotiations or trial again is up to him.”
Wetteland, who is 56 and a Rangers’ Hall of Famer, faced 25 years to life in prison, if convicted.
Authorities had accused Wetteland of sexually assaulting a child three times between 2004 and 2006, starting when the child was 4 years old. Wetteland, who pleaded not guilty, testified in his own defense and said the accuser’s account of sexual abuse was a lie.
The accuser, who is now 22, said the abuse happened in the master bathroom shower of Wetteland’s home in Bartonville, located just south of Denton.
Wetteland’s attorneys said the accuser was manipulated to levy false accusations against Wetteland.
The accuser testified that he didn’t want to involve law enforcement. Instead, he had written a letter intended only for family members disclosing the abuse. But, according to testimony, an investigation started after the accuser’s high school learned of the allegations in 2019 when district software flagged a letter written in Google Docs that was linked to the accuser’s school-issued email.
Prosecutor Rachel Nichols said the accuser had “nothing to gain” by coming forward with abuse allegations.
“He’s not this evil kid,” Nichols said. “He didn’t want the world to know.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:33Z
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SAN ANDRES, Colombia (AP) — First Baptist Church was born by a tamarind tree perched on a hill overlooking the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.
Under the tree’s shade, First Baptist’s founder taught English-speaking former slaves and their descendants how to read using the Bible. The tree still stands more than 175 years later — even if crooked after surviving devastating hurricanes.
The church is so crucial to the history of the Colombian island of San Andres that detailed record of births and deaths are kept here in crumbling books that date back nearly two centuries.
The “mother church,” as it is often called, is a source of pride for the Raizals, the English-speaking, mostly Protestant inhabitants of San Andres, Providencia and the smaller islands and keys that form an archipelago in the western Caribbean near Nicaragua, about 440 miles (710 kilometers) from the Colombian mainland.
“For a young person like me, it’s finding my roots — it’s good to know where we come from,” said the Rev. Shuanon Hudgson, 26, the church’s associate pastor.
“It’s like Marcus Garvey says,” quoting the Jamaica-born, early 20th-century Black nationalist: “‘A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.’ And this church has been a pillar.”
Under the tree, a stone plaque commemorates the birth of the congregation: “Baptist work was established here by Rev. Phillip Beekman Livingston (Jr.) in 1844.”
Three years later the congregation began to meet nearby under a thatched hut.
It kept growing, and a building made in the style of the large Anglican churches of Jamaica was ordered. First built in the late 19th century in Mobile, Alabama, and then moved to New York City, the white-walled church was disassembled and shipped to the island piece by piece.
Parishioners carried the foundations on their backs from the port to one of the highest points on the island, a neighborhood known as the Hill, said Lastenia Herrera May, the wife of the current lead pastor, the Rev. Ronald Hooker, and the church was dedicated on Feb. 2, 1896.
A scenic overlook more than 100 feet up in the steeple offers some of the best views of San Andres.
Over a century after being claimed by Spain, the island was first settled in the 1630s by English Puritans. It later became an outpost for pirates and today is home to many descendants of Puritans and African slaves, and also large numbers of more recent arrivals from mainland Colombia.
Sharika Crawford, a professor of history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, whose research focuses on Colombia and its African-descended peoples, said First Baptist “was the bedrock of the Raizal community” and “the most important social institution” in the archipelago.
From its founding until 1913, she said, its pastors held great authority over the community in shaping islanders’ values and behavior.
“Before the church was formed, the island population lived without a church or religious establishment. Efforts to bring a Catholic priest never materialized,” Crawford said. “Thus, First Baptist Church and its satellite churches across San Andres and Providencia Islands had the advantage over other Christian communities such as the Catholics and Seventh-day Adventists.”
“The church had glorious moments,” Herrera May said. “By the 1900s, thousands had converted.”
Livingston, the founder, first evangelized among enslaved and freed people of San Andres, Crawford said, and the church remains a symbol of the anti-slavery struggle. Each year people from congregations across the islands gather here Aug. 1 to celebrate events commemorating emancipation.
During a recent Sunday service, Lucia Barker, 83, and other women in the choir, clothed in bright pink shirts, sang hymns. Parishioners in wooden pews, illuminated by sunlight from stained-glass windows, swayed, lifted their arms and sang along to songs infused with Calypso beats.
“This church is my life,” Barker said of the sanctuary where she was baptized, married and has worshipped for more than seven decades.
In his homily, Hudgson, the associate pastor, asked congregants to remember the sacrifice of their enslaved ancestors. He called on them to be resilient against adversity, just as the tree and the church, and listed by name and year the many hurricanes that both survived.
“Here we get the knowledge about our land, our history, how we started by this tamarind tree, how we have a church,” choir member Marjeen Martínez said. “It’s very important to maintain our roots alive.”
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:41Z
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas investigative reporter was stabbed to death outside his home and police are looking for a suspect, authorities said.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers found journalist Jeff German, 69, dead with stab wounds around 10:30 a.m. Saturday after authorities received a 911 call, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
German died of “multiple sharp force injuries” in a homicide, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner said Sunday.
It appears German was in an altercation with another person that led to the stabbing, which is believed to be an isolated incident, police said.
“We believe the altercation took place outside of the home,” Capt. Dori Koren, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said at a news conference. “We do have some leads. We are pursuing a suspect but the suspect is outstanding.”
Glenn Cook, the Review-Journal’s executive editor, said German had not communicated any concerns about his personal safety or any threats made against him to anyone in the newspaper’s leadership.
“The Review-Journal family is devastated to lose Jeff,” Cook said in a statement. “He was the gold standard of the news business. It’s hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.”
German joined the Review-Journal in 2010 after more than two decades at the Las Vegas Sun, where he was a columnist and reporter who covered courts, politics, labor, government and organized crime.
He was known for his stories about government malfeasance and political scandals and coverage of the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 others.
According to the Review-Journal, German held a master’s degree from Marquette University and was the author of the 2001 true-crime book “Murder in Sin City: The Death of a Las Vegas Casino Boss,” the story of the death of Ted Binion, heir to the Horseshoe Club fortune.
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| 2022-09-21T11:48:56Z
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HELSINKI (AP) — Four passengers aboard a private jet traveling from Spain to Germany were feared dead after the plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off Latvia’s coast on Sunday, according to Swedish and German media reports.
The Cessna Citation 551 jet, which had taken off from the Spanish city of Jerez in the afternoon, disappeared from radar while flying over the Baltic Sea northwest of the Latvian port city of Ventspils, Swedish news agency TT reported.
The aircraft, registered in Austria, was en route to Cologne, Germany. German media said the passengers were a family of three — a man, a woman and their daughter — in addition to the pilot.
German newspaper Bild said that the plane had reported shortly after takeoff that there was a problem with pressurization in the cabin. But authorities lost radio contact with the aircraft soon after, and Spanish and French fighter jets were dispatched to intercept the plane.
But when they reached the plane, they saw nobody sitting in the cockpit, Bild said.
Latvian and Swedish rescue and coast guard vessels were patrolling the crash site and a nearby passenger ferry was alerted to help in the efforts. Debris from the plane and an oil spill have been found at the site, Swedish media reports said.
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:03Z
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan could lift crushing debt burdens from millions of borrowers, but the tax man may demand a cut of the relief in some states.
That’s because some states tax forgiven debt as income, which means borrowers who are still paying down student loans could owe taxes on as much as $10,000 or even $20,000 that was taken off their bill. In Mississippi, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arkansas and North Carolina, forgiven student loans will be subject to state income taxes unless they change their laws to conform with a federal tax exemption for student loans, according to a tally by the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
That dismays Cathy Newman, a Louisiana State University graduate who just took a job teaching freshman biology at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. She figures she could end up owing a few hundred dollars of money that she could have kept had she stayed in Louisiana.
Newman said she can come up with the cash because she has a good job, but she knows of a lot of other borrowers who will still be stuck in difficult financial positions even with their loans forgiven.
“If they stay in the state, they could end up with a pretty hefty tax burden if things don’t change,” Newman said. “I won’t be happy if I have to do it. I can do it. But a lot of people can’t.”
More than 40 million Americans could see their student loan debt cut or eliminated under the forgiveness plan Biden announced late last month. The president is erasing $10,000 in federal student loan debt for individuals with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000. He’s canceling an additional $10,000 for those who also used federal Pell Grants to pay for college. But it only applies to those whose loans were paid out before July 1, which leaves out current high school seniors and students who will follow them.
Although having $10,000 or $20,000 in loan payments eliminated will be a boon over the long term to borrowers who qualify, those in the affected states might be required to declare that as income. Depending on a state’s tax rates, the taxpayer’s other income and the deductions and exemptions they’re able to claim, that could add up to several hundred extra tax dollars that they’ll owe.
Spokespeople for tax agencies in several states — including Virginia, Idaho, New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky — told The Associated Press that their states definitely won’t tax student loans forgiven under Biden’s program. Revenue officials in a few other states said they needed to do more research to know.
Newman, 38, went into debt to pay for graduate school. She had already set herself up for relief under the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, though that requires five more years of teaching on top of the five she already taught at the University of Louisiana Monroe. Biden’s program would cut $10,000 off her debt load when it takes effect, but under existing Mississippi tax law, the relief won’t come free.
“It’s not a huge burden for me, but it could be for a lot of other people, which is what I’m worried about, especially if it’s unexpected, and I think a lot of people don’t realize that,” Newman said.
Any relief in states that would tax the forgiven debt would have to come from their Legislatures. Leaders of the Minnesota Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz have indicated in recent media interviews that there’s broad support for a fix, which could come during the 2023 session, or even earlier on the remote chance of a special session.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration plans to propose a fix in the state budget next year, but that would have to be approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature. And Evers needs to get reelected in November before he can formally make that request. Republican legislative leaders and Evers’ GOP challenger, Tim Michels, did not reply to messages seeking comment on the student loan tax issue.
However, in Mississippi, the chairman of the state Senate committee in charge of taxes said he’s willing to take a look when the Legislature convenes next year. Republican state Sen. Josh Harkins, of Brandon, said he needs to learn more about what his state’s tax laws say on debt forgiveness.
“I’m sure people will want to look at adjusting that or making some changes in the law, but a lot of factors have to be considered,” Harkins said, noting that Mississippi enacted its biggest-ever tax cut earlier this year and adding that he wants to gauge the impact of inflation before making big tax policy decisions. “This all just hit in the last week.”
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Binkley reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this story.
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:11Z
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BERGEN-BELSEN, Germany (AP) — They call him the ultimate survivor: Shaul Ladany lived through a Nazi concentration camp and escaped the massacre of 11 fellow Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
Decades later the 86-year-old is back in Germany to visit the two places where he narrowly avoided death.
On Saturday, Ladany, who was born in 1936 in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, brought family members to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany to show them the place where he was imprisoned by the Nazis as an 8-year-old boy.
After that the spry octogenarian will participate in a joint German-Israeli ceremony in Munich on Monday marking the 50th anniversary of the attack on the Olympians by Palestinian terrorists.
Ladany, who competed in the Munich games as a racewalker, strode briskly in lime-green sneakers and a beige sun hat as he led his granddaughter, his younger sister and her three children in Bergen-Belsen, which has been turned into a memorial site. He pointed at a plot of land, nowadays covered by blueberry and heather shrubs and tall birch and pine trees, where barracks No. 10 used to stand.
He was held there with his parents and two sisters for about six months in 1944 before they were allowed to leave under a deal negotiated by Hungarian and Swiss Jewish foundations, which paid the Nazis ransom to free more than 1,600 Jews deported from Hungary.
“It’s not a pleasant thing to recall the period here,” Ladany said in an interview with The Associated Press at the former concentration camp. But it was important to him to come back and tell relatives about the horrors he endured during the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews were killed. It is a pilgrimage he has already made several times before with other family members.
“I always bring here one of my relatives to teach them, to educate them what happened,” Ladany said.
Even though he was a little boy at the time, Ladany still remembers the constant hunger and enduring seemingly endless roll calls in the cold wind outside the barracks when the guards would count the camp inmates.
The Ladanys fled Belgrade in 1941 after their home was bombed by the German Luftwaffe, or air force. They escaped to Budapest, Hungary, but were eventually captured by the Nazis and sent to Bergen-Belsen, where 52,000 mostly Jewish prisoners died at the concentration camp and more than 19,000 prisoners of war, mostly from the Soviet Union, died at the adjacent POW camp.
After being freed in the exchange, Ladany and his family traveled to Switzerland and ultimately moved in 1948 to Israel. There he grew up to become a professor of industrial engineering and management and an accomplished racewalker — he still holds the 50-mile world record, set in 1972.
When he came to Munich for the Olympics at 36 years old, he said, he tried to guess the age of every German he met, and “if in my mind he would have been age-wise in the age group that might have participated in the Third Reich’s atrocities, I prevented any contact.”
However, this time it wasn’t the Germans who posed a threat to his life.
Early on the morning of Sept. 5, members of the Palestinian group Black September broke into the Olympic Village, killed two athletes from the Israeli delegation and took nine more hostage, demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel as well as two left-wing extremists in West German jails.
Ladany, again, narrowly escaped. A terrified roommate woke him up to say a fellow athlete was dead, and he quickly put on his sneakers and ran to the door of their apartment.
Just outside he saw an Olympic official pleading with a man in a tracksuit and hat, later identified as the leader of the assailants, to be “humane” and let Red Cross officials into an adjacent apartment. The man, Ladany recalled, responded: “The Jews aren’t humane either.”
Ladany turned around, threw on some clothes over his pajamas and joined other teammates in fleeing. Not everyone was so lucky; all nine hostages and a police officer were killed during a failed rescue attempt by German forces.
Ladany said that while before the attack the Olympics was purely “a sports meeting of joy and competition,” today no such event is held without strict security.
“Since then,” he said, “the world has changed.”
West Germany was criticized not only for botching the rescue but also for withholding historic files on the tragic events for decades, and for not offering enough compensation to victims’ families. Relatives of the 11 slain athletes had threatened to boycott Monday’s anniversary but last week finally reached a deal in which they will receive a total of 28 million euros (dollars) in compensation.
Ladany plans to wear his original Israeli team jacket from 1972 when he attends the memorial, and he’s looking forward to showing the world that both he and Israel have endured.
“Those that tried to kill me are not alive anymore,” he said. “We are still here. Not only as individuals, but also as a country.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:19Z
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LONDON (AP) — Liz Truss, who is widely expected to become Britain’s new prime minister this week, has pledged to act within a week to tackle a cost-of-living crisis fueled by soaring energy bills linked to the war in Ukraine.
But Truss, speaking to the BBC on Sunday, refused to provide any details on the actions she would take, suggesting it would be wrong to discuss specific policies until she takes the top post. She stressed, however, that she understands the magnitude of the problems facing Britain.
The government has been unable to address soaring inflation, labor strife and strains on the nation’s creaking health-care system since early July, when Johnson announced his intention to resign and triggered a contest to choose his successor. The ruling Conservative Party will announce the winner on Monday.
“I want to reassure people that I am absolutely determined to sort out this issue as well as, within a month, present a full plan for how we are going to reduce taxes, how we’re going to get the British economy going, and how we are going to find our way out of these difficult times,’’ said Truss, who has been foreign secretary for the past year.
Truss is facing Rishi Sunak, the government’s former Treasury chief, in the contest to become Conservative Party leader and so prime minister. Only dues-paying party members were allowed to vote in the election, putting the choice of Britain’s next leader in the hands of about 180,000 party activists.
During the campaign, Truss promised to increase defense spending, cut taxes and boost energy supplies, but she refused to provide specifics on how she would respond to the cost of living crisis.
With household energy bills set to increase by 80% next month, charities warn that as many as one in three households will face fuel poverty this winter, leaving millions fearful of how they will pay to heat their homes.
The Bank of England has forecast that inflation will reach a 42-year high of 13.3% in October, threatening to push Britain into a prolonged recession. Goldman Sachs has estimated that inflation could soar to 22% by next year unless something is done to mitigate high energy prices.
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:27Z
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian firefighters known for rescuing people from buildings hit by shelling in more than six months of war helped a small, furry survivor this weekend — a gray-and-white kitten.
The rescuers, wearing full firefighting gear, battled raging flames and smoke to pull the kitten out from under a metal chair in the rubble of a wooden hotel-restaurant complex hit by a rocket in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, the country’s emergency services said Sunday on Facebook.
Video showed the firefighters petting and cuddling the feline as they carried it to safety. One used water from a firetruck to wipe down the kitten in his arms.
“We found a beauty,” one of the firefighters said as the kitten wiggled around in a colleague’s arms. Another said, “Get this kitty some oxygen.”
Ukraine’s emergency services said the kitten’s paw needed medical attention.
“Heroes of our time,” the emergency services proclaimed of the firefighters. “They protect, work, save, treat … And we wish the cat a speedy recovery.”
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:34Z
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Energy problems plagued Ukraine and Europe as much of the Russian-occupied region that’s home to a largely crippled nuclear power plant was reported temporarily in blackout Sunday.
Only one of six reactors at the Zaporizhzhia facility was connected to the electricity grid, and Russia’s main pipeline carrying natural gas to Germany remained shut down.
The fighting in Ukraine and related disputes over pipelines lie behind the electricity and natural gas shortfalls that have worsened as Russia’s war in Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, grinds on for a seventh month.
Both issues will take center stage this week. U.N. nuclear agency inspectors are scheduled to brief the Security Council on Tuesday about their inspection and safeguard visit to the Zaporizhzhia power plant. European Union energy ministers were slated to hold an emergency meeting Friday in Brussels to discuss the bloc’s electricity market, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said “is no longer operating.”
Much of the Zaporizhzhia region, including the key city of Melitopol, lost power Sunday.
But electricity was gradually being restored, said Vladimir Rogov, the head of the Russia-installed local administration in Enerhodar, the city where the nuclear power plant is located. To the southwest, power was also out in several parts of the port city of Kherson, according to Russia’s Tass news agency. Rogov blamed the outages in both locations on damage to high-voltage power lines.
While Rogov said no new shelling of the area around the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia plant was reported Sunday, the effects of earlier strikes lingered.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday that the plant was disconnected from its last main external power line and one reactor was disconnected because of grid restrictions. Another reactor was still operating and producing electricity for cooling and other essential safety functions at the site, as well as externally for households, factories and others through a reserve power line, the IAEA said.
Russian forces have held the Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, since early March, with its Ukrainian staff continuing to operate it.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said he will brief the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday on a mission he led to the plant last week. The 14-member delegation braved gunfire and artillery blasts to reach the plant last Thursday after months of negotiations to enable passage through the fighting’s front lines.
Without blaming either warring side, Grossi said his big concerns are the plant’s physical integrity, its power supply and the staff’s condition.
Europe’s energy picture remained clouded by the war in Ukraine.
Just hours before Russian energy company Gazprom was due to resume natural gas deliveries to Germany through a major pipeline after a three-day stoppage, it announced Friday that it couldn’t do so until oil leaks in turbines are fixed.
That is the latest development in a saga in which Gazprom has advanced technical problems as the reason for reducing gas flows through Nord Stream 1 — explanations that German officials have rejected as a cover for a political power play. Dismissing Gazprom’s latest rationale for the shutdown, Germany’s Siemens Energy — which manufactured turbines the pipeline uses —- said turbine leaks can be fixed while gas continues to flow through the pipeline.
Von der Leyen blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine for Europe’s energy crisis. Before the EU energy ministers’ meeting this coming Friday, she said electricity and natural gas prices should be decoupled and that she supports a price cap on Russian pipeline gas exported to Europe.
Natural gas is one of the main fuels used in electricity generation, and is a major source of Russia’s income, along with oil exports.
On Ukraine’s battlefield, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday, without providing specifics, that his country’s forces had retaken control of two settlements in Ukraine’s south and one in the separatist eastern Donetsk region.
Russian shelling hit the southern Ukraine port city of Mykolaiv during the night, damaging a medical treatment facility, the city’s mayor said Sunday.
Mykolaiv and its surrounding region have been hit daily for weeks. On Saturday, a child was killed and five people were wounded in rocket attacks in the region, Gov. Vitaliy Kim said.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych didn’t report injuries in the overnight attack, which he said also damaged residences. Mykolaiv, which is 30 kilometers (20 miles) upstream from the Black Sea on the Southern Bug River, is a significant port and shipbuilding center.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian shelling late Saturday set a large wooden restaurant complex on fire, according to the region’s emergency service. One person was killed and two others were wounded in shelling in the region, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces have been trying to take full control, said four people were killed in shelling on Saturday.
___
Andrew Katell contributed to this story from New York.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:41Z
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(NEXSTAR) — It may be hard to remember but there was once a time when the future giant of streaming video was a DVD/BluRay-by-mail service. First launched in 1998, Netflix operated successfully via mail delivery for several years before shifting its focus to streaming video in February 2007.
These days, Netflix is synonymous with on-demand streaming content — so much so that many new users may not even know the DVD/BluRay service is still around. While it still exists, it now operates under the name DVD.com.
There are currently three plans through DVD.com, all of which are billed separately from Netflix’s streaming service:
- Basic — Cost: $9.99 per month. Benefits: Unlimited number of rentals per month but only one disc out-at-a-time
- Standard — Cost: $14.99 per month. Benefits: Unlimited number of rentals per month but only two discs out-at-a-time
- Premium — Cost: $19.99 per month. Benefits: Unlimited number of rentals per month but only three discs out-at-a-time
Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the number of disc-by-mail subscribers, however, tech outlet Wired reported in 2019 that over two million people were still subscribed. As of the same year, Netflix filed a $300 million annual revenue report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company notes that one of the benefits of the service is that its DVD/BluRay library includes titles that may not be available for streaming.
Recent changes in offerings to several major streaming services, like HBO Max, have created renewed conversation about streaming vs. physical media. In the wake of an announced merger with the Discovery+ streaming service, several movies and shows disappeared from HBO Max, including the Seth Rogen vehicle “An American Pickle” and the teen romcom “Moonshot.”
Additionally, with each new month of the year, a slate of several streaming options are removed and replaced with others across all services.
While DVDs and BluRays may seem antiquated to some, the discs have never really gone away. New movies and TV shows are still released on discs each week, often with exclusive commentaries, features and supplemental materials.
For the streaming weary, it’s also important to remember your local library may have a robust DVD and BluRay catalogue. While streaming isn’t going anywhere soon, there are still options to track down movies you can’t find online.
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:48Z
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REGINA, Saskatchewan (AP) — A series of stabbings in two communities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan left 10 people dead and 15 wounded, authorities said Sunday. Police are looking for two suspects.
The stabbings took place in multiple locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, police said.
Rhonda Blackmore, the Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects but others appear to have been attacked at random. She couldn’t provide a motive.
“It is horrific what has occurred in our province today,” Blackmore said.
She said there are 13 crime scenes where either deceased or injured people were found. She urged the suspects to turn themselves in.
Police said the last information they had from the public was that the suspects were sighted in Saskatchewan’s capital of Regina around lunchtime. There have been so sightings since.
“If in the Regina area, take precautions & consider sheltering in place. Do not leave a secure location. DO NOT APPROACH suspicious persons. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Report suspicious persons, emergencies or info to 9-1-1. Do not disclose police locations,” the RCMP said in a message on Twitter.
Weldon resident Diane Shier said she was in her garden Sunday morning when she noticed emergency crews a couple of blocks away.
Shier said her neighbor, a man who lived with his grandson, was killed. She did not want to identify the victim out of respect for his family.
“I am very upset because I lost a good neighbor,” she said.
The search for suspects was carried out as fans descended in Regina for a sold out annual Labor Day game between the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The Regina Police Service said in a news release that with the help of Mounties, it was working on several fronts to locate and arrest the suspects and had “deployed additional resources for public safety throughout the city, including the football game at Mosaic Stadium.″
The alert first issued by Melfort, Saskatchewan RCMP about 7 a.m. was extended hours later to cover Manitoba and Alberta, as the two suspects remained at large.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was described as five feet seven inches tall and 155 pounds, and Myles Sanderson, 30, as six-foot-one and 200 pounds. Both have black hair and brown eyes and may be driving a black Nissan Rogue.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority said multiple patients were being treated at several sites.
“A call for additional staff was issued to respond to the influx of casualties,” authority spokeswoman Anne Linemann said in an email.
Mark Oddan, a spokesman with STARS Air Ambulance, said two helicopters were dispatched from Saskatoon and another from Regina.
He said two carried patients to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, while the third carried a patient to Royal University from a hospital in Melfort, a short distance southeast of Weldon.
Oddan said due to privacy laws, he could not disclose information about their ages, genders or conditions.
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| 2022-09-21T11:49:56Z
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(WHTM) – We all have encountered these absolutely annoying creatures, especially during late spring and summer time. They descend on guests at barbeques – or any outdoor event really. Some even carry diseases such as the West Nile and Zika viruses.
It’s the dreaded mosquito. But do these pests serve a purpose?
Well, yes actually, and one you may not expect.
The National Wildlife Foundation says there are more than 3,500 species of mosquitos, and not all of them bite people.
The U.S. and its territories are home to over 200 species, with only about a dozen carrying “germs” that can be spread to humans and make them sick, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Other mosquitoes bother people and are considered nuisance mosquitoes,” says the CDC. “In general, nuisance mosquitoes do not spread germs.”
But, mosquitoes aren’t all bad, and there is one thing about them that may surprise you: They are pollinators.
The National Wildlife Foundation says mosquitos’ primary source of food is nectar, not blood.
The female mosquito is the only one that bites since she needs the protein found in blood to help in the process of producing her eggs. The male mosquito doesn’t feed on people or animals — only on nectar.
The National Wildlife Foundation says only a few plant species are completely dependent on mosquitos for pollination.
Mosquitos also serve as a food source for other animals. Many birds, bats, dragonflies, newts and turtles feed on these bugs.
So mosquitoes do, in fact, serve a purpose, but you still don’t have to feel bad about smacking one if it tries to bite you.
According to the CDC, because mosquitos can carry viruses like West Nile, Zika and dengue and parasites like malaria, you should protect yourself even though not everyone infected with such germs gets sick.
“Because you can’t tell which mosquito could be spreading germs when it bites, it is important to protect yourself from mosquito bites,” says the CDC.
The CDC suggests using insect repellent and wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts, among other precautions, including pest control “inside and outside.”
If bitten, the CDC says, you should wash the affected area with soap and water and apply an ice pack to reduce swelling and itching. To relieve the itch, you can use a baking soda and water mixture or an over-the-counter anti-itch or antihistamine cream.
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| 2022-09-21T11:50:04Z
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(WGN Radio) – New kittens lured nine-year-old Savannah Grahl, her 11-year-old sister, and a friend into a barn at a farm near Eden, Wisconsin. Huge hay bales – the large rectangular ones that can weigh up to 1,000 pounds – were stacked there.
The girls knew of the danger and had been told to stay off them, but the kittens were too tempting to play with, Savannah’s mother Tara.
In an emotional interview with WGN Radio, Tara retold the harrowing story of what happened last month when two of the giant bales fell and trapped her child.
“I heard my older daughter screaming. She said, ‘Savannah’s pinned,'” Tara said. When she ran to the barn, she saw her daughter pinned up against a steel post by a two bales that had fallen when the pallet they were stacked on collapsed.
Savannah was unconscious and wasn’t breathing, her face purple, Tara said.
Tara said adrenaline gave her and her sister-in-law the strength to shove the bale off of Savannah enough for her to fall out of the way. They were able to get her breathing and to the hospital. She was admitted to the ICU.
WBAY reports she had a fractured skull and was put on a ventilator because of swelling in her airway.
On average, a child days in a farming accident every three days in the United States, according to the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety. Thankfully, it appears Savannah is recovering.
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| 2022-09-21T11:50:11Z
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LAGRANGE, Ga. (WRBL) – A 91-year-old woman in LaGrange, Georgia, says she’s lucky to be alive after a set of tires broke loose from an 18-wheeler and plowed straight through her home while she was asleep.
“It sounded like a bomb, and I just happened to look up and everything was just flying out the closet. And it was just a mess,” Della Ogletree told Nexstar’s WRBL.
Ogletree said she was sleeping when the tires tore through two bedrooms in her home. Luckily, she was sleeping in another room.
Photos shared with WRBL show holes in the walls of Ogletree’s home, as well as her belongings scattered across the debris-covered floors. Another photo shows the tires, where they came to rest inside a bedroom.
Police have since removed the tires from the home.
No one was injured, but Ogletree’s home sustained heavy damage.
Ogletree said police were still looking for the driver, who did not stop at the scene, as of Thursday.
The LaGrange Police Department is currently investigating.
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| 2022-09-21T11:50:19Z
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(NEXSTAR) — While it makes sense that you’d want to rinse off raw chicken under the tap before cooking it, a new initiative is working to explain why you shouldn’t. It turns out, washing the bird can just spread bacteria instead of getting rid of it.
The Don’t Wash Your Chicken program, backed by researchers at Drexel University, has a simple message for Americans. It’s don’t wash your chicken, in case you haven’t guessed.
Adding water onto raw chicken can allow bacteria like salmonella and campylobacter to spread around your kitchen, contributing to food poisoning risk, Drexel researchers found. Rinsing can also cause bacteria to become aerosolized — making germs airborne, they say.
Through in-depth interviews with people who do rinse chickens, researchers learned one of the top reasons people do it is lack of trust in chicken processing.
“Chicken has already been washed,” the program says. “Today’s manufacturing cleans the chicken, so there is no filth, feathers, or anything else on it that needs to be washed off. Poultry may have a coating of water and protein: this gets cooked off, or you can remove it with a clean paper towel and then wash your hands.”
Don’t Wash Your Chicken says cooking chicken at 165°F (you’ll check this with a food thermometer) will kill any lingering bacteria.
Salmonella in raw poultry contributes to 93 million cases of foodborne illness and 155,000 deaths each year. For more information on Don’t Wash Your Chicken — a collaboration between Drexel University, the nonprofit Partnership for Food Safety Education and New Mexico State University — click here.
You can also find more on U.S. poultry processing and sanitation standards at the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/should-you-wash-raw-chicken-before-cooking-it/
| 2022-09-21T11:50:26Z
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(NerdWallet) – Smoking in your car is harmful to you and your passengers, but it also hurts the resale value of your car.
Smoking can reduce the car’s trade-in value by at least $500, according to Richard Arca, director of vehicle valuations and analytics for auto website Edmunds. Other sources put the cost even higher.
A study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, or NCBI, estimates that smoking in a car reduces its resale value by 7.7%. So, for example, a car with a trade-in value of $20,000 would instead sell for $18,460, or $1,540 less.
Most online used-car buying sites — which let you sell your car online sight unseen based on a questionnaire — ask at least about “persistent odors,” if not specifically about smoking.
In evaluating the same car two different ways (smoked in and never smoked in), online used-car retailer Vroom’s appraisal tool reduced the company’s purchase offer by $1,000. Carvana’s reduction was less for the same car, cutting its offering price by only $289.
Why smoke depreciates your car’s value
When cars are evaluated for trade-in, a number of factors affect their value, such as mechanical condition and the number of miles driven. The condition of the interior is another big factor: The smell of smoke makes a vehicle harder to sell and is expensive to recondition.
Smoke “will permeate the entire vehicle interior,” says Michael Stoops, senior global product and training specialist for Meguiar’s car care products. The odor stubbornly lingers — even in “areas you can neither see nor reach, such as inside the air conditioning system.”
Besides reducing a car’s value, it can be a deal breaker if you’re trying to sell your smoked-in car and a potential buyer sniffs the telltale smoke odor, Arca says. There also might be signs of visible damage potential buyers could notice. For example, smokers sometimes drop ash on car seats, which leaves burn marks on the upholstery that would be expensive to repair.
A lot more than a persistent bad smell
Lighting a cigarette in a car is unhealthy for even nonsmoking passengers, and the threat remains long after the cigarette is extinguished. “Third-hand smoke” refers to the gases and particulates absorbed by the car’s interior and then re-emitted over time.
This second- and third-hand smoke can be hazardous for the car’s new owner, but it’s especially hazardous for young people.
“Several studies show that kids, cars and cigarettes are a particularly dangerous combination,” according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
In fact, smoking in a car with a young person is illegal in nine states and Puerto Rico: It’s outlawed for anyone driving with a passenger under a certain age.
The warning from the NCBI is even more dire: “Secondhand smoke (SHS) causes premature death and disease in children and adults, and the scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS.”
Can you get rid of the smoking smell in your car?
If you buy a used car and later detect a smoke smell, or you are selling a car that you’ve smoked in and don’t want to take a hit on the resale value, all is not lost.
It is possible to eliminate smoking smells almost entirely “in all but the worst cases, but it takes a concerted effort,” says Mark Holthoff, Carvana’s senior editor of content. But he says that off-the-shelf solutions and home remedies, such as leaving coffee grounds in the car, often just mask the smell temporarily.
Stoops says ridding a car of a smoke smell requires a thorough cleaning of all surfaces inside the vehicle, especially soft surfaces that “tend to hold smoke odor more tenaciously than hard surfaces.”
Products to treat or eliminate smoke smell abound. For example, Meguiar’s Air Re-Fresher canister dispenses while the engine is running and the air conditioning is on high and recirculating mode. It and similar products sell for about $10 for a single canister.
Is ozone the magic smoke-eraser?
Cleaning services have had success using ozone generators to extract the cigarette smell. Mike Lightman, owner of Odor Removal Experts of OC, says the treatment costs $169 for a midsized sedan. The car is left running during the process so the ventilation system can circulate.
“I never say it removes the smell completely because people remember smells and then expect them,” says Lightman. “But it will remove the smell to the point that you’ll be satisfied.”
Once the treatment is complete, Stoops recommends airing out the car to remove all traces of ozone because it can cause eye, nose, throat and lung irritation.
Ozone generators are available for home use, running from $70 to more than $3,000.
DIY smoke removal
A thorough professional auto detail may be able to remove most smoke smells, but if you want to try to remove cigarette smell yourself, here are the key issues to address, says Stoops:
- Remove all items and debris from the car, including the glove box.
- Shampoo the upholstery with a car care product designed for that purpose.
- Vacuum, wash and shampoo the floor mats thoroughly.
- Use all-purpose cleaners and vinyl cleaners for all other surfaces, such as the dashboard and door panels.
- Use a vinegar and water solution to remove nicotine film from windows.
- Steam clean the headliner — the ceiling material — or replace it if the smell persists.
- Replace the cabin air filters.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/the-high-cost-of-smoking-in-your-car/
| 2022-09-21T11:50:34Z
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(KTLA) – Tens of thousands of fans left Los Angeles’ SoFi stadium in disappointment Saturday night after The Weeknd stopped his performance just three songs into his set. The pop star told the audience he had lost his voice.
“I want to personally apologize to the audience,” The Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, told to the crowd. “I don’t know what happened when I screamed, but I just lost my voice. This is killing me. I don’t want to stop the show but I can’t give you the concert I want to give you right now.”
“I’m going to make sure everybody’s good and (you) get your money back, and I’ll do a show real soon,” he said to gasps and boos.
The Weeknd later shared this message on social media:
“My voice went out during the first song and I’m devasted. Felt it go and my heart dropped. My deepest apologies to my fans here. I promise I’ll make it up to you with a new date.”
No new concert date has been announced.
The “Blinding Lights” singer was visiting Sofi Stadium on his “After Hours Til Dawn” tour. His next scheduled tour date is Sept. 13 in Sweden.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/the-weeknd-abruptly-ends-concert-after-losing-his-voice/
| 2022-09-21T11:50:42Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump isn’t the first to face criticism for flouting rules and traditions around the safeguarding of sensitive government records, but national security experts say recent revelations point to an unprecedented disregard of post-presidency norms established after the Watergate era.
Document dramas have cropped up from time to time over the years.
Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson’s national security adviser held onto explosive records for years before turning them over to the Johnson presidential library. The records showed that the campaign of his successor, Richard Nixon, was secretly communicating in the final days of the 1968 presidential race with the South Vietnamese government in an effort to delay the opening of peace talks to end the Vietnam War.
A secretary in Ronald Reagan’s administration, Fawn Hall, testified that she altered and helped shred documents related to the Iran-Contra affair to protect Oliver North, her boss at the White House National Security Council.
Barack Obama’s CIA director, David Petraeus, was forced to resign and pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor for sharing classified material with a biographer with whom he was having an affair. Hillary Clinton, while Obama’s secretary of state, faced FBI scrutiny that extended into her 2016 presidential campaign against Trump for her handling of highly classified material in a private email account. The FBI director recommended no criminal charges but criticized Clinton for her “extremely careless” behavior.
As more details emerge from last month’s FBI search of Trump’s Florida home, the Justice Department has painted a portrait of an indifference for the rules on a scale that some thought inconceivable after establishment of the Presidential Records Act in 1978.
“I cannot think of a historical precedent in which there was even the suspicion that a president or even a high-ranking officer in the administration, with the exception of the Nixon administration, purposely and consciously or even accidentally removing such a sizable volume of papers,” said Richard Immerman, who served as assistant deputy director of national intelligence from 2007 to 2009.
FBI agents who searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Aug. 8 found more than 100 documents with classification markings, including 18 marked top secret, 54 secret and 31 confidential, according to court filings. The FBI also identified 184 documents marked as classified in 15 boxes recovered by the National Archives in January, and it received additional classified documents during a June visit to Mar-a-Lago. An additional 10,000 other government records with no classification markings were also found.
That could violate the Presidential Records Act, which says that such records are government property and must be preserved.
That law was enacted after Nixon resigned from office in the midst of the Watergate scandal and sought to destroy hundreds of hours of secretly recorded White House tapes. It established government ownership of presidential records starting with Ronald Reagan.
The act specifies that immediately after a president leaves office, the National Archives and Records Administration takes legal and physical custody of the outgoing administration’s records and begins to work with the incoming White House staff on appropriate records management.
According to the National Archives, records that have no “administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value” can be disposed of before obtaining the archivist’s written permission.
Documents have been recovered from Trump’s bedroom, closet, bathroom and storage areas at his Florida resort, which doubles as his home. In June, when Justice Department officials met a Trump lawyer to retrieve records in response to a subpoena, the lawyer handed them documents in a “Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape.”
Trump has claimed he declassified all the documents in his possession and had been working in earnest with department officials on returning documents when they conducted the Mar-a-Lago search. During the 2016 campaign, Trump asserted that Clinton’s use of her private email server for sensitive State Department material was disqualifying for her candidacy; chants from his supporters to “lock her up” became a mainstay at his political rallies.
James Trusty, a lawyer for Trump in the records matter, said on Fox News that Trump’s possession of the sensitive government material was equivalent to hanging on to an “overdue library book.”
But Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, said in a separate Fox News interview that he was “skeptical” of Trump’s claim that he declassified everything. “People say this (raid) was unprecedented — well, it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, OK,” Barr said.
Trump’s attitude about White House records is not so surprising to some who worked for him.
One of Trump’s national security advisers, John Bolton, said briefers quickly learned that Trump often tried to hang onto sensitive documents, and they took steps to make sure documents didn’t go missing. Classified information was tweeted, shared with reporters and adversaries — even found in a White House complex bathroom.
That approach is out of step with how modern-day presidents have operated.
Obama, while writing his White House memoir after leaving office, had paper records he used in his research delivered to him in locked bags from a secure National Archives storage facility and returned them in similar fashion.
Dwight Eisenhower, who left office years before the Presidential Records Act was passed, kept official records secure at Fort Ritchie, Maryland, even though there was no requirement for him to do so.
Neil Eggleston, who served as White House counsel during the final years of the Obama administration, recalled that Fred Fielding, who held the same position in the George W. Bush administration, advised him as he started his new job to hammer home to staff the requirements set in the records act.
Similarly, Trump’s White House counsel, Donald McGahn, sent a staff-wide memo in the first weeks of the administration underscoring “that presidential records are the property of the United States.”
“It’s not a hard concept that documents prepared during the course of our presidential administration are not your personal property or the president’s personal properties,” Eggleston said.
Presidents are not required to obtain security clearances to access intelligence or formally instructed on their responsibilities to safeguard secrets when they leave office, said Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA officer and senior director of the White House Situation Room.
But guidelines issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence agencies, require that any “sensitive compartmented information” –- some of the highest-value intelligence the U.S. possesses –- be viewed only in secure rooms known as “SCIFs.”
The FBI, in a court filing, this past week included a photo of some of the records that agents discovered in the search of Trump’s estate. The photo showed cover sheets on at least five sets of papers that are marked “TOP SECRET/SCI,” a reference to sensitive compartmented information, as well as a cover sheet labeled “SECRET/SCI” and “Contains sensitive compartmented information.” The FBI also found dozens of empty folders marked classified, with nothing inside and no explanation of what might have been there.
A president can keep reports presented during a briefing for later review. And presidents –- or nominees for president during an election year -– aren’t always briefed in a SCIF, depending on their schedules and locations, Pfeiffer said.
“There’s no intelligence community directive that says how presidents should or shouldn’t be briefed on the materials,” said Pfeiffer, now director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. “We’ve never had to worry about it before.”
People around the president with access to intelligence are trained on intelligence rules on handling classified information and required to follow them. But imposing restrictions on the president would be difficult for intelligence agencies, Pfeiffer said, because “by virtue of being the executive of the executive branch, he sets all the rules with regard to secrecy and classification.”
President Joe Biden told reporters recently that he often reads his top secret Presidential Daily Briefing at his home in Delaware, where he frequently spends his weekends and holidays. But Biden said he takes precautions to make certain the document stays secure.
“I have in my home a cabined-off space that is completely secure,” Biden said.
He added: “I read it. I lock it back up and give it to the military.”
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Associated Press reporter Nomaan Merchant contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
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| 2022-09-21T11:50:49Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden excoriated “MAGA Republicans” and the extreme right on Monday, pitching personal Labor Day appeals to swing-state union members who he hopes will turn out in force for his party in November.
“The middle class built America,” Biden told a workers’ gathering at park grounds in Milwaukee. “Everybody knows that. But unions built the middle class.”
Later Monday, he flew to West Mifflin, outside Pittsburgh — returning to Pennsylvania for the third time in less than a week and just two days after his predecessor, Donald Trump, staged his own rally in the state.
The unofficial start of fall, Labor Day also traditionally starts a political busy season where campaigns scramble to excite voters for Election Day on Nov. 8. That’s when control of the House and Senate, as well some of the country’s top governorships, will be decided.
Trump spoke Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, near Scranton, where Biden was born. The president made his own Wilkes-Barre trip last week to discuss increasing funding for police, to decry GOP criticism of the FBI after the raid on Trump’s Florida estate and to argue that new, bipartisan gun measures can help reduce violent crime.
Two days after that, Biden went to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for a prime-time address denouncing the “extremism” of Trump’s fiercest supporters.
Trump has endorsed candidates in key races around the country and Biden is warning that some Republicans now believe so strongly in Trumpism that they are willing to undermine core American values to promote it. The president said Thursday that “blind loyalty to a single leader, and a willingness to engage in political violence, is fatal to democracy.”
Trump responded during his Saturday rally that Biden is “an enemy of the state.” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel tweeted Monday that Biden “is the most anti-worker president in modern history,” noting that high inflation had taken a bite out of American wages, income and savings.
During his address in Milwaukee, Biden said “Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican” but singled out those who have taken Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign cry to dangerous or hateful lengths. He highlighted episodes like last year’s mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He said that many in the GOP are “full of anger, violence, hate, division.”
“But together we can, and we must, choose a different path forward,” Biden said. “A future of unity and hope. we’re going to choose to build a better America.”
The crowd jeered loudly as the president repeatedly chided Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin for voting against a Democratic-backed measure meant to lower prescription drug prices. The president also suggested Johnson and other congressional Republicans were willing to undermine Social Security.
Unions endorsements helped Biden overcome disastrous early finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire to win the 2020 Democratic primary, and eventually the White House. He has since continued to praise the labor movement as president.
Mary Kay Henry, president of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, called Biden’s championing of unions heading into the midterm elections “critical” and said workers must “mobilize in battlegrounds across the country to ensure that working people turn out.”
“We’re really excited about the president speaking directly to workers about, if he had the opportunity, he’d join a union,” Henry said. She added: “This president has signaled which side he’s on. And he’s on the side of working people. And that matters hugely.”
In Pennsylvania, Biden addressed members of the United Steelworkers and noted that Trump is a “former, defeated president.”
Referencing Trump’s persistent, false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Biden said, “You can’t love the country and say how much you love it when you only accept one of two outcomes of an election: Either you won or you were cheated.”
Both of the perennial presidential battleground states Biden visited Monday may provide key measures of Democrats’ strength before November. With inflation still raging and the president’s approval ratings slightly better but remaining low, how much Biden can help his party in top races — and how much candidates want him to try — remains to be seen.
That was on display in Milwaukee, where Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is trying to unseat incumbent Johnson, but didn’t appear with Biden.
In the state’s other top race, Tim Michels, a construction executive endorsed by Trump, is attempting to deny Democratic Gov. Tony Evers a second term. Evers spoke at the labor event Biden addressed and briefly greeted the president backstage.
“We have a president who understands the challenges facing working families,” Evers told the crowd. He said Biden “hasn’t forgotten that working families matter, not just on Labor Day, but every single day of the year.”
Pennsylvania voters are choosing a new governor, with state Attorney General John Shapiro facing another Trump-endorsed Republican, Doug Mastriano, and a new senator. That race is between Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Trump-backed celebrity heart physician Mehmet Oz. Fetterman spoke with Biden before both gave speeches in West Mifflin.
The Pennsylvania and Wisconsin races could decide which party controls the Senate next year, while the winner of each governorship may influence results in 2024′s presidential election. The stakes are particularly high given that some Trump-aligned candidates have spread his lies about widespread fraud that did not occur during the 2020 election. Judges, including ones appointed by Trump, dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed after that election, and Trump’s own attorney general called the claims bogus.
Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to organized labor in at breakfast meeting with the Greater Boston Labor Council, declaring “When union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up.”
“When union workplaces are safer everyone is safer,” Harris said. “When unions are strong, America is strong.”
___
Associated Press writer Wilson Ring contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:50:57Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, ended his tenure as America’s top diplomat in Moscow on Sunday after nearly three years, spanning the Trump and Biden administrations, and will retire from a lengthy career in government service.
His departure, which comes in the midst of an increasingly serious crisis over Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as disputes over detained Americans in Russia, had been expected this fall as he reached the usual length of time for U.S. ambassadors. But it was sped up due to family medical issue, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the situation.
“Ambassador Sullivan’s departure is planned and part of a normal diplomatic rotation,” the State Department said. “He has served a full tenure as U.S. ambassador to Russia, managing one of the most critical bilateral relationships in the world during unprecedented times.”
The department added: “The U.S. will continue to condemn unequivocally the Kremlin’s aggressive war against Ukraine and remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the war has slowed to a grind with both sides trading combat strikes and small advances in the east and south. Both Russian and Ukraine have seen thousands of troops killed and injured, and Russia’s bombardment of cities has killed countless innocent civilians.
Elizabeth Rood, the deputy chief of mission to Russia, will be the top U.S. diplomat in Moscow until a successor nominated by President Joe Biden replaces Sullivan.
A Boston native and big ice hockey fan who brought his skates and equipment when he left for Russia, Sullivan had returned to Moscow from a summer break just last week and had attended former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s memorial service on Saturday.
Sullivan took the helm of the Moscow embassy at a particularly difficult time in U.S.-Russia relations, which have only grown worse. He struggled to hold together a diplomatic mission dramatically reduced in staff as Washington and Moscow carried out an increasingly severe series of tit-for-tat expulsions.
Sullivan spoke frequently of his frustrations about deteriorating conditions for U.S. diplomats in Moscow, especially after Russian restrictions on American and local personnel forced major reductions in staffing.
His four-decade public service career included postings in Republican administrations as deputy secretary of state and senior positions in the departments of Justice, Defense and Commerce.
Sullivan was deputy secretary of state when he was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate with unusually strong bipartisan support to be ambassador to Russia in December 2019. Biden asked him to remain in the post when Biden took office last year.
He had been the lead U.S. official in talks with Russia on counterterrorism and strategic security and testified in his Senate confirmation hearing that Russian efforts to undermine democracies must be combated.
Sullivan told senators that he would be “relentless” in confronting Russia over election interference, hostile moves against neighbors such as Georgia and Ukraine, human rights abuses and violations of arms control agreements.
His time as the State Department’s No. 2 official was not without controversy.
Sullivan was the one who delivered the news to Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that Trump had lost confidence in her and that she was being recalled early from the post.
Sullivan told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he was given no other explanation for Yovanovitch’s removal and told her that he did not believe she had done anything to warrant her recall.
Asked why he did not oppose Yovanovitch’s ouster or speak out publicly on her behalf at the time, Sullivan said ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president and can be removed with or without cause. He noted that his uncle, a former U.S. ambassador to Iran, had been recalled early from Tehran by the Carter administration for what the family believed to be unfair political reasons.
“When the president loses confidence in the ambassador, right or wrong, the ambassador goes,” Sullivan said.
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| 2022-09-21T11:51:05Z
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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — On a quiet Saturday in an Omaha hotel, about 50 people gathered in a ballroom to learn about elections.
The subject wasn’t voter registration drives or poll worker volunteer training. Instead, they paid $25 each to listen to panelists lay out conspiracy theories about voting machines and rigged election results. In language that sometimes leaned into violent imagery, some panelists called on those attending to join what they framed as a battle between good and evil.
Among those in the audience was Melissa Sauder, who drove nearly 350 miles from the small western Nebraska town of Grant with her 13-year-old daughter. After years of combing internet sites, listening to podcasts and reading conservative media reports, Sauder wanted to learn more about what she believes are serious problems with the integrity of U.S. elections.
She can’t shake the belief that voting machines are being manipulated even in her home county, where then-President Donald Trump won 85% of the vote in 2020.
“I just don’t know the truth because it’s not open and apparent, and it’s not transparent to us,” said Sauder, 38. “We are trusting people who are trusting the wrong people.”
It’s a sentiment now shared by millions of people in the United States after relentless attacks on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election by Trump and his allies. Nearly two years after that election, no evidence has emerged to suggest widespread fraud or manipulation while reviews in state after state have upheld the results showing President Joe Biden won.
Even so, the attacks and falsehoods have made an impact: An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from 2021 found that about two-thirds of Republicans say they do not think Biden was legitimately elected.
Events like the one held Aug. 27 in Nebraska’s largest city are one reason why.
Billed as the “Nebraska Election Integrity Forum,” the conference featured some of the nation’s most prominent figures pushing conspiracy theories that the last presidential election was stolen from Trump through widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. It was just one of dozens of similar events that have been held around the country for the better part of a year.
Despite the relatively light attendance, the events are often livestreamed and recorded, ensuring they can reach a wide audience.
Over eight hours with only a brief lunch break, attendees were deluged with election conspiracies, complete with charts and slide shows. Speakers talked about tampering of voting machines or the systems that store voter rolls, ballot-box stuffing and massive numbers of votes cast by dead people and non-U.S. citizens — all theories that have been debunked.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud or tampering with election equipment that could have affected the outcome of the 2020 election, in which Biden won both the popular vote — topping the Republican incumbent by more than 7 million nationwide — and the Electoral College count. Numerous official reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump challenged his loss have upheld the validity of the results. Judges, including some appointed by Trump, dismissed numerous lawsuits making various claims of fraud and wrongdoing.
Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, and other advisers and top government officials told him there was no evidence of widespread fraud. As part of the U.S. House committee’s investigation of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Barr told congressional investigators that the claims by Trump allies surrounding voting machines were disturbing but also were “made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people.” He added that the false claims were doing a “grave disservice to the country.”
Many local and state election officials have said the conspiracies have already led to rampant misinformation, vitriol aimed at election workers and calls to toss out voting equipment. Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky who is critical of those spreading conspiracy theories, said previous election-year attacks were focused on candidates or political parties but now are targeted at election administration.
“There are a lot of really bad actors here that are trying to undermine confidence in a system. It is dangerous,” he said.
Despite all the evidence that the 2020 election was fair and the results accurate, the conspiracy theories have persuaded many Republicans otherwise — with real world consequences.
In New Mexico this year, fears of voting machines being manipulated led one rural county commission to threaten that it would vote against certifying the results of its primary election even though the county clerk insisted the results were accurate. In Nevada, a rural county is pushing ahead with a plan to count by hand its thousands of ballots this November, a lengthy and painstaking process that ironically could lead to errors.
At the Omaha conference, evidence of an accurate election was ignored as speaker after speaker told attendees that machines are rigged and elections are stolen. One of the event’s headliners was Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com who said he has spent some $20 million of his own money since 2020 trying to prove that voting machines were manipulated in that election and remain susceptible to tampering.
Wearing jeans and a black suit jacket over a yellow T-shirt, Byrne began his presentation by saying voting machines are vulnerable to hacking and outlining various security failures associated with them.
That any technology is vulnerable, including voting machines, is not in dispute. State and local election officials throughout the U.S. have focused on improving their security defenses with help from the federal government. After the 2016 election, the government designated voting systems as “critical infrastructure” — on par with the nation’s banks, dams and nuclear power plants. Government and election security experts have declared the 2020 election as “the most secure in American history.”
But Byrne and some of the other speakers said they believe government has been corrupted and cannot be trusted. In his remarks, he complained about those who say fraud did not occur in 2020 and about journalists who report that, labeling them “election fraud deniers.”
He accused critics of “trying to incite violence” and later told the attendees that China is planning to take over the U.S. by 2030.
“I can promise, every nice home in the United States, there’s someone in China who already has a deed to your home,” Byrne said, eliciting gasps from the crowd.
Another main speaker at the Omaha event was Douglas Frank, an Ohio math and science educator who has been traveling the country engaging with community groups and meeting with local election officials, offering to examine and analyze their voting systems.
Commonly known as Dr. Frank because of his doctorate in chemistry, he gives off a professorial vibe with his signature bow tie and glasses. He peppers his presentations with algorithms, line graphs and charts that he claims prove elections are corrupt. Frank said he has been to 43 states over the past 20 months.
He had harsh words for some of those who oversee elections at the state level.
“I like to tell people that we have evil secretaries of states,” Frank said. “We have a few of those in our country, and it’s sort of like World War II — when the war’s over, we need to have Nuremberg trials and we need to have firing squads, OK? I’m looking forward to the trials, OK?”
The crowd applauded.
State and local election officials have faced a barrage of harassment and death threats since the 2020 election. That has led some to quit or retire, raising concerns about a loss of experience heading into the November general election, along with worries that their replacements may seek to meddle in elections or tamper with voting systems.
Also addressing the audience was Tina Peters, the clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, who has been charged in a security breach of voting systems in her election office. She has claimed she had an obligation to investigate and produced reports purporting to show tampering with voting systems, but her claims have been debunked by local authorities and experts.
During her remarks over video conference, Peters impugned the integrity of judges who have rejected dozens of legal efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential results. She urged citizens to join in the fight.
“You can’t be afraid of going to jail,” Peters told the crowd. “They can’t get us all. Be bold. Be courageous. The Lord is on our side.”
Frank, in an online post after the event, apologized for remarks he made during the forum about Nebraska’s chief election official, Secretary of State Bob Evnen. Frank had called Evnen, a Republican, incompetent and said the official had “made a fool of himself” by refuting Frank’s assertions that called into question the security of Nebraska’s election.
One of the organizers of the event was Robert Borer, who unsuccessfully challenged Evnen in Nebraska’s GOP primary this year. Borer said he ran because he was convinced that state election officials were not doing enough to address fraud and he believes the 2020 election was stolen.
“The whole objective of that election was to take down Trump,” he said.
Since losing his bid to become the state’s top election official, Borer has launched a campaign for Nebraska governor as a write-in candidate. This means his name will not appear on the November ballot, which, for him and his supporters, is entirely the point.
“We don’t want the machines to count our votes,” Borer said. “If someone casts a write-in vote, the machine has to kick that out. It cannot read that vote, so they have to count that manually.”
The Omaha conference was sponsored by American Citizens & Candidates Forum for Election Integrity, which has hosted more than a dozen such gatherings since the 2020 election.
The event was a study in contradictions.
Speakers insisted the issue of election integrity transcended party politics, with many repeating “this is not about Republicans or Democrats,” before maligning both Democrats and so-called RINOs — an acronym for “Republicans in name only” — as “evil“ or “criminal.”
Speakers insisted that they rejected violence, yet they were throwing out menacing terms.
“I believe we’re in a civil war,” Graham Ledger, a conservative television show host, told the crowd at one point. “It’s an unconventional, asymmetrical civil war, but it’s red state versus blue state now.”
Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Arizona, appeared remotely and spoke about his efforts to compel his state to ditch voting machines and switch to hand-counting ballots. Election experts say that process is time-consuming, will delay results and is unnecessary due to the rigorous testing that occurs before and after an election to ensure the equipment is working correctly.
“We have a fight on our hands,” Finchem told attendees. “The establishment and the Democrats want to do everything they can to subvert our elections.”
The speakers urged those in attendance to take action. That includes getting to know their local election officials and local sheriff, and to volunteer to be poll watchers for the November election with the goal of reporting any activity they think could be fraudulent.
Omaha resident Kathy Austin said she recently submitted her name to serve as a poll worker, but has not heard back from local election officials. She is convinced that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
“I had not really been involved in politics before the 2020 election,” said Austin, 75. That began to change after she saw posts making claims of election fraud on the social media platform Telegram, which is popular with Trump supporters.
“Then I talked to different people,” she said. “And the more I learned, the more it became clear there is a problem.”
___
Cassidy reported from Atlanta.
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Get your packages ready to send off right now with these must-have items
Shipping holiday gifts is usually pricey, but it may cost you more this year. The United States Postal Service has announced that it plans a price increase this holiday season, driving up the cost of sending gifts. But don’t worry about blowing too much of your holiday budget on shipping just yet.
There’s still time to take advantage of the current prices if you can get your packages ready to ship early this year. Here are all the essentials you need to get your holiday gifts wrapped and sent in time.
What you should know about the USPS price increase
How much is the USPS price increase?
The USPS price increases depend on the weight of the package and the distance it’s traveling. Most packages under 25 pounds will see increases ranging from 25 to 75 cents, but extremely heavy packages traveling long distances may see increases up to $6.50.
When does the USPS price increase take effect?
The good news about the USPS price increase is that it’s meant to be temporary as a way to cover extra handling costs that result during the peak holiday season. The increased rates will go into effect on October 2 and stay in place until January 22, 2023.
Holiday gift shipping essentials
Shipping supplies
Partners Brand Corrugated Boxes
These sturdy corrugated boxes can hold plenty of holiday gifts. They’re industrial strength, so you don’t have to worry about them breaking down in the mail. They come unfolded, so it’s easier to store them.
Sold by Amazon
This highly cushioning bubble wrap can protect all your breakable holiday gifts when they’re in transit. It conforms easily around most objects and features a unique nylon barrier seal that helps it hold onto air longer. It’s lightweight, so it won’t add to the weight of your package.
Sold by Amazon
Mighty Gadget Cushioning Foam Sheets
These low-density polyethylene foam sheets provide excellent protection for fragile and delicate items during shipping. They’re highly flexible, so they wrap easily around items of any shape. Each package comes with 100 sheets, so you can send plenty of holiday packages.
Sold by Amazon
Gorilla Heavy Duty Large Core Packing Tape
This split- and tear-resistant tape can keep all your holiday packages secure even over long distances. It’s crystal clear, so you can also place it over shipping labels to keep them in place. It’s easy to cut, too, allowing you to package your boxes more quickly.
Sold by Amazon
Avery Printable Shipping Labels
Make sure your loved one’s address is clear and easy to read with these well-sized shipping labels. They’re optimized for use with an inkjet printer, but you can also write on them by hand. They stick well, so you don’t have to worry about them falling off in transit.
Sold by Amazon
Wrapping must-haves
Craft Craze 25 Assorted Colors Premium Tissue Paper
Whether you’re putting your gifts in a bag or a box, this 100-piece pack of tissue paper can make all of your presents look a little more special. It includes 25 assorted colors, so you can find an option that matches any wrapping paper. If you have any paper left over, you can also use it for crafts.
Sold by Amazon
Hallmark Large Gift Boxes with Lids
The pack of large shirt boxes is perfect if you’re sending clothing to family and friends. The set includes 12 boxes, and each box is large enough to fit a robe or sweater. They’re also sturdy, so they aren’t likely to break in transit.
Sold by Amazon
Hallmark 12-inch Large Paper Gift Bag Assortment
This set of 12 gift bags allows you to package your holiday gifts quickly and easily. They’re made from high-quality paper that comes from well-managed forests. The assortment includes both solid and patterned bags.
Sold by Amazon
Appleby Lane Reusable Fabric Gift Bags
These cotton gift bags make holiday gift wrapping as easy as possible. They have a drawstring top with a built-in ribbon that’s easy to tie. They’re reusable, so they’re more eco-friendly than other gift bag options. You can also choose from four color and pattern options for the bags.
Sold by Amazon
American Greetings Reversible Wrapping Paper Bundle
This set of four rolls of reversible wrapping lets you choose from multiple patterns and colors. The set contains enough to wrap 28 shirt boxes and is made of heavy-weight paper that doesn’t tear easily. The paper is recyclable.
Sold by Amazon
Creative Paper Co. Brown Kraft Paper Jumbo Roll
This 100% recycled wrapping paper is ideal if you prefer a rustic look for your gifts. It’s thick and durable to resist tearing. Each roll contains 100 feet of paper, so you can wrap plenty of gifts.
Sold by Amazon
Hallmark Bright Gift Bow Assortment
This assortment includes 36 brightly colored bows to dress up any wrapped gift. Each gift bow features over 20 ribbon loops and is about 3.5 inches wide for a full look. They also have a shiny finish for a particularly festive look.
Sold by Amazon
These glittery ribbons can instantly make any gift look fancier. Each set includes red, green and white options that are sheer and embossed with a scroll design. The ribbons are wired, too, so it’s easy to make bows and other decorative shapes for your gifts.
Sold by Amazon
Make sure your loved ones know which gifts are for them with this gift tag set. It contains tags in 20 colors, so you can find an option to watch any wrapping paper or bag. Each tag also has a piece of twine to attach to your gifts.
Sold by Amazon
Tesuivra Glitter Washi Tape Set
This set of glitter washi tape can make your holiday gifts look special with minimal effort. It includes 12 rolls in different colors, so you can customize your packages. The glitter doesn’t fall off, and the tape is repositionable without leaving residue behind.
Sold by Amazon
Want to shop the best products at the best prices? Check out Daily Deals from BestReviews.
Sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter for useful advice on new products and noteworthy deals.
Jennifer Blair writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Andy Ruiz knocked down Luis Ortiz three times on the way to a victory by unanimous decision Sunday night, taking a key step toward a chance to become a heavyweight world champion again.
Former three-division world champion Abner Mares also fought to a majority draw with Miguel Flores in Mares’ return from a four-year ring absence on the pay-per-view undercard. Lightweight Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz then stopped Eduardo Ramirez in the second round with two vicious knockdowns.
In the main event, Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs) had all of the big moments while grinding out a decision over Ortiz (33-3), a two-time world title challenger. The Southern California native knocked down the 43-year-old Ortiz twice in the second round and again in the seventh, but his Cuban opponent punched more accurately during long stretches of relative inactivity for both fighters.
“I worked so hard for this fight, because I knew he’s a warrior and he hits hard,” Ruiz said. “I thought I did a beautiful job handling his pressure and also coming forward.”
The judges scored the bout 114-111, 114-111 and 113-112 for Ruiz. The Associated Press also had Ruiz 114-111, with the knockdowns making the difference.
Ruiz pulled off one of the bigger upsets in recent heavyweight history when he took Anthony Joshua’s three championship belts in 2019, only to lose them back to his British opponent six months later. Ruiz had fought just once since, but he rededicated himself to training with hopes of getting another shot at the belts.
“I do not want to be waiting,” Ruiz said. “I want to fight at least three or four times a year. I’m hungry, man. I want to be a champion again.”
After entering the ring in a blue-and-gold robe and trunks featuring the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams’ colors and helmet horns, Ruiz abruptly floored Ortiz early in the second round with a short right hand. Ortiz wobbled to his feet and soon slipped back down while trying to clinch with Ruiz, but he made it to the bell.
Neither fighter threw much or risked much in the next four rounds, and the crowd that loudly backed Ruiz grumbled its displeasure. But Ruiz connected again late in the seventh, staggering Ortiz before sending him to the canvas with a right to the top of the head.
“It was very difficult,” Ruiz said. “The ability that I have for counterpunching instead of waiting for him to load up, that was a blessing.”
Earlier, Cruz (24-2-1, 17 KOs) made his case for a rematch with Gervonta “Tank” Davis with his two-round demolition of Ramirez, first knocking him down face-first with a left hook to the jaw before finishing him with a combination in the corner.
Davis, who narrowly beat Cruz by decision last December, smiled as he watched the bout from ringside amid chants of: “We want Tank!” from Cruz’s fans.
Mares (31-3-2) hadn’t fought since his second loss to Leo Santa Cruz in June 2018. He recovered from surgery on a detached retina shortly before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and his ring absence stretched on while he landed a commentary job with Showtime.
But Mares eventually decided he had to return, and he looked quite sharp early against Flores (25-4-1) with a series of big right hands that rocked his opponent. Mares tired in the second half, but won 96-94 on one judge’s card. The other two scored it 95-95.
“Obviously it had been over four years, so I was a little off with my timing, and a little sluggish,” Mares said. “But I felt good, and I thought I was landing the more powerful shots. I definitely felt like I won.”
The pay-per-view card opened with an enormous upset: Edwin De Los Santos, a Dominican lightweight filling in as a late replacement opponent, battered previously unbeaten Mexican prospect José Valenzuela for a third-round stoppage victory. De Los Santos was only added to the card Wednesday when Jezreel Corrales couldn’t secure a travel visa from Panama.
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More AP boxing: https://apnews.com/hub/boxing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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RECIFE, Brazil (AP) — USA Basketball needed a win Sunday at the AmeriCup tournament and was well on the way to making that happen.
That is, until it rained.
The Americans’ game against Venezuela was postponed at halftime with the U.S. leading 48-21. Heavy rain caused multiple leaks inside the Geraldo Magalhães Sports Gymnasium, prompting officials to determine that the game could not be resumed safely.
Several hours after the U.S. game was stopped, FIBA said the matchup was “postponed due to technical difficulties in the arena. The resolution of the game will be communicated within the next few hours, in which a rescheduled date and time will be announced.”
Venezuela and the U.S. both have their final group-stage games scheduled for Monday.
FIBA allowed Sunday’s later Group B games at the same arena to be played as scheduled. The Dominican Republic (1-1) beat the Virgin Islands (0-2), and Argentina (2-0) downed Puerto Rico (1-1).
The Venezuela game is crucial for the U.S., which entered Group C play Sunday with a 0-1 mark after falling to Mexico in Friday’s opener. The Americans will need at least one win in their three group games, and possibly two victories, to make the quarterfinal round that starts later this week.
Mexico (2-0) likely clinched a quarterfinal berth earlier Sunday by topping Panama (0-2).
The Americans gave up the game’s first basket, then went on an 18-2 run and only kept adding to the lead. The U.S. shot 56% in the first half, compared with 33% for Venezuela, and the Americans held a 24-0 lead in points from 3-point range.
Craig Sword had 12 points in the first half for the U.S., and 11 of the 12 Americans had scored by the time play was halted.
MONDAY’S SCHEDULE
There are four games on the slate Monday.
In Group A, Canada (1-1) plays Colombia (1-1) and Brazil (2-0) meets Uruguay (0-2). In Group C, Mexico is to meet Venezuela and Panama is set to play the U.S.
Group B is off and is scheduled to finish its round-robin play Tuesday, with the Virgin Islands facing Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic playing Argentina.
There are no games on Wednesday’s schedule. Quarterfinal games — featuring the top two teams in each group, plus the two best third place-finishing teams — start Thursday.
___
More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Coach Ryan Day had no apologies for No. 2 Ohio State’s low-scoring, “clunky” win over No. 5 Notre Dame.
Saturday night’s underwhelming 21-10 victory was less about the Buckeyes showing off their sleek, high-scoring offense and more about grinding it out in the second half just to survive a difficult season opener.
With No. 1 receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba on the bench early with an injury, heavily favored Ohio State banged away with their running backs, who averaged nearly five yards per carry. The defense, so maligned last season, made stop after stop in the second half.
The performance wasn’t flashy — much of it was quite the opposite — but Day couldn’t have been prouder.
“That’s was something we spent a lot of time in the off-season saying — we have to be able to win ugly on offense,” Day said.
“If we can continue to win games like that, then that’s how we’ll win games. If you can win in different ways, I think it says a lot about your team as well. And I think this game is going to pay dividends down the road.”
Day pointed to the performance of quarterback C.J. Stroud, a Heisman Trophy favorite who many expected would pick up right where he left off with last year’s astronomical passing numbers.
Stroud was often fleeing the Irish pass rush Saturday but managed a 31-yard touchdown pass to Emeka Egbuka for the Buckeyes’ only first half score. Notre Dame led 10-7 at the half.
But the Ohio State defense, engineered by new coordinator Jim Knowles, forced punts on Notre Dame’s last two possessions in the first half and all four in the second.
“We had a play here or there that we gave up, but what I’m most pleased with is the fact that they never flinched,” Knowles said. “They’ve bought into everything that I’ve been asking them to do.”
Meanwhile, TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams chewed up ground, Stroud made clutch throws to move the chains and, with a blitz descending, threw a 24-yard TD strike to former walk-on Xavier Johnson in the third quarter.
“(Stroud) was the happiest guy out there,” Day said. “And maybe it wasn’t the perfect night, and everyone wants to talk about the Heisman Trophy and all that (but) he just wants to go 1-0, and he did. He made some big-time throws.”
Stroud was 24 for 34 for 223 yards. Modest numbers considering he averaged nearly 370 a game last season.
“The defense was ballin’,” Stroud said. “They won this game, but I do think in the passing game, when we really needed it, we were efficient. We were struggling early on just trying to get a connection, trying to build that rhythm. But towards the end we kept going, we started to start clicking more.”
Egbuka had nine catches for 90 yards.
“It’s not always pretty, but it’s only Week 1,” Egbuka said. “But we’re going to build from here, and we’re going to be something special.”
Ohio State will get its chance to tune up in the next two weeks against Arkansas State, a Sunbelt Conference team that finished 2-10 last year, and then Toledo.
There was no immediate word on Smith-Njigba, who limped off the field after a hard hit early in the game and came back for only a few plays after that. Day would only say that “we hope to get him back this week.”
___
More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25. Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. Open tennis tournament (all times local):
___
3:40 p.m.
Casper Ruud continued his run at the U.S. Open and his bid to become the first No. 1-ranked player out of Norway with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-2 win over Corentin Moutet.
He reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time in his career.
The fifth-seeded Ruud, already the first Norwegian man to appear in the third and fourth rounds at the U.S. Open, must reach the final for at least the opportunity to become the top-ranked player in men’s tennis.
Moutet dropped to 0-8 lifetime against top-10 opponents but the Frenchman’s week at Flushing Meadows was already a success. He became the first lucky loser (a player who fails to make it out of qualifying but gets into the main draw when someone withdraws) to reach the fourth round at the U.S. Open.
The 23-year-old Ruud, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz and current No. 1 Daniil Medvedev are the only players who can end the tournament as the world’s top-ranked player. Rudd is ranked No. 7 in the world.
Ruud, who played for the first time in Arthur Ashe Stadium, faces Matteo Berrettini in the quarterfinals.
___
3:05 p.m.
Matteo Berrettini of Italy advanced to the U.S. Open quarterfinals with a 3-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain.
Davidovich Fokina had little left in the fifth set when he appeared to suffer an injury with the match tied 2-2. He went down in a heap after a hard split returning a ball along the baseline. He was on his knees and pounded the ground, grimacing as he eventually made his way to the bench. A trainer rubbed ice on Davidovich Fokina’s left knee and leg during every break the rest of the way.
Berrettini, the 2021 Wimbledon runner-up, reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the fifth straight time. He dropped out of Wimbledon in June because he tested positive for COVID-19.
Berrettini labored through most of the match but used 18 aces and six winning break points to advance.
___
noon
It’s time for the biggest match yet in the men’s U.S. Open draw.
Defending champion and No. 1 seed Daniil Medvedev plays 23rd-seeded Nick Kyrgios in an Arthur Ashe Stadium showdown where the winner should be the heavy favorite to reach the final.
The 27-year-old Kyrgios is 3-1 overall against Medvedev. Though he has a career-high ranking of No. 13, Kyrgios is 14-11 against players currently ranked in the top 5.
Medvedev, who has made at least the semifinals in each of the last three U.S. Opens, is trying to became the first repeat champion since Roger Federer won five straight from 2004 to 2008. Kyrgios won the most recent match between the two, which came in Montreal.
Medvedev is the only player in the top half of the draw who has not lost a set. No man has won a U.S. Open title without losing a set in the Open era, which began in 1968.
The big match on the women’s side comes during the afternoon at Ashe when No. 12 seed Coco Gauff plays Shuai Zhang. Gauff, a French Open finalist this year, is trying to reach the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open for the first time in her career.
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More AP coverage of U.S. Open tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/us-open-tennis-championships and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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BOLTON, Mass. (AP) — Dustin Johnson gave LIV Golf its first big moment Sunday when he made a 35-foot eagle putt on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the LIV Golf Invitational-Boston for his first victory in 19 months.
Johnson’s putt on the par-5 18th was going so fast it might have rolled some 6 feet past the hole. But it hit the back of the cup and dropped down near the front of the cup to beat Joaquin Niemann and Anirban Lahiri.
He raised his arm and dropped it for a slow-motion uppercut, instead slapping hands with Austin Johnson, his brother and caddie. The win was worth $4 million for Johnson. With his team winning again, he now has made $9,962,500 in four events.
“It was going a little fast, but it was a good line,” Johnson said with a big smile. “I got some unlucky breaks (on No. 18) the first time around. It owed me one and I got it.”
The first playoff in four LIV Golf events capped an otherwise sloppy finish by so many others who had a chance.
Johnson, who closed with a 5-under 65, needed a birdie on the par-5 18th. His drive bounced into the right rough, his iron to lay up went into the trees well to the left and he had to scramble for par to join Lahiri (64) and Niemann (66) at 15-under 265.
Lahiri hit a fairway metal to 5 feet on the 18th in regulation, and his eagle putt that would have won it rolled around the right edge of the cup.
Lee Westwood finished one shot out of a playoff after a 62 that included bogeys on two of his last three holes. He was poised to win when he bounced back from a bogey on No. 1 in the shotgun start with a short birdie on the par-3 second.
He finished on No. 3, a 352-yard hole and great birdie opportunity. Westwood hit a lob wedge that was so fat it came up some 40 feet short of the pin and into a bunker. He blasted out weakly and missed the 18-foot par putt.
“The lob wedge was a little fat,” Westwood said. “Make 3 and I win the tournament and I make 5. It’s a sickening way to finish.”
British Open champion Cameron Smith, among six players who recently signed with the Saudi-funded league, had a 63. He also was tied for the lead until hitting his tee shot into the trees on No. 1, his 17th hole, and having to pitch out sideways. He made bogey.
Smith tied for fourth with Westwood. Each made just over $1 million.
Johnson had not won since the Saudi International on Feb. 7, 2021, when it was part of the European tour schedule. The player who has been No. 1 longer than anyone since Tiger Woods slipped out of the top 15 in the world when he signed with LIV Golf.
He was part of the rival league from the start in early June outside London, and he has finished in the top 10 in all of them.
“I’ve had a chance to win every one,” he said. “That’s three in a row for the team, and for me to get my first, I’m feeling good.”
He walked off the 18th green holding a phone in a video call to his two sons.
Lahiri and Niemann each made just over $1.8 million for losing in the playoff. They were among six players who signed with LIV Golf after the PGA Tour season end.
The next LIV Golf Invitational series is in two weeks in the Chicago suburbs at Rich Harvest Farms, best known for hosting the Solheim Cup in 2009.
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More AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) — Erik Jones gave the No. 43 car a landmark 200th victory — along with maybe a few regrets to his old employers at Joe Gibbs Racing.
Jones moved in front when JGR star Kyle Busch blew an engine, then outraced another former Gibbs colleague in Denny Hamlin over the final 31 laps to win the Southern 500 on Sunday night. It’s the first time a non-playoff driver won the opener of the 10-race postseason.
Jones won this event in 2019 for the Gibbs organization, where he raced Cup cars from 2017-20. He came out on top once more, this time for Petty GMS Motorsports owned in part by Richard Petty.
“I never lost any belief in myself through any of it,” Jones said. “I knew I could still do it and I knew we needed to grow the program to do it. And we have.”
The celebration continued for the Petty organization, which had not won since Aric Almirola’s Daytona 500 victory in 2014.
“I know my dad,” Kyle Petty said. “What time is it, 11 (p.m.)? He just opened a bottle of red wine.”
The King went to Twitter shortly after Jones took the checkered flag, “Congratulations to @Erik_Jones and the entire #43 team!!!!”
Jones just wanted the Hall of Famer to keep his promise.
“He said I’d get a hat if I win,” Jones said, laughing.
Hamlin, seeded sixth in the playoffs, closed in on Jones’ back bumper on the final lap, but couldn’t make the winning pass.
“Erik just did a really great job,” Hamlin said. “Great day for Erik, a great day for our team.”
The third of Jones’ old JGR teammates, Martin Truex Jr. held a substantial lead over Busch when his No. 19 had power steering problems and went off to the garage.
Jones remained in control and in one piece while many of the favored playoff participants couldn’t do the same.
Along with the blow up of Busch, the 11th playoff seed, No. 9 seed Kevin Harvick saw his car catch fire in a scary seen. Harvick scrambled away from his stopped car to safety.
Top-seeded Chase Elliott was gone during the first stage, sliding into the wall, hitting Chase Briscoe as he tore up his suspension and was out of the race.
Kyle Larson, the defending series champion seeded fourth, was three laps down in the opening stage after engine problems. Larson finished 12th.
Hamlin was second followed by three more playoff chasers in Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano and Christopher Bell. Michael McDowell was sixth, then Brad Keselowski, William Byron, Bubba Wallace
Busch led 155 of 367 laps, the most of anyone. He ended in 30th.
“It’s unfortunate circumstances,” Busch said. “We just had a great car and didn’t come out with anything to show for it. That’s what I hate about it.”
Logano moved into the points lead with William Byron second, Hamlin third and Christopher Bell, Jones’ replacement at JGR, in fourth. The four drivers below the 12-team cutoff line for the second round were Austin Cindric in 13th, followed by Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe and Harvick in 16h.
CHASING PROBLEMS: Chase Elliott was out of the Southern 500 before it got to halfway. Elliott slid in turn one, then collected playoff participant Chase Briscoe. Elliott’s suspension was damaged. His crew could not fix it in the pits and took it to the garage.
Elliott finished 36th, last in the field. His plans going forward: “Run better than we did today.”
___
FIRE DRILL: The scariest incident came in the final stage when Harvick caught fire on lap 276 as he came down the front stretch. Harvick quickly pulled the car on the grass and jumped out of the car, running to safety.
Moments later during the caution brought out by Harvick, J.J. Yeley’s car headed into the pits on fire. That blaze, too, was extinguished.
Harvick said it’s another safety problem with the Next Gen car NASCAr must fix.
“What a disaster, man,” Harvick said. “No reason … here we are in the pits with a burned up car and we can’t finish the race during the playoff” because of unreliable parts.
___
QB1: Coastal Carolina quarterback Grayson McCall at the track “Too Tough To Tame,” as NASCAR’s first college athlete to receive a name, image and likeness deal with Darlington Raceway. McCall did some promotional work for the track and even had his face on the side of Ryan Vargas’ No. 6 car in the Xfinity Series race here.
McCall was the NCAA record-setter in passing efficiency at 207.6 last season. He threw three TD passes and ran for a fourth as the Chants opened the season with a 38-28 victory over Army on Saturday night.
___
UP NEXT
Round one of the playoffs continues at Kansas next Sunday. Kurt Busch, currently recovering from a concussion in a crash at Pocono, won the race there in May. He gave up his playoff spot because he has not been medically cleared to return to the track.
___
More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:52:34Z
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Aaron Judge led off the game with his major league-leading 53rd homer and the New York Yankees stopped the Tampa Bay Rays 2-1 Sunday to avoid a three-game sweep.
Judge set a career high for homers, topping the 52 he hit as a rookie in 2017. He also doubled, singled and scored both New York runs.
Frankie Montas (5-11) allowed one hit over five shutout innings as the AL East-leading Yankees increased their lead to five games over Tampa Bay. The Rays trailed by 15 1/2 games on July 10.
Down 2-0, Tampa Bay tried to rally in the ninth against Clay Holmes, the fourth Yankees reliever. David Peralta led off with his second double of the game and scored on a one-out single by pinch-hitter Francisco Mejia.
Jonathan Aranda doubled with two outs before Holmes struck out Yandy Díaz looking at a 3-2 pitch for his 18th save. Díaz had already tossed his bat aside and was headed toward first base when plate umpire Vic Carapazza called strike three. Díaz slammed his batting helmet to the ground.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected in the fifth inning by Carapazza for arguing after Tampa Bay’s Taylor Walls reached on catcher’s interference.
The benches briefly emptied when Josh Donaldson took issue after a 3-0 pitch from Rays opener Shawn Armstrong was up-and-in leading off the second. Donaldson barked at the right-hander, but there were no significant incidents.
Judge connected on the second pitch of the game from Armstrong (2-2), sending a drive into the left-field stands. The slugger, who had a ninth-inning homer in Saturday’s 2-1 loss to the Rays, flied out to the edge of the warning track in center with two on to end the eighth.
Judge opened the seventh with a double, advanced to third on DJ LeMahieu’s groundout and scored to make it 2-0 on a sacrifice fly by Oswaldo Cabrera.
Montas (5-11), who struck out seven without a walk, was pulled after making 93 pitches. The right-hander, 0-2 with a 7.01 ERA in his first five starts since being acquired from Oakland, had two outings earlier this season against the Rays while with the Athletics and has limited them to one earned run over 18 1/3 innings.
Tampa Bay loaded the bases with two out in the seventh before Jonathan Loaisiga retired Díaz on broken-bat grounder.
With runners on first and second with one out in the fifth, LeMahieu hit a foul that was caught by catcher Christian Bethancourt at the screen. Boone argued the ball gazed the netting, but the call stood after a video review.
Later in the fifth, struggling Giancarlo Stanton flied out to deep right with the base loaded to end the inning. He went 0 for 5, and has four hits in 35 at-bats since returning from an Achilles injury.
TURNOUT
The announced crowd was a sellout at 25,025. The series average was 21,555, well above the Rays’ home season average of 14,023.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Yankees: OF Andrew Benintendi (right wrist) was scheduled to have a CT scan Sunday. … Boone is hopeful that 1B Anthony Rizzo (lower back) will resume baseball activities Monday.
Rays: LHP Shane McClanahan (left shoulder impingement) threw at 75 feet. … 2B Brandon Lowe (bruised right elbow) is taking batting practice.
UP NEXT
Yankees: RHP Jameson Taillon (12-4) and Minnesota RHP Chris Archer (2-7) are Monday’s starters in New York. Taillon was hit in the right forearm by a batted ball Tuesday.
Rays: Will face Boston RHP Michael Wacha (10-1) on Monday.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:52:41Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Nick Kyrgios sat in the Arthur Ashe Stadum locker room after ending Daniil Medvedev’s U.S. Open title defense and stay at No. 1 in the rankings and felt a mix of pride and relief.
Pride at the big-serving, solid-returning performance that resulted in a 7-6 (11), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Medvedev on Sunday night, the latest in a series of career-altering results that carried Kyrgios to his first quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows on the heels of his run to his first Grand Slam final at Wimbledon.
Pride, he said, at lifting himself out of “some really tough situations, mentally” and “some really scary places” off the court, which he first revealed in February. Pride, he went on, at succceding in distancing himself from ”feeling so depressed all the time, so feeling sorry for myself.”
And relief, Kyrgios explained as he fiddled with the gray Boston Celtics cap he was wearing to his post-match news conference, at being able to come through when the lights are the brightest and stakes the highest, “because there’s just so much pressure every time I go out on court, so much expectation, so much unpredictability of what I can do.”
The 23rd-seeded Kyrgios, a 27-year-old from Australia, never had managed to make it past the third round of the U.S. Open until now, going 0-4 at that stage in the past. He also never has managed to parlay his unquestioned skill into the terrific play with any semblance of the consistency he is displaying lately.
“I’m just glad I’m finally able to show New York my talent,” Kyrgios said after delivering 21 aces and employing his typical go-for-broke style against Medvedev. “I haven’t had too many great trips here.”
He reached his first Grand Slam semifinal, then first Grand Slam final, at the All England Club in July, before losing to Novak Djokovic in the title match. Then Kyrgios won his first ATP title in three years at Washington in August. He followed that up with a victory over Medvedev at a hard-court tournament in Montreal soon after. He leads the ATP Tour in match wins since June.
Medvedev likened the way Kyrgios played Sunday to the level regularly reached by Rafael Nadal, who owns 22 Grand Slam titles and plays his fourth-round match Monday against American Frances Tiafoe, and Djokovic, who has 21 majors but is not at the U.S. Open because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19 and so was not allowed to travel to the United States.
“Didn’t miss a lot. Didn’t really surprise me,” Medvedev said. “If he plays like this ’til end of the tournament, he has all the chances to win it.”
Wouldn’t that be something?
Kyrgios is still Kyrgios during the course of a match, and was again on this evening.
Unsure of the relevant rule, he lost a point by running around the net to hit a ball that was going to land way out, then celebrated what he thought was a terrific play by raising a finger to make an “I’m No. 1” gesture.
During his on-court interview, Kyrgios sheepishly told the crowd: “I still can’t believe the bonehead play I made over here. I thought it was legal. That’s going to be all over ‘SportsCenter,’ so I’m going to like an idiot.”
He yelled at his guest box. He argued with the chair umpire and drew a warning for cursing. He smacked a ball in anger that ricocheted off a blue wall behind a baseline, coming close to flying over and landing amid spectators.
Medvedev, meanwhile, had been playing well enough to win all nine sets he played in Week 1 and look ready to give himself a shot at becoming the first man to win consecutive trophies in New York since Roger Federer grabbed the last of his five in a row from 2004-08.
But the 26-year-old Russian said he was bothered by a sore throat and generally “felt a little bit sick,” which he attributed to too-powerful air conditioning in the U.S. that he finds “just crazy.”
Now Medvedev — whose victory over Djokovic in the 2021 U.S. Open final ended his bid for the first calendar-year Grand Slam in men’s tennis since 1969 — will relinquish the top ranking. Three players have a chance to replace him there: Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz and Casper Ruud.
“I feel like tonight was another message that rankings don’t matter,” said Kyrgios, who will meet No. 27 seed Karen Khachanov for a spot in the semifinals.
Kyrgios has said that had he won Wimbledon, he might not have shown up at the U.S. Open at all. If he managed to win a Grand Slam title, he figured, the motivation to earn one would dissipate.
Right before this tournament began, Kyrgios sat down with a small group of reporters and talked about missing home — his brother recently had a child; his mother was ill — and how much he can’t wait to return to Australia after months away. So his first-round match would be a “win-win,” he said: “If I win, it’s more money and another great result. If I lose, I get to go home.”
On Sunday night, Kyrgios was asked whether he still thought that way.
“Three more matches, potentially, then we never have to play tennis again,” came the reply.
And then Kyrgios smiled a wide smile.
___
More AP coverage of U.S. Open tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/us-open-tennis-championships and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:52:49Z
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COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — Lithuania unsuccessfully protested its double-overtime loss to Germany at the EuroBasket tournament Sunday, arguing that referees did not award it a free throw following a technical foul in regulation.
FIBA denied the protest.
That means it’s a German win — and a huge one for the hosts. Franz Wagner scored 32 points, Dennis Schroder added 25 and Germany prevailed 109-107 in a game that was tight throughout, with neither team ever leading by more than nine points.
“We are not happy,” Lithuania coach Kazys Maksvytis said.
The Germans were thrilled, since they’re now certain to advance out of group stage and reach the tournament’s knockout round.
According to FIBA, Germany coach Gordie Herbert was called for a technical with 1:26 left in the third quarter, after a personal foul was whistled against his team. Jonas Valanciunas shot two free throws for Lithuania for the personal foul, but no free throw for the technical was awarded.
Herbert said he was told by one of the referees with 7 seconds left in regulation that there was “a situation” regarding the technical and what should have happened.
“That was the first time I heard about it,” Herbert said.
FIBA said the protest was “inadmissible as the protest reasons were delivered outside the designated time of 60 minutes after the game.” But FIBA added that the protest, even if filed in a timely manner, would have been rejected “as the reason presented is not one of the reasons under which a protest can be filed.”
Arnas Butkevicius’ 3-pointer from the left wing for Lithuania — the potential game-winner — bounced off the rim as the clock ran out in the second extra session.
Maodo Lo scored 21 points for Germany (3-0) and Daniel Theis added 11.
Valanciunas had game highs of 34 points and 14 rebounds for Lithuania (0-3), while Marius Grigonis scored 17, Domantas Sabonis finished with 13, Ignas Brazdekis scored 12 and Mindaugas Kuzminskas added 11.
Lithuania’s three losses have been by seven, four and two points.
“It was a tough game,” Valanciunas said. “They played well. I thought we responded for most of the time. … Congrats to them.”
Valanciunas scored the final four points of regulation as Lithuania rallied from down 89-85 in the final 42 seconds. Schroder missed a stepback jumper at the buzzer of the fourth, and Wagner missed one at the end of the first overtime.
But in the second OT, the Germans scored the first five points and never trailed. Valanciunas was subbed out with 2:29 left, Lo made a 3-pointer 17 seconds later for a 106-102 lead and Germany held on.
“To come out on top, after all of that, I think it’s definitely a sign of our character and togetherness as a team,” Lo said.
GROUP B
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 97, SLOVENIA 93
Also at Cologne, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2-1) surprised Luka Doncic and defending EuroBasket winner Slovenia (2-1) behind 23 points from John Roberson and 22 from Dzanan Musa.
Miralem Halilovic scored 13, while Jusuf Nurkic and Edin Atic each had 12 for the winners.
Doncic had 18 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for Slovenia but went 0 for 8 from 3-point range. Vlatko Cancar led Slovenia with 22 points, Goran Dragic added 20, Klemen Prepelic scored 12 and Mike Tobey finished with 11.
FRANCE 78, HUNGARY 74
Guerschon Yabusele scored 17 points and France (2-1) wasted most of a 15-point lead before hanging on late to defeat Hungary (1-2).
Adam Hanga’s 3-pointer with 1:04 left got Hungary within 74-72. Hungary got a stop on the next France possession and had a shot at what would have been its first lead, but David Vojvoda’s 3-point try bounced off the rim with 23 seconds remaining.
Rudy Gobert scored 15 points, Evan Fournier added 12 and Vincent Poirier had 10 for France.
Hanga scored 18 for Hungary, and Mikael Hopkins added 10.
GROUP A
BELGIUM 83, SPAIN 73
At Tbilisi, Georgia, Manu Lecomte scored 20 points and Belgium ended the game on a 12-0 run to surprise Spain.
Pierre-Antoine Gillet scored 14 points for Belgium (2-1), which got 11 from Retin Obasohan and 10 from Ismael Bako.
Willy Hernangomez scored 18 for Spain (2-1), while Juancho Hernangomez and Lorenzo Brown each had 11.
MONTENEGRO 91, BULGARIA 81
Vladimir Mihailovic scored 23 points and Montenegro (2-1) ended the game on an 18-6 run to rally past Bulgaria (0-3).
Igor Drobnjak and Bojan Dubljevic each had 17 points for Montenegro, Nemanja Radovic added 16 and Kendrick Perry scored 12.
Aleksandar Vezenkov led all scorers with 26 for Bulgaria, which led 75-73 in the fourth before missing eight of its last 10 shots. Andrey Ivanov finished with 17 and Chavdar Kostov added 10 for Bulgaria, which tried 64 shots in the game — 40 of them from 3-point range.
GEORGIA 88, TURKEY 83, 2OT
The host nation in Group A rallied from an early 10-point deficit and handed Turkey (2-1) its first loss, though there was even more controversy following the game.
Turkey alleged that one of its players — local media said it was Furkan Korkmaz — got into an altercation in the locker room area following the game. It was unclear who else was involved in the incident.
Turkey assistant coach Hakan Demir said his national federation wants to review security footage. Turkey was also upset that 22 seconds ran off the clock during a fourth-quarter on-court altercation between Korkmaz and Georgia’s Duda Sanadze.
“We will watch the cameras,” Demir said. “This kind of thing, unfortunately, is a big disappointment. We are here to play basketball. … On the court, Georgia won the game. We congratulate them. It’s no problem. We lost in two overtimes. Does not matter.”
Korkmaz and Sanadze were both ejected.
Alexander Mamukelashvili had 20 points and 12 rebounds for Georgia (1-2), while Thaddus McFadden scored 17, Rati Andronikashvili and Giorgi Shermadini each scored 15 and Sanadze added 13.
Alperen Sengun led Turkey with 21 points on 10-of-14 shooting. Sertac Sanli scored 15, Cedi Osman added 14 and Melik Mahmutoglu had 11. Shane Larkin finished with nine points, eight rebounds, seven assists and five steals.
Turkey’s loss created a four-way tie with Montenegro, Spain and Belgium joining it atop Group A. The top four teams in each group advance to the knockout stage.
MONDAY’S SCHEDULE
Group C and Group D return to the floor. Group A and Group B get a rest day.
In Group C, at Milan, Ukraine (2-0) will look to remain unbeaten when it faces host Italy (1-1). Also in Milan on Monday: Greece (2-0), which has won its two games by a combined eight points, takes on Great Britain (0-2) and Croatia (1-1) faces Estonia (0-2).
In Group D, at Prague, Serbia (2-0) plays Finland (1-1), Israel (2-0) takes on Poland (1-1) and the Czech Republic (0-2) meets the Netherlands (0-2).
All four groups are in action Tuesday, with 12 games on the schedule. Group play continues through Thursday and the round of 16 starts in Berlin on Saturday.
___
More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:52:56Z
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CLEVELAND (AP) — After a rain delay of more than 4 1/2 hours, a couple hundred fans were left at Progressive Field when Sunday’s game between the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Guardians resumed in the fourth inning.
The official delay was 4 hours, 33 minutes and the teams consulted with Major League Baseball throughout the break. With both clubs in playoff contention and not a lot of good travel logistics in the final month of the regular season, the decision was made to wait out the rain.
There is no official record for rain delays. In 2013, the Kansas City at St. Louis game was held up for 4:32 before resuming in the ninth inning. In 1990, the Texas at Chicago White Sox game never got started and was called after a wait of 7:23.
Seattle’s Adam Frazier was batting with runners on first and second when the umpires called for the tarp at 3:35 p.m. The game began in a steady rain, which became a downpour while Frazier was batting. Seattle led 2-1 at the time of the delay.
The grounds crew made a brief appearance around 6:30 p.m. to drag the tarp into right field and dump the water into the outfield. The infield and mound were worked on before the tarp was put back on the infield.
An announcement was put on the scoreboard telling fans that more rain was approaching and a decision would be made after those showers passed through the area.
The game finally resumed at 8:08 p.m. in front of a small crowd, which cheered at literally everything that happened once the players took the field.
Both teams wanted to play a nine-inning game. Had they not resumed and the game been suspended, the Mariners would’ve needed to return to Cleveland after completing a series in Kansas City on Sept. 26, finish play against the Guardians and then host Texas the next day.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:53:04Z
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Scott McLaughlin led a Team Penske rout at Portland International Raceway by scoring his third victory of the season in a 1-2 finish that moved Will Power one race closer to the IndyCar championship.
McLaughlin led 104 of the 110 laps Sunday to pick up his third victory of the season. He trails only Penske teammate Josef Newgarden (five) in most series wins, but an inconsistent season has the New Zealander clinging to any title chances.
McLaughlin goes to next Sunday’s season finale at Laguna Seca in California ranked fifth in the standings, 41 points behind Power but still mathematically in the hunt.
“We did exactly what we needed to do this weekend which was win and get maximum points,” McLaughlin said. “We need to keep ourselves in it and we’re a long shot, but we’ve got a shot.”
Either way, IndyCar goes to its finale locked in the tightest championship battle in 19 years. The 41 points that separate McLaughlin in fifth to leader Power is the closest since 30 points separated the top five in 2003, when the series was still called the Indy Racing League.
Power had a relatively easy drive but never enough to challenge McLaughlin for the win. In settling for second, he takes a 20 point lead into the finale over both Newgarden and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon.
“We’re in the best position, we’ve got the best shot, we’ll do the best we can,” Power said.
Dixon finished third but gained no ground in the title fight; Newgarden dropped from fourth on the restart with 22 laps remaining to finish eighth and lose 17 points to Power in the Penske championship battle.
“We’re still in the fight,” said Dixon, who started 16th. “We need to stop getting these most improved of the race awards.”
Newgarden lamented his late tire choice, which left him a sitting duck over the final stint.
“At this point, it just kind of is what it is. I’m going to go try to win that race and go for broke,” Newgarden said. “I don’t know how Laguna is going to play, but we’re going to go to play and see what happens.”
The three Penske entries were the class of the field in Portland, where the team used its final test of the season to prepare for Sunday. The trio was fast in every session and had a clear advantage over Chip Ganassi Racing, which chose to use its final test at Laguna Seca in anticipation of the finale.
Ganassi had Dixon, Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson and reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou in the title hunt, but only Palou had a decent qualifying effort. Dixon and Ericsson failed to advance out of the first qualifying group, and Ericsson rallied only to 11th. The Swede is 39 points behind Power, fourth in the standings.
Although Palou finished 12th and Pato O’Ward was fourth, both were eliminated from title contention.
“Didn’t have enough for the Penske boys. They dominated everyone, not just us,” O’Ward said.
UP NEXT
IndyCar settles its championship with next Sunday’s finale at Laguna Seca Raceway in California. Colton Herta is the two-time defending race winner.
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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:53:11Z
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UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — With the game in the balance, Candace Parker and the Chicago Sky turned up their defense and came away with a gritty win to move within one victory of returning to the WNBA Finals for a second straight year.
Parker had 16 points and 11 rebounds, Kahleah Copper added 15 points and the Sky beat the Connecticut Sun 76-72 Sunday in Game 3 of the WNBA playoff semifinals. The Sky lead the best-of-five series 2-1.
“Down the stretch we were able to play (to our strengths),” said Parker, who tied Tamika Catchings for most double-doubles in the playoffs with 27. “I think the biggest thing is sometimes in years past, we would play great defense and give up the offensive board. Tonight we were able to finish the play.”
Copper’s 3-pointer with 6:14 left gave Chicago a 66-64 lead. Then offense was hard to come by: Neither team scored for nearly 4 minutes until Emma Meesseman hit a jumper in the corner to extend the lead to four with 2:26 left.
Connecticut missed eight shots in a row over that scoreless span until Courtney Williams hit a jumper 40 seconds later.
“It was 66-64 forever,” Connecticut coach Curt Miller said. “I wondered if one team would have an offensive run. It was to the point where if a team could put back to back baskets together, they would have all sorts of momentum. … We just couldn’t put together that offensive run when we needed it.”
Chicago scored the next four points with two free throws by Copper and a layup by Meesseman that made it 72-66 with under a minute left. Connecticut got back within two with 22 seconds left on two free throws by Bonner, but Parker made two free throws 7 seconds later.
Bonner then missed a 3 and Connecticut was done. She finished with 18 points to lead the Sun, who had 17 turnovers.
“We have to play on on what we build on throughout the season,” Chicago coach James Wade said. “Playing together throughout adversity, we did a good job of it. We didn’t haven’t many lulls. we were up for the challenge and came out victorious.”
Connecticut led 23-21 after one quarter when Bonner banked in a 3-pointer from about 30 feet just before the buzzer. Connecticut was 8 for 9 from the foul line in the period.
The teams went back and forth in the second quarter with Chicago going up 40-38 at the half. Parker had 12 points and six rebounds in the opening half. Natisha Hiedeman had 12 points for Connecticut.
Chicago led 56-55 after three periods, as neither team could get more than a seven-point lead heading into the final period.
STAT SHEET STUFFER
Alyssa Thomas had just six points, going 3 for 12 from the field, but added 13 rebounds and seven assists.
TIP-INS
Meesseman had five steals and six assists to go along with 13 points. … According to ESPN, Connecticut missed 25 of its 41 shots from within five feet.
BATTLE SCAR
Parker took a shot to the left eye 3 minutes into the game and briefly left to the locker room. She returned about a minute later but had a noticeable bump over her eye.
“It’s fine, I can see,” Parker said after the game.
___
More WNBA playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-playoffs and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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ST. LOUIS (AP) — Albert Pujols collected home run No. 695 in the eighth inning and Miles Mikolas tossed eight shutout innings to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a 2-0 win over the Chicago Cubs on Sunday.
Pujols drilled the two-run, pinch-hit shot off reliever Brandon Hughes (2-2).
A probable future Hall of Famer, Pujols trails only Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714) and Alex Rodriguez (696) on the all-time home run list.
Pujols has seven pinch-hit homers in his career, including two this season. He has homered against 451 different pitchera, an all-time record.
The 42-year-old jumped on an 0-1 offering.
“It’s just pretty special to be able to do that,” Pujols said. “There’s some nights that you’re going to come through and some nights that you don’t. The nights that you do, you just enjoy it. And that’s what I’m going to enjoy tonight.”
Tommy Edman started the rally with a one-out double.
“I was 100% confident that he was going to find a way to drive me in,” Edman said. “As crazy as it is, we just expect that to happen now. He’s the best right-handed hitter of our generation.”
Pujols, in his last season, has found a way to come through in dramatic fashion all season long.
“There’s times in this game where you take a step back from being locked into the game and you get to be a fan for a minute, and experience it the way everyone else is,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said. “That was one of them. You take it all in because what he’s doing is absolutely incredible.”
Pujols hit his 130th career home run on Sundays, the most of any day.
Chicago manager David Ross indicated that he would have walked Pujols if Hughes got behind in the count.
“You’ve got to trust your guys,” Ross said. “Wanted to attack Albert. He just left one over the middle.”
St. Louis has won four in a row, 18 of its last 20 home games and is a season-best 24 games over .500 at 79-55. It was the Cardinals’ eighth series sweep of the season.
Chicago has lost seven of eight.
Mikolas (11-10) gave up two hits. He struck out three and walked one. Ryan Helsley earned his 13th save in 17 chances.
Chicago starter Marcus Stroman allowed four hits in seven shutout innings. He struck out five and did not walk a batter in a 98-pitch stint.
The start of the game was delayed 1 hour, 28 minutes by rain.
HOMETOWN HERO
Boston Celtics standout Jayson Tatum, a St. Louis native, threw out the first pitch. Tatum played high school basketball at Chaminade College Prep, located 14 miles from Busch Stadium.
QUICK GETAWAY
The Cardinals have scored 91 runs in the first inning, second to the Los Angeles Dodgers with 95.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cubs: C Willson Contreras missed the game with a sore left foot. He suffered the injury Tuesday against Toronto.
Cardinals: LHP Steven Matz will make a rehab start on Tuesday at Double-A Springfield. He has been out since Aug. 8 with a left knee sprain.
UP NEXT
Cubs: LHP Wade Miley (1-0, 2.84 ERA) will start on Tuesday as the Cubs begin a six-game homestand by hosting Cincinnati. Miley has been out since June 11 with a left shoulder strain. RHP Justin Dunn (1-2, 4.63) will start for the Reds.
Cardinals: RHP Jack Flaherty (0-0, 5.63) will face Washington RHP Anibal Sanchez (1-5, 5.05) in the first of a four-game series on Monday afternoon in St. Louis. Flaherty has been out since June 27 with a right shoulder strain. He made five rehab starts in the minors.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Remember that time, not so long ago, when there was a crisis at Manchester United?
After four straight wins, it seems like a dim and distant memory.
The latest sign that United is well on the road to recovery came on Sunday with a 3-1 win over Arsenal, whose 100% start to the season came to an end.
There were still anti-Glazer chants inside and outside Old Trafford — it feels like those protests against the ownership are here to stay, whether the team wins or loses — but they are now accompanied by frequent and jubilant roars for goals.
Two of them were scored in the second half by Marcus Rashford to sweep United to victory after Arsenal pulled it back to 1-1 through Bukayo Saka, but the opening goal felt the most significant.
Antony, United’s latest big signing from Ajax for $95 million, marked his first match in English soccer with a goal from a curling, first-time finish in the 35th minute, crowning a performance that featured a slew of jinks, feints, flicks and exaggerated stepovers that thrilled home fans. The Brazil winger came off in the 58th to a standing ovation to be replaced by Cristiano Ronaldo, who again had to settle for a starting spot on the bench.
“He did well, but I think he can step it up,” said United manager Erik ten Hag, who was with Antony at Ajax last season. “This is a different league but there’s potential there.”
Since that humiliating 4-0 loss at Brentford that sparked a crisis and some doubts around the wisdom of hiring Ten Hag, United has beaten Liverpool, Southampton, Leicester and now Arsenal, the league leader.
After six games, United is only three points behind Arsenal and two behind Manchester City, the title favorite. The confidence is back and a style of play has formed.
How quickly things have turned around.
“The spirit from this team, they can deal with setbacks like we did,” Ten Hag said. “It is really great and shows your mentality — we have really improved on that.”
Arsenal will bemoan a 12th-minute goal by Gabriel Martinelli getting ruled out following an intervention by the video referee for a slight push by Martin Odegaard on Christian Eriksen. The visitors also reacted badly to conceding a second goal soon after equalizing, with an attacking triple substitution in the 74th minute perhaps coming too early and making the team disjointed.
Rashford, rejuvenated under Ten Hag after a full preseason, scored a minute later.
Still, Arsenal played well enough to show it could be sticking around for the long haul this season.
“We had some big periods where we were totally dominant and in total control,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said. “We created chance after chance but did not close the game.”
PRESSURE ON RODGERS
There’s a strong chance Brendan Rodgers won’t be Leicester manager by the time the team plays its next game.
Leicester was embarrassed in a 5-2 loss at Brighton, leaving Rodgers’ team in last place on just one point from six games. It wasn’t just the defeat but the manner of the performance that will worry Rodgers, and more importantly Leicester’s owners.
The defending was extremely soft as goals by Moises Caicedo, Leandro Trossard and Alexis Mac Allister — via a penalty and a direct free kick — along with an own-goal by Luke Thomas saw Brighton cruise to a victory that could have been even heavier.
That’s 16 goals conceded by Leicester already and it seems neglectful for the club to have only signed one outfield player and a third-choice goalkeeper in the summer transfer market given the state of the squad.
Rodgers even called out Leicester’s owners in midweek, saying he had “not had the help in the (transfer) market this team needed.”
Scott Parker made a similar remark after Bournemouth’s recently 9-0 loss at Liverpool and was fired a few days later. Rodgers could yet be heading the same way after 3 1/2 years in charge of Leicester.
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Colorado kids break a record for the longest hop scotch course Published September 21, 2022 at 4:34 AM PDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 0:26 The 4.37 mile long hop scotch course exceeds a Guinness World Record of 4.1 miles set by Georgia Tech students. Copyright 2022 NPR
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NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff raised a fist, then wagged her right index finger, responding to, and riling up even more, a loud-louder-loudest Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was standing and screaming. Gauff’s U.S. Open opponent, Zhang Shuai, covered both ears with her hands to shield them from what she described later as a “Boom!” of sound.
Gauff and her fans were reacting excitedly to quite a point, one in which the 18-year-old Floridian raced to her right for a defensive forehand, then changed directions to sprint and slide into a backhand that drew a netted volley from Zhang. Just four points later, Gauff was a quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows for the first time.
Gauff, the French Open runner-up in June, came back in each set to beat China’s Zhang 7-5, 7-5 on Sunday to become the youngest American to make it this far at the U.S. Open since Melanie Oudin was 17 in 2009.
“Here, I can’t hear myself scream. Makes me want to do it more. I think I’m feeding off the momentum a lot. I enjoy it,” said No. 12 seed Gauff, who meets No. 17 Caroline Garcia of France on Tuesday. “New York is bringing out a side of me that I haven’t had since I was 15, so it’s nice.”
Nick Kyrgios is playing much better than he ever has at Flushing Meadows, too, building off the momentum of his run to the Wimbledon final in July, and he eliminated defending champion and No. 1-ranked Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (11), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 on Sunday night.
The 23rd-seeded Kyrgios was up to some of his usual behavior — warned for cursing, yelling at his guest box, playing to the crowd — but he also outplayed Medvedev in a high-quality match.
“I’m just glad I’m finally able to show New York my talent,” said Kyrgios, never past the third round at the U.S. Open until now. “I haven’t had too many great trips here.”
He’ll play No. 27 seed Karen Khachanov on Tuesday, when the other’s men’s quarterfinal on the top half of the bracket is 2022 French Open runner-up Casper Ruud against 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini.
Medvedev will relinquish the top spot in the rankings after the U.S. Open, with Ruud joining Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz as players with a chance to replace him.
After trailing 5-4 in the opening set, then 5-3 in the second, which she was a point from losing, Gauff was buoyed by spectators who cheered her every point and chanted “Let’s go, Coco!” as the end neared. She improved to 4-0 in Ashe this year after having never previously won a match at the biggest arena in Grand Slam tennis.
How loud was it?
“It got so racuous in there that I got a headache. I had to take an Advil,” said Gauff’s father, Corey. “I kept pinching myself. I’m like, ‘My gosh, all of these people here for my daughter.’ You dream about this, but you never know if you’re going to realize that. She was pumping herself up and they responded to her. It sent chills up my spine.”
Zhang, at 33 the oldest woman to reach the fourth round, said it was more noise than she’s ever heard at a match.
She praised Gauff’s play, calling her “a superstar” and adding: “Everything is very good. She’s so much younger than me. Her energy is so much better. She’s faster. She’s powerful.”
They competed mostly from the baseline, and the longer the exchanges, the more success Gauff found: She claimed a 45-26 edge in points that lasted five or more strokes.
Garcia is coming off a hard-court title at Cincinnati and stretched her winning streak to 12 matches by defeating No. 29 Alison Riske-Amritraj of the U.S. 6-4, 6-1.
“I’m super excited, actually, to play Coco — in U.S., in New York, quarterfinal of a Slam. It’s great,” Garcia said.
The other quarterfinal on that half of the women’s field will be between Ajla Tomljanovic, the player who beat Serena Williams in the third round, and No. 5 Ons Jabeur, who was the runner-up at Wimbledon. Tomljanovic got past Liudmila Samsonova 7-6 (8), 6-1 at Louis Armstrong Stadium in a matchup between unseeded players, while Jabeur defeated No. 18 Veronika Kudermetova 7-6 (1), 6-4.
Tomljanovic is a 29-year-old Australian who is now into her third Grand Slam quarterfinal after making it that far at Wimbledon the past two years. On Wednesday, Tomljanovic beat Williams in three sets in what is expected to be the last match of the 23-time Grand Slam champion’s career.
In Gauff-Zhang, the whirring of the Ashe retractable roof being pulled shut accompanied the start of the second set because of showers that started soon after, and it took a while for the artificial lights to reach full strength. The match proceeded, even though it was rather dark — and quite humid — indoors.
Zhang started getting a bit better of the back-and-forth midway through the second set, and when she hit a backhand winner of her own, she broke to lead 5-3.
Last year’s U.S. Open doubles champion — she and Sam Stosur beat Gauff and Caty McNally in the final — served to force a third set, and was a point away from getting there, but Gauff steeled herself and stood her ground.
That set point was frittered away when Zhang sent a backhand long. Gauff smacked — what else? — a down-the-line backhand winner for her third break point of that game, then delivered a good return to a corner that drew a long backhand to make it 5-4 and start a four-game, match-closing run.
Everyone’s known how talented Gauff is for a while now. After all, at 15, she became the youngest qualifier in Wimbledon history in 2019, beat Venus Williams in the first round of the main draw and made it all the way to the fourth. There have been more steps along the way, more achievements — last month, she became the second-youngest doubles No. 1 in WTA history — and her ever-developing game — the most notable recent improvements were to her forehand and second serve — keeps carrying her closer to the top of the singles rankings and closer to a Grand Slam title.
And at this point, having the full sport of more than 20,000 folks in Ashe doesn’t hurt, either.
“She’s found a home there,” Dad said. “I hope she’s going to play there for the rest of the tournament.”
___
AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston contributed to this report.
___
More AP coverage of U.S. Open tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/us-open-tennis-championships and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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BOSTON (AP) — The Texas Rangers designated left-hander Dallas Keuchel for assignment before Sunday’s series finale against the Boston Red Sox.
The 34-year-old Keuchel was 0-2 with a 12.60 ERA in two starts for the Rangers, including taking the loss in Friday’s game when he allowed seven runs in 4 2/3 innings. He’s 2-9 with a 9.20 ERA in 14 combined starts with the White Sox, Arizona and Texas this season.
“I felt I pitched a whole lot better than the line read,” Keuchel said after the game. “It felt like I was making pitches and they were battling, like the classic Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I established all my pitches, but this year is what it is. We’re working toward an end goal of putting up some zeroes.”
Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner, joined the Rangers as a free agent on July 26.
They recalled lefty John King from Triple-A Round Rock to take his spot on the roster.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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CHICAGO (AP) — Minnesota Twins catcher Gary Sánchez was feeling fortunate Sunday after he nearly walked into a major injury.
Sánchez was almost struck in the head by a full swing by teammate Gilberto Celestino during Minnesota’s 5-1 victory against the Chicago White Sox.
The incident occurred when Chicago brought in Kendall Graveman to face Sánchez with two outs in the eighth inning. Sánchez was heading back to the dugout to learn more about the reliever when he was almost hit by Celestino in the on-deck circle.
Celestino missed Sánchez’s face by mere inches.
“I had a few minutes to go and ask a couple questions about that pitcher,” Sánchez said through a translator. “I saw his bat was on his shoulder just standing there in the on-deck circle and so I went back to the dugout and I didn’t notice he was swinging.”
Sánchez lowered his head after the bat passed, and Celestino leaned back with an incredulous look on his face.
“He almost hit me, but thank God, nothing happened,” Sánchez said. “It’s just an accident. It’s fine.”
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Do you remember? It's Earth, Wind and Fire Day Published September 21, 2022 at 4:34 AM PDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 0:28 the band's hit "September," has immortalized today's date. Copyright 2022 NPR
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From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, Tiny Desk is celebrating Latinx Heritage Month with an "El Tiny" takeover, featuring Jessie Reyez, Susana Baca and more musicians from all corners of Latinidad.
Girl Ultra's music is never one thing for long. After coming up in Mexico City's alt R&B scene, Mariana de Miguel built on that premise with experiments in house, bolero, pop and punk, fused with her own distinct glint. Her El Tiny performance is an effortless flash of all she is capable of and of the commanding performance she's finessed over her career. Even the onomatopoeic chorus of house track "BOMBAY" translates seamlessly to the desk.
Slowed and acoustic as it is, the El Tiny version of "Punk" captures the frenetic rush of the original, itself an alt transfiguration of Gwen Stefani's "Bubble Pop Electric" that interpolates its pop chorus and tailors it to the allure of going out in the south side of Mariana de Miguel's hometown of Mexico City. "Dime tú que voy a hacer con este feeling," ("You tell me what I'm going to do with this feeling") she asks, ostensibly of the person she's singing about. But it's also a question that speaks to the mutability of her performance: effusive and commanding, but never lacking a controlled restraint as it evolves. As she sings in "DameLove," "feelings always come and go."
She begins her El Tiny performance of that song by playing a few moments of the recorded version. Cuco's voice and hers float in from the drum machine, warped, as she flutters her fingers in front of her face, cultivating mystery against the familiarity of the setting for a solo rendition of the song that feels even more intimate.
She describes the final song of her set, "Ella Tú y Yo" from 2019's Nuevos Aires, as "about finding a third one in a relationship – which is pretty common these days." Here, she reworks the R&B ballad into a simmering indie rock churn, its titular phrase whispered with a soft wince.
Just one album and an EP into her career, Girl Ultra has already commanded change — as necessary and sometimes difficult as it can be — as a driver of expression. Here, it's thrilling.
SET LIST
MUSICIANS
TINY DESK TEAM
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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Max Verstappen stood on his car to milk the applause as the 100,000-strong Orange Army engulfed their national hero in a sea of their favorite color after he won the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday.
A second straight win at the Zandvoort track by the seaside; a fourth straight win for the first time in his career and already a 30th overall; a 109-point lead with only seven races left. That orange wave is carrying him to a second straight world title.
“It’s nice to see all the crowd and the craziness, I appreciate it a lot,” Verstappen said. “This was a very special weekend for me. It’s been incredible.”
It seems a question now of when, rather than if, the Red Bull driver seals the title and if he can beat Sebastian Vettel’s F1 record of 13 wins in a season from 2013 — also achieved with Red Bull. Verstappen has won 10 races this season so far.
Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton has never won more than 11 in a single campaign.
“It’s down to the team, of course, but that’s also how Lewis won the championships. That’s what good drivers do, they make the difference,” Verstappen said. “Even when we win races we want to do better. That’s how you stay on top. Because if you stand still people will overtake you.”
Verstappen made quick work of a safety car restart this time to overtake Hamilton.
His 10th win matched his tally from last year as his challengers — Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and teammate Sergio Perez in joint second — fell further back in the standings.
“Very lovely result guys,” Verstappen said to his team, before telling his legions of supporters he was “proud to be Dutch.”
His win was even more special because of a gearbox problem in Friday’s first practice session.
George Russell finished second for Mercedes ahead of Leclerc, with Hamilton dropping from first to fourth.
“As a team we showed incredible pace today. The team result wasn’t quite what we hoped for but we can take a lot of confidence moving forward,” Russell said. “We are slowly getting closer to that top step.”
Verstappen looked to be coasting to victory when a safety car came out on Lap 56 of 72, after the engine cut out on Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo.
Verstappen changed tires and was behind leader Hamilton’s Mercedes with 12 laps left.
But Hamilton was on a slower medium tire and Verstappen on the quicker softs left the British driver pretty much a sitting duck, much like when he lost the title to Verstappen at last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi GP.
Hamilton misjudged his restart and Verstappen overtook him straight away to bring a huge roar from the crowd. The Dutchman also took an extra point for the fastest lap.
“I had a good run in the restart, we had a bit more top speed and that helps to attack into Turn 1,” Verstappen said. “From there onwards we had really good balance in the car again.”
An angry Hamilton took it out on his team, using an expletive on radio to tell them he wasn’t happy about not swapping for new tires under safety car, when Russell had.
“I was just on the edge of breaking point with my emotions. My apologies to the team,” Hamilton said. “I just lost it for a second. But I think they know that there is just so much passion.”
Hamilton appeared to brake late when Russell overtook him and they nearly collided.
“Could have been nasty but there’s nothing but respect between us,” Russell said.
After Hamilton unleashed another expletive-laced rant, Leclerc overtook him on an otherwise poor day for a Ferrari team unable to cut out the most basic errors.
Leclerc started from second ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr. in third. Sainz finished eighth and got a five-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pitlane. Sainz said he was trying to avoid a McLaren mechanic in front of him and had to “hit the brakes.”
Earlier in the race, Ferrari botched Sainz’s tire change on Lap 15 — taking 13 seconds — in a season of bizarre incidents.
This time the tires were not even ready.
“Oh my God,” a stunned Sainz said.
Ferrari even left the tire-changing gun on the floor and Perez narrowly missed rolling over it.
Verstappen produced a brilliant final lap Saturday to take pole from Leclerc by .02 seconds — the smallest margin this season — in a qualifying session marred by a flare thrown onto the track.
Fans packed the grandstands Sunday, many wearing colors of the Dutch flag. Thousands of fans cycled to the track.
Verstappen started well and shut the door on Leclerc while Sainz held off Hamilton on the outside.
Leclerc came in on Lap 18 and Ferrari had his tires ready, at least. Verstappen came in on the next lap as Red Bull matched Ferrari’s strategy, while Mercedes stayed out with Hamilton leading from Russell.
The race became more open when a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) came out after Yuki Tsunoda retired his AlphaTauri on Lap 47.
Verstappen and others changed tires. Leclerc lost position under the VSC and was fourth at the restart.
Then the real safety car came out.
So Verstappen came in for another change, exiting just behind Russell and Hamilton. Russell asked to come in for new tires and it proved the right call.
Perez finished the race fifth ahead of Fernando Alonso, who drove brilliantly to move his Alpine up from 13th on the grid.
Lando Norris (McLaren) finished in seventh spot, followed by Sainz, Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and Lance Stroll (Aston Martin).
Misfiring Ferrari hopes to give its tifosi fans something to cheer about next weekend at the Italian GP in Monza.
“The gap is now really big,” Leclerc said. “Max was too quick today.”
As he has been most of the season.
___
More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — New York Yankees outfielder Andrew Benintendi has a broken bone in his right wrist that will need surgery, but said he didn’t know whether it was a season-ending injury.
“It’s all too early to say right now, obviously,” Benintendi said. “We’re still trying to learn some more things. That’s what it is right now. Just take it day by day at this point right now, I guess.”
Manager Aaron Boone revealed the diagnosis of a broken hook hamate bone and the need for surgery after the AL East leaders beat Tampa Bay 2-1 on Sunday. Benintendi will be further examined by doctors Monday back in New York.
Benintendi said he had a previous surgery that removed hook during his freshman year of college and was surprised by Sunday’s developments.
“I don’t really know about bones or anything like that,” Benintendi said. “So, I’m just listening to what they’re telling me. Yeah, I didn’t know you could grow another bone or whatever it may be.”
Benintendi was hurt while taking a swing Friday night and was put on the 10-day injured list the next day.
The 28-year-old Benintendi was an All-Star this season with Kansas City, then was traded to the Yankees in late July. He got off to a slow start with New York, but recently had been more productive at the plate.
Benintendi is hitting .304 overall with 51 RBIs. He is batting .254 with 12 RBIs in 33 games for the Yankees.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:54:13Z
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The cheating controversy gripping the world of elite chess was already enigmatic — but it deepened even more this week, when world champion Magnus Carlsen abruptly resigned after making a single move in his highly anticipated rematch with Hans Niemann.
Carlsen, 31, and Niemann, 19, were facing off in the Julius Baer Generation Cup roughly two weeks after Niemann defeated Carlsen — a win that was immediately thrown into question by a cryptic tweet from Carlsen that seemed to suggest Niemann was cheating.
The drama threw chess into a tizzy, and fueled anticipation for Monday's match between Carlsen and Niemann in the online tournament. But after Niemann made his first move as white, Carlsen responded with a single move as black and then quit.
"What?!" numerous commentators said in unison on video streams, as they struggled to grasp what had just happened. Carlsen offered no explanation, as he promptly turned off his video camera. But his resignation was quickly seen as a protest and a refusal to play Niemann, of the U.S.
Many involved in chess are now calling for Carlsen, the Norwegian who has ruled global chess for the past decade, to give a full account of his actions. Some also say the International Chess Federation should review the case, both to uncover any cheating and to address the damage done when one of the greatest players of all time refuses to play in a tournament he has entered.
"The implications of this are horrifying," grandmaster Maurice Ashley told NPR. "It's terrible."
The fallout ranges from warping one tournament's results to raising questions about other players' legitimacy and also about the sport's future, Ashley said.
First, some context
On Sept. 5, Carlsen suddenly withdrew from the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis after losing to Niemann. Rather than making a direct comment at the time, the world champion posted a video clip of a soccer manager saying, "I prefer not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble."
Chess.com then banned Niemann and uninvited him from the Global Championship, an event that will be decided in November, with a $1 million prize on the line.
The plot deepened further on Sept. 6, when Niemann publicly admitted he has used electronic devices to cheat in the past — but only in online games, and only when he was 12 and 16 years old.
In the first instance, Niemann said, he was "just a child." He called the second "an absolutely ridiculous mistake" that occurred when he was trying to build up his ranking and support his career in online streaming.
"I was confronted; I confessed," Niemann said, adding that he was punished with an initial ban and has since dedicated himself to proving his abilities.
But two days after that interview, Chess.com released a statement about its recent decision to ban Niemann, saying it has shared "detailed evidence" with him "that contradicts his statements regarding the amount and seriousness of his cheating on Chess.com."
— Chess.com (@chesscom) September 8, 2022
Monday's one-move game stunned chess commentators
"What do we say now?" Grandmaster David Howell asked at the end of Carlsen's one-move game.
In Maurice Ashley's view, the next move is Carlsen's. After two weeks of insinuation, he said, it's time for clarity. Even more confusing, he says, is that Carlsen is continuing in the Generation Cup after resigning against Niemann.
"It's not a good look for Magnus to just be silent and let thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people pile up on a 19-year-old who has admitted doing wrong in the past and is now saying, 'I just want to play chess,' " Ashely said.
"I think that as a leading ambassador for the sport, Magnus has to say something. He has to give some kind of clarification, because otherwise everyone ends up looking bad."
Detailing how the situation affects other players, organizers and sponsors, Ashely notes that when Carlsen quit, he gifted Niemann with three points. That could be crucial in a tournament where only the top half of the 16-player field will advance to the next round.
"There is money on the line in this event, real dollars," Ashley said. "And Hans getting three full points may end up having him qualify potentially over another participant that Magnus did not resign against."
Chess has to find the right move
Ashley watched Monday's match as a fan. To put the experience in perspective for fans of other sports, he suggests thinking of LeBron James and the L.A. Lakers trotting out to half-court for the opening tipoff of a big game — only to let the ball roll out of bounds and then exit the arena.
"This is literally the best player in the world playing in a tournament and simply quitting" without explanation, Ashley said.
"This is not what sports are about. We just can't continue like this."
The cheating accusations emerged after Niemann's player rating on Chess.com enjoyed "a really significant, almost unprecedented rise" since the start of 2021, Caleb Wetherell, who runs Pawnalyze, a chess analysis website, told NPR last weekend.
Niemann's rise could be interpreted as meaning he was underrated by the system. But Ashley and others worry that cheating suspicions could now taint any young prodigy who improves rapidly, in a field that's long been famous for its prodigies.
Because of the scale of the questions raised by Carlsen's actions, there are increasing calls for the International Chess Federation to investigate — an idea with which Ashley agrees.
"Someone has to step in and figure out what's going on and give us some kind of process for moving forward," he said.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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SEATTLE (AP) — Before she tried encapsulating one of the more memorable WNBA playoff games, Becky Hammon let out a little chuckle.
“That was a hell of a game. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of something like that,” the Las Vegas Aces coach said.
Hammon could speak with a mix of excitement and relief after the Aces pulled out a wild 110-98 overtime in over the Seattle Storm in Game 3 of their WNBA playoff semifinal series on Sunday.
There were big shots and buzzer beaters. Spectacular offensive performances, disputable missed calls and one glaring blown assignment by the home team that added up to the Aces being one win away from advancing to the WNBA Finals and ending Sue Bird’s career.
Jackie Young sent the game to overtime with a buzzer-beating basket, and then Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum hit big shots in the extra session as Las Vegas took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.
“We live for these moments. You work hard for these bright light games and just staying in it and understanding that we’ve worked hard to get to where we are,” said Aces’ star A’ja Wilson, who finished with a playoff career-high 34 points.
The end of regulation will rightfully get most of the attention. But Las Vegas was dominant in overtime, outscoring Seattle 18-6.
Gray had been quiet in the fourth quarter but scored eight of her 29 points in overtime including a pair of 3s that silenced Storm fans that had been roaring only a few minutes earlier when it appeared Seattle was on the cusp of winning the pivotal game.
“There was so many back and forth (moments), ‘Oh they’re gonna win it, oh no they’re gonna win it, oh we’re going to overtime.’ … That’s what playoff basketball is all about. It felt good,” Gray said.
From the Seattle perspective, it never should have reached overtime.
Seattle led 92-90 with 0.8 seconds left in regulation after Bird hit a corner 3. It was a storybook moment to be another highlight in Bird’s final season before retiring.
But on the ensuing inbounds play, Young got free from Ezi Magbegor and scored in the lane ahead of the buzzer to send the game to overtime.
“It was really frustrating. We had the game and we gave it to them and that’s really it,” Seattle’s Breanna Stewart said.
Gray added 12 assists and Riquna Williams added a key 14 points off the bench. Plum had 16 points, including an important three-point play to start overtime for the Aces.
Stewart led Seattle with 20 points, while Bird and Jewell Loyd both had 17. Tina Charles added 16 points but missed a pair of free throw with 7.2 seconds remining in regulation that could have given Seattle a three-point lead.
The second half was filled with wild emotional swings and a conclusion to regulation that featured one big play after another. The final 11 seconds featured 10 points scored.
“We were up four with not a lot of time left and that’s really, to me, where we lost the game,” Bird said.
Seattle led 89-85 when Williams hit a 3 with 8.9 seconds left for Las Vegas. Charles missed her two foul shots and Wilson put Las Vegas ahead 90-89 with a spinning drive in the lane with 2.2 seconds left, although it appeared she got away with taking extra steps.
Then it was Seattle’s turn to have an apparent winner on Bird’s 3 off an inbound pass when she came open in the corner in front of the Seattle bench. Bird even left her hand in the air as Seattle’s home building roared.
But all that was muted moments later when Young cut to the basket and scored ahead of the buzzer.
“It’s on me. … What happened end of game all of our execution things that falls on me,” Seattle coach Noelle Quinn said.
The Aces victory also moved Bird one step closer to retirement. Bird has announced this will be her final season, and Las Vegas can send her off into retirement as one of the greatest players in league history with a victory in Game 4.
TIP-INS
Seattle lost a home playoff game with Stewart healthy for the first time. The Storm were 10-0 previously. … In the 14 previous series tied at 1-1, the winner of Game 3 has gone on to win the series eight times. … The Aces have reached the WNBA Finals twice in franchise history, once in 2020 in the WNBA bubble and in 2008 when the team was in San Antonio.
UP NEXT
Game 4 will be Tuesday night with Las Vegas looking to advance to the finals.
___
More WNBA playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-playoffs and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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by: Kylee Bond Posted: Sep 4, 2022 / 06:27 PM CDT Updated: Sep 4, 2022 / 10:27 PM CDT SHARE NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— The time is finally here for the Louisiana State Kickoff where the LSU Tigers will open their 2022 season against Florida State at the Caesars Superdome. See the live score of the game here! LIVE SCORE TEAMQUARTER/TIMESCORELSU TigersFINAL23Florida State Seminoles24
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SHREVEPORT, La (KMSS/KTAL) – On this week’s Sunday Night Sports Blitz we have an exclusive sit down interview with Grambling State University Athletic Director Dr. Trayvean Scott, and introduce our first Marketplace Chevy Player of the Week for the 2022-23 year.
You can catch the Sunday Night Sports Blitz every Sunday at 10:35 on KTAL NBC6.
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The ArkLaTex is in between two upper-level high-pressure systems. One is over the western United States and another just off the East Coast. A rather sizeable upper-level low extends southwest from the Midwestern U.S. In fact, part of this low extends through the Ozarks and into the ArkLaTex. A disturbance near the Iowa and Missouri border will be forced southward through Arkansas and be nudged briefly into our area by the upper high to our west.
In fact, by late Monday, the disturbance will retreat northward into the Ouachita Mountains of eastern OK and western AR. Abundant moisture will then begin to stream into the Arklatex with rain and storms developing through Labor Day and lasting off and on through the rest of the week into the weekend.
While severe weather is not expected, there may be some heavy downpours. This will be monitored closely. Another result of the rainy weather will be morning low temperatures either side of 70° and afternoon highs falling into the low to mid 80s by mid week.
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California’s Lucid Motors, which just last week started taking reservations for its most expensive model yet, the quarter-million-dollar, 1,200-plus hp Air Sapphire, might already be starting production of its most affordable, sub-$90,000 Air Pure version.
In a Twitter post Friday, the company provided a glimpse of a Lucid Air coming off the production line with a solid aluminum roof. That’s a distinct variation from the glass canopy roof built into the Air Dream Edition and Grand Touring models that the company has been making up until now. And considering that the solid roof is coming with later availability to the mid-range Air Touring but is a distinguishing feature of the Air Pure from the start, all signs pointed to the latter.
This #LaborDayWeekend, we celebrate those who roll up their sleeves and get things done. #DreamAhead pic.twitter.com/EGKJ8r9kI5
— Lucid Motors (@LucidMotors) September 2, 2022
Lucid confirmed to Green Car Reports that the car in the picture with CEO/CTO Peter Rawlinson and chief engineer Eric Bach is indeed an Air Pure.
Yes, that’s the version starting at $88,900, including the $1,500 destination fee. The Lucid Air Pure will be available in a single-motor rear-wheel-drive configuration, flagged in Lucid’s build tool for “later availability”—so it’s likely that this early Pure versions have the $5,500 dual-motor all-wheel-drive option, bringing the total to at least $94,400.
The Pure is the entry point for the lineup but isn’t stripped-down; it’s the package that CEO Rawlinson has singled out for being the “purest expression of the Air,” as its flatter battery packaging—shared with the Touring—allows more rear footwell space. It is also lighter and more in line with the company’s emphasis on efficiency. In the not-so-distant future, its technology might help allow mass-market EVs that can go farther with smaller battery packs than rival models.
Lucid has listed the Air Pure as achieving an anticipated range of 406 miles—not yet EPA-confirmed, but coincidentally 1 mile longer than the current longest-range Tesla Model S. The Lucid Air shows its efficiency superiority in achieving that with a usable battery capacity somewhere near its listed 88 kwh, while the Model S has a usable capacity of about 95 kwh.
And although Tesla showed a competitive edge when Lucid first announced Air details, it’s since hiked its prices once again. At present, a non-Plaid Model S starts at $106,190—apples to apples, nearly a $12,000 difference between dual-motor versions with 400-plus miles of EPA range.
This all said, no formal announcement about its production ramp or arrival timeline has yet been issued by the automaker. The Air Touring and Air Pure have both been due by the end of the year, according to Lucid, and even though the company’s ramp-up of volume hasn’t been going as quickly as originally planned, it’s a good sign to see a mix of models being made.
At last update the Lucid Air Touring and Grand Touring were both expected in Q4, but it’s feasible that the automaker might have skipped ahead to the Pure first for supply-chain reasons and a production ramp that’s gone slower than anticipated. Earlier this year, the company pointed to glass as one of the commodity items it was having issues procuring.
Lucid last month halved its 2022 production estimate, reporting continued supply-chain and logistics challenges. The company now expects to deliver 6,000 to 7,000 vehicles in 2022, and at the end of the first half of this year had delivered 1,039 vehicles—amounting to 1,164 total Air models delivered to that date.
Finding buyers is definitely not the issue. As of August 3, Lucid reported more than 37,000 reservations, a number up about 7,000 versus the previous quarter and despite a big price hike of up to $15,000 across the model line.
Note that many will be getting the Pure for $10,000 less than its current $88,900 price, as Lucid allowed earlier reservation-holders until June 1 to lock in pricing.
Lucid currently has an installed capacity of 34,000 vehicles annually, should it push past those issues, and a Phase 2 expansion upping capacity to 90,000 units annually—including space to build the upcoming Gravity SUV—is planned for early 2023. It’s also broken ground on a Saudi Arabia factory that will be able to make up to 155,000 vehicles.
Related Articles
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- Buick offers dealer buyouts in advance of EV remake for GM brand
- Rivian electric trucks can level up with Camp mode feature, part of latest OTA update
- Does Toyota’s plan to convert engine plants into battery factories signal a stronger EV shift?
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(iSeeCars) – A vehicle’s Check Engine light can turn any car ride into a harrowing experience. As soon as the check engine light illuminates, it’s hard not to hear the cha-ching sound of a cash register right along with it.
If the engine stops, so does the vehicle. That’s what can make the check engine light warning so scary. However, it’s important to understand that a Check Engine light can often be caused by something very simple. Let’s run through some of the main reasons your Check Engine light might be on so you have a better understanding of what your vehicle is trying to tell you.
What Your Check Engine Light Means
When your check engine light turns on, one or more onboard diagnostic trouble codes are stored in the car’s computer. To diagnose what’s triggering your check engine light, you can retrieve the codes by using an OBD-II scanner. This can be done by a mechanic, or you can purchase a code reader from an auto parts store. Even if you use your own code reader to see what may be causing the problem, you should still get the problem diagnosed by a professional.
Be sure not to confuse your check engine light with other warning lights that may appear on your dashboard. You can refer to your vehicle’s manual for what some other warning lights mean, and what your check engine light will appear as. Sometimes it’s just an image of an engine, while others will have “check engine” along with it. You may also see a warning light that says “Service Engine Soon,” which can easily be confused for the check engine light and simply means that your vehicle is due for routine maintenance such as an oil change, brake inspection, or timing belt replacement. These warnings typically occur at regular mileage intervals such as when your odometer reaches 30,000, 60,000, and 100,000 miles.
What To Do When Your Check Engine Light Comes On
Various problems can change how the check engine light appears. Here are some common scenarios as a guide:
1. The check engine light flickers or appears under certain conditions.
This means that there is only a problem during some driving conditions. Does the vehicle run differently when the light is on? If you notice a difference in performance, take the car to a mechanic immediately. If you don’t notice a change in vehicle performance, you can safely drive home, but it should be seen by a professional as quickly as possible.
2. The check engine light remains on.
If your check engine light stays on continuously and there are no noticeable problems with the car’s performance, there’s likely a problem with the emissions system. You should get the car professionally serviced as soon as possible, but immediate towing is not required.
3. The check engine light stays on with performance problems.
This indicates that your vehicle has a serious problem that likely involves a component or system needed for the vehicle to operate properly. If engine power is clearly reduced the vehicle might have gone into “limp mode”, which essentially means the engine is trying to protect itself by offering a bare minimum of power. In this case, you should pull over to a safe spot and have your vehicle towed to a dealer or repair shop.
4. The check engine light continually blinks in a pattern.
This scenario likely indicates that there’s a severe failure of the vehicle’s emission control system that’s causing the engine to misfire. This could indicate that the catalytic converter is overheating which could lead to a fire under the vehicle. In this case, you should pull over immediately and have your vehicle towed to a dealer or professional mechanic.
Common Causes for a Check Engine Light:
1. Loose Gas Cap
Something as benign as a loose gas cap can trigger your Check Engine light. That’s because the most common reason for a Check Engine light is from emissions system problems. Your fuel system is a pressurized system. The vehicle’s computer is monitoring that pressure at all times when your vehicle is running. If you leave your fuel cap off or loose (even by half a turn) it can trigger an emissions code in your vehicle’s computer. This, in turn, will cause the computer to turn on your Check Engine light. So, the first thing you should do if your light comes on is stop your vehicle somewhere safe, turn it off, and check your fuel cap. If it’s loose, put it back on and off automatically after a few moments. A worn or defective fuel cap can also cause this problem.
2. Malfunctioning Oxygen Sensors
Your oxygen sensors are another emissions system part that will trigger your Check Engine light. Ironically, they aren’t really attached to the engine. They are screwed into your exhaust system in various places to monitor the air coming out of your engine. They tell your computer if your air/fuel mixture is running rich or lean. Most cars today have at least two sensors, one before the catalytic converter and one after (this is to monitor the air on both sides to see if the converter is also doing its job), while some vehicles have several for redundancy’s sake. Each sensor is electronically connected to your computer. If the sensor fails, becomes clogged, or if it gets a reading it’s not supposed to be getting, the faulty oxygen sensor will trigger your Check Engine light.
3. Other Emissions System Parts
With today’s emissions standards, the emissions control systems on most vehicles have become very complex. They are much more complex than a catalytic converter and a couple of sensors. They now consist of filters, canisters, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) valves, positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) valves, smog/air pumps, bypass valves, and several sensors to monitor the entire system. Should any of these areas fail, it can trigger any of a number of various codes in your computer. These codes all trigger the Check Engine light.
4. Failing Mass Airflow Sensor
Your vehicle’s mass airflow sensor (MAF) measures the amount of air entering your engine to determine how much fuel is required to run properly. If there are any leaks before or after the mass airflow sensor, a light will illuminate. These mass airflow sensors are sensitive to oil, water vapor, or any debris. Sometimes, a simple cleaning can fix the issue. Or, the sensor may need to be replaced. Failure to replace a faulty mass airflow sensor can lead to reduced performance and diminished fuel economy.
5. Faulty Catalytic Converter
Your vehicle’s catalytic converter protects the environment by converting carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide. Oxygen sensors carefully monitor the catalytic converter’s performance, and if something is wrong with the converter a trouble code will appear. A failed catalytic converter is usually a secondary issue and is likely caused because other issues were ignored. If you don’t fix your catalytic converter, you will fail an emissions test, experience reduced performance and fuel economy, and can cause eventual engine failure.
6. Misfires
An engine misfire occurs when something goes awry as the spark plug ignites the air/fuel mixture in your car’s combustion chamber. A misfire can be caused either on one cylinder or on multiple cylinders. Here are some common culprits:
- Defective ignition coil
- Defective fuel injector
- Vacuum leak
- Worn spark plugs and/or wires
- Bad compression
If you don’t address the misfire, your vehicle will have poor performance and reduced fuel economy, and can lead to eventual mechanical failure in the car’s engine.
Bottom Line:
You should never ignore your vehicle’s check engine light. While the scenarios for the light can range from mild to severe, you should always have your vehicle checked by a trusted professional to properly diagnose the issue. The way your check engine light appears can provide clues as to whether your vehicle needs immediate attention, or if you can safely drive home before going to an auto repair shop. Ignoring a check engine light can lead to more expensive repairs down the road and can also present a safety hazard.
More from iSeeCars.com:
- What’s the Cost of Brake Pads and Rotors?
- What is a Powertrain Warranty?
- How Much Does it Cost to Replace a Windshield?
If you’re in the market for a used or new vehicle, you can search over 4 million used cars and new cars, trucks, and SUVs with iSeeCars’ award-winning car search engine that helps shoppers find the best car deals by providing key insights and valuable resources, like the iSeeCars free VIN check report.
This article, Why is My Check Engine Light On? originally appeared on iSeeCars.com
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(NEXSTAR) – There are thousands of asteroids and comets — known as Near-Earth objects, or NEOS — that orbit the Sun like any other planet in our solar system, but some can pose a risk to Earth. Thankfully, NASA is prepared to protect our planet.
You’ll be able to see proof of that soon.
NEOs are defined as objects that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit, and most are typically larger than a small football stadium. NASA created the Planetary Defense Coordination Office in 2016 to find NEOs, warn of their close approaches, coordinate an action plan, and mitigate any potential impacts.
Currently, the PDCO is preparing to make its first-ever attempt to deflect an asteroid and change its path in space with a kinetic impact. During the mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), NASA will launch an autonomous spacecraft at an asteroid to change its course.
Using telescopes back on Earth, NASA hopes to be able to measure how much DART changes the asteroid’s course. The data will be able to help NASA better prepare for an asteroid that could “pose an impact or hazard to Earth,” if that ever becomes a reality.
DART’s target is Didymos, a near-Earth asteroid system that is home to 2,560-foot diameter Didymos and 530-foot diameter Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos. While neither poses a threat to Earth, DART will collide with Dimorphos and, if the mission is successful, will change its orbit in the Didymos system.
Dimorphos is expected to be pushed closer to Didymos after DART’s impact, making its orbit smaller.
The DART spacecraft is “roughly the size of a small car” built by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. It has one instrument aboard — the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation, or DRACO — that will autonomously guide DART toward Dimorphos with the help of Small-body Maneuvering Autonomous Real Time Navigation, or Smart Nav.
Flying into space with DART is a ride-along CubeSat, LICIACube, that will separate before DART’s impact to record the collision.
NASA will be streaming live coverage of DART colliding with Dimorphos on its social media accounts — Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — starting at 6 p.m. ET on September 26. Impact is expected at 7:14 p.m. ET. More details can be found here.
The spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
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GRANTVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) – Sitting there on a secluded park bench on the lap of his person, you almost wouldn’t know he’s now a global celebrity.
But you would certainly recognize he’s an alligator.
Wally — the world’s only emotional support alligator, according to Joseph Henney — is already well-known around central Pennsylvania. Nexstar’s WHTM first profiled him back in 2019, following Wally and Henney to a nursing home where residents took delight in petting the gator.
Other times, Wally is visiting sick children at local hospitals, wearing a red vest that identifies him as an emotional support animal.
Ah, but then came last week. Henney and Wally were in Philadelphia for a local TV appearance about the fact that Wally is a finalist in the America’s Favorite Pet competition. With him were Mary Johnson, whom Henney describes as his best friend, and her two children, Eddie, 11, and Emmy, 7.
It was a hot day. The five of them — the four humans and Wally — went to a local splash pad. As tends to happen when Wally shows up, people started calling their friends.
“And they were coming from like a mile, or two miles away, to come get a picture or a hug and kiss from Wally,” Henney said. (That’s right: Wally not only likes — but demands — kisses on the lips.)
Henney and his friends posted a TikTok video from the splash pad. Other folks posted their own. And pretty soon, people from a lot farther than a mile or two were interested.
“Television networks from all over the world: Ireland, Australia, Africa, England, Italy,” Henney said. “They’re all calling, doing Zooms and stuff like that. It’s just, everybody loves Wally. Everybody loves Wally for what he stands for.”
But what is it that he stands for?
“He helps needy people. He puts … smiles on people’s faces,” Henney said, getting choked up.
Henney also hoped that fans take a lesson from Wally, and “try putting a smile on somebody’s face today,” he said. “Tell ’em you love ’em.”
For all the joy Wally now seems to bring to the world, the first person Wally took care of was Henney himself.
“I lost three family members and four lifelong friends,” Henney said. “That all happened in two weeks, and my doctor wanted to give me antidepressants. I refused,” he said.
Instead, Henney adopted a rescue gator from Florida.
“He was just doing things I had never seen alligators do,” said Henney, who runs a reptile rescue organization.
Recued gators can’t be safely returned to the wild; other gators Henney has rescued have gone to zoos or wildlife refuge parks. But Wally, he kept for himself.
“If I’d lay there and fall asleep, he’d cuddle up beside me, put his head on my shoulder, his arm around me, which I really thought was extremely weird,” Henney said. “And he followed me around like a puppy.”
Henney later registered Wally as an emotional-support animal, figuring that Wally supported him through some of his most difficult times.
Wally’s legend grew, and Henney uses Wally’s charm to raise money for expenses — vet bills, food, and so forth — even though the money doesn’t completely cover the expenses.
You don’t get rich rescuing reptiles, Henney said, “but at least we save their lives.”
Henney and Wally also help other nearby organizations, including the Capital Area Therapeutic Riding Association (CATRA), which provides therapeutic horseback riding, and Cocoa Packs, which fights childhood hunger.
In retrospect, hard as it was to believe, Henney knew Wally was special before the two even met based on what he’d heard from Disney officials in Florida who found Wally and other gators — including two others Henney took in — were coming a little too close to humans. The folks who captured him also told Henney something interesting.
“He was the only one who really didn’t try to bite somebody” during the capture, Henney said. “And they couldn’t understand that, which I doubted that myself.”
But then Henney and Wally got to know either other.
“He just he never attempted to bite, and we didn’t understand that,” Henney said. With most gators, “anything you touch inside their mouth is an automatic slam shut.”
But Wally? “I can put my hand and rub his tongue, and he will refuse to bite,” Henney said. “He’ll actually open his mouth wider and move away. He will not close his mouth. He won’t kill anything to eat.”
Really. Henney has tried.
“He just made friends with — he’d swim around with the rats in the pond,” Henney said.
Wally’s story also caught the eye of the production team for the Disney+ series “Loki,” about the fictional Marvel character played by Tom Hiddleston. Michael Waldron, the show’s head writer, told Marvel in July 2021 that he had already come up with an idea to incorporate an alligator into the show — a character which soon came to be known as “Alligator Loki.” But when it came time to choose a real-world animal for the VFX team to model the character after, “Loki” writer Eric Martin confirmed they looked to Wally, ComicBook.com reported.
“While #AlligatorLoki is wholly a creation of @michaelwaldron’s weird mind, we did have a real-world visual reference for him,” Martin tweeted in July 2021, along with a video of Wally and his owner. “Meet Wally.”
Lest anyone get any ideas about getting their own emotional-support alligator, Henney reminds the world that the reason Wally gets so much attention is precisely because of how unusual he is.
“Wally is the first in all history,” Henney said. Even the other gators born with and raised alongside Wally turned out like typical alligators.
“And I feel honored with that. But I don’t push that. Do alligators make good pets? Not really,” Henney admitted.
“There’s none other like him”
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Barack Obama is halfway to an EGOT.
The former president won an Emmy Award on Saturday to go with his two Grammys.
Obama won the best narrator Emmy for his work on the Netflix documentary series, “Our Great National Parks.”
The five-part show, which features national parks from around the globe, is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, “Higher Ground.”
He was the biggest name in a category full of famous nominees for the award handed out at Saturday night’s Creative Arts Emmys, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Attenborough and Lupita Nyong’o.
Barack Obama is the second president to have an Emmy. Dwight D. Eisenhower was given a special Emmy Award in 1956.
Barack Obama previously won Grammy Awards for his audiobook reading of two of his memoirs, “The Audacity of Hope” and “A Promised Land.” Michelle Obama won her own Grammy for reading her audiobook in 2020.
EGOT refers to a special category of entertainers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. To date, 17 people have done it.
The late Chadwick Boseman also won an Emmy for his voice work on Saturday. The “Black Panther” actor won for outstanding character voiceover for the Disney+ and Marvel Studios animated show “What If…?”
On the show, Boseman voiced his “Black Panther” character T’Challa in an alternate universe where he becomes Star-Lord from “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
It was one of the last projects for Boseman, who died in 2020 of colon cancer at age 43.
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VENICE, Italy (AP) — When filmmaker Laura Poitras went to meet American photographer Nan Goldin about a project to document her protests against museums accepting money from the Sackler family, Goldin was slightly worried.
“My worry when she came on was that I didn’t have any state secrets to share and I wasn’t important enough for this,” Goldin said Saturday in Venice.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker behind the Edward Snowden documentary “Citizenfour” was already in on the prospect of “the present-day horror story of a billionaire family knowingly creating an epidemic, and then funneling money into museums in exchange for tax write-offs and naming galleries,” she said. But soon she realized this was only part of a much bigger story involving the whole of Goldin’s life and work.
The result is “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” which is having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, where it is part of the main competition slate. Poitras, before the premiere, thanked the festival for recognizing that “documentary is cinema.”
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is by all accounts an epic, interweaving Goldin’s past and present through her works, intimate conversations and powerful connections between the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and the overdose epidemic of today.
“We knew that we didn’t want to make a biography film, or a typical artist portrait,” Poitras said. “Nan’s life deserves an epic film, for what she’s done, what she’s accomplished and the risks she’s taken. We wanted it to have an epic quality.”
Goldin, whose work has always been about “removing stigma,” said her attention turned to the Sacklers when she got out of a clinic to get sober. She had only known the Sacklers as philanthropists, but then started reading articles about opioid overdoses and Purdue Phama and knew she had to do something.
Sackler is a name that has become synonymous with Purdue Pharma, the company that developed OxyContin, a widely prescribed and widely abused painkiller. Purdue has faced a barrage of lawsuits alleging that it helped spark an addiction and overdose crisis linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades.
Foundations run by members of the Sackler family have given tens of millions of dollars to museums, including the Guggenheim in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and funded work at Oxford and Yale.
“The things I do are not a choice,” Goldin said. “My thought was how can I shame them amongst their own social strata?”
In recent years, the Guggenheim, the Louvre in Paris, the Tate in London and the Jewish Museum in Berlin have all distanced themselves from the family, in part because of Goldin’s protests. In 2019, the Met announced it would stop taking monetary gifts from Sacklers connected to Purdue Pharma.
Now, Goldin has turned her attention to harm reduction.
“We were never anti-opioid,” Goldin said. “We were anti-overdose and people making money off of overdose.”
Poitras said they kept the project a little bit under the radar intentionally. It’s bound to create “some nervousness” on boards, she thinks, as Poitras said the Sacklers aren’t the only name doing this.
Neon acquired the film last month for distribution and will release a retrospective of Goldin’s work, opening Oct. 29 at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
“My proudest thing is we brought down a billionaire family,” Goldin said. “We brought one down. So far.”
___
Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr
___
For more on the Venice Film Festival, visit: www.apnews.com/VeniceFilmFestival
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TOKYO (AP) — Three bottlenose dolphins were released into the open sea in Indonesia Saturday after years of being confined for the amusement of tourists who would touch and swim with them.
As red and white Indonesian flags fluttered, underwater gates opened off the island of Bali to allow Johnny, Rocky and Rambo to swim free.
The trio were rescued three years ago from their tiny pool in a resort hotel to which they had been sold after spending years performing in a traveling circus.
They regained their health and strength at the Bali sanctuary , a floating pen in a bay that provided a gentler, more natural environment.
Lincoln O’Barry, who worked with the Indonesian government to set up the Umah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release and Retirement Center, said dolphins are wild animals that should live free.
“It was an incredibly emotional experience to see them go,” O’Barrry said.
The center was initiated in 2019 by the Bali Forestry Department and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. “Umah lumba” means “dolphin” in Indonesian.
For some time after the gates opened, the dolphins looked at the opening, uncertain of their next move. But after about an hour, they were on their way, sometimes jumping over choppy waves.
The Associated Press watched their release through an online livestream. O’Barry is documenting the release with drones and underwater footage for a film.
The Indonesian government supported the dolphins’ rescue, working with Dolphin Project, founded by Lincoln’s father Ric O’Barry, who was also at the release.
Ric O’Barry had been the dolphin trainer for the 1960s TV show “Flipper,” but later came to see the toll exacted on the animals. He has since devoted his life to returning dolphins to the wild.
Center workers clapped as the dolphins swam out. Wahyu Lestari, rehabilitation coordinator at the center, said she was a bit sad to see them go.
“I’m happy they are free, and they are going back to their family,” she said. “They should be in the wild because they are born in the wild.”
The freed dolphins will be monitored out at sea with GPS tracking for a year. They can return for visits to the sanctuary, although it’s unclear what they will do. They may join another pod, stay together, or go their separate ways.
Dolphins in captivity are carted from town to town, kept in chlorinated water, held in isolation or forced to interact with tourists, often leading to injuries.
Johnny, the oldest dolphin, had teeth that were worn down to below the gum line when he was rescued in 2019. Earlier this year, dentists provided him with dolphin-style dental crowns so that he can now clamp down on live fish.
Johnny was the first of the three dolphins to swim out to sea.
Ric and Lincoln O’Barry have spent half a century working on saving dolphins from captivity in locations from Brazil to South Korea and the U.S. Saturday’s release was their first in Indonesia.
The Indonesian government’s decision to rescue the dolphins followed a decade-long public education campaign that included billboards, artwork, school programs and a drive asking people not to buy tickets to dolphin shows.
A government minister was at hand to raise the gate at the sanctuary Saturday.
Lincoln O’Barry said the Indonesian sanctuary will continue to be used for other captive dolphins. Similar sanctuaries are in the works in North America and Europe, as more dolphin shows close. With virtual reality and other technology, appreciation of nature doesn’t have to involve a zoo or a dolphin show, he said.
Yet dolphin shows are still popular in China, the Middle East and Japan.
In Japan, the father and son have drawn attention to the dolphin hunt in the town of Taiji, documented in the 2010 Oscar-winning film “The Cove.” Every year, fishermen frighten and corral dolphins into a cove, capture some to sell to dolphin shows and kill others for food.
Whale and dolphin meat is considered a delicacy in Japanese culinary tradition. But Taiji has prompted protests by conservationists for years, including some Japanese.
The three dolphins released in Indonesia were soon miles (kilometers) away in the waters. But before their departure, they circled around the sanctuary.
“They turned back around and came back to us one more time, almost to say thank you and good-bye. And then they headed straight out to open ocean and disappeared,” Lincoln O’Barry said.
“Where they head next, we don’t know. But we wish them a good long life.”
___
Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
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THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — A British man has been charged in Greece with several offenses after his flight from London to Cyprus was diverted, authorities said.
One of the charges, a felony, is endangering transportation and passenger and crew safety. The charges were pressed after the 22-year-old man faced a prosecutor Saturday.
The easyJet flight to Paphos, Cyprus, was diverted to Thessaloniki late Friday after the passenger had apparently exhibited unruly behavior and fought with fellow passengers and the crew. The charge sheet says several empty bottles of alcoholic drinks were found on his seat.
The man is being held pending a Monday appearance before an examining magistrate, where he will answer the charges or be given a few days to do so, with the detention extended until then.
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PRIVOLNOYE, Russia (AP) — As Moscow paid last respects to Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday, residents of the far-away village where he spent his youth lauded him too.
The Soviet Union’s reformist last leader, who died Tuesday at age 91, grew up in Privolnoye, a village of about 3,000 in southern Russia’s Stavropol region, the son of peasants. He retained the region’s distinct accent until his last days and held onto a village-bred boy’s common touch.
Although he went away to Moscow, about 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) to the north for university, he returned to the region and began rising through the ranks of the communist system, eventually becoming Stavropol’s top official as chairman of the regional Communist Party committee.
“He helped the village a lot when asked,” Sergei Bukhtoyarov, current head of Privolnoye and its environs, told The Associated Press.
“An ordinary person, he was kind, good-natured, benevolent. We met when he arrived here, here on the square and there were a lot of people. He always passed by, greeted everyone, talked to everyone. He was such a kind and sociable person,” Bukhtoyarov said.
A classmate from long ago said she saw promise in him even as a youngster.
“A jaunty, smart, well-read guy, active — took an active part in our school. He also took part in artistic performances, he was also the secretary of the Komsomol organization” for communist youth, said Maria Ignatova.
___
More AP stories on Mikhail Gorbachev here: https://apnews.com/hub/mikhail-gorbachev
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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Fuel prices increased by about 30% across Indonesia on Saturday after the government reduced some of the costly subsidies that have kept inflation in Southeast Asia’s largest economy among the world’s lowest.
Indonesians have been fretting for weeks about a looming increase in the price of subsidized Pertalite RON-90 gasoline sold by Pertamina, the state-owned oil and gas company. Long lines of motorbikes and cars snaked around gas stations as motorists waited for hours to fill up their tanks with cheaper gas before the increase took effect on Saturday.
The hike — the first in eight years — raised the price of gasoline from about 51 cents to 67 cents per liter and diesel fuel from 35 cents to 46 cents.
President Joko Widodo said the decision to increase the fuel prices was his last option as the country’s energy subsidy had tripled this year to 502 trillion rupiah ($34 billion) from its original budget, triggered by rising global prices of oil and gas.
“The government has tried its best as I really want fuel prices to remain affordable,” Widodo told a televised address announcing the fuel hike. “The government has to make decisions in difficult situations.”
He said that the flow of subsidies to the public was not well targeted — about 70% of subsidies were benefiting middle and upper classes — and the government decided instead to increase social assistance.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said authorities were monitoring the impact on inflation and economic growth of the rise in fuel price.
Inflation has been relatively modest with the shock being mostly absorbed through a budget bolstered by energy subsidies. Inflation hit 4.6% in August as Bank Indonesia, the central bank, has said it would reassess the inflation outlook in response to the government fuel price policy.
Indrawati said in a separate news conference that the government would provide 150,000 rupiah ($10) cash handouts to cushion the impact of the fuel price increase on 20.6 million poor families until the year end. The total cost of the handouts will be 12.4 trillion rupiah, which will be reallocated from the budget for energy subsidies.
She said the government will also spend 9.6 trillion rupiah ($644 million) on salary assistance to about 16 million low paid workers, and 2.17 trillion rupiah ($145 million) will go to subsidizing transport costs, particularly for motorcycle taxi drivers and fishermen.
“We hope this can reduce pressure of rising prices and help reduce poverty,” Indrawati said.
The government has subsidized fuel for decades in Indonesia, the vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people.
Fuel prices are a politically sensitive issue that could trigger other price hikes and risk student protests. In 1998, an increase in prices sparked riots that helped topple longtime dictator Suharto.
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