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NEW YORK (AP) — In a new book, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan for half of Donald Trump’s presidency says he was repeatedly pressured by Justice Department officials to use his office to aid them politically, including by investigating former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman wrote in his upcoming book, “Holding the Line,” due to be published Tuesday, that he mostly resisted the pressure from Washington, according to the The New York Times, which obtained an advance copy.
“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney, Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired,” the book said.
Berman, a Republican and Trump-administration appointee, said he walked that “tightrope” for 2 1/2 years before “the rope snapped,” the newspaper reported.
Trump fired Berman as U.S. attorney in June 2020 after he refused a request to resign.
In the book, Berman revealed that Justice Department officials ordered an investigation of Kerry in 2018 after Trump withdrew the U.S. from a nuclear accord with Iran, a deal that Kerry had helped negotiate as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
Trump was among several Republicans who publicly demanded an investigation, claiming that Kerry, as a private citizen, wasn’t allowed to have conversations with Iranian officials about the nuclear deal.
Berman wrote that after a year-long probe, he declined to prosecute Kerry. The case was then referred by the Justice Department to a U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland which reached the same result.
A spokesperson for Kerry reached by The Associated Press had no comment. Kerry’s representatives have previously said that Trump’s claims that Kerry was illegally trying to undercut the administration on its dealings with Iran were false.
In another revelation, Berman disclosed that his office had to fight to keep its prosecution going against Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the Times said.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance fraud and other crimes after admitting his role in hush payments made to two women shortly before the 2016 presidential election to prevent them from disclosing affairs they claimed to have had with Trump.
Berman wrote that before the plea, a Justice Department official tried to get Berman’s deputy to remove all references to Trump, who was identified in the charging document as “Individual-1,” the newspaper said.
After William Barr became U.S. attorney general in 2019, he paused investigations into whether other others in Trump’s orbit committed campaign finance violations, and suggested that Cohen’s conviction on those charges be reversed.
Berman said his top deputy was able to persuade Barr that the conviction should stand and that the investigations should go ahead.
In the book, Berman also recounted how a Justice Department then led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions referred an investigation of former Obama counsel Greg Craig to his office in March 2018.
The probe was aimed at learning whether Craig had concealed work he did years earlier for the government of Ukraine in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and whether he lied to the Justice Department about it, the Times said.
Berman disclosed in the book that he concluded that Craig was innocent of the potential charge and a jury would be unlikely to convict him of a false statement charge, the newspaper said.
Craig was eventually indicted in Washington D.C. and tried on a charge that he made false statement. A jury acquitted him in September 2019.
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:05Z
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TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albanian special forces police forced the door of the Iranian Embassy in Tirana on Thursday and officers surrounded the compound in which it stands, shortly after the last staff members left the building following the government’s order to expel them.
The officers, in full fighting gear, entered the building first and were followed by other officers carrying equipment and accompanied by a dog.
The Albanian government on Wednesday had given the embassy’s staff 24 hours to leave the country over a major cyberattack that the Albanian government blames on Iran. It is the first known case of a country cutting diplomatic relations over a cyberattack.
The final two embassy cars with about 10 passengers left the compound Thursday near noon after much movement inside the building overnight.
Government sources declined to say where the Iranian embassy personnel had gone, but local media said some left from the Tirana International Airport and others were likely heading for neighboring North Macedonia.
The compound area, located downtown the capital only a couple of hundred yards from the main government offices, was cordoned off by police, and passers-by were not allowed to approach.
Movement inside the Iranian embassy in Tirana had been nonstop overnight. At one point, an empty barrel was taken into the compound and a fire was started in it, apparently burning documents.
A cyberattack on July 15 temporarily shut down numerous Albanian government digital services and websites. Prime Minister Edi Rama said Wednesday that there was “undeniable evidence” that the Iranian government was behind the attack.
The United States supported the move by Albania, a NATO member, and vowed unspecified retaliation against Iran for what it called “a troubling precedent for cyberspace.”
On Wednesday National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke with Rama “to express the United States’ strong support for our NATO ally.” The U.S. said they committed to continue working together on “Albania’s remediation efforts and cybersecurity measures.”
NATO also expressed its full support to Albania. A statement said it “strongly condemns such malicious cyber activities designed to destabilize and harm the security of an ally, and disrupt the daily lives of citizens.”
The alliance also pledged to raise “our guard against such malicious cyber activities in the future, and support each other to deter, defend against and counter the full spectrum of cyber threats, including by considering possible collective responses.”
Iran condemned the diplomats’ expulsion, calling the action ill-considered and short-sighted, according to Iranian state TV.
In a statement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry denied Tehran was behind any cyberattack on Albanian government websites, adding that it’s Iran which is a target of such attacks on its critical infrastructure.
Ties between Iran and Albania have been tense since 2014 when Albania sheltered some 3,000 members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, who had left Iraq.
In July, MEK had planned to hold the Free Iran World Summit in Manez, west of Tirana, with U.S. lawmakers among the invitees. The meeting was canceled “for security reasons and due to terrorist threats and conspiracies.”
In two separate instances in 2020 and 2018, Tirana expelled four Iranian diplomats for “threatening national security.”
___
Raf Casert in Brussels and Nancy Benac in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow Llazar Semini at https://twitter.com/lsemini
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/ap-iranian-diplomats-set-to-leave-albania-after-expulsion-order/
| 2022-09-21T03:17:12Z
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A bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a $2.46 billion reorganization plan proposed by the Boy Scouts of America, which would allow it to keep operating while compensating tens of thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as children while involved in Scouting.
Though legal hurdles remain, the ruling by Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Delaware marked an important milestone for the BSA, which sought bankruptcy protection more than two years ago to stave off a flood of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by Scout leaders and volunteers.
Lawyers for some of the victims said the amount an individual survivor may receive from the bankruptcy plan depends on multiple factors relating to the alleged abuse. The plan calls for the BSA and its local councils, along with settling insurance companies and troop sponsoring organizations, including Catholic institutions and parishes, to contribute to a fund for survivors. In return, those groups would be shielded from future lawsuits over Scout-related abuse allegations.
More than 80,000 men have filed claims saying they were abused as children by troop leaders around the country.
“Credit to the courageous survivors that this breakthrough in child and scouting safety has been achieved,” said attorney Jeff Anderson, whose firm represented more than 800 Boy Scout abuse survivors.
Anderson said most of the $2.46 billion is to be paid to survivors, but some funds would be set aside in a trust to continue litigation against entities that have not settled, mainly insurance companies.
It will likely take months for any of the abuse claimants to receive compensation.
Anderson said the settlement has drawn mixed reactions from his clients. Many are proud they stood up and demanded a cleanup of the Irving, Texas-based Boy Scouts, while others feel like they were dismissed because the organization “hid behind the statute of limitations” in some states.
The Boy Scouts of America said it is pleased the court has approved its reorganization plan.
“We continue to be enormously grateful to the survivor community, whose bravery, patience, and willingness to share their experiences has been instrumental in the formation of this Plan,” the organization said in a statement.
The Boy Scouts said the perspectives and priorities of the survivors ”will be ingrained in the BSA’s programming moving forward.”
The BSA also said that because certain parties have said they plan to appeal the order, the organization will next begin an appeal process in order to emerge from Chapter 11, “which will allow survivors to be equitably compensated and preserve the mission of Scouting for future generations.”
A federal district judge must sign off on Silberstein’s ruling.
When it filed for bankruptcy, the BSA faced about 275 filed lawsuits and was aware of numerous other potential cases. More than 80,000 abuse claims were eventually filed as part of the bankruptcy.
Attorneys for BSA insurers argued early on that the sheer volume of claims was an indication of fraud and the result of aggressive client solicitation by attorneys and for-profit claims aggregators. While some of those insurers later negotiated settlements, other insurers continued to oppose the plan. They argued that the procedures for distributing funds from the compensation trust would violate their contractual rights to contest claims and set a dangerous precedent for mass litigation.
___
Associated Press writer Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:20Z
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The killing of two utility workers in northern Mexico may be related to the scorched-earth tactics of warring drug cartels, Mexico’s president said Thursday.
Drug cartels in Mexico have increasingly targeted civilian communities in their turf battles, isolating towns that don’t support them by cutting off roads and electricity, or forcing residents to leave.
On Tuesday, assailants opened fire on two trucks carrying workers from the state-owned electrical power company on a highway. Two workers escaped and two were killed.
On Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the area in the northern border state of Sonora was the scene of fighting between gangs, who had cut electricity to two villages as “reprisals.”
“There is fighting between groups there,” López Obrador said of the area around the village of Onavas, where the attack occurred.
While he said the attackers might have mistaken the utility trucks for those of a rival gang, López Obrador noted “there is another hypothesis that suggests they were performing their duties by going to reconnect electricity to two villages that had been cut off by one of the groups as reprisals.”
In the western state of Michoacan, warring drug cartels have periodically cut off villages that appear to support a rival gang, by downing power lines or digging trenches across roadways.
But the attack Tuesday was unusual, because up to now cartels have largely avoided going after public workers trying to reconnect roads or power lines. Moreover, resuscitating the debt-strapped state-owned utility, the Federal Electricity Commission, has been one of López Obrador’s main policy initiatives.
Drug cartels — including the La Linea gang based in Ciudad Juarez and factions of the Sinaloa cartel — have been fighting over the lucrative drug-producing and shipping zones of Sonora state for years.
The cartel conflict may have played a role in the 2019 ambush slayings of nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens in a rural area relatively near Onavas.
The three women and six children from the extended Langford, LeBaron and Miller families were ambushed and slain by suspected drug gang assassins on Nov. 4, 2019.
Initial investigations suggested a squad of gunmen from the La Linea gang had set up the ambush to kill members of the rival cartel. However, relatives of the victims say that at some point, the gunmen must have known who they were killing.
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:27Z
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TORONTO — Elton John paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at his final concert in Toronto on Thursday night, saying he was inspired by her and is sad she is gone.
“She led the country through some of our greatest and darkest moments with grace and decency and genuine caring,” John said.
“I’m 75 and she been with with me all my life and I feel very sad that that she won’t be with me anymore, but I’m glad she’s at peace,” he said. “I’m glad she’s at rest and she deserves it. She worked bloody hard.”
The singer-songwriter then performed his 1974 track “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”
John was knighted by the queen in 1998, a year after the death of his friend Princess Diana. Prince Charles also anointed the musician and charity patron as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor last year.
John’s concert was the second of two nights at Toronto’s Rogers Centre and part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, billed as his final tour.
____
KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
— Prince Charles became king immediately after his mother’s death
— Will Charles be loved by his subjects, like his mother was?
— Elizabeth has been the only monarch that most people in Britain have ever known
— Her death is being mourned by British politicians from across the political spectrum
— Fifteen prime ministers served during Elizabeth’s seven decades on the throne
— Here’s the order of succession after Charles became king
— Key milestones in the life of Queen Elizabeth II
___
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol tweeted his condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
“She had a strong belief in the cause of human freedom and left great legacies of dignity,” he said. He wrote that her kind heart and good deeds will remain in people’s memories.
____
The foreign affairs minister for Myanmar’s National Unity Government, an underground parallel government spearheading the fight for democracy in Myanmar against its military-led government, posted her condolences on Twitter.
“I’m deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. On behalf of @NUGMyanmar and the people of Myanmar, I extend our deepest sympathies to the Royal Family and the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth,” wrote Zin Mar Aung.
Myanmar, then called Burma, gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948.
____
CANBERRA, Australia — Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of a failed campaign to have an Australian president replace the British monarch as Australia’s head of state and who later became prime minister, came close to tears on Friday in paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II.
Turnbull was chair of the Australian Republican Movement in 1999 when Australians voted at a referendum against the nation becoming a republic, severing its constitutional ties to the queen. He was prime minister between 2015 and 2018, during which time the queen gave him a photograph of herself with her husband Prince Philip.
Turnbull’s voice trembled as he recalled looking at the photo on Thursday night before he and his wife Lucy Turnbull went to bed with a sense of dread because of news from Buckingham Palace of the queen’s failing health.
“I took the portrait of the queen out and set it up and we just thought, ‘What an amazing life. What amazing leadership,’” Turnbull told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“It’s the end of an era and let’s hope that the future, after the queen’s passing, is one where we will have leadership as dedicated and selfless as she has shown,” Turnbull added.
——
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The king and crown prince of Saudi Arabia have offered their condolences over the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Statements carried early Friday in Saudi state media quoted King Salman as saying that Queen Elizabeth was “a model of leadership that will be immortalized in the history.”
He added: “We recall with appreciation the efforts of the deceased in consolidating the friendship and cooperation relations between our two friendly countries, as well as the high international status that Her Majesty enjoyed throughout the decades during which she acceded to the throne of your friendly country.”
His young son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, similarly offered his condolences, saying that the queen was “an example of wisdom, love and peace.”
He added: “The world remembers today the great impact and deeds that she had throughout her reign.”
___
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Queen Elizabeth was “the very heart and soul of the United Kingdom” and that her passing was greatly mourned by everyone in the city-state.
“She performed her duties with devotion, grace, and humility. Her contributions to the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, and indeed to the world will be recorded in history, and she will always be remembered fondly as a great world leader,” Lee said in a post on Facebook. The post included a photo of Lee shaking hands with the queen in 2018 during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London.
Lee’s office said in a statement to local media that state flags at all government buildings will be flown at half-mast on the day of the funeral as a mark of respect. Parliament will also observe a minute of silence at the beginning of its sitting on Monday.
___
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed his condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth II via his official Twitter account, both in Japanese and in English.
“On the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the Royal Family, the government and the people of the United Kingdom,” he said. “The loss of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is a great loss not only to the British people but also to the international community. Japan’s thoughts are with the United Kingdom as the British people overcome this deepest sadness.”
———
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said Malaysia, a former colony before its independence from Britain in 1957, extended its sincere condolences to the queen’s family and the people of the United Kingdom.
“Her Majesty was a towering figure and led a lifetime of dedication and service to the people of the UK and the Commonwealth,” he wrote on Facebook.
___
NEW YORK — The U.S. Tennis Association held a moment of silence before the first U.S. Open women’s semifinal match Thursday night — won in straight sets by Ons Jabeur over Caroline Garcia.
“We would like to pause to remember Queen Elizabeth II,” the stadium announcer said. “Our thoughts are with the people today of the United Kingdom. Remember to be part of us in a second of silence.”
——
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters she was awoken a little before 5 a.m. by a police officer shining a torch into her bedroom to tell her the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
Under New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, the queen was also New Zealand’s monarch and head of state.
“The last days of the queen’s life captures who she was in so many ways,” Ardern said. “Working until the very end on behalf of the people she loved.”
Ardern said the queen was an extraordinary woman who she’d remember for her laughter. Ardern said that like many other people, she was feeling not only deep sadness but also deep gratitude.
“Here is a woman who gave her life, utterly, to the service of others. And regardless of what anyone thinks of the role of monarchies around the world, there is undeniably, I think here, a display of someone who gave everything on behalf of her people, and her people included the people of Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Ardern said New Zealand had moved into a period of official mourning, and would hold a state memorial service after the official funeral in Britain.
——
ABUJA, Nigeria — President Muhammadu Buhari expressed “immense sadness” over the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
“Her late Majesty was the only British sovereign known to 90 percent of our population,” the Nigerian leader said, describing the late queen’s reign as “unique and wonderful.”
“The story of modern Nigeria will never be complete without a chapter on Queen Elizabeth ll, a towering global personality and an outstanding leader. She dedicated her life to making her nation, the Commonwealth and the entire world a better place,” Buhari added.
Nigeria gained independence from the British in 1960, four years after the late queen’s official visit to the West African nation. When Elizabeth last visited in 2003, she spoke of Nigeria’s critical role in the Commonwealth and applauded the country for its “leading part in the new partnership for Africa’s development.”
———
SAO PAULO — Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree for three days of national mourning in the South American nation for the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
He also said on Twitter that Elizabeth “wasn’t the queen for the British only; she was a queen for all of us.”
____
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the death of Queen Elizabeth II is a time of mourning for the people in Britain, across the Commonwealth and around the world.
In a statement, he said she is the only reigning monarch most Australians have known and the only one to ever to visit their country.
“And over the course of a remarkable seven decades, Her Majesty was a rare and reassuring constant amidst rapid change,” he said. “Through the noise and turbulence of the years, she embodied and exhibited a timeless decency and an enduring calm.”
The British monarch is Australia’s official head of state, although these days the role is considered primarily ceremonial.
____
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden went to the British Embassy on Thursday to offer condolences for the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The U.S. leader sat at a desk and signed the condolence book at the embassy. His wife, Jill Biden, brought a bouquet of flowers. She stood next to him before she, too, wrote in the book.
The president then spoke with embassy staff and could be overhead saying of the former British monarch, “We mourn for all of you. She was a great lady.”
____
PARIS — Britain’s historic rival and contemporary ally France lowered flags at the presidential palace and public buildings to half-staff in honor of Queen Elizabeth II who died at the age of 96.
President Emmanuel Macron said no other foreign sovereign had visited the Elysee Palace more than Elizabeth, who knew all eight presidents of contemporary France.
He hailed her “immutable moral authority,” her intimate knowledge of French and the stability she brought “across the fluctuations and upheavals of politics, a permanence with the scent of eternity.”
“The woman who stood alongside the giants of the 20th century on the path of history has left to join them,” he said in a statement, sharing condolences to Britain from “the French Republic and the French people.”
At the British Embassy in Paris, a 20-year-old fashion student was among many who gathered, moist-eyed, with flowers and candles, to bid her adieu.
“When we learned the news we said to ourselves that Queen Elizabeth had followed us a good part of our lives,” said fashion student Theo Maillet. “We wanted to pay homage to her tonight, think of her family, and tell her one final goodbye.”
——-
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness noted that ever since she was crowned in 1953, Queen Elizabeth II visited the island every decade until 2002.
“Undoubtedly, she formed a special bond with the people of Jamaica during her reign,” he said. “We are saddened that we will not see her light again, but we will remember her historic reign.”
In March, when Prince William and Kate visited Jamaica as part of an official trip to the Caribbean, Holness made an unexpected announcement in public that the British commonwealth intended to become fully independent.
Since then, Jamaica has established a Constitution Reform Committee and is scheduled to hold a referendum in 2025. If approved, it would join other republics in the region including Barbados, Dominica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.
___
LONDON — Police in Scotland have removed barriers blocking the gates to Balmoral Castle to allow the public to lay flowers for Queen Elizabeth II.
The area had been blocked off as members of the royal family arrived earlier Thursday.
In London, the wrought iron gates at Buckingham Palace were brightened by dozens of colorful bouquets laid by mourners.
On the Mall, the main road leading to Buckingham Palace, around 50 black cabs lined up to pay tribute to the monarch. In nearby Green Park, hundreds of people streamed down the pavements winding through the park on their way to the palace.
“As a young person, this is a really huge moment,” said Romy McCarthy, 20. “It marks the end of an era, particularly as a woman – we had a woman who was in power as someone to look up to.”
___
LONDON — Several sporting events in Britain were called off as a mark of respect following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Organizers of the BMW PGA Championship golf event immediately suspended play, with many players still out on the course at Wentworth. The course and practice facilities will be closed Friday.
The England and Wales Cricket Board said Friday’s play in the second test between England and South Africa at the Oval would not take place.
Horse racing meetings in Britain were suspended on Thursday night and Friday, with the governing body wanting to “remember her extraordinary life and contribution to our sport and our nation.”
Domestic rugby matches in England and Scotland were called off on Thursday and games will not be played over the weekend, either.
Friday’s stage in cycling’s Tour of Britain was canceled, with a decision on the final two stages over the weekend to be taken in due course.
___
LONDON — People grieved in the crowds outside Buckingham Palace when officials carried a notice confirming the Queen Elizabeth II’s death to the gates of her London home.
Thousands gathered in the pouring rain to mark their respects for the late monarch, who died Thursday at age 96.
Royal superfan John Loughrey, 67, wept outside the palace as he paid tribute to the “inspirational” queen. He compared her and the late Prince Philip to swans, which are said to die of broken hearts when they lose their mate. She and Philip were married for 73 years until his death in April of last year.
“She went downhill after the Duke of Edinburgh died,″ Loughrey said. “They were like two swans.
“God save the Queen.”
___
Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the sea of world leaders who expressed their condolences to the British royal family over the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.
Despite the tensions between Russia and Britain over the war in Ukraine, Putin reached out to King Charles III in a telegram. He wrote: “The most important events in the recent history of the United Kingdom are inextricably linked with the name of Her Majesty. For many decades, Elizabeth II rightfully enjoyed the love and respect of her subjects, as well as authority on the world stage.
“I wish you courage and perseverance in the face of this heavy, irreparable loss. I ask you to convey the words of sincere sympathy and support to the members of the royal family and all the people of Great Britain.”
Elizabeth died peacefully Thursday afternoon at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. All four of her children and other members of her family traveled there to be at her side.
___
ROME — Pope Francis told King Charles III in a telegram that he is praying for “eternal rest” for Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
The pontiff said he was deeply saddened to learn of the queen’s death on Thursday at her Scotland estate, Balmoral Castle. He offered “heartfelt condolences to Your Majesty, the Members of the Royal Family, the People of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.”
Francis, who met with the queen in 2014, said, “I willingly join all who mourn her loss in praying for the late Queen’s eternal rest, and in paying tribute to her unstinting service to the good of the Nation and the Commonwealth, her example of devotion to duty, her steadfast witness of faith in Jesus Christ and her firm hope in his promises.”
Elizabeth, who as queen was head of the Church of England, first visited the Vatican while a princess in 1951. The first pontiff she met at the Vatican as queen was John XXIII, in 1961.
___
LONDON — Politicians from across the political spectrum in Britain united in sorrow at the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a passing that brought fractious everyday politics in the country to a halt.
Prime Minister Liz Truss said the country was “devastated” by the death of the monarch, calling her “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”
“We are now a modern, thriving, dynamic nation,” Truss said outside 10 Downing St. in London. “Through thick and thin, Queen Elizabeth II provided us with the stability and the strength that we needed.
“She was the very spirit of Great Britain – and that spirit will endure,” ending on words no British leader has said for 70 years: “God save the king.”
Truss was appointed by the queen just two days ago, becoming the 15th prime minister to serve during Elizabeth’s reign.
Truss’ predecessor, Boris Johnson, said “this is our country’s saddest day.”
He said the death of the only monarch most Britons have ever known would provoke “a deep and personal sense of loss – far more intense, perhaps, than we expected.”
He said her heir, King Charles III, would “amply do justice to her legacy.”
Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer also paid tribute.
“Above the clashes of politics, she stood not for what the nation fought over, but what it agreed upon. As Britain changed rapidly around her, this dedication became the still point of our turning world,” he said. “So as our great Elizabethan era comes to an end, we will honor the late Queen’s memory by keeping alive the values of public service she embodied.”
___
LONDON — Royal officials have confirmed that Britain’s new monarch will be known as King Charles III, ending speculation about whether would use another name during his reign.
The former Prince of Wales has been known as Prince Charles since his birth in 1948, but British monarchs have in the past selected new names when they ascent to the throne.
The late Queen Elizabeth II said earlier this year that she hoped Charles’ wife, Camilla, would be know as queen consort.
___
U.S. presidents past and present expressed their condolences over the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden said in a statement that Elizabeth was “more than a monarch” and that “she defined an era.”
“Queen Elizabeth II was a stateswoman of unmatched dignity and constancy who deepened the bedrock Alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States,” the Bidens said. “She helped make our relationship special.”
Biden’s predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump, said in a statement that Elizabeth “will always be remembered for her faithfulness to her country and her unwavering devotion to her fellow countrymen and women.
“Melania and I will always cherish our time together with the Queen, and never forget Her Majesty’s generous friendship, great wisdom, and wonderful sense of humor. What a grand and beautiful lady she was — there was nobody like her!”
Former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, also recalled the queen fondly.
“Back when we were just beginning to navigate life as President and First Lady, she welcomed us to the world stage with open arms and extraordinary generosity,” the Obama’s said in a statement. “Time and again, we were struck by her warmth, the way she put people at ease, and how she brought her considerable humor and charm to moments of great pomp and circumstance.”
Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter also issued statements expressing their condolences.
___
LONDON — Prince Charles has been preparing to be king his entire life. Now his moment has arrived.
Following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday, Charles is now the oldest person to take the British throne.
No date has been set for his coronation. And it’s not immediately clear whether the new monarch would call himself Charles III or choose another name, as his grandfather did.
But Charles faces the enormous challenge of building the same sort of affection that characterized the relationship between his mother and the British public.
Will Charles be loved by his subjects, like his mother was? It’s a question that has overshadowed his entire life.
___
LONDON — British Prime Minister Liz Truss says the country is “devastated” by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, calling her “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”
Truss said the news is “a huge shock to the nation and to the world” but that the queen’s spirit will endure.
Truss was appointed by the queen just two days ago, becoming the 15th prime minister to serve during Elizabeth’s reign.
The Union Jack flag atop the prime minister’s 10 Downing Street residence was lowered to half-staff after the monarch’s death was announced.
Elizabeth died peacefully Thursday afternoon at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. All four of her children and her grandson Prince William traveled there to be at her side.
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LONDON — Prince Charles says the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, “is a moment of the greatest sadness” for him and his family.
In a statement issued Thursday following the 96-year-old monarch’s death at her Balmoral Castle estate in Scotland, Charles said: “We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished Sovereign and a much-loved Mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.”
Charles, who became king upon his mother’s death, said, “During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which The Queen was so widely held.”
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LONDON — Condolences are pouring in from around the world following the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted Thursday that the queen “embodied continuity and the unity of the British nation over 70 years. I retain the memory of a friend of France, a queen of hearts who marked as never before her country and her century.”
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, expressed sadness at the news, tweeting: “Germany remains forever grateful that she stretched out her hand to us in reconciliation after the terror of World War II.”
Italian Premier Mario Draghi in a condolence message hailed the queen as having been “the absolute protagonist of world history of the last 70 years.” Draghi, who is now acting in a caretaker role ahead of Italian parliamentary elections later this month, said Elizabeth had represented the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth “with equilibrium, wisdom, respect for institutions and for democracy.”
Elizabeth died peacefully Thursday afternoon at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. All four of her children and her grandson Prince William traveled to Balmoral to be at her side.
The Royal Family’s Twitter feed posted a black and white photograph of the queen smiling as they announced her death.
Outside Buckingham Palace, the news was posted on the railings as crowds gathered.
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LONDON — Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II has died.
The 96-year-old queen died peacefully at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. All four of her children and her grandson Prince William traveled to Balmoral to be at her side.
The palace says her son Charles, who is now king, and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, will stay at Balmoral overnight and travel to London on Friday.
Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, she marked 70 years on the throne this year.
Elizabeth sat on the throne as the U.K. rebuilt from war, lost an empire, transformed its economy and both entered and left the European Union.
She was a constant presence, the only monarch most Britons have ever known, and she guided the institution of the monarchy through choppy waters.
The BBC played the national anthem over a portrait of the queen in full regalia as the queen’s death was announced.
The flag over Buckingham Palace was lowered to half staff.
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For more AP coverage of Queen Elizabeth II: https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:35Z
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ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities say an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 has struck off the western islands of Zakynthos and Cephalonia, but no damage or injury has been reported.
The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the undersea temblor occurred at 10:36 a.m. (0736 GMT) about 57 kilometers (35 miles) southwest of Lixouri on Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea. It was felt across much of western Greece.
The Fire Service said it had no reports of damage or injury from the quake.
The region is one of the most earthquake-prone in Greece, which in turn is in one of the world’s most seismically active areas. But following destructive quakes in the 20th century, buildings in the Ionian islands are constructed using strict seismic safeguards.
While earthquakes in Greece are common, severe damage and deaths are not. In 1999, a quake near Athens killed 143 people.
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:43Z
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stressed his country will never abandon the nuclear weapons it needs to counter the United States, which he accused of pushing to weaken the North’s defenses and eventually collapse his government, state media said Friday.
Kim made the comments during a speech Thursday at North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, where members passed legislation governing the use of nuclear weapons, which Kim described as a step to cement the country’s nuclear status and make clear such weapons will not be bargained.
The law spells out conditions where North would be inclined to use its nuclear weapons, including when it determines that its leadership is facing an imminent “nuclear or non-nuclear attack by hostile forces.” The law requires North Korea’s military to “automatically” execute nuclear strikes against enemy forces, including their “starting point of provocation and the command,” if Pyongyang’s leadership comes under attack.
The law also says North Korea could use nukes to prevent an unspecified “catastrophic crisis” to its government and people, a loose definition that experts say reflect an escalatory nuclear doctrine that could create greater concerns for neighbors.
Kim also criticized South Korea over its plans to expand its conventional strike capabilities and revive large-scale military exercises with the United States to counter the North’s growing threats, describing them as a “dangerous” military action that raises tensions.
Kim has made increasingly provocative threats of nuclear conflict toward the United States and its allies in Asia, also warning that the North would proactively use its nuclear weapons when threatened. His latest comments underscored the growing animosity in the region as he accelerates the expansion of his nuclear weapons and missiles program.
“The purpose of the United States is not only to remove our nuclear might itself, but eventually forcing us to surrender or weaken our rights to self-defense through giving up our nukes, so that they could collapse our government at any time,” Kim said in the speech published by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“Let them sanction us for 100 days, 1,000 days, 10 years or 100 years,” Kim said. “We will never give up our rights to self-defense that preserves our country’s existence and the safety of our people just to temporarily ease the difficulties we are experiencing now.”
Kim also addressed domestic issues, saying North Korea would begin its long-delayed rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in November. He didn’t specify how many doses it would have, where they would come from, or how they would be administered across his population of 26 million people.
GAVI, the nonprofit that runs the U.N.-backed COVAX distribution program, said in June it understood North Korea had accepted an offer of vaccines from China. GAVI said at the time the specifics of the offer were unclear.
North Korea rejected previous offers by COVAX, likely because of international monitoring requirements, and has also ignored U.S. and South Korean offers of vaccines and other COVID-19 aid.
Kim last month declared victory over COVID-19 and ordered preventive measures eased just three months after his government for the first time acknowledged an outbreak. Experts believe the North’s disclosures on its outbreak are manipulated to help Kim maintain absolute control.
The North Korean report about Kim’s speech came a day after South Korea extended its latest olive branch, proposing a meeting with North Korea to resume temporary reunions of aging relatives separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, which were last held in 2018.
Experts say it’s highly unlikely North Korea would accept the South’s offer considering the stark deterioration in inter-Korean ties amid the stalemate in larger nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The U.S.-North Korean diplomacy derailed in 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling sanctions against the North and the North’s denuclearization steps.
Kim was combative toward South Korea in Thursday’s speech and urged his country to expand the operational roles of its tactical nuclear weapons and accelerate their deployment to strengthen the country’s war deterrent. Those comments appeared to align with a ruling party decision in June to approve unspecified new operational duties for front-line troops, which analysts say likely include plans to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons targeting rival South Korea along their tense border.
Cheong Seong Chang, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said Kim’s comments and the new North Korean law amount to a warning that it would launch immediate nuclear strikes on the United States and South Korea if they ever attempt to decapacitate Pyongyang’s leadership.
The North is also communicating a threat that it could use its nuclear weapons during conflicts with South Korea’s conventional forces, which would raise the risk of accidental clashes escalating into a nuclear crisis, Cheong said.
North Korea has been speeding its development of nuclear-capable, short-range missiles that can target South Korea since 2019. Experts say its rhetoric around those missiles communicates a threat to proactively use them in warfare to blunt the stronger conventional forces of South Korea and the United States. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in the South to deter aggression from the North.
The U.S.-led diplomatic push to defuse the nuclear standoff has been further complicated by an intensifying U.S.-China rivalry and Russia’s war on Ukraine, which deepened the divide in the U.N. Security Council, where Beijing and Moscow have blocked U.S. efforts to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang over its revived long-range missile tests this year.
Kim has dialed up weapons tests to a record pace in 2020, launching more than 30 ballistic weapons, including the first demonstrations of his intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017.
U.S. and South Korean officials say Kim may up the ante soon by ordering the North’s first nuclear test in five years as he pushes a brinkmanship aimed at forcing Washington to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating concessions from a position of strength.
Experts say Kim is also trying to strengthen his leverage by strengthening his cooperation with China and Russia in an emerging partnership aimed at undercutting U.S. influence.
North Korea has repeatedly blamed the United States for the crisis in Ukraine, saying the West’s “hegemonic policy” justified Russian military actions in Ukraine to protect itself. U.S. officials said this week the Russians are in the process of purchasing North Korean ammunition, including artillery shells and rockets, to ease their supply shortages in the war against Ukraine.
North Korea also has joined Russia and Syria as the only nations to recognize the independence of two pro-Russia breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine and has discussed send its construction workers to those regions to work on rebuilding.
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:50Z
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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian officials have seized thousands of donkey penises that were about to be exported to Hong Kong, an official said on Thursday.
Sacks of the donkey male genitals were seized at the international airport in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, Sambo Dangaladima, the Nigeria Customs Service area commander, told reporters.
The consignment was “falsely declared … as cow male genitals (but) after due examination, my export officers discovered they were donkey male genitals,” said Dangaladima. A total of 16 sacks of the genitals were seized, he said.
An investigation has been launched to find out more information about the seized items, the customs service said.
Although the seizure of donkey genitals meant for export from Nigeria is rare, donkey skins are known to be frequently exported or smuggled out of the country. In July, the Nigerian customs seized $116,000 worth of donkey skins being smuggled into the country from neighboring Niger.
Nigeria is trying to curb the export of donkey skins which has drastically diminished the country’s population of the work animals, particularly in the north. Nigerian senators in 2021 proposed to ban the killing of donkeys and the export of their skins.
The lawmakers said such a ban on killing donkeys would further curb the export of donkey skins and genitals — which Nigeria prohibits — to countries like China where the skins are used in popular traditional medicines. That proposed legislation has not yet been passed into law.
“The major beneficiary in this trade is the donkey (skin) merchants in China,” Muhammad Datti, one of the federal lawmakers supporting the proposed ban, has said. “This animal is facing extinction (in Nigeria) and it is an animal you cannot breed in large numbers because of the very low rate of fertility.”
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| 2022-09-21T03:17:58Z
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif told an American diplomat Thursday that the world must step up its fight against climate change to avoid more deadly flooding in the impoverished Islamic nation, the government said.
Sharif made the comment in a meeting with Derek Chollet, a senior State Department official visiting Islamabad to assess damages and arrange for aid in the wake of floods that have killed 1,355 people, affected 3.3 million people and made more than half a million homeless.
According to the statement, Chollet “affirmed that the U.S. would stand by Pakistan in the wake of this immense challenge, extend vital support, and help affected people rebuild their lives and communities.”
The meeting came a day ahead of the first American planeload expected to arrive in Pakistan with supplies. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also was to arrive in Pakistan Friday to travel to flood-hit areas.
Guterres is arriving in Pakistan less than two weeks after he issued an appeal for $160 million in emergency funding to help millions affected by record-breaking floods that have caused at least $10 billion in damages.
Last week, Guterres warned about the effects of climate change in the future.
“Let’s stop sleepwalking toward the destruction of our planet by climate change,” he said on August 31 in a video message to a ceremony in Islamabad. “Today, it’s Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country,” he said at the time.
So far, U.N. agencies and several countries have sent dozens of planeloads of aid to Pakistani flood victims. Washington has announced the U.S. will provide $30 million in assistance to help victims of the flood.
The catastrophe has added new burdens to the cash-strapped Pakistan and highlighted the disproportionate effect of climate change on improverished populations. Experts say Pakistan is responsible for only 0.4% of the world’s historic emissions blamed for climate change. The U.S. is responsible for 21.5%, China for 16.5% and the EU 15%.
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:06Z
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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teen in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian officials said, after the military said he hit a soldier in the face with a hammer.
The military said the soldier was lightly wounded. It provided a photo of the hammer and a knife, which it said was also in the Palestinian’s possession. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death, near the village of Baytin, and identified the teen as Haitham Mubarak, 17. It had no details about the circumstances behind his death.
Rights groups accuse Israeli forces of using excessive force in their dealings with the Palestinians, without being held accountable. The military says they contend with complex, life-threatening scenarios.
The violence was the latest in a string of incidents this week that has seen deadly confrontations between soldiers and Palestinians. Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids in West Bank cities, towns and villages since a spate of attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people.
Israeli fire has killed dozens of Palestinians during that time, making it the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2016.
The Israeli military says the vast majority of those killed were militants or stone-throwers who endangered the soldiers. But several civilians have also been killed during Israel’s monthslong operation, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone. Some local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed.
Israel says the arrest raids are meant to dismantle militant networks that have embedded themselves. The Palestinians say the operations are aimed at maintaining Israel’s 55-year military occupation of territories they want for an independent state.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians seek those territories for a future state.
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:13Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Two college campuses locked down. City buses stopped running. A baseball stadium halted a game, and frightened residents stayed indoors as a gunman spent hours cruising around Memphis and shooting people, apparently at random.
Authorities said the assailant suspected of killing four people and wounding three livestreamed some of the carnage using his cellphone. He was arrested late Wednesday after crashing a stolen car while fleeing police.
The violence unfolded just a few months after 19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly was released early from a three-year prison sentence for a pair of shootings in 2020. Now he’s charged with first-degree murder.
The bloodshed played out as the city was still reeling from the brutal killing of a jogger who was abducted during her early morning run less than a week earlier.
“This has been a horrific week for the city of Memphis,” Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said.
Authorities offered no explanation Thursday of a possible motive. Nor did they say how Kelly managed to obtain the gun or guns used in the attacks.
The shootings shut down much of the city, and police warned people to shelter in place. The minor-league Memphis Redbirds cleared the field during a game. Friends and relatives frantically called and texted each other, and TV stations cut into regular programming with updates.
Police said the first victim was killed more than 15 hours before the other shootings occurred.
Just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, at least three witnesses saw Kelly fatally shoot Dewayne Tunstall in the head outside a home in east Memphis, according to a police affidavit. It said Kelly pulled Tunstall to the side, then during their conversation drew a handgun and fired several shots.
Marcus Cash, a close friend and business partner of Tunstall’s, came running after he heard the gunshots from his home. One round pierced the window of his child’s bedroom.
When he saw Tunstall’s body, he laid down in anguish beside the man who had been like a brother. Cash said he was so distraught that police held him as a precaution for several hours to give him time to calm down.
Asked what he told police, Cash said: “You all better catch him before I do.”
The second shooting came hours later at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, when officers found a man dead from multiple gunshot wounds inside a vehicle, according to police. A woman who had been shot in the leg was discovered minutes later, still alive.
More shootings were reported over the next 4 1/2 hours. During that time, police received a tip at about 6 p.m. that the suspect was livestreaming himself and threatening to hurt people, Davis said.
In one clip from the video, the suspect casually speaks to the camera before opening the door to an AutoZone store and shooting someone inside with what appeared to be a pistol. That man was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
In another, a man narrates himself driving — “green light, green light” — and sings “no faking.” At one point, he fires two rapid bursts of gunfire from the driver’s window. Referring to police, he says he’s going to “go down to the valley, shoot it out with them in the valley.”
Three more shootings and two carjackings followed after police sent an alert warning people to be on the lookout for the suspect.
Police said Kelly killed a woman as he took her SUV, then shot and wounded a man nearby. The final victim, another woman, was found dead about an hour later, just before 9 p.m.
Kelly drove across the state line into neighboring Southaven, Mississippi, where he committed another carjacking at gunpoint but left the driver uninjured, police said.
Officers quickly spotted the stolen Dodge Challenger on Interstate 55. Kelly was arrested after he crashed during a high-speed chase, Davis said. Two guns were found in the vehicle.
It was not immediately known Thursday whether Kelly had an attorney.
One of the gunman’s victims, Allison Parker, was a medical assistant with three children, said Debbie Holland, Parker’s mother-in-law. Holland said her grandchildren now have no parents, since their father died a couple of years ago.
“She was beautiful, intelligent, kindhearted, giving — she would help anybody who asked,” Holland said of Parker. “She didn’t deserve to die at the hands of this monster.”
Facebook parent company Meta said Thursday that it removed the suspect’s livestream before Memphis police sent their initial alert, but the company declined to say for how long the live video was streaming. The company said it also removed the suspect’s Facebook account and has continuously removed content such as copies of the video or messages praising the attack.
Memphis has been shaken by several high-profile killings in recent weeks, including the shooting of a pastor during a daylight carjacking in her driveway, the shooting of an activist during an argument over money and the slaying of jogger Eliza Fletcher following her abduction near the University of Memphis.
Mayor Jim Strickland told reporters he was outraged that Kelly had been released early from prison in March after pleading guilty last year to aggravated assault charges.
“This is no way for us to live, and it is not acceptable,” said Strickland, who later pounded the podium as he demanded accountability. He added: “If Mr. Kelly served his full three-year sentence, he would still be in prison today, and four of our fellow citizens would still be alive.”
In February 2020, Kelly, then 17, was charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder and other crimes in two shootings committed a few hours apart. Both victims survived but didn’t cooperate with prosecutors, according to court records, and Kelly pleaded guilty to reduced charges of aggravated assault in April 2021.
Kelly was sentenced to three years in prison, but was released in March after serving just over two years behind bars, including credit he received for time he was jailed prior to his plea.
Months before his release, Kelly was denied parole in September 2021. He told the Tennessee Board of Parole that he had an “anger management problem,” according to a recording of his parole hearing, and that he was taking medication to help with nightmares.
Strickland thanked legislators for passing Tennessee’s so-called “truth in sentencing” law this year. The statute, which took effect after Kelly was freed, requires inmates to serve entire sentences for certain violent felonies.
The area’s top prosecutor, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, is a fellow Democrat who was elected in August after arguing against the sentencing law, saying it drives up prison costs without reducing crime. Mulroy said there was no tension Thursday between him and the mayor.
“Both of us think that all these cases, including the tragic incidents from last night, need to be dealt with strongly,” said Mulroy, who played no role in Kelly’s prior prosecution and sentencing. “The public policy debate can be discussed another day.”
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Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi, Jonathan Mattise and Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky; Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island; and news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this story.
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:21Z
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — The DNA of a jailed elected official who was angered by past and upcoming newspaper stories was found on the hands of a Las Vegas investigative reporter who fought for his life while being stabbed to death outside his home, authorities said Thursday.
County Public Administrator Robert Telles stood handcuffed in court with bandages on his wrists and police officers at his elbows while a prosecutor told a judge that Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German’s death was a planned attack by an assailant who left his own cellphone at home and waited in a vehicle outside German’s home.
“The published articles regarding a public figure, the public administrator’s office, ruined his political career, likely his marriage, and this was him lashing out at the cause,” Chief Deputy Clark County District Attorney Richard Scow said of Telles.
Scow said German was stabbed seven times. His body was found Saturday.
Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Elana Lee Graham called a police report detailing the attack “chilling,” including the discovery of wounds on German’s arms and DNA believed to be from Telles in German’s fingernails.
“He was fighting for his life,” the judge said of the 69-year-old longtime journalist. “It appears from this report that Mr. Telles was waiting … and called (German) over to the side of his own home.”
Graham ordered Telles, 45, jailed without bail pending arraignment next Tuesday on a murder charge.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson called German’s death “brutal and meaningless” and the case against Telles important for the community. Wolfson said a decision about whether to seek the death penalty will be made in coming months.
Earlier Thursday, police officials described Telles’ arrest late Wednesday after a brief police standoff at his home.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Telles was hospitalized for what the sheriff called “self-inflicted” wounds, hours after investigators served a search warrant and confiscated vehicles in the criminal probe of German’s killing.
Telles had been a focus of German’s reporting about turmoil, including complaints of administrative bullying, favoritism and Telles’ relationship with a subordinate staffer in the county office that handles property of people who die without a will or family contacts. Telles, a Democrat, went on to lose his bid for reelection in the June primary.
“This has been an unusual case from the beginning,” Lombardo told reporters at a news conference, “the murder of an investigative journalist, and the main suspect an elected official here in Clark County.”
Lombardo is the elected head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and is running as a Republican for governor. He said Telles was quickly identified as a suspect with the help of media, including the Review-Journal.
“Every murder is tragic. But the killing of a journalist is particularly troublesome,” Lombardo said.
Telles was identified early in the investigation as a person “upset about articles that were being written by German, as an investigative journalist, that exposed potential wrongdoing,” Las Vegas Police Capt. Dori Koren said.
“Telles had publicly expressed his issues with that reporting,” Koren said. “We found out later there was additional reporting that was pending.”
In addition to Telles’ suspected DNA at the crime scene, Koren said investigators serving a search warrant at Telles’ home found shoes and a distinctive wide straw hat.
Koren said the items matched those worn by a person captured on security camera video wearing a blaze orange shirt and walking toward German’s home. He showed photos of the shoes and the hat and said they had been been cut up.
A murder weapon has not been found, but Lombardo said police have “distorted” video that shows the attack. He said investigators were attempting to enhance it.
Investigators said a distinctive maroon GMC Yukon Denali SUV was seen driving around German’s neighborhood Sept. 2, the morning of the killing, stopping several times. That vehicle, registered to Telles’ wife, departed Telles’ home around 9 a.m. and returned around noon, Koren said.
Police believe German was attacked about 11:15 a.m., and his garage door was open.
Telles was questioned by police Wednesday and then returned home, where he ignored reporters’ questions as he entered and did not respond to officers at his door until SWAT units and an ambulance arrived in the evening.
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.
In a statement, German’s family called him “a loving and loyal brother, uncle and friend who devoted his life to his work exposing wrongdoing in Las Vegas and beyond.”
“We’re shocked, saddened and angry about his death,” the statement said. “Jeff was committed to seeking justice for others and would appreciate the hard work by local police and journalists in pursuing his killer. We look forward to seeing justice done in this case.”
Glenn Cook, executive editor of the Review-Journal, said the newsroom had mixed emotions following Telles’ arrest.
“We are relieved Robert Telles is in custody and outraged that a colleague appears to have been killed for reporting on an elected official,” the statement said. “Journalists can’t do the important work our communities require if they are afraid a presentation of facts could lead to violent retribution.”
“Hopefully, the Review-Journal, the German family and Jeff’s many friends can begin the process of mourning and honoring a great man and a brave reporter,” it said.
Telles, a lawyer who practiced probate and estate law, won his elected position in 2018, replacing a three-term public administrator. He lost his June party primary to Assistant Public Administrator Rita Reid, who faces a Republican challenger in November. Telles’ term expires Dec. 31.
Clark County officials said Thursday that Telles was suspended and banned from county offices or property pending a review of his position as an elected official.
“County employees of the administrator’s office are currently working from home, and the office will remain closed until a determination is made about when it can reopen,” the statement said.
In the weeks before the June 14 primary, German bylined reports about an office “mired in turmoil and internal dissension” between longtime employees and new hires under Telles’ leadership.
Telles blamed “old-timers” for exaggerating the extent of his relationship with a female staffer and falsely claiming that he mistreated them.
Telles later posted Twitter complaints about German, the Review-Journal reported, including claims in June that German was a bully who was “obsessed” with him.
German, widely known and respected for his tenacity, was working on follow-up reports, the newspaper said Wednesday. He recently filed public records requests for emails and text messages between Telles and three other county officials, including Reid and consultant Michael Murphy.
Murphy, the former Clark County coroner hired to address complaints about leadership in the public administrators’ office, did not immediately respond to a telephone message.
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:29Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A gunman who livestreamed himself driving around Memphis shooting at people, killing four and wounding three others in seemingly random attacks, was finally arrested after crashing a stolen car, police said early Thursday.
The hours-long rampage had police warning people across the city to shelter in place, locking down a baseball stadium and university campuses and suspending public bus services as frightened residents wondered where the man might strike next.
Ezekiel Kelly, 19, a violent felon who was released early from prison this year, was taken into custody at around 9 p.m. in the Memphis neighborhood of Whitehaven, police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said during a news conference early Thursday that four people were killed and three others were wounded in seven shootings and at least two carjackings.
The first killing was at 12:56 a.m. Wednesday, and officers responded to three more crime scenes before receiving a tip at 6:12 p.m. that the suspect was livestreaming himself threatening to cause harm to citizens, Davis said.
Police then sent out an alert warning people to be on the lookout for an armed and dangerous man responsible for multiple shootings and reportedly recording his actions on Facebook. In one video, he casually spoke to the camera before opening the door to a store and then immediately shooting at someone with what appeared to be a pistol.
Three more shootings and two carjackings followed. Police said he killed a woman in Memphis as he took her grey Toyota SUV, which he left behind when he stole a man’s Dodge Challenger across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi.
Kelly was arrested without incident two hours after the initial police alert when he crashed the Challenger during a high speed chase, and two guns were found in the vehicle, Davis said.
As the shooter terrorized the city, buses stopped running and the Memphis Redbirds cleared the field during their minor-league baseball game. Friends and relatives frantically called and texted each other and TV stations cut into regular coverage with updates.
Police received “numerous tips” from the public during the ordeal, Davis said.
The University of Memphis sent a message to students saying a shooting had been reported near the campus. Rhodes College, which is about 4 miles away from the university, advised students on and off campus to shelter in place. Kelly was ultimately arrested about 11 miles from the two campuses.
“If you do not have to be out, stay indoors until this is resolved,” Memphis police said on Twitter, before the arrest.
Police did not discuss a motive or release the identities of those who were killed or wounded. It was too early in the investigation to discuss how the suspect got the gun or guns used in the shootings, said Ali Roberts, acting assistant special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Memphis.
Memphis has been shaken by several high-profile killings in recent weeks, including the shooting of a pastor during a daylight carjacking in her driveway, the shooting of an activist during an argument over money, and the slaying of a jogger abducted during her pre-dawn run.
“I understand it feels like so much violence and evil to experience in such a short time,” Memphis City Council member Chase Carlisle said on Twitter. “We are SO much more than this.”
In February 2020, Kelly, then 17, was charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, using a firearm to commit a dangerous felony and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, court records show.
Records show he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced in April 2021 to three years. Kelly was released from prison in March, 11 months after he was sentenced, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said.
“This is no way for us to live and it is not acceptable,” the mayor said. “If Mr. Kelly served his full three-year sentence, he would still be in prison today and four of our fellow citizens would still be alive.”
Strickland thanked legislators for closing what he called a revolving door by passing Tennessee’s “truth in sentencing” law this year. The statute, which took effect after Kelly was freed, requires serving entire sentences for various felonies, including attempted first-degree murder, vehicular homicide resulting from the driver’s intoxication and carjacking.
“From now on, three years for aggravated assault means three years,” the mayor said. “We need the courts and additional state laws to stop this revolving door and I need the public to make their voices heard by those decision makers.”
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, a fellow Democrat, was elected in August after voicing his opposition to the truth in sentencing law, arguing it does not reduce crime nor help incarcerated people rehabilitate, and drives up Tennessee’s prison budget.
“People are frightened, people are angry. In times like this, it’s sometimes hard for people to know what to do,” Mulroy said at the news conference. “I can tell one thing I’m going to do. I’m going to pray. I’m going to pray for the victims and their families. I’m going to pray for the victims and their families. I’m also going to say a prayer of thanks for law enforcement who acted superbly.”
He added that repeat violent offenders “need a strong response,” and “that’s precisely what they’ll get from this DA’s office.”
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:37Z
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ATLANTA (AP) — Two deputies were killed Thursday night while serving a warrant in a suburb near Atlanta, and a suspect remained barricaded in a home, authorities said.
The sheriff’s office in Cobb County tweeted initially that the two deputies had “died in the line of duty” and that a SWAT team and other law enforcement officers remained at the scene.
The county sheriff’s office did not release any additional information such as the identities of the officers or the circumstances in which they were killed. It said more information would be released later.
WSB-TV reported that people in the neighborhood nearby reported hearing several gunshots and then seeing law enforcement officers swarm the area.
Authorities did not immediately identify the suspect, and details about the warrant and attempts to serve it were not immediately disclosed.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the state’s top crime-fighting agency, separately said in a tweet that it was sending its condolences to the country sheriff, Craig Owens, and his office for the deaths of the deputies.
Sprawling Cobby County with more than 760,000 people is located just northwest of Atlanta and is one of Georgia’s most populous counties.
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:45Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Leaning into the camera, with both palms on her chin beneath a beaming smile, Eliza Fletcher invites students from St. Mary’s Episcopal School to join her in singing, “This Little Light of Mine.”
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” she sings in a high, gentle voice.
When the song ends, Fletcher leaves her students with a parting message: “Miss you, girls. You need to let the light shine at your house, and I will see you later!”
For those who did not know Fletcher, who police said was killed after being kidnapped during a pre-dawn run Friday, the video offers a glimpse at who she was.
For those who knew and loved her, the nearly 2-minute clip offers a fresh reminder of the light she brought to others routinely, even with a simple song posted on the internet.
The senseless killing of the wife, mother of two, and 34-year-old kindergarten teacher has shocked the Memphis community and has led to a flood of support for her and her family. Police quickly identified a suspect and scoured several locations before they found her body. A church held a vigil to pray for her safe return. A large group of runners made plans to finish the run she was on when she was abducted about 4 a.m. near the University of Memphis.
“The outpouring of love and grief would have surprised Liza, who never thought or acted as if she were something special — though she certainly was,” said an obituary published by The Daily Memphian.
A judge revoked bond for a man charged with Fletcher’s kidnapping and killing Wednesday. Cleotha Henderson, who also has gone by the name Cleotha Abston, was arrested Saturday after police detected his DNA on a pair of sandals found near where Fletcher was last seen, an arrest affidavit showed.
The public defender representing Henderson, 38, has not commented publicly on specifics of the charges. Henderson previously served 20 years in prison for a kidnapping he committed at age 16.
The case will be closely followed by Fletcher’s loved ones as well as many who learned about her only after she was slain.
A graduate of the well-respected Hutchison School in Memphis, Fletcher went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science from Baylor in 2010, according to a tweet by the university.
Fletcher later got a teaching job at St. Mary’s, another Memphis private school, which released a statement calling her “a bright light in our community.”
“Liza embodied the song that we sing every week in Early Childhood chapel, ‘This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine,’” the statement said.
The statement went on to quote a book read at the school, “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” by Charlie Mackesy: “‘We don’t know about tomorrow,’ said the horse, ‘all we need to know is that we love each other,’”
The obituary described Fletcher as a “born athlete” who enjoyed spending time outside with her family.
“They enjoyed outdoor adventures including boating, water sports, hiking, running, and biking,” the obituary said. “She was deeply admired by her family and friends for her passionate dedication to motherhood.”
On Saturday, as the search for Fletcher intensified and spread through several parts of Memphis, Second Presbyterian Church held a vigil with prayers for her safe return.
The church’s senior pastor, George Robertson, told The Commercial Appeal that Fletcher and her husband Ritchie “are both very active and great leaders in our congregation.”
“She and her husband are both just inspirations in the sense of their zest for life and love of running and athletics,” Robertson said.
Fletcher’s family has asked for privacy as they mourn, though they have released two statements since she went missing.
“We are heartbroken and devastated by this senseless loss. Liza was a such a joy to so many,” a statement released Wednesday said.
On Friday, a week after Fletcher went missing, a group plans to honor her with an early morning run. The “Let’s Finish Liza’s Run” event is expected to draw hundreds of runners in Memphis, and social media posts indicate runners in other cities plan to join in.
The run was created “to honor Liza and cope with our own feelings,” a Facebook post about the event said.
Organizers stressed the 8.2-mile (13.2-kilometer) run is not a fundraiser, but they asked participants to wear bright colors — and to carry a bright light with them.
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| 2022-09-21T03:18:52Z
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LONDON (AP) — British politicians across the political spectrum united in sorrow Thursday at the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a passing that brought the country’s usually fractious politics to a halt.
The queen’s death at age 96 will be marked with 10 days of national mourning, culminating in a state funeral for the monarch.
Essential government functions will continue, but much of the routine business of politics will be put on pause. Parliamentary business will give way to two days of tributes from lawmakers in the House of Commons on Friday and Saturday.
New Prime Minister Liz Truss, who was told of the news about 90 minutes before it was made public, said the country was “devastated” by the death of the monarch on Thursday, calling her “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”
“We are now a modern, thriving, dynamic nation,” Truss said outside her 10 Downing St. residence in London. “Through thick and thin, Queen Elizabeth II provided us with the stability and the strength that we needed.
“She was the very spirit of Great Britain – and that spirit will endure,” Truss said.
She ended her statement with words that no British leader has said for 70 years: “God save the king.”
Truss was appointed by the queen just 48 hours earlier at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, becoming the 15th prime minister to serve during Elizabeth’s reign. The queen died at Balmoral on Thursday afternoon after 70 years on the throne.
The Union Jack flag atop the prime minister’s residence was lowered to half-staff after the monarch’s death was announced.
Truss’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, said “this is our country’s saddest day.”
He said the passing of the only monarch most Britons have ever known would provoke “a deep and personal sense of loss – far more intense, perhaps, than we expected.”
But Johnson said her heir, 73-year-old King Charles III, would “amply do justice to her legacy.”
Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer also paid tribute to a constitutional monarch he said was “above the clashes of politics.”
“She stood not for what the nation fought over, but what it agreed upon. As Britain changed rapidly around her, this dedication became the still point of our turning world,” he said. “So as our great Elizabethan era comes to an end, we will honor the late queen’s memory by keeping alive the values of public service she embodied.”
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Follow all AP stories on British royalty at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii.
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| 2022-09-21T03:19:07Z
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the world owes impoverished Pakistan “massive” help in recovering from the summer’s devastating floods because the country bears less blame than many other nations for climate change, which experts say contributed to the deluge.
Months of heavy monsoon rains and flooding have killed 1,391 people and affected 3.3 million in this South Asian nation while half a million people have become homeless. Planeloads of aid from the United States, the United Arab Emirates and other countries have begun arriving, but Guterres said there’s more to be done.
Nature, the U.N. chief said in Islamabad, has attacked Pakistan, which contributes less than 1% of global emissions, according to multiple experts.
Nations that “are more responsible for climate change … should have faced this challenge,” said Guterres, sitting next to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“We are heading into a disaster,” Guterres added. “We have waged war on nature and nature is tracking back and striking back in a devastating way. Today in Pakistan, tomorrow in any of your countries.”
The U.N. chief’s trip comes less than two weeks after Guterres appealed for $160 million in emergency funding to help those affected by the monsoon rains and floods that Pakistan says have caused at least $10 billion in damages.
“I appeal for massive support from the international community as Pakistan responds to this climate catastrophe,” Guterres tweeted after landing in Pakistan earlier Friday.
He said other nations contributing to climate change are obligated to reduce emissions and help Pakistan. He assured Sharif that his voice was “entirely at the service of the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people” and that “the entire U.N. system is at the service of Pakistan.”
“Pakistan has not contributed in a meaningful way to climate change, the level of emissions in this country is relatively low,” Guterres said. “But Pakistan is one of the most dramatically impacted countries by climate change.”
On Friday, the first planeload arrived from the U.S. , which Washington says is part of an upcoming $30 million in assistance. More U.S. military planes are expected to arrive in the coming days as part of a humanitarian bridge set up by Washington to deliver much-need aid across the country.
USAID announced an additional $20 million Friday in humanitarian assistance for Pakistan, further enhancing U.S. pledges.
Later, Guterres directed his words at the international community, saying that by some estimates, Pakistan needs about $30 billion to recover from the floods.
“Even today, emissions are rising as people die in floods and famines. This is insanity. This is collective suicide,” he said. “From Pakistan, I am issuing a global appeal: Stop the madness; end the war with nature; invest in renewable energy now.”
So far, U.N. agencies and several countries have sent nearly 60 planeloads of aid, and authorities say the UAE has been one of the most generous contributors and sent so far 26 flights carrying aid for flood victims.
Also Friday, Samantha Power, the administrator of USAID, met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Islamabad. She later told reporters she had visited flood-hit areas in Sindh province on Thursday, and she witnessed widespread destruction caused by floods.
The floods have touched all of Pakistan, including heritage sites such as Mohenjo Daro, a UNESCO World Heritage Site considered one of the best-preserved ancient urban settlements in South Asia. The civilization that dates back 4,500 years, coinciding with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The U.N. heritage agency on Thursday announced it would send $350,000 to help recover flood-damaged cultural heritage sites.
Speaking at a press conference with Foreign Minister Bhutto Zardari, Guterres underscored the importance of combatting climate change.
“It is happening now all around us and I urge governments to address this issue,” he said and added that what he has done so far as the U.N. chief is “a drop in the ocean of the needs of the Pakistani people”.
He said a proposal for a donors conference for flood-hit Pakistan is under discussion.
Since June, heavy rains and floods have added new burdens to cash-strapped Pakistan and highlighted the disproportionate effect of climate change on impoverished populations. Experts say Pakistan is responsible for only 0.4% of the world’s historic emissions that are blamed for climate change. The U.S. is responsible for 21.5%, China for 16.5% and the European Union for 15%.
The floods in Pakistan have also injured 12,722 people, destroyed thousands of miles of roads, toppled bridges and damaged schools and hospitals, according to the National Disaster Management Agency.
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| 2022-09-21T03:19:15Z
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ROSTHERN, Saskatchewan (AP) — The last suspect in a horrific stabbing spree that killed 10 and wounded 18 in western Canada is dead following his capture, and police hope the stunning end to a gripping hunt that stretched into a fourth day will bring some peace to victims’ families.
One official said Myles Sanderson, 32, died from self-inflicted injuries Wednesday after police forced the stolen car he was driving off a highway in Saskatchewan. Other officials declined to discuss how he died, but expressed relief the final suspected killer was no longer on the loose.
“This evening our province is breathing a collective sigh of relief,” Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan, said at a news conference Wednesday night.
The other suspect, Sanderson’s 30-year-old brother, Damien Sanderson, was found dead Monday near the scene of the bloody knife attacks inside and around the James Smith Cree First Nation reserve early Sunday. Both men were residents of the Indigenous reserve.
Blackmore said Myles Sanderson was cornered as police units responded to a report of a stolen vehicle being driven by a man armed with a knife. She said officers forced Sanderson’s vehicle off the road and into a ditch. He was detained and a knife was found inside the vehicle, she said.
Sanderson went into medical distress while in custody, Blackmore said. She said CPR was attempted on him before an ambulance arrived, and emergency medical personnel then took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“All life saving measures that we are capable of were taken at that time,” she said.
Blackmore gave no details on the cause of death. “I can’t speak to the specific manner of death,” she said.
But an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier said Sanderson died of self-inflicted injuries, without giving any further details.
Video and photos from the scene showed a white SUV off to the side of the road with police cars all around. Air bags had deployed in the SUV. Some photos and video taken from a distance appeared to show Sanderson being frisked.
An independent investigation by members of Saskatchewan’s Serious Incident Response Team went to the arrest site and will review Sanderson’s death and police conduct.
The federal public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, also stressed that the events will be investigated.
“You have questions. We have questions,” he told reporters during a Cabinet retreat in Vancouver, British Columbia, adding: “There will be two levels of police who will be investigating the circumstances of Myles Sanderson’s death.”
His death came two days after the body of Damien Sanderson was found in a field near the scene of the knife rampage. Police are investigating whether Myles Sanderson killed his brother.
Blackmore said that with both men dead, authorities will find it hard to figure out what set off the rampage.
“Now that Myles is deceased we may never have an understanding of that motivation,” she said.
But she said she hoped the families of the stabbing victims will find some comfort that neither of the Sandersons remains a threat.
“I hope that this brings them closure. I hope they can rest easy knowing that Myles Sanderson is no longer a threat to them.”
Some family members of the victims arrived at the scene Wednesday, including Brian Burns, whose wife and son were killed..
“Now we can start to heal. The healing begins today, now,” he said.
The stabbings raised questions of why Myles Sanderson — an ex-con with 59 convictions and a long history of shocking violence — was out on the streets in the first place.
He was released by a parole board in February while serving a sentence of over four years on charges that included assault and robbery. But he had been wanted by police since May, apparently for violating the terms of his release, though the details were not immediately clear.
His long and lurid rap sheet also showed that seven years ago, he attacked and stabbed one of the victims killed in Sunday’s stabbings, according to court records.
Mendicino, the public safety minister, has said there will be an investigation into the parole board’s assessment of Sanderson.
“I want to know the reasons behind the decision” to release him, Mendicino said. “I’m extremely concerned with what occurred here. A community has been left reeling.”
The Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service said nine of those killed were from the James Smith Cree Nation: Thomas Burns, 23; Carol Burns, 46; Gregory Burns, 28; Lydia Gloria Burns, 61; Bonnie Burns, 48; Earl Burns, 66; Lana Head, 49; Christian Head, 54; and Robert Sanderson, 49. The other victim was from Weldon, 78-year-old Wesley Patterson.
Authorities would not say if the victims might be related.
Mark Arcand said his half sister Bonnie and her son Gregory were killed.
“Her son was lying there already deceased. My sister went out and tried to help her son, and she was stabbed two times, and she died right beside him,” he said. “Right outside of her home she was killed by senseless acts. She was protecting her son. She was protecting three little boys. This is why she is a hero.”
Arcand rushed to the reserve the morning of the rampage. After that, he said, “I woke up in the middle of the night just screaming and yelling. What I saw that day I can’t get out of my head.”
As for what set off the violence, Arcand said: “We’re all looking for those same answers. We don’t know what happened. Maybe we’ll never know. That’s the hardest part of this.”
Court documents said Sanderson attacked his in-laws Earl Burns and Joyce Burns in 2015, knifing Earl Burns repeatedly and wounding Joyce Burns. He later pleaded guilty to assault and threatening Earl Burns’ life.
Many of Sanderson’s crimes were committed when he was intoxicated, according to court records. He told parole officials at one point that substance use made him out of his mind. Records showed he repeatedly violated court orders barring him from drinking or using drugs.
Many of Canada’s Indigenous communities are plagued by drugs and alcohol.
Myles Sanderson’s childhood was marked by violence, neglect and substance abuse, court records show. Sanderson, who is Indigenous and was raised on the Cree reserve, population 1,900, started drinking and smoking marijuana at around 12, and cocaine followed soon after.
In 2017, he barged into his ex-girlfriend’s home, punched a hole in the door of a bathroom while his two children were hiding in a bathtub and threw a cement block at a vehicle parked outside, according to parole documents.
He got into a fight a few days later at a store, threatening to kill an employee and burn down his parents’ home, documents said.
That November he threatened an accomplice into robbing a fast-food restaurant by clubbing him with a gun and stomping on his head. He then stood watch during the holdup.
In 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork while drinking and beat someone unconscious.
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| 2022-09-21T03:19:30Z
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BURR RIDGE, Ill. (WGNTV) — Several dozen of the migrants Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent to Chicago have now been relocated to a hotel in the suburbs without advance warning to the local mayor.
“I am concerned neither the village administrator nor I were told about this,” Gary Grasso, mayor of Burr Ridge, Illinois, told WGN. “We want to know: Why Burr Ridge?”
Just days ago, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blasted Abbott for treating the migrants like “cargo” and not providing her with advance notice they were arriving.
“My frustration comes from the actions of the governor of Texas,” Lightfoot said Sunday, when the first bus load of 50 migrants arrived. “There could be a level of coordination and cooperation, but he chooses to do none of those things and instead tries to send human beings — not cargo, not freight — human beings across the country to an uncertain destination.”
On Wednesday, a group of 75 more migrants arrived in Chicago from Texas.
Democratic politicians including Lightfoot, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have vowed to welcome the migrants and provide a full range of services to meet their immediate needs.
Chicago is a so-called sanctuary city and so is Cook County. Local officials have passed laws meant to protect immigrants from deportation. However, the portion of Burr Ridge where many of the migrants are staying is actually in DuPage County.
While campaigning for Congress, Grasso said he would work to secure the border and “defund sanctuary cities.” However, Grasso noted his village board had not taken a position on sanctuary cities.
Grasso said he only became aware of the migrants’ arrival in his village after residents began alerting village officials. He has since been invited to an online meeting with state officials.
At a Thursday morning event, Pritzker did not specifically address the location of the migrants but criticized Texas officials for treating them like cattle.
“What the governor of Texas is doing is disgusting and it needs to stop,” Pritzker said. “It shouldn’t be that the governor of Texas is taking these people and treating them like cattle, treating them like property, putting them on buses and sending them wherever he wants to send them.”
The governor’s spokesperson issued the following statement:
The state is working with our partners at the City of Chicago and Cook County along with advocacy organizations to welcome those seeking asylum in the United States and provide them stability as they work to build a new life in Illinois. The state has a prior relationship with the hotel being used in the suburbs and their staff has done amazing work welcoming refugees and asylum seekers before, so it is interesting that local officials are choosing this specific instance to gripe to the press about this specific group of asylum seekers that consists of about 30 families. Gov. Pritzker has made it clear that Illinois is welcoming state and xenophobia has no home here.
Jordan Abudayyeh
Press Secretary, Office of Gov. JB Pritzker
A spokesperson for Lightfoot did not immediately respond to request for comments.
Lightfoot has previously said most of the migrants who have arrived here are from Venezuela. Authorities have not said when they arrived in the U.S.
Abbott has now bused immigrants to Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. — all of which have Democratic mayors.
He suggested the policy would continue, saying in a previous statement that Chicago has become a drop-off location as a solution to what he called President Joe Biden’s “open border policies overwhelming border communities in Texas.”
Lightfoot said Chicago-area governments and community groups have been preparing for weeks in case Abbott sent migrants here.
She called the policy “racist and xenophobic.”
“He is manufacturing a crisis,” Lightfoot said last week. “If it continues, we will be ready.”
On Thursday night, Illinois GOP candidate for governor Darren Bailey released the following statement.
“No city can handle this on their own, but Illinoisans are doing what we always do and helping those who need help. The failures lie with J.B. Pritzker and his pal Joe Biden who has created a crisis at the border. Pritzker should demand that Biden secure the border and in the meantime, provide the resources to care for these people. If J.B. won’t do that, he should put them in one of his Hyatt’s on his own dime.”
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| 2022-09-21T03:19:38Z
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(WJW) — Is it possible for the megalodon, a massive prehistoric shark, to return after 3 million years? For a few minutes, researchers with the Atlantic Shark Institute thought just that.
In a post on Instagram, the institute shared a scanner image that stunned them during a recent research trip.
Their fish finder showed what appeared to be a megalodon under their boat for several minutes.
“Based on the length of the image we estimated the ‘Meg’ to be about 50 feet long, weighing in at 40 tons!” the post said.
The researchers threw their lines in the water in hopes of a bite, but the shape changed. It turned out to be a school of mackerel, which stuck around for about 15 minutes, the institute said.
“So close, but so far!” the post said. “The Megalodon (Otodus megalodon), disappeared more than 3 million years ago and will likely stay that way, but, for a few minutes, we thought he had returned!”
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| 2022-09-21T03:19:46Z
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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida HOA president turned himself in after authorities said he installed a hidden camera inside a woman’s bedroom while she was out of state.
Authorities said 59-year-old Robert Orr, who served as the President of the Las Brisas Condominium Association in Flagler County, installed a hidden video camera inside a condo without the owner’s permission.
Deputies said the camera was focused on the master bedroom.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office first found out about the hidden camera on Aug. 30, after a woman staying at the condo discovered a USB camera hidden inside a flower pot in the master bedroom.
The sheriff’s office said the USB device had a video of two people in various stages of undress inside the condo, including the woman who filed the report and a man who was also staying in the condo.
Deputies said the device also had videos of Orr testing the camera inside his own condo before it was placed in the flower pot.
“This pervert installed video cameras in a condo that he was a caretaker for so that he could view people inside without their knowledge or consent,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said. “It’s a disgusting invasion of privacy.”
The condo owner told detectives her condo is usually unoccupied but she allows people to stay there at times as guests. The owner said Orr was allowed to enter the condo to check on its condition while she was out state.
A search warrant for Orr’s residence later uncovered several other spy cameras along with “other kinds of electronic devices,” deputies said.
“I’m urging anyone who has allowed Orr unsupervised access into their home to check for secret recording devices and to contact us right away if they find anything suspicious,” Sheriff Staly added. “At this time, the evidence suggests that Robert Orr acted alone.”
Orr ultimately turned himself in at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility on Tuesday. He was booked on four counts of video voyeurism and later released after posting $20,000 bond.
Orr has no prior criminal record in Flagler County.
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| 2022-09-21T03:19:53Z
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(NewsNation) — A 16-year-old football player was set to start school Wednesday at Olympia High School in Washington State. Instead, he sits in a juvenile detention center, accused of murder.
It’s a case full of twists and turns that police say include the suspect faking his own disappearance and being threatened by a biker gang, as well as the alleged murder itself.
One week ago, Gabriel Davies was due at football practice. When he didn’t show, police started an all-out search.
Within the next 24 hours, they found his abandoned truck with blood inside and Davies’ shattered cellphone nearby, but no Davies.
He was later found about three miles away, walking, with no shirt or shoes. Davies said he couldn’t remember what happened to him. But he quickly went from a missing person to the center of a murder investigation.
Police say he faked his disappearance to evade being captured, and they were already piecing together what they say really happened.
Daniel McCaw, 51, didn’t show up to work for four days. Police did a well-being check and found him dead. The medical examiner says he was shot and stabbed to death.
Davies and one of his 16-year-old friends, Justin Yoon, were spotted on McCaw’s home camera, going inside the house through a doggie door.
They are being charged with first- and second-degree murder, first-degree burglary and two counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. Both are being charged as adults and being held on $1 million bonds.
But this is where the case takes even more bizarre turns. It turns out Davies’ mother had a relationship with McCaw, and he and his mother lived with McCaw for a while. Davies’ father contacted police, saying his son was forced into the crime.
The father said that his son was approached by the victim’s “biker buddies” to steal something from the victim’s residence. He further stated that they threatened his son with harm if he didn’t do it.
Davies’ father says his son plotted to steal the object, but McCaw came home early. That’s when he said Yoon shot McCaw while Davies was trying to open the safe to get what they came for.
After the crime, the biker buddies allegedly came looking for what they wanted, roughing him up when they couldn’t find it.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:00Z
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(WXIN) – HBO will once again have to digitally tweak a scene from a George R.R. Martin series due to a goof that somehow got past editors and showrunners.
In Sunday night’s episode of “The House of the Dragon,” some eagle-eyed fans noticed King Viserys was sporting some extra green on his hand.
It wasn’t an opulent emerald ring. Instead, it was a green wrapping left on two of his fingers.
In the series, King Viserys, played by Paddy Considine, is missing those fingers after a wound he received from his iron throne (irony, anyone?) became infected.
Those digits were presumably meant to be digit-ally removed in post-production.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO will correct the scene and release the revised version on HBO Max this week.
“House of the Dragon” is a prequel to “Game of Thrones” centered on the Targaryen dynasty, about 200 years before Daenerys Targaryen claimed her stake for the iron throne.
In 2019, a scene from “Game of Thrones” featured another gaffe as a Starbucks cup was visible in a scene during the show’s final season.
A tweet from the show’s official Twitter page later addressed the mistake, jokingly saying, “The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. #Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea.”
The cup was edited out days after the episode’s debut.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:08Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — Here’s a deeper look into one of the many shootings that occurred during Wednesday’s rampage in Memphis, Tennessee, which left four dead and three injured. It was an ordinary day at an AutoZone store — until the clock struck 4:49 p.m.
In an exclusive video obtained by WREG, that’s when suspect Ezekiel Kelly is seen on camera entering the store, according to officials. Once inside, Kelly reportedly live streamed himself shooting at an innocent bystander, later identified as Rodolfo Berger.
His family said he went there to buy some parts and was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Surveillance video appears to show Kelly exiting the store a second after the shooting and driving away. Moments later, several people are seen running to his aid, including a person named Adolfo.
“He was in a lot of pain,” said Adolfo. “He allowed my pastor’s dad to pray with him and he was very concerned about his family. He kept on asking us if we’re getting ahold of his family.”
Berger ended up being taken to the hospital in critical condition. His family tells WREG he had to undergo two surgeries and is now in stable condition.
In a statement posted on social media, his wife Fabiola said in part, “God is a comforter. He is in charge, and we are faithful to him. We are glad the police caught the shooter so he could not harm more people. Well done police department, we thank you.”
As Berger continues to recover, four other families are left planning funerals. It’s a reality that hits close to home for Memphians like Jasmine Pittman.
“It’s been other deaths around in this area and it just needs to be stopped, it really do. It really do need to be stopped,” Pittman said.
At this moment, suspect Kelly is only charged with one count of first-degree murder but that’s expected to change soon.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:16Z
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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA/NEXSTAR) – The death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday launched “Operation Unicorn,” a contingency plan included in “Operation London Bridge” in the event that the queen died in Scotland, not England.
Meticulous plans for the death, retirement or abdication of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch have been in the works for decades.
On Thursday, years of planning went into place after the queen died at the age of 96 at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, her private home and one of her favorite places. Leaked details from Operation Unicorn suggest that her coffin will rest at Balmoral before a lengthy procession by car to the Palace of Holyroodhouse two days after her death, The Guardian reports.
On the third day, the coffin is expected to be transported to St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh where it will stay for 24 hours, according to The Independent.
The following day, the Queen’s coffin will begin the journey back to London — either via a five-hour trip on the royal train or by plane as part of “Operation Overstudy.”
Once back in London, “Operation London Bridge,” also known by its code name “London Bridge Is Down,” will take over, according to Politico.
Operation London Bridge was set up in the 1960s and was updated several times each year, ensuring a smooth transition of the throne to her eldest son, Prince Charles, who is now king. The plans included a list of procedures and announcements of her death, the 10-day period of official mourning, and the details of her state funeral.
Leaked details of the plan indicated that following Elizabeth’s death, her private secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, would be the first official to convey the news, according to The Guardian. Geidt would then contact the prime minister over a secure telephone line using the code phrase “London Bridge.” If the prime minister was not awake, civil servants would say “London Bridge is down.”
From there the news would be communicated to 15 governments outside the U.K. where the queen is the head of state and 36 other nations of the Commonwealth.
“For a time, she will be gone without our knowing it,” the Guardian report added. “The information will travel like the compressional wave ahead of an earthquake, detectable only by special equipment.”
The report stated that an announcement would be made to the Press Association and the rest of the world’s media simultaneously, but news of the queen’s death Thursday first appeared on the Twitter account of the royal family, according to the New York Times.
The palace website was transformed into a somber, single-page announcement of her death at Balmoral. The page, black with white lettering and a vignetted portrait of the queen, reads at the bottom, “The official website of the Royal Family is temporarily unavailable while appropriate changes are made.”
Parliamentary business was suspended immediately on Thursday to allow authorities to prepare for a funeral, which will take place in less than two weeks, the BBC reports.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:31Z
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LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday after 70 years on the throne. She was 96.
The palace announced she died at Balmoral Castle, her summer residence in Scotland, where members of the royal family had rushed to her side after her health took a turn for the worse.
A link to the almost-vanished generation that fought World War II, she was the only monarch most Britons have ever known.
Her 73-year-old son Prince Charles automatically becomes king, though the coronation might not take place for months. It was not immediately known whether he will call himself King Charles III or some other name.
The BBC played the national anthem, “God Save the Queen,” over a portrait of her in full regalia as her death was announced, and the flag over Buckingham Palace was lowered to half-staff as the second Elizabethan age came to a close.
The impact of her loss will be huge and unpredictable, both for the nation and for the monarchy, an institution she helped stabilize and modernize across decades of huge social change and family scandals.
In a statement, Charles called the death of his mother “a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family,” adding: “I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.”
World leaders extended condolences and paid tribute to the queen.
In Canada, where the British monarch is the country’s head of state, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saluted her “wisdom, compassion and warmth.” In India, once the “jewel in the crown” of the British empire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “She provided inspiring leadership to her nation and people. She personified dignity and decency in public life. Pained by her demise.”
British Prime Minister Liz Truss, appointed by the queen just 48 hours earlier, pronounced the country “devastated” and called Elizabeth “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”
The queen’s life was indelibly marked by the war. As Princess Elizabeth, she made her first public broadcast in 1940 when she was 14, sending a wartime message to children evacuated to the countryside or overseas.
“We children at home are full of cheerfulness and courage,” she said with a blend of stoicism and hope that would echo throughout her reign. “We are trying to do all we can to help out gallant soldiers, sailors and airmen. And we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well.”
Since Feb. 6, 1952, Elizabeth reigned over a Britain that rebuilt from war and lost its empire; joined the European Union and then left it; and transformed from industrial powerhouse to uncertain 21st century society. She endured through 15 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Truss, becoming an institution and an icon — a fixed point and a reassuring presence even for those who ignored or loathed the monarchy.
She became less visible in her final years as age and frailty curtailed many public appearances. But she remained firmly in control of the monarchy and at the center of national life as Britain celebrated her Platinum Jubilee with days of parties and pageants in June 2022.
The same month she became the second longest-reigning monarch in history, behind 17th-century French King Louis XIV, who took the throne at age 4. On Tuesday, she presided at a ceremony at Balmoral Castle to accept the resignation of Boris Johnson as prime minister and appoint Truss as his successor.
When Elizabeth was 21, almost five years before she became queen, she promised the people of Britain and the Commonwealth that “my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.”
It was a promise she kept across more than seven decades.
Despite Britain’s complex and often fraught ties with its former colonies, Elizabeth was widely respected and remained head of state of more than a dozen countries, from Canada to Tuvalu. She headed the 54-nation Commonwealth, built around Britain and its former colonies.
Married for more than 73 years to Prince Philip, who died in 2021 at age 99, Elizabeth was matriarch to a royal family whose troubles were a subject of global fascination — amplified by fictionalized accounts such as TV series “The Crown.” She is survived by four children, eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Through countless public events, she probably met more people than anyone in history. Her image, which adorned stamps, coins and banknotes, was among the most reproduced in the world.
But her inner life and opinions remained mostly an enigma. Of her personality, the public saw relatively little. A horse owner, she rarely seemed happier than during the Royal Ascot racing week. She never tired of the companionship of her beloved Welsh corgi dogs.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born in London on April 21, 1926, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York. She was not born to be queen — her father’s elder brother, Prince Edward, was destined for the crown, to be followed by any children he had.
But in 1936, when she was 10, Edward VIII abdicated to marry twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson, and Elizabeth’s father became King George VI.
Princess Margaret recalled asking her sister whether this meant that Elizabeth would one day be queen. ”’Yes, I suppose it does,‘” Margaret quoted Elizabeth as saying. “She didn’t mention it again.”
Elizabeth was barely in her teens when Britain went to war with Germany in 1939. While the king and queen stayed at Buckingham Palace during the Blitz and toured the bombed-out neighborhoods of London, Elizabeth and Margaret spent most of the war at Windsor Castle, west of the capital. Even there, 300 bombs fell in an adjacent park, and the princesses spent many nights in an underground shelter.
In 1945, after months of campaigning for her parents’ permission to do something for the war effort, the heir to the throne became Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She enthusiastically learned to drive and service heavy vehicles.
On the night the war ended in Europe, May 8, 1945, she and Margaret managed to mingle, unrecognized, with celebrating crowds in London — “swept along on a tide of happiness and relief,” as she told the BBC decades later, describing it as “one of the most memorable nights of my life.”
At Westminster Abbey in November 1947 she married Royal Navy officer Philip Mountbatten, a prince of Greece and Denmark whom she had first met in 1939 when she was 13 and he 18. Postwar Britain was experiencing austerity and rationing, and so street decorations were limited and no public holiday was declared. But the bride was allowed 100 extra ration coupons for her trousseau.
The couple lived for a time in Malta, where Philip was stationed, and Elizabeth enjoyed an almost-normal life as a navy wife. The first of their four children, Prince Charles, was born on Nov. 14, 1948. He was followed by Princess Anne on Aug. 15, 1950, Prince Andrew on Feb. 19, 1960, and Prince Edward on March 10, 1964.
In February 1952, George VI died in his sleep at age 56 after years of ill health. Elizabeth, on a visit to Kenya, was told that she was now queen.
Her private secretary, Martin Charteris, later recalled finding the new monarch at her desk, “sitting erect, no tears, color up a little, fully accepting her destiny.”
“In a way, I didn’t have an apprenticeship,” Elizabeth reflected in a BBC documentary in 1992 that opened a rare view into her emotions. “My father died much too young, and so it was all a very sudden kind of taking on, and making the best job you can.”
Her coronation took place more than a year later, a grand spectacle at Westminster Abbey viewed by millions through the still-new medium of television.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s first reaction to the king’s death was to complain that the new queen was “only a child,” but he was won over within days and eventually became an ardent admirer.
In Britain’s constitutional monarchy, the queen is head of state but has little direct power; in her official actions she does what the government orders. However, she was not without influence. She once reportedly commented that there was nothing she could do legally to block the appointment of a bishop, “but I can always say that I should like more information. That is an indication that the prime minister will not miss.”
The extent of the monarch’s political influence occasionally sparked speculation — but not much criticism while Elizabeth was alive. The views of Charles, who has expressed strong opinions on everything from architecture to the environment, might prove more contentious.
She was obliged to meet weekly with the prime minister, and they generally found her well-informed, inquisitive and up to date. The one possible exception was Margaret Thatcher, with whom her relations were said to be cool, if not frosty, though neither woman ever commented.
The queen’s views in those private meetings became a subject of intense speculation and fertile ground for dramatists like Peter Morgan, author of the play “The Audience” and the hit TV series “The Crown.” Those semi-fictionalized accounts were the product of an era of declining deference and rising celebrity, when the royal family’s troubles became public property.
And there were plenty of troubles within the family, an institution known as “The Firm.” In Elizabeth’s first years on the throne, Princess Margaret provoked a national controversy through her romance with a divorced man.
In what the queen called the “annus horribilis” of 1992, her daughter, Princess Anne, was divorced, Prince Charles and Princess Diana separated, and so did Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah. That was also the year Windsor Castle, a residence she far preferred to Buckingham Palace, was seriously damaged by fire.
The public split of Charles and Diana — “There were three of us in that marriage,” Diana said of her husband’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles — was followed by the shock of Diana’s death in a Paris car crash in 1997. For once, the queen appeared out of step with her people.
Amid unprecedented public mourning, Elizabeth’s failure to make a public show of grief appeared to many to be unfeeling. After several days, she finally made a televised address to the nation.
The dent in her popularity was brief. She was by now a sort of national grandmother, with a stern gaze and a twinkling smile.
Despite being one of the world’s wealthiest people, Elizabeth had a reputation for frugality and common sense. She was known as a monarch who turned off lights in empty rooms, a country woman who didn’t flinch from strangling pheasants.
A newspaper reporter who went undercover to work as a palace footman reinforced that down-to-earth image, capturing pictures of the royal Tupperware on the breakfast table and a rubber duck in the bath.
Her sangfroid was not dented when a young man aimed a pistol at her and fired six blanks as she rode by on a horse in 1981, nor when she discovered a disturbed intruder sitting on her bed in Buckingham Palace in 1982.
The image of the queen as an exemplar of ordinary British decency was satirized by the magazine Private Eye, which called her Brenda. Anti-monarchists dubbed her “Mrs. Windsor.” But the republican cause gained limited traction while the queen was alive.
On her Golden Jubilee in 2002, she said the country could “look back with measured pride on the history of the last 50 years.”
“It has been a pretty remarkable 50 years by any standards,” she said in a speech. “There have been ups and downs, but anyone who can remember what things were like after those six long years of war appreciates what immense changes have been achieved since then.”
A reassuring presence at home, she was also an emblem of Britain abroad — a form of soft power, consistently respected whatever the vagaries of the country’s political leaders on the world stage. It felt only fitting that she attended the opening of the 2012 London Olympics alongside another icon, James Bond. Through some movie magic, she appeared to parachute into the Olympic Stadium.
In 2015, she overtook her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years, seven months and two days to become the longest-serving monarch in British history. She kept working into her 10th decade, though Prince Charles and his elder son, Prince William, increasingly took over the visits, ribbon-cuttings and investitures that form the bulk of royal duties.
The loss of Philip in 2021 was a heavy blow, as she poignantly sat alone at his funeral in the chapel at Windsor Castle because of coronavirus restrictions.
And the family troubles continued. Her son Prince Andrew was entangled in the sordid tale of sex offender businessman Jeffrey Epstein, an American businessman who had been a friend. Andrew denied accusations that he had sex with one of the women who said she was trafficked by Epstein.
The queen’s grandson Prince Harry walked away from Britain and his royal duties after marrying American actress Meghan Markle in 2018. He alleged in an interview that some in the family -– but pointedly not the queen -– had been less than welcoming to his wife.
She enjoyed robust health well into her 90s, although she used a cane in an appearance after Philip’s death. In October 2021, she spent a night in a London hospital for tests after canceling a trip to Northern Ireland.
A few months later, she told guests at a reception “as you can see, I can’t move.” The palace, tight-lipped about details, said the queen was experiencing “episodic mobility issues.”
She held virtual meetings with diplomats and politicians from Windsor Castle, but public appearances grew rarer. The queen withdrew from fixtures of the royal calendar, including Remembrance Sunday and Commonwealth Day ceremonies, though she attended a memorial service last March for Philip at Westminster Abbey.
Meanwhile, she took steps to prepare for the transition to come. In February, the queen announced that she wanted Charles’ wife Camilla to be known as “Queen Consort” when “in the fullness of time” her son became king. It removed a question mark over the role of the woman some blamed for the breakup of Charles’ marriage to Princess Diana in the 1990s.
May brought another symbolic moment, when she asked Charles to stand in for her and read the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament, one of the monarch’s most central constitutional duties.
Seven decades after World War II, Elizabeth was again at the center of the national mood amid the uncertainty and loss of COVID-19 — a disease she came through herself in February.
In April 2020 — with the country in lockdown and Prime Minister Boris Johnson hospitalized with the virus — she made a rare video address, urging people to stick together.
She summoned the spirit of World War II, that vital time in her life, and the nation’s, by echoing Vera Lynn’s wartime anthem “We’ll Meet Again.”
“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return. We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again. We will meet again,” she said.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:38Z
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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Some retailers are taking lobster off the menu after an assessment from an influential conservation group that the seafood poses too much of a risk to rare whales and should be avoided.
Whales can suffer injuries and fatalities when they become entangled in the gear that connects to lobster traps on the ocean floor. Seafood Watch, which rates the sustainability of different seafoods, said this week it has added the American and Canadian lobster fisheries to its “red list” of species to avoid.
The organization, based at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, said in a report that the fishing industry is a danger to North Atlantic right whales because “current management measures do not go far enough to mitigate entanglement risks and promote recovery of the species.”
Thousands of businesses use Seafood Watch’s recommendations to inform seafood buying decisions, and many have pledged to avoid any items that appear on the red list. A spokesperson for Blue Apron, the New York meal kit retailer, said after the release of the report that the company no longer offers lobster. HelloFresh, the Germany-based meal kit company that is the largest such company operating in the U.S., also pledged shortly after the announcement to stop selling lobster.
“HelloFresh is committed to responsible sourcing and follows guidelines from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program,” said Saskia Leisewitz, a spokesperson for HelloFresh.
Seafood Watch assigns ratings of “best choice,” “good alternative” and “avoid” to more than 2,000 seafood items based on how sustainably they are managed. The organization’s recommendations have been influential in the past, such as when it red-listed the Louisiana shrimp fishery, prompting efforts to better protect sea turtles. The fishery was later removed from the red list.
The lobster fishing industry has come under scrutiny from Seafood Watch because of the threat of entanglement in fishing gear. The North Atlantic right whales number less than 340 and entanglement is one of the two biggest threats they face, along with collisions with ships, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other groups have said. The population of the giant animals, which were decimated during the commercial whaling era generations ago, has fallen in recent years.
Members of the lobster fishing industry, which is also coping with increased federal fishing restrictions to protect the whales, pushed back against the Seafood Watch rating. The lobster industry in Maine, where most of the U.S.’s lobster comes to land, has not had a documented interaction with a right whale in almost two decades, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
“Lobster is one of the most sustainable fisheries in the world due to the effective stewardship practices handed down through generations of lobstermen. These include strict protections for both the lobster resource and right whales,” McCarron said.
American and Canadian lobster fishermen target the same species, the American lobster, which is popular as live seafood and in processed products such as lobster rolls and lobster ravioli. The vast majority of the world’s American lobster comes to the shore in New England and eastern Canada, and the crustaceans are both a key piece of the economy and a cultural marker in both places.
The U.S. lobster fishery is also one of the most lucrative in the country and was worth more than $900 million at the docks in 2021, when fishermen caught more than 130 million pounds (59 million kilograms) of the crustaceans.
Seafood Watch partners with numerous major seafood buyers on its recommendations. Some of the buyers, such as Compass Group and Cheesecake Factory, did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. A spokesperson for one, Mars Petcare, said the company doesn’t have lobster in its supply chain.
Environmental groups said Seafood Watch’s decision places a spotlight on the fishery and the need to do more to protect whales.
“Fishery managers must increase protections to save North Atlantic right whales so seafood retailers, consumers, and restaurants can put American lobster and crab back on the menu,” Oceana campaign director Gib Brogan said.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:46Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon surrendered Thursday to face state money laundering and conspiracy charges in New York alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.
Prosecutors say that while Bannon promised donors all the money they gave would go to building the wall, he was involved in funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to two other people involved in the scheme. The indictment didn’t identify those people by name, but the details match those of Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in April.
Bannon’s state-level charges in New York stem from the same alleged conduct as an attempted federal prosecution that ended abruptly, before trial, when Trump pardoned Bannon on his last day in office. Manhattan prosecutors also charged WeBuildTheWall, Inc., a nonprofit entity that Bannon and others allegedly used to solicit donations.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses. In Bannon’s case, any double jeopardy argument would likely fall flat because his federal case didn’t involve an acquittal or conviction.
Bannon, 68, arrived at the Manhattan district attorney’s office shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday.
“This is an irony,” Bannon told reporters as he entered the building.
“On the very day the mayor of this city has a delegation down on the border, they are persecuting people here, that try to stop them at the border,” he said, referring to a recent trip by New York City officials to Texas.
“This is all about 60 days from the day,” he said, referring to the upcoming national election in November.
In an earlier, written statement, Bannon accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of pursing “phony charges” against him ahead of the midterm election, saying the Democratic prosecutor targeted him because Bannon and his radio show are popular among Trump’s Republican supporters.
Bannon said federal prosecutors “did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election,” referring to his arrest months before Trump’s reelection loss. “This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James planned a 1 p.m. news conference to discuss the charges against Bannon.
In 2020, federal agents pulled Bannon from a luxury yacht off the Connecticut coast and arrested him on charges he pocketed more than $1 million in wall donations. Prosecutors alleged thousands of investors were tricked into thinking all of their donations would go toward the border wall project, although Bannon instead paid a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself.
The states of Texas and Arizona recently began busing asylum-seekers to New York and Washington D.C. in an attempt to ratchet up political pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration to stop people from crossing into their states from Mexico. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently dispatched a fact-finding team to Texas, partly to find out whether migrants were getting on the buses voluntarily.
While the wall Bannon’s group proposed was to be built on the U.S. southern border, more than 1,000 miles from the Big Apple, Manhattan prosecutors have jurisdiction to pursue charges against Bannon because some donors to the effort lived in New York.
Federal prosecutors, in the trial of a former Bannon co-defendant, noted that some residents of the New York City area had donated to the wall-building project. One witness that testified was an official with the charities bureau of the New York attorney general’s office who said that a charity backing the wall project had filed paperwork to accept donations in the state. The attorney general’s office is also involved in Bannon’s state criminal case.
Bannon, who had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, was dropped from the federal case when Trump pardoned him.
Kolfage and Badolato had been scheduled to be sentenced this week, but that was recently postponed to December. A third defendant’s trial ended in a mistrial in June after jurors said they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
In another case not covered by Trump’s pardon, Bannon was convicted in July on contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces up to two years in federal prison.
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| 2022-09-21T03:20:53Z
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DENVER (KDVR) — The next full moon will arrive later this week. This moon is called the Harvest Moon, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
The full Harvest Moon will appear after sunset on Friday and reach its peak around 5:58 a.m. EST on Saturday, the Farmer’s Almanac said.
The harvest moon is the full moon that falls closest to the autumnal equinox, when day and night are most evenly split. The day traditionally marks the start of fall and cool temperatures, a change that residents of the West fondly daydreamed about this week as temperatures soared well over 100 degrees in many places.
The equinox for the southern hemisphere happens March 20 or 21.
The Harvest Moon is said to look larger and and have an orange glow, an optical illusion attributable to observing the full moon near the horizon, according to John Percy, professor at Toronto University’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The color can be attributed to bluer wavelengths of light getting lost over the moon’s longer path. Dust or pollution can also saturate any reddish tones.
Here are some other names the September full moon has been called:
- Autumn moon
- Falling leaves moon
- Leaves turning moon
- Moon of brown leaves
- Yellow leaf moon
- Rutting moon
At the peak of harvest, the almanac said farmers can work late into the night by the light of the Harvest Moon.
The next full moon will arrive on October 9. It is called the Hunter’s Moon.
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| 2022-09-21T03:21:01Z
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(NEXSTAR) – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday afternoon at her estate in Scotland, following a reign lasting over 70 years.
“The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,” Buckingham Palace announced Thursday. “The King and Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”
The king and queen consort, as mentioned in the palace’s announcement, refer to Britain’s newest monarch, King Charles III, and his wife Camilla.
But despite the immediate ascension of a new monarch, reminders of Elizabeth’s reign — including postage stamps, the royal cypher (a monogram-like design emblazoned on government buildings, documents and post boxes) and even mentions of her name in popular song, like the national anthem (which, technically, has already reverted to “God Save the King”) — will persist well beyond her death.
The Bank of England’s banknotes, too, currently feature portraits of Elizabeth on the obverse of each bill. In fact, Elizabeth was the first monarch to have her face on the banknotes, beginning with the release of the Bank of England’s Series C notes in 1960.
For more than 60 years, and through several revisions and issues, Elizabeth’s portrait, facing left, has appeared on the front of the bills, with portraits of other prominent British historical figures on the reverse — a different figure for each bill. Elizabeth’s face also appears as a watermark, albeit smaller, on the left of the notes.
But tradition stipulates that this, too, could soon change, as new banknotes in an upcoming series may feature Charles’ likeness instead. But the Bank of England has yet to announce plans for such a change, only saying that a future announcement on “existing” banknotes is forthcoming, per a statement released shortly after the queen’s passing.
If indeed the bank decides on a new series of notes featuring Charles, those bills may take years to become commonplace, according to The Guardian, which estimates there are currently 4.5 billion pounds sterling (in banknotes and coinage) featuring Elizabeth’s likeness in circulation.
Coinage in the U.K. monetary system, meanwhile, has long featured the ruling monarch’s face, and the British Monarchy has made no indication that the Royal Mint (which is in charge of coinage) would interrupt tradition. They did note, however, that each subsequent monarch is depicted facing the opposite direction of their predecessor, meaning any coins with Charles’ likeness would likely face to the left. (Elizabeth’s likeness on coinage faces to the right.) There was one relatively recent exception in King Edward VIII, who preferred “portraits of himself facing to the left,” according to Royal.uk.
It’s unclear if money featuring Elizabeth’s likeness will cease to be printed/minted, or even slow, in coming months. The Bank of England is declining to comment on plans for upcoming notes, saying only that “a further announcement regarding existing Bank of England banknotes will be made once the period of mourning has been observed.”
“As the first monarch to feature on Bank of England banknotes, the Queen’s iconic portraits are synonymous with some of the most important work we do,” reads a portion of the bank’s Thursday news release. “Current banknotes featuring the image of Her Majesty The Queen will continue to be legal tender.”
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Horseback riding with Ronald Reagan. Yachting with Bill Clinton. Sipping tea with Joe Biden.
Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday at age 96, had met every American president since Dwight Eisenhower, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson, who did not visit Britain during his presidency. Biden was the 13th and final U.S. president to meet the woman whose reign spanned seven decades.
Every living former U.S. president — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — joined Biden in mourning her passing and sending condolences to her family.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden said the queen’s “legacy will loom large in the pages of British history, and in the story of our world.”
Obama and his wife, Michelle, recalled the queen welcoming them, America’s first Black president and first lady, to the world stage “with open arms and extraordinary generosity.”
Biden first met the queen in 1982 as a U.S. senator traveling in the U.K. with a delegation from Congress. He last saw her in 2021, several months after he became president, while attending a world leaders’ summit in southwestern England.
She mingled with Group of Seven leaders at a reception that she and other royals hosted at an indoor rainforest. After the summit, the Bidens traveled to Windsor Castle, near London, at the queen’s invitation for a private audience.
The queen was a 25-year-old princess when she came to Washington in 1951 and stayed with President Harry Truman and his family. She met Herbert Hoover in 1957, more than 20 years after he left office.
Here are highlights of some of her meetings, on both sides of the pond, with past American presidents:
JOE BIDEN
Biden and his trademark aviator sunglasses met the queen at Windsor Castle on a sweltering afternoon in June 2021.
Biden emerged from a black car wearing his shades, stepped onto a covered dais where the queen waited, and, with his wife, posed with the queen as the two countries’ national anthems played.
After walking around the courtyard to inspect the honor guard, he entered the castle for tea.
Back at the airport, Biden told journalists that the queen was “very gracious” and had asked him about the leaders of China and Russia.
While it’s generally frowned upon to discuss one’s private talks with the queen, Biden continued.
“I don’t think she’ll be insulted, but she reminded me of my mother,” he said.
Biden said he also had invited the queen to visit the White House.
DONALD TRUMP
Trump and the queen met in July 2018 at Windsor Castle during a visit to Britain that drew large anti-Trump protests to downtown London, including the hoisting of a balloon depicting Trump in a diaper.
He was criticized for breaking protocol by briefly walking in front of the queen — instead of alongside her — and turning his back on her as they reviewed an honor guard.
Trump later said he thought of his late mother, Mary Anne, who was born in Scotland and who loved the royal family, when he and his wife, Melania, sipped tea with the queen.
Trump’s subsequent comment that the queen told him that Brexit — Britain’s break from the European Union — was complex also created a stir. Most heads of state don’t reveal their private conversations with the queen. She also doesn’t discuss political matters.
The Trumps and the royals met again during the D-Day commemoration in 2019.
BARACK OBAMA
Obama and the queen had their first of three meetings in April 2009 at a reception for world leaders attending the Group of 20 nations summit in London.
It was there that first lady Michelle Obama broke protocol by briefly putting an arm around the queen’s back as they commiserated about their achy feet. It’s generally a no-no to touch the queen, but she returned Mrs. Obama’s gesture.
The queen invited the Obamas for a state visit in 2011 that included a two-night stay at Buckingham Palace and a lavish banquet in the president’s honor.
As Obama delivered a toast to the queen, he didn’t miss a beat when the band assumed that a pause in his remarks meant he had concluded and launched into a rendition of “God Save the Queen.” Obama kept talking over the music until the band quieted down.
The couples saw each other again in 2016 when Obama visited the queen at Windsor Castle a day after her 90th birthday during another swing through Europe.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Bush detested stuffy, formal affairs, but he donned a white tie-and-tails tuxedo after the queen pulled out all the stops for a state dinner in his honor at Buckingham Palace in November 2003.
A few years later, Bush’s slip of the tongue generated ripples of laughter at a White House welcoming ceremony for the queen, who was touring the U.S. in May 2007.
Stumbling on a line in his speech, Bush said the queen had dined with several of his predecessors and had helped the United States “celebrate its bicentennial in 17- …” Bush caught himself and corrected the date to 1976, and paused to see if she had taken offense.
“She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child,” Bush said with a smile.
The queen later turned the tables on Bush with her toast at a dinner she hosted for the president at the British Embassy in Washington.
“I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, ‘When I was here in 1776,'” she said to laughter.
BILL CLINTON
The queen hosted Clinton and his wife, Hillary, aboard her royal yacht, Britannia, in June 1994.
The ship, 412 feet (125 meters) long and 55 feet (17 meters) wide, was docked at the Portsmouth Naval Base and was home base for the Clintons as they attended the queen’s dinner at Guildhall for leaders of Allied nations whose troops participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy 50 years earlier.
The Clintons spent one night aboard the boat. The next day, the Britannia ferried Clinton to the USS George Washington aircraft carrier as it prepared to sail across the English Channel, from Portsmouth to Normandy, for D-Day anniversary celebrations.
GEORGE H.W. BUSH
One of the more memorable images from the monarch’s third state visit to the U.S. came in 1991 when only her white-striped purple hat could be seen above the microphones when she spoke at an arrival ceremony on the White House grounds.
Someone forgot to adjust the lectern after the much taller Bush spoke.
The queen stayed strong and carried on, later making light of the incident as she opened an address to a joint meeting of Congress.
“I do hope you can see me today from where you are,” she deadpanned. Bush later apologized and said he felt badly for not pulling out a step for her to stand on.
RONALD REAGAN
Reagan and the queen bonded over a mutual love of horseback riding.
They rode side by side on an 8-mile (13-kilometers), hourlong tour on the grounds of Windsor Castle when Reagan visited her there in June 1982. Reagan was the first president to sleep over at the British royal family’s historic home, an 11th-century estate overlook the River Thames.
While in the U.S. in 1983, the monarch and Philip stayed with the president and first lady Nancy Reagan at their ranch in Santa Barbara, California. She wanted to ride horses again, but a rainstorm wouldn’t allow it. The Reagans served a lunch of regional staples, including enchiladas, chiles rellenos, refried beans, tacos, rice and guacamole.
They also hosted a state dinner for the queen in San Francisco at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.
JIMMY CARTER
The queen hosted Carter in May 1977 on his first overseas trip at a dinner for NATO leaders at Buckingham Palace. At one point, as Carter stood with the queen and other guests, he noticed the arrival of the queen mother.
Ever the Southern gentleman, Carter broke away, took her by the hand and escorted her to the assembled line of guests.
The no-frills Georgia peanut farmer-turned-president ate chicken mousse off a gold plate and seemed excited by his dinner seating between the queen and her sister, Princess Margaret, and across from her son, Prince Charles, Prince Philip and the queen mother.
GERALD FORD
Ford threw a gala state dinner for the Brits in 1976 to mark the bicentennial of the American Revolution. The queen was resplendent in a diamond-studded tiara that sparkled for a crowd that included diplomats, star athletes and celebrities such as Cary Grant and Julie Harris.
The mood evaporated when Ford led the queen to the dance floor while the song “The Lady Is a Tramp” echoed throughout the State Dining Room.
___
Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Nancy Benac in Washington and AP news researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T03:21:16Z
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No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry TRD News and Notes
- TRUEX AT TEXAS: Martin Truex Jr. has posted five top-five finishes and 17 top-10s in NASCAR Cup Series competition at Texas Motor Speedway. His 17 top-10s at Texas are his most at a track he has yet to win at. Last fall at Texas, Truex finished 25th after being involved in a late-race accident. In May, he finished 14th in the NASCAR All-Star Race.
- BRISTOL RECAP: Truex finished 36th in last weekend’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway after a power steering failure ended his night prematurely.
- BASS PRO SHOPS: A longtime supporter of Truex and NASCAR, Bass Pro Shops will be featured as the primary sponsor of the No. 19 Camry this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. Bass Pro Shops is North America’s premier outdoor and conservation company. Founded in 1972 when avid young angler Johnny Morris began selling tackle out of his father’s liquor store in Springfield, Missouri. Today the company provides customers with unmatched offerings spanning premier destination retail, outdoor equipment manufacturing, world-class resort destinations and more.
- JGR AT TEXAS: Joe Gibbs Racing owns nine NASCAR Cup Series wins at Texas Motor Speedway. In 128 combined starts at the 1.5-mile quad-oval, the organization has tallied 35 top-five finishes, 60 top-10s, five pole awards, and 2,212 laps led. Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, and Tony Stewart have all driven JGR entries to victory lane at Texas.
- TUNE IN: Coverage of this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway begins Sunday, September 25, at 3:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, PRN Radio, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Martin Truex Jr., Driver of the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry TRD
What do you expect going to Texas this weekend?
“I’m looking forward to the race. As a whole, I feel like the Toyotas have ran really well on these types of tracks, so if we can put a full race together, I have a lot of confidence in what we’re capable of.”
JGR PR
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NEW ALBANY, Ohio (AP) — President Joe Biden steered clear of partisan politics at Friday’s groundbreaking celebration for a huge new computer chip facility in Ohio — as a tough Senate contest in that state and a Democratic candidate seeking to distance himself from Biden reflected the challenge of translating White House policy wins into political gains.
Biden, a major force behind the legislation that helped lure Intel, went to suburban Columbus to take a victory lap just as voters in the state are starting to tune in to the Senate race between Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican author and venture capital executive JD Vance. They’re competing in a former swing state that has trended Republican over the past decade.
Ryan attended the event but raised questions in interviews about whether he thinks Biden should pursue re-election in 2024. Vance did not attend.
The president, in his speech, thanked Ryan for his leadership without mentioning his Senate candidacy, choosing instead to emphasize that the Intel plant serves as a model for a U.S. economy that revolves around technology, factories and the middle class.
“Folks, we need to make these chips right here in America to bring down everyday costs and create good jobs,” Biden said. “Industry leaders are choosing us, the United States, because they see America’s back and America’s leading the way.
Touring the construction site, the president chatted with unionized workers in hard hats and noted his own blue collar credentials, saying, “These are my people, where I come from.”
Intel had delayed groundbreaking on the $20 billion plant until Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. The plant speaks to how the president is trying to revive American manufacturing nationwide, including in states that are solidly Republican or political toss-ups. Investments for manufacturing facilities in Idaho, Arizona and North Carolina have also been announced in recent weeks.
Factory work is one of the few issues going into November’s midterm elections that has crossover appeal at a time when issues such as abortion, inflation and even the nature of democracy have dominated the contest to control Congress. Biden shared the stage on Friday with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. Rob Portman, two Republicans who stressed in their remarks the value the plant holds in a state with a working class identity.
Ryan, the Democrat vying to succeed Portman, did not take to the lectern even though he championed the computer chip plant. He had largely been hesitant to share a stage with Biden, as appearing with the country’s top Democrat could hurt his chances in a state that backed Republican Donald Trump by eight points in both 2016 and 2020.
Ryan skipped the president’s July 6 visit to Cleveland where Biden plugged his administration’s efforts to shore up troubled pension programs for blue-collar workers. Biden nonetheless referred to him as the “future Senator Tim Ryan” and thanked him for his “incredible work” on the legislation.
In a Thursday TV interview with Youngstown’s WFMJ on the eve of Biden’s visit, Ryan said he was “campaigning as an independent.” When asked if Biden should seek a second term, he said, “My hunch is that we need new leadership across the board, Democrats, Republicans, I think it’s time for like a generational move.”
Ryan, pressed Friday by reporters about his comments in the TV interview, said that Biden himself has said he “was going to be a bridge to the next generation, which is basically what I was saying.” Pressed if Biden should run in 2024, Ryan offered a noncommittal, “That’s up to him.”
The open Senate seat in Ohio is one of several hotly contested races that could determine whether Democrats can hold their slim majority in the chamber for the second half of Biden’s term.
Several Democrats in competitive races have at moments sought to maintain some distance from the president, whose public approval ratings have ticked up in recent weeks but remain underwater. Biden has tried to balance his bipartisan cheerleading with warnings that extremist Republican lawmakers who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election are a threat to democracy.
Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, hailed the Intel plant in a statement at as “a great bipartisan victory” for the state. He specifically applauded the “hard work” of GOP lawmakers including DeWine and Portman, but Vance pointedly made no mention of Biden.
The shortage of semiconductors has slashed into production of autos, household appliances and other goods. That has fueled high inflation, while creating national security risks as the U.S. has recognized it is overly dependent on Asia for chip production.
The mix of high prices and long waits for basic goods has left many Americans feeling disgruntled about Biden’s economic leadership, a political weakness that has lessened somewhat as gasoline prices have fallen and many voters have grown concerned about the loss of abortion protections after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The new law that convinced Intel to build the facility would provide $28 billion in incentives for semiconductor production, $10 billion for new manufacturing of chips and $11 billion for research and development. That cash infusion means voters will be weighing the changes coming to the Ohio city of New Albany, where the Intel plant is being constructed, as well as nearby Johnstown.
Don Harvey, a sporting goods store owner and longtime Johnstown resident, likes the idea of a company making things again in the United States, and also providing potentially high-paying jobs for his five grandchildren down the road. Intel has said pay will average $135,000 for its 3,000 Ohio workers.
“What an opportunity in my eyes for Ohio and the United States as a whole,” said the 63-year-old Harvey.
Elyse Priest lives in a subdivision just up the road from the plant, and received a firsthand taste of the construction recently as she watched a huge cloud of dust roll up from the 1,000-acre site currently being leveled. Priest, 38, also knows the road widening and added traffic will affect her commute to downtown Columbus where she works as a legal assistant.
“I’m concerned about losing the small town feel I’ve always had and loved about Johnstown,” Priest said. “But I know it’s going to be a greater good for the whole state.”
___
Welsh-Huggins reported from Columbus, Boak from Baltimore.
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DENVER (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts defended the authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution, saying its role should not be called into question just because people disagree with its decisions.
When asked to reflect on the last year at the court in his first public appearance since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Roberts said Friday he was concerned that lately some critics of the court’s controversial decisions have questioned the legitimacy of the court, which he said was a mistake. He did not mention any specific cases or critics by name.
“If the court doesn’t retain its legitimate function of interpreting the constitution, I’m not sure who would take up that mantle. You don’t want the political branches telling you what the law is, and you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate decision is,” Roberts said while being interviewed by two judges from the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at its conference in Colorado Springs.
Roberts described the last year as an unusual and difficult one, pointing to the public not be allowed inside the court, closed in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, as one hardship. He also said it was “gut wrenching” to drive into the Supreme Court that was surrounded by barricades every day.
The barriers were installed in May when protests erupted outside the court and outside the homes of some Supreme Court justices after there was an unprecedented leak of a draft opinion indicating the justices were planning to overturn Roe v. Wade, which provided women constitutional protections for abortion for nearly 50 years. The barriers are gone and the public will be allowed back inside when the court’s new session begins in October but an investigation ordered by Roberts into the leak continues.
Speaking at the same conference Thursday, Justice Neil Gorsuch said it is “terribly important” to identify the leaker and said he is expecting a report on the progress of the investigation, “I hope soon.”
Gorsuch condemned the leak, as have other justices who have addressed it publicly.
“Improper efforts to influence judicial decision-making, from whatever side, from whomever, are a threat to the judicial decision-making process,” Gorsuch said. Reporters from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg attended the talk.
The leaked draft was largely incorporated into Justice Samuel Alito’s final opinion in June that overturned Roe v. Wade in a case upholding Mississippi’s law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The ruling paved the way for severe abortion restrictions or bans in nearly half of U.S. states.
In June’s ruling, Roberts, appointed to the court in 2005 by former President George W. Bush, voted to uphold Mississippi’s law but he did not join the conservative justices in also overturning Roe v. Wade, as well as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to end a pregnancy. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad precedents to uphold the state law, saying he would take “a more measured course.”
Roberts has spoken out repeatedly about the importance of the judiciary’s independence and to rebut perceptions of the court as a political institution not much different than Congress or the presidency.
Opinion polls since the leak and the release of the final abortion decision, though, have shown a sharp drop in approval of the court and confidence in the institution.
When asked what the public might not know about how the court works, Roberts emphasized the collegiality among the justices and the court’s tradition of shaking hands before starting conferences or taking the bench. After the justices might disagree about a decision, everyone eats together in the court’s dining room where they talk about everything but work, he said. He said it’s not borne out of “fake affection” but a respect that comes from the push and pull of explaining ideas and listening to the responses to them.
“We have a common calling and we act like it,” he said.
___
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report from Washington.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
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ADVANCE NOTES
Weekend Format
- The traditional weekend schedule is on tap this weekend with practice and qualifying on deck for Saturday in group format, which will determine the starting lineup for Sunday.
Keselowski at Texas
- Keselowski makes his 27th regular-season Cup start at Texas this Sunday. In 26 starts he has 11 top-10s and a 16.4 average finish.
- He’s coming off three-straight top-10s at the track with a P4 finish last fall, and a sixth-place run and ninth-place finish in the two starts prior. His best career finish to date is second, which he’s done twice, in 2012, and again in 2015.
- Despite no wins in Fort Worth, Keselowski has led 654 laps at the 1.5-mile track, fourth-most of any track on the circuit in his Cup career.
- He carries an average starting position of 14th into the weekend with one pole (2015) and 16 starts inside the top-10.
- Keselowski has an additional 23 combined starts in the Xfinity and Truck Series at Texas with two NXS victories (2013, 2015).
Matt McCall at Texas
- Texas stands as McCall’s second-best track on the circuit with an average finish of 11.1 and eight top-10s in the Cup Series, behind only Michigan in both.
- Sunday marks his 14th Cup race atop the box at Texas. His teams have never finished outside the top-20 with four top-10s in the last five starts.
- His best career finish came in 2018 with Jamie McMurray as the No. 1 car finished third.
QUOTE WORTHY
Keselowski on racing at Texas:
“While we’ve had a big week as a company, the work doesn’t stop in continuing the forward momentum, and it starts this week at Texas. We had decent speed there with both cars in the All-Star Race, and definitely feel like we have something to build from entering this weekend. We’re looking forward to the challenge in the ROUSHParts.com Ford.”
Last Time Out
Keselowski finished 13th in the Bristol Night Race after winning the opening stage and leading 109 laps in the Kohler Generators Ford.
On the Car
Keselowski will again carry the Roush Performance banner this weekend and run a scheme that highlights ROUSH Parts. The hood design on the No. 6 is meant to emulate a see-through design that creates an illusion of a ROUSH supercharger on the car.
RFK will participate in the Honor A Cancer Hero (HCH) Program this weekend at Texas, which benefits the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation (MTJF) and the NASCAR Foundation. Keselowski will carry the name of Cody Wulff on the driver side of his No. 6. A native of Gann Valley, South Dakota, Wulff was a big fan of Ford Motor Company, and was nominated by Jerrod Deitchler.
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| 2022-09-21T03:21:43Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Nursing homes and debt collectors are flouting a law that prohibits them from requiring friends and family of care home residents to shoulder the costs of the facilities, according to a federal report issued Thursday.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said friends and family members have had to declare bankruptcy, had their wages garnished and their homes repossessed after signing unenforceable contracts called “admission agreements” with nursing facilities. As a result, they have been held liable as third parties for their loved ones’ nursing home stays.
Distraught relatives, in sometimes emotional testimony, and lawyers for families told regulators Thursday about collectors seeking tens of thousands of dollars — even hundreds of thousands — in unpaid nursing home fees.
An increase in complaints led the agency and Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to send a letter to nursing homes and their debt collectors reminding them to follow the law.
Rohit Chopra, director of the consumer bureau, held a virtual public hearing with advocates, nursing home administrators and people affected by what they say are unlawful debt collection practices.
Anna Anderson, a consumer protection lawyer in New York, said she has seen hundreds of lawsuits filed against friends and family of care home residents that seek reimbursement for of facilities’ costs.
“It’s not only routine” she said. “It’s a deeply troubling practice.”
She said it “puts families in a position of having to choose between protecting their family members at nursing facilities or putting themselves in a position of financial ruin.”
Chris Ferris spoke of how he received a collection letter for thousands of dollars for his mother’s nursing home stay. Through tears, he pleaded with bureau officials on the call to do something to stop creditors from hounding him and others for money that should not be legally owed.
“I implore you to do something to stop them,” he said. “This is wrong.”
The report described one woman who was sent to collections for $80,000 two days after her mother’s death. Another woman received a letter from a law firm stating that she owed the nursing home $17,000 after her friend’s death. The report did not identify the individuals by name.
The consumer bureau said in a statement that “collection of debts from those contracts may violate the consumer financial protection laws, including the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act” and its prohibition on false, deceptive, or misleading representations connected to debt collection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 1.3 million people live in nursing homes.
As more people in the United States age, the cost of nursing home care is growing along with demand. The price has soar in the past 20 years. In 2021, the annual median cost of a single room in a nursing home was $108,405. Between 2004 and 2020, the cost rose by more than 60%.
Most older adults are not insured against the costs of long-term care. Medicare, which covers adults once they reach 65, offers limited benefits based on need and only pays for nursing home care for up to 100 days. Medicaid helps low-income people pay for nursing home care but eligibility rules can be stringent.
The Nursing Home Reform Act prevents facilities “from requiring a person other than the resident to assume personal responsibility for any cost of the resident’s care.”
But why that seems to happen so often is due in part to lax government enforcement, said Eric Carlson, a lawyer at Justice in Aging. Carlson said during the hearing that agencies in charge of oversight rarely cite and fine companies that require third parties to sign admission agreements.
David Bifulco, a Pennsylvania lawyer who represents debtors sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars, said the bureau and other agencies should educate federal and local courts about the prevalence of the problem, before they a default judgement is entered.
“It would go a long way,” he said.
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| 2022-09-21T03:21:47Z
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ATLANTA (AP) — When asked about his decision to rebuff Donald Trump and certify Joe Biden’s narrow victory in his state, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says he has no option but to defend his actions.
“We are all held accountable by the voters,” the Republican said as he seeks a second term, noting that he hears from voters who backed Trump’s effort to overturn the election and those aghast at the former president’s actions.
“I give them the facts,” Raffensperger said, because “Americans and Georgians are smart people.”
Yet other Georgia Republicans take a different tack. Burt Jones, the lieutenant governor nominee who signed on as a fake elector for Trump, defends his role in the defeated president’s scheme; the two men atop the Georgia ticket — Gov. Brian Kemp and Senate nominee Herschel Walker — don’t say much about the 2020 election or the man who lost it.
The varied approaches reflect perilous fault lines for Republicans as they weigh the former president’s influence against Democrats’ assertions that a Trump-dominated party threatens democracy. Trump’s serial lies that the election was stolen cast a pall nationwide. But nowhere is the dynamic trickier than Georgia, epicenter of Trump’s plan after he personally pressured Raffensperger to “find” more votes. Winning battleground-state elections amid the fallout means coaxing votes from Trump sympathizers and more moderate voters he’s alienated.
The pressure is intensified by pending investigations: a Justice Department inquiry; a congressional examination of the U.S. Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021; and special grand jury proceedings in Georgia’s Fulton County, the seat of state government. District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is focusing on Trump’s pressure campaign against Raffensperger, Kemp and others to ignore voters’ will.
Biden, meanwhile, has stepped up his warnings about “MAGA Republicans” in recent speeches, and some Democrats in Georgia amplify that message.
“I got a question to the entire Republican ticket: How can you say you love this country, and you embrace and support a man that attacks its very foundations?” lieutenant governor candidate Charlie Bailey declared at Democrats’ summer convention.
Jones, Bailey’s opponent, denies that faux electors were part of any such attack. “That was never anything that we said,” Jones said of the slate that convened at the Georgia Capitol as if it were a legitimate share of the Electoral College.
Biden won Georgia by less than 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast. The result was affirmed by multiple counts, one partially done by hand. Jones and others have said they were merely preserving Trump’s legal options, a claim undermined by evidence that later emerged of a coordinated effort to impanel unauthorized electors in multiple states. Elections officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no evidence Biden’s win was tainted. Many courts, including judges Trump appointed, rejected his claims of fraud.
In Georgia’s marquee races, Kemp and Walker avoid the topic.
Kemp, locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, acknowledges Trump only when he must. It’s the approach he’s taken since he ratified 16 Democratic electors after Raffensperger certified Biden’s win, a sharp contrast from 2018, when he accepted Trump’s endorsement during a hotly contested GOP primary for governor. Now, as when Trump raged at him publicly in 2020, Kemp explains that he was “following the Constitution” when he blessed Biden’s electors.
That sidestepping strategy was girded first when Kemp crushed Trump’s hand-picked candidate, former Sen. David Perdue, in a May primary. The governor got another boost in August when a state judge ruled Kemp won’t have to testify about 2020 before the Georgia special grand jury until after the fall election.
The spring primary results show the risks. Kemp and Raffensperger, who also had a contested primary, benefited from tens of thousands of Democratic-leaning voters crossing over to cast anti-Trump GOP primary ballots. But Perdue still garnered 236,000 votes — a sign that a pro-Trump GOP faction hasn’t forgotten about 2020. Kemp’s margin over Abrams in 2018 was about 55,000 votes.
Kemp aides acknowledge those splits, saying any credit Kemp has gotten from independents or swing-voting Democrats is already settled and there’s nothing to gain by talking about Trump. That’s why Kemp’s legal team wanted to delay the public spectacle of him entering and exiting the grand jury.
Walker, a first-time candidate trying to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock, won’t say whether Biden won legitimately. “I don’t know, did he? … We need to ask my opponent did (Biden) win fair and square,” Walker told reporters.
Warnock, indeed, does not question the results.
Despite a close relationship with Trump — the former president urged Walker to run and then endorsed him — Walker has insisted on camera that he’s never heard Trump claim the election was stolen. Trump has said so repeatedly, including his most recent appearances ahead of the midterms. “The 2020 election was rigged and stolen … by people who got into office through cheating and through fraud,” Trump falsely declared last week in Pennsylvania.
Walker, though, doesn’t raise the subject on his own. His mentions of Biden and Democrats revolve around inflation or cultural issues, and he largely eschews Trump.
“Never thought about it,” Walker said, when asked whether he’d invite Trump to campaign in Georgia.
Abrams and Warnock perhaps help their opponents by not stoking 2020 embers themselves.
Warnock has concentrated on defending himself against Walker’s argument that he’s a Biden lackey; the Democrat tailors counterattacks around Walker’s exaggerations of his business and academic record, rather than associating him with Trump.
The two gubernatorial camps, meanwhile, name the economy as the most important issue, while agreeing that abortion could give Democrats an opening. Abrams’ paid advertising, especially, hits Kemp for signing a law banning abortions at six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager, said Abrams “will remind people that (Kemp) pals around with election deniers” but emphasized that her first task is to sell voters on what she’d do as chief executive.
Kemp’s advisers say they might be more worried about Trump fallout if Bailey had more money in the lieutenant governor’s race to use paid advertising to magnify his all-out assault on Jones and if Raffensperger’s opponent, Bee Nguyen, had a larger advertising megaphone.
Despite Jones’ protestations, he was a top advocate for a post-election special session in Georgia, with the intent of shifting electoral votes to Trump. Jones, whom Trump called “a man of courage” in a December 2020 rally in Valdosta, signed papers supporting a court case by Texas to overturn Georgia’s results. On Jan. 5, 2021, Jones personally urged Vice President Mike Pence to delay Biden’s constitutional designation as president-elect.
“He got on his daddy’s plane and flew to Washington D.C., the day before the insurrection, met with the vice president, with a letter in his pocket, to convince the vice president not to count the electoral vote,” Bailey said in an interview, adding that Jones’ demands aligned him with “the violent mob” that stormed the Capitol.
Jones also visited Arizona to watch a Republican-backed recount that only reaffirmed Biden’s win.
“If you think that’s okay, then I’m not your candidate,” Bailey said, “because that’s the actions of an authoritarian.”
Raffensperger, for his part, said his interactions with Jones are “great.” But it’s notable the secretary of state and governor, at least for now, are running campaigns distinct from other Republican nominees, including Jones.
“That’s a process of what happens all the time, and I don’t think the other side is 100% unified either,” Raffensperger said. “What I’m really more focused on is what I can control, and that’s myself.”
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After a two year hiatus the East Coast Indoor Racing Dirt Nationals will be returning to the CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton NJ on February 24 and 25.
The event, which will feature the wingless 600 Micro Sprints, was not held in 2021 or 2022 due to COVID virus gathering restrictions.
In 2020, Jon Keller left fans speechless and wanting more as he ran the alphabet soup advancing from the E-Main to the A-Main event. The Salem, N.J. driver then started dead last in the 40 lap A-Main and captured the victory with a last lap pass. Keller prevailed over Kenny Miller, Billy Pauch Jr. and Erick Rudolph in a wild finish for the ages.
“Each year we held the event, the racing has gotten better and better culminating with the best race ever in 2020. We had all the momentum heading into 2021 and then the world shut down!” stated promoter Len Sammons.
“Bringing the event back has been my top priority and I am excited to see it return in 2023.”
Friday night will feature heat races and A-Main Qualifiers for all entries, with passing points earned for each race and position gained. On Saturday night, the top performers from Friday will be locked into the A-Main with the remaining competitors slotted into mains E through B with a chance to advance and lock themselves into the main event.
Ticket and entry information will be available in the coming weeks.
Event sponsorship ranging from title sponsor to “Dirt” sponsors are available and being actively sought to help support the event. Interested parties should contact Danny Sammons at 609-888-3618 or via e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
For more information visit the series website www.indoorracing.com.
Indoor Racing PR
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| 2022-09-21T03:22:03Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal grand jury is reportedly seeking information about Donald Trump’s Save America leadership PAC as investigations into the former president continue to expand.
ABC News first reported Thursday that subpoenas issued in recent weeks have asked recipients about the political action committee’s formation, its fundraising activities and its spending.
The Department of Justice declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not respond to requests.
Trump is now the subject of numerous ongoing federal and state investigations, including several probing his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building, his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and how thousands of government records, including documents with highly classified markings, ended up at his private Mar-a-Lago club.
Trump aggressively fundraised off the 2020 election, capitalizing on his supporters’ anger about and refusal to accept his loss. During its hearings, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack said Trump’s fundraising machine had collected some $250 million from his campaigns to “Stop the Steal” and others in the aftermath of the election, mostly in small-dollar donations from Americans. One plea for cash went out 30 minutes before the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“Not only was there the big lie, there was the big ripoff,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said of the efforts.
No credible evidence has emerged to support Trump’s claims that the election was marred by mass fraud. Numerous state and local elections officials, including Trump’s own attorney general and judges he appointed, have also rejected such claims.
Trump’s PAC — which he has used to pay for his post-presidential rallies, other travel, legal bills and even the portraits of him and the former first lady that will one day hang in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery — has raised millions since its creation. It ended July with just under $100 million cash-on-hand, according to government filings.
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In her current role as Executive Program Director of Alumni Mentoring at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri (BBBSEMO), Tashanna Stanciel cultivates and maintains key education and employment relationships to advance BBBSEMO’s reach and impact (including her alma mater- Southeast Missouri State University). As a Staff of Color Representative (SOC Rep.), she played an integral role in developing "Three Best Hopes" -a living document outlining Staff of Color recommendations for advancing the agency’s anti-bias anti-racist (ABAR) practices, policies, and procedures. With Staff of Color leadership, hard work, and dedication, “Three Best Hopes” was officially added to the agency’s core documents.
For tickets and information on the Milestone 35th anniversary Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship & Awards Gala on Oct. 1, 2022, visit stlamerican.com. All net proceeds from this annual non-profit (501c3) event go towards scholarships for local, high potential students with financial needs.
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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor returned Thursday to the Bronx community where she grew up to see the unveiling of her bronze statue at a shopping center in the heart of the community.
In brief remarks after the likeness was unveiled, Sotomayor, 68, said it was “always so heartwarming” to return to the neighborhood and that she was “deeply touched” by the bust with the Bronx Terminal Market.
Sotomayor, who became the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court when she was sworn in in 2009, said she hoped every child who sees the statue of her at the Bronx market knows that she is a proud native.
“I love the Bronx. I love my community,” she said.
The justice said she grew up a few miles away from the shopping center, which sits at the site of a former wholesale fruit and vegetable market that’s been a local neighborhood landmark for generations.
The bust, encased behind protective glass, has her name on its base. It is surrounded by panels that feature a short biography about the justice.
Sotomayor marveled at how much the sculpture resembled her, remarking on how curly her hair is and noting with a laugh that she seemed to be wearing similar dangly earrings Thursday as were memorialized on the statue.
“It’s quite amazing. Looks a lot like me,” she said.
“I think they may have improved on the original a little,” she joked.
After looking through the glass at the bust, Sotomayor spoke to about a dozen people gathered around and wistfully noted that her mother, Celina Báez, died last year but had she been there Thursday, “she would have been bursting with pride.”
Sotomayor posed with several local eighth-grade students who helped unveil the sculpture but did not take any questions.
The statue at the Bronx Terminal Market shopping center is near Yankee Stadium, home to the justice’s beloved baseball team.
The bust was sculpted by artists Gillie and Marc. Sotomayor called them “two visionary artists who share a passion as I do for community service.”
“I am humbled to be a part of their vision,” she added.
The duo also created a bronze statue of the late former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which was unveiled in her native Brooklyn last year.
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Chris Buescher is still pinching himself. He really can’t believe he just won America’s Night Race.
Buescher, who snapped a 222-race winless streak in the NASCAR Cup Series by taking the checkered flag in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, was beaming as he looked at the huge BMS trophy and held up his BMS Gladiator Sword on Bristol’s legendary rooftop Victory Lane.
There was no need to ask Buescher if he considers the Bristol Night Race as one of the sport’s crown jewels. For Buescher, it is THE Crown Jewel.
“This has been No. 1 on my list for a really long time,” Buescher said. “I actually love this racetrack. I’ll take this win over a Daytona 500, a Coke 600, this is my big race, right here.
“I don’t know if I believe this yet.”
The Texas driver held off Chase Elliott, William Byron and Christopher Bell to take the hard-earned victory, in a race that was the cut-off in the Round of 16. Buescher became the season’s 19th different winner and also was the third-straight non-playoff driver to win in the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
He said for him, it has always been a love at first sight situation with Bristol Motor Speedway.
“This place has that special feel,” Buescher said. “The excitement I got walking through that tunnel yesterday and seeing concrete, clean concrete, was really big.
“It’s always special coming here. Fans were jacked up, and we had fantastic weather. Fans showed up in huge numbers, and it was great to see the fans packing the stands here at Bristol again. All that just adds to this being my favorite racetrack. And I’m not saying that because I’m sitting here at Bristol. I’ve got in trouble at a lot of different racetracks for saying that on their stages beforehand and gotten yelled at, but it’s the truth.
“This is the one, the one we’ve been looking forward to for a really long time, and it’s just a special place, unlike anywhere we go.”
Buescher’s team owner, Brad Keselowski, the 2011 Night Race winner who led two times for 109 laps Saturday and ultimately finished 13th, was very proud of his driver who pilots the No. 17 RFK machine.
“Chris deserves a lot of credit, this is not an easy race to win, it never has been,” Keselowski said. “The Bristol Night Race is a race that champions win.”
“This is a big moment for Chris and a big moment for our company to be able to win races like this,” Keselowski continued. “This is a different type of win. This is a legacy type of win. There’s some tracks that winning is always great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s some tracks that winning is just not as special as others. Bristol is right up there at the top of being special. This is a big moment for us.”
The 2023 Bass Pro Shops Night Race returns to Bristol Motor Speedway on Sept. 16, once again as an elimination race in the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 16 Playoffs. For more information, please visit www.bristolmotorspeedway.com or call 423-BRISTOL to speak to a BMS ticket sales representative.
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| 2022-09-21T03:22:16Z
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents.
The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge.
Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that she represents a “mostly white” district, adding, of white voters: “I keep them right here — like under my thumbs. … Otherwise, they get out of control — like kids.”
“You ought to know who you’re dealing with,” Matthews goes on to say. “You’ve got to treat them like s—-. That’s the only way they’ll respect you.”
In a statement, Matthews acknowledged her voice on the recording, calling Project Veritas a “satirical MAGA Powered news outlet.”
The compilation also features more of Matthews’ conversation, parts of which were previously published by Project Veritas, in which she spoke to an inmate about funding her campaign with “dope boy money” and having Democrats run as Republicans, saying “secret sleepers” represent “the only way you’re gonna change the dynamics in South Carolina.”
At the time of the earlier release, ahead of South Carolina’s June primary runoff, Matthews confirmed to The Associated Press that it was her voice on the tape but said the edited audio of a “tongue-in-cheek” exchange didn’t reflect the full picture.
Matthews won the runoff to face Scott, who is seeking what he’s said will be his final Senate term and is among South Carolina’s most popular politicians. The Black Republican is widely expected to win the general election in South Carolina, where no Democrat has won a statewide race in more than 15 years.
On Thursday, Democrats including gubernatorial nominee Joe Cunningham said he concurred with state Rep. Justin Bamberg, who in an op-ed published online called Matthews “toxic.”
“If any of our white counterparts had said the same thing with regards to blacks, the minority community, including myself, would be up in arms calling for that member’s immediate resignation,” Bamberg added.
In a statement provided to AP, Cunningham said that “there is absolutely no place in our political discourse” for Matthews’ comments, adding that “the Democratic Party cannot and should not tolerate such behavior from our elected officials and candidates.”
State Sen. Brad Hutto, Democrats’ leader in that chamber — who was also his party’s nominee to challenge U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2014 — echoed Cunningham’s comments about Matthews’ Senate bid, telling AP, “When candidates of either party start making irresponsible statements, beyond what party they’re from, they need to reevaluate their candidacy, and that’s what needs to happen here.”
One of the fellow Democrats Matthews defeated, Catherine Fleming Bruce, told AP she agreed with the calls for Matthews to step aside, saying the nominee “has made it impossible for her to be that standard bearer, representing our state’s diverse population.”
Trav Robertson, chairman of the state’s Democrats, emphasized on Thursday that Matthews didn’t represent the party’s perspective but stopped short of urging her to quit her campaign, which he said was “becoming a distraction to other Democrats on the ballot.”
“If I were advising her campaign, I would focus on her getting reelected to the (state) House of Representatives,” Robertson told AP.
Were Matthews to suspend her campaign, her name would likely still remain on ballots, which party officials said were already being produced for overseas voters. With no third-party candidate in the race, Scott’s name is the only other that would appear.
“Regardless of race, I love everyone,” Matthews said in her statement. “One thing you can learn from Project Veritas’s first audio attack on me, is obviously I have no biases toward a certain ethnic group.”
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James Pollard contributed to this report.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A special prosecutor in Michigan has been appointed to investigate whether the Republican candidate for attorney general and others should be criminally charged for their attempts to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.
The office of Democratic attorney general Dana Nessel last month asked the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, a state agency, to consider charges against nine people, including Republican Matthew DePerno, her opponent in the November election. Nessel’s office cited a potential conflict of interest because of the upcoming election.
The executive director of the council on Thursday said D.J. Hilson, the prosecuting attorney in Muskegon County, would handle the case. Hilson, a Democrat, was first elected to office in 2012.
In a statement, DePerno accused Nessel of “once again weaponizing her office using your tax dollars to harass and persecute her political opponents.” The Kalamazoo attorney has previously said that “90% of the facts that (Nessel) lays out, that she calls facts in her petition, are either false or I have no knowledge of what she’s talking about.”
DePerno and the others named in the Michigan documents are among the people nationwide who are facing legal implications for embracing former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. A Colorado county clerk this week pleaded not guilty to charges she allowed an unauthorized person to break into her county’s election system in search of proof of Trump’s conspiracy theories.
DePerno built his political reputation — and snagged an early endorsement from Trump — by pushing Trump’s unsubstantiated election fraud claims. Trump lost the election in Michigan by some 154,000 votes, an outcome that has been upheld by multiple investigations, including one by the GOP-led state Senate.
DePerno won state party members’ nomination for attorney general over a former Michigan House speaker who narrowly lost to Nessel in 2018.
Allegations made public last month named DePerno as one of the “prime instigators” of a plan to get improper access to voting machines and use them to dispute the 2020 presidential outcome.
According to documents released by Nessel’s office, five vote tabulators were taken from Roscommon and Missaukee counties in northern Michigan, and Barry County in western Michigan. Investigators found others in the group broke into the tabulators and performed “tests” on the equipment.
“It was determined during the investigation that DePerno was present at a hotel room during such ‘testing,’” a petition to the prosecutors’ council said.
Obtaining undue possession of a voting machine used in an election is a felony punishable by five years in prison.
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Burnett reported from Chicago. Cappelletti 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.
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| 2022-09-21T03:22:32Z
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Nearly 1 in 3 Republican candidates for statewide offices that play a role in overseeing, certifying or defending elections supported overturning the results of the 2020 presidential race, according to an Associated Press review.
They include contenders from one end of the country to the other, often in pivotal swing states, for positions that are the linchpins of democracy.
In Michigan, Kristina Karamo, a community college professor who signed an affidavit to a lawsuit seeking to throw out President Joe Biden’s win, is running to be the state’s top elections official. In Arizona, GOP candidates for the three top statewide offices all backed setting aside Biden’s victory in their state.
The breadth of election denial among Republicans is a reminder of the grip that Donald Trump has on the party. As the midterm primary season reaches its conclusion next week, Trump has wielded the power of his endorsement with great effect, lifting candidates who parrot his conspiracy theories while largely sidelining those who accepted the legitimacy of Biden’s election.
That’s raising the stakes for the November vote, particularly for contests that play a vital role in validating election results and ensuring peaceful transfers of power. Governors, for instance, often confirm the results of presidential elections. Most secretaries of state oversee their state’s election system. Attorneys general have the power to defend their state’s elections or investigate claims of wrongdoing.
Of the 86 Republican candidates vying for those positions in 37 states in the fall, one-third have echoed Trump’s lies about widespread fraud costing him reelection, according to the AP review. Only 40% would directly say Biden was legitimately elected.
“The ball is still in the voters’ court,” said Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona election official who works at Democracy Fund, which advocates for election access. “Depending on who they vote for in November, that may not be the case in the future.”
There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in the 2020 election, underscored by repeated audits, court cases and the conclusions of Trump’s own Department of Justice.
The prevalence of candidates who insist otherwise has fueled fears of state officials in 2024 trying to award presidential electors to a candidate who did not win them. But it could also cause disruption and distrust in thousands of other down-ballot races across the country.
Trump’s falsehoods propelled the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Many of the most aggressive candidates see themselves as part of a movement to uncover a grand election conspiracy they blame for Trump’s loss.
“We have a fight on our hands,” Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, the GOP nominee for secretary of state who was at the Jan. 6 protests, told a gathering of several dozen election skeptics in Omaha, Nebraska late last month. “The establishment and the Democrats want to do everything they can to subvert our elections.”
That’s become an article of faith with much of the Republican electorate. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research from 2021 showed that 2 out of every 3 GOP voters believe Biden was not legitimately elected president.
Now, in all but one of the battleground states that decided the 2020 race, there is a Republican candidate on the ticket who, like Finchem, has suggested overturning the Democrat’s win. The exception is Georgia, where the GOP incumbents beat back a slate of challengers Trump supported to punish them for not awarding the state to him rather than Biden, the actual winner.
In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor, attended the Jan. 6 rally near the White House shortly before the riot and arranged for buses to bring others from his state who wanted to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
In Wisconsin, Trump-endorsed businessman Tim Michels, who is running for governor, said he is open to exploring how to decertify Biden’s win in the state — something lawyers say is legally impossible.
In Michigan, the Republican candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general have all repeated Trump’s election lies.
“If even one or two of these people win, we’re in a full-blown constitutional crisis,” said Ellen Kurz, a Democrat whose group, iVote, is involved in the swing state secretary of state races.
Other experts on voting are alarmed but warn against panic.
“I don’t want to give them more power than they actually have to undermine us and our faith in the election process,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for expanded voter access. “We have a huge infrastructure with thousands of election officials and checks and balance. In places where there are bad intentions to harm voters, we are all working to ensure those don’t happen.”
The candidates’ views are important in the key presidential states because a governor or secretary of state with a record of not respecting the actual vote count could introduce chaos into the selection of the next president. Some of the statewide candidates are likely to win in November because they are running in overwhelmingly Republican states.
That includes former U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, the GOP nominee for attorney general in Idaho, and Alabama state Rep. Wes Allen, the nominee for secretary of state. Both candidates said they would have signed onto a 2020 Texas lawsuit to overturn Biden’s win. That case was swiftly thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Wyoming, state Rep. Chuck Gray, who won last month’s GOP primary for secretary of state, faces no opponent from the Democratic Party or any other group in November in a state that Trump won by 43 percentage points. Gray has repeated Trump’s lies about 2020 being “rigged,” traveled to Arizona to watch a partisan review of ballots that was derided as deeply flawed and proposed additional regular election audits in Wyoming.
In response to Gray’s likely ascension, a committee of the Wyoming Legislature late last month voted to draft a bill that would remove the secretary of state from overseeing the state’s elections. Dan Zwonitzer, the Republican co-chairman of the committee, said in an interview that it’s likely the Legislature cannot finish the effort this year, but may be forced to consider it in the future.
“It’s a little bit of a reaction to the gut punch the state took,” Zwonitzer said, noting that the government has been holding numerous open forums and demonstrations of its vote counting to assure the public it’s secure.
The pushback in Wyoming is a reminder of that, as Trump has tried to make denial of the 2020 election results a litmus test in his party, many Republican elected officials have refused to go along.
“Democracy is not a partisan issue,” said Thania Sanchez of States United Action, an organization tracking candidates who deny the 2020 outcome and are running for statewide office. “A lot of Republicans have been consistent about not spreading the lies about the 2020 election.”
Sanchez noted that most statewide GOP incumbents did not outright deny the 2020 outcome or use their positions to try to overturn the election. Many faced primary challengers this year, as in Georgia, but Trump’s movement knocked out incumbents in only two races — the Idaho attorney general primary and in Indiana’s secretary of state race, where Diego Morales won the nomination at the state Republican Party convention after repeating Trump’s fraud claims.
The movement had its greatest success in races for open seats, such as Gray in Wyoming or the race for secretary of state in Nevada. A Republican who defended the 2020 election result was prevented by term limits from seeking reelection, and GOP voters then nominated Jim Marchant, who says he would not have certified Biden’s win in Nevada.
Rory McShane is a political strategist who advised both candidates and worked for a coalition of like-minded skeptics of the 2020 result who are running for secretary of state; Marchant founded that group.
McShane said candidates such as Gray and Marchant are being maligned.
“If you criticize or talk about election security, they ostracize you and try to throw you out of the mainstream conversation,” McShane said. “That leaves Republicans two choices — to run milquetoast candidates or run candidates willing to stand up to the mainstream media.”
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Associated Press statehouse reporters from throughout the United States contributed to this report.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.
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| 2022-09-21T03:22:40Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is preparing to appeal a judge’s decision granting the appointment of an independent arbiter to review records seized in a criminal investigation by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.
Citing national security concerns and other factors, the department also asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to put on hold her directive prohibiting it from using the seized classified records for investigative purposes while it contests her ruling.
“Without a stay, the government and public also will suffer irreparable harm from the undue delay to the criminal investigation,” department lawyers said in a motion Thursday in which they announced their intent to appeal the order to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 21-page Justice Department filing lays bare the government’s concern about the impact it believes will be caused by the judge’s order, which temporarily halted core aspects of its criminal investigation, and its continued objections to the planned appointment of a “special master” to conduct an independent review of the records taken from Mar-a-Lago. Already, the department said, the intelligence community has paused its separate risk assessment that the judge had permitted to continue because of “uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Court’s order.”
The department gave the judge until next Thursday to stay her original order, saying it would otherwise ask the federal appeals court to do so. Though such an appeal will almost certainly result in further delays to its underlying investigation, the department made clear throughout its motion its belief that it would be “injured” beyond repair if the judge’s order was permitted to stand.
The judge gave the Trump team until Monday morning to respond to the Justice Department motion.
The FBI has been investigating for months what it says was the unlawful retention of national defense information at Mar-a-Lago as well as efforts to obstruct the probe. It is not clear whether Trump or anyone else will face charges.
Reacting to Thursday’s motion, Trump renewed his attacks on the entire investigation.
“So now the FBI and Biden Department of ‘Justice’ leakers are going to spend Millions of Dollars, & vast amounts of Time and Energy, to appeal the order on the ‘Raid of Mar-a-Lago document hoax,'” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The FBI seized 33 boxes and containers with more than 100 documents with classified markings, including some designated top-secret, during an Aug. 8 search of the property. Those records have been segregated from the thousands of non-classified documents that were taken, the department said.
The Trump legal team had asked the judge, a Trump appointee, to name a special master — in many cases, a lawyer or retired judge — to examine the seized documents to ensure that personal materials are returned to him and that any privileged records are weeded out from the rest of the investigation.
In a procedural win for the ex-president, Cannon granted that request, agreeing to appoint an arbiter to inspect the records and filter out any that may be protected by claims not only of attorney-client privilege but executive privilege too. She also directed the FBI to temporarily stop using those documents in its investigation until a report from the special master or “further court order.”
Though she did permit the intelligence community to continue with an assessment of the security risk posed by the improper retention of classified secrets, that work has been paused in consultation with the Justice Department. The FBI’s chief counterintelligence official, Alan E. Kohler Jr., said in a declaration accompanying the court filing that the classification review and national security risk assessment were “inextricably linked with the criminal investigation” and that it made no sense to “bifurcate” the FBI officials in both of those endeavors.
On Thursday, the Justice Department lambasted anew the idea that any of the classified records could be protected by such claims, or that Trump could be entitled to the return of any government documents since he is no longer president. It also asked the judge to lift her directive that highly classified records be shared with a special master.
“The classification markings establish on the face of the documents that they are government records, not Plaintiff’s personal records. The government’s review of those records does not raise any plausible attorney-client privilege claims because such classified records do not contain communications between Plaintiff and his private attorneys,” the motion states.
It adds that “no potential assertion of executive privilege could justify restricting the Executive Branch’s review and use of the classified records at issue here.”
The judge’s ruling carries the prospect of substantially delaying the criminal investigation though it seems unlikely to have significant long-term effects that would take the probe off course. The department, for instance, said it did not interpret the order as a prohibition against interviewing witnesses about how the records were relocated from the White House to Mar-a-Lago or how they were stored — suggesting that at least that investigative work would continue. Nor did it think there was a bar against the department from briefing members of Congress.
“Even so,” department lawyers wrote, “the prohibition on the review and use of the classified records is uniquely harmful here, where the criminal investigation concerns the retention and handling of those very records, with the concomitant national security concerns raised by that conduct.”
The two sides were directed to submit proposed names of a special master by Friday.
The department said it planned to “provide its views” by that deadline, and that its filing on Friday would confirm its plans to make available to the Trump team copies of all unclassified documents taken during the search and to return personal records that were not commingled with classified materials.
The department earlier in the week said that the seized records included “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information.”
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More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
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| 2022-09-21T03:22:56Z
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s 1,800-plus election clerks were racing Thursday to understand a judge’s ruling nine weeks before the election that some fear could lead to absentee ballots being counted in parts of the battleground state but rejected in others.
A judge on Wednesday barred the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission from issuing guidance to clerks, in place since 2016, about how to handle absentee ballots that are missing all or parts of the address of the person who witnessed the voter casting the ballot. Clerks say that now means it is up to them to determine which ballots should be counted and which should not.
“What is tricky is what is an address?” said Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell. “You’re going to get varying interpretations.”
State law requires clerks to either return ballots missing a witness address to the voter to be corrected or not count the ballot. The elections commission in 2016 told clerks that they could add information themselves if all or part of an address was missing.
Clerks only address problems on the witness certificate, which doubles as an envelope, and not the ballot itself. Republicans did not contest the practice until after Donald Trump’s narrow loss in 2020, when nearly 1.4 million voters cast absentee ballots and COVID-19 vaccines weren’t available yet.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Aprahamian on Wednesday said state law does not allow clerks to fill in missing information. He granted a request from Republicans, including the GOP-controlled Legislature, to prohibit the elections commission from telling clerks they can do that. Aprahamian was appointed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Democrats plan to appeal and the case is expected to end up before the conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court.
In the meantime, clerks are struggling to understand what ballots they should count, or not, with absentee voting slated to begin in about two weeks. The deadline for absentee ballots to be mailed to voters is Sept. 22.
The elections commission has guidance on what constitutes an address, but the issue has not been addressed by the courts.
“It certainly leaves things very unclear,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, in an email. “Historically, voters have not been penalized for minor errors in voting where intent is clear. I will be consulting with my City Attorney’s office for their advice on the matter.”
The number of affected ballots is likely to be small but could be an issue in close races. President Joe Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by fewer than 21,000 votes.
Woodall-Vogg said just over 1% of all absentee ballots cast in Milwaukee in April were missing address information. In a recount of the Republican race for the 2nd Congressional District, which includes the city of Madison, only 25 ballots out of 120,000 cast had deficient absentee addresses, McDonell said.
The Legislative Audit Bureau last year reviewed nearly 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes from the 2020 election across 29 municipalities and found that 1,022, or about 7%, were missing parts of witness addresses. Only 15 ballots, or 0.1%, had no witness address. Auditors found that clerks had corrected addresses on 66 envelopes, or 0.4% of the sample.
McDonell said in Dane County, the state’s second largest, the practice has been to count ballots that contain partial addresses.
“We don’t care if it says Wisconsin or has the zip,” he said. “So it’s a game of what’s missing. … The sort of basic common sense is ‘Can I find this address?’”
Republicans contend the ruling means that clerks have two choices for ballots missing information: return them to voters or don’t count them.
“This ruling cleans up the process, and if (the elections commission) puts aside political games by issuing sound guidance, this will ensure uniformity across all of the state’s municipalities,” said Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Paul Farrow.
The attorney for the Republican Party of Waukesha County, which brought the lawsuit, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday. Republican legislative leaders, who joined the lawsuit, did not immediately return messages.
Both McDonell and Woodall-Vogg said they would be trying to educate voters about the need to have witnesses completely fill out the address portion on the absentee ballot. The ruling will increase the workload on clerks who will be returning ballots to voters to complete missing information, McDonell said.
“We will continue to be diligent in our communication with voters – both initially when mailing the ballot and if needing to return the ballot to be cured,” Woodall-Vogg said. “I fear for voters across the state who live in municipalities where the clerk may not have the staff or resources to notify a voter of their error.”
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For more AP coverage of the midterm elections: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:04Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pressed the case for Democratic economic policies during a visit Thursday to Ford’s Rouge electric vehicle assembly plant in Michigan, a battleground state in the November midterm elections.
After a production-line tour, Yellen promoted recent legislative successes for the Biden administration, saying: “After the progress we have made over the past few months, I am more optimistic about the course of our economy than I have been for quite a while and I know we are headed in the right direction.”
Yellen’s visit to Detroit was part of a monthlong tour as well as a larger White House campaign to highlight new laws intended to repair the economy, boost computer chip manufacturing, lower prescription drug prices, expand clean energy and revamp the country’s infrastructure.
She pointed to the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the “ Inflation Reduction Act, ” all passed and signed in the past year.
“By any traditional metric, we have experienced one of the quickest recoveries in our modern history,” she said, referencing the financial damage and stagnation caused by the coronavirus pandemic that shuttered economic systems around the world. “Our plans worked” she added.
The Treasury Department is responsible for managing a new $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit for qualifying, but the auto industry is warning that the vast majority of EV purchases won’t qualify for that much.
The European Union and other nations have threatened to file complaints at the World Trade Organization over the tax credit, claiming it would discriminate against foreign producers and break WTO rules.
Yellen has more stops planned and will give a speech next month at the 157th anniversary of the Freedman’s Bank Forum to talk about how President Joe Biden’s economic agenda “advances equity and makes our economy stronger as a result.”
Biden is set to visit Ohio on Friday for the groundbreaking of an Intel semiconductor manufacturing facility and go to the Detroit auto show Wednesday to talk about manufacturing electric vehicles.
At the Ford electric vehicle assembly plant in Dearborn, Yellen pointed to U.S. vulnerability to global supply shocks caused by climate change and other factors, and the need to embrace green technology. Addressing those challenges, she said, offers the prospects of new jobs.
“This includes the U.S. clean vehicle sector, where we can expect greater investment — and more good jobs, like the ones here at Ford — as we develop the supply chain here at home,” she said.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:11Z
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday filed a notice of intent to appeal a ruling by a judge granting former President Trump’s request for a special master, asking the judge to partially stay a ruling blocking them from accessing the classified materials seized during a search of his home.
“Without a stay, the government and public also will suffer irreparable harm from the undue delay to the criminal investigation,” the DOJ writes in its filing.
“Any delay poses significant concerns in the context of an investigation into the mishandling of classified records.”
The motion for a partial stay would allow the government to continue its review of the classified records recovered from Trump’s home, removing from review by a yet-to-be-appointed third-party special master some 100 documents of roughly 10,000 taken in the Aug. 8 search.
The appeal itself will continue to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes six Trump appointees on the bench.
The filing digs into District Judge Aileen Cannon’s logic on a number of areas, pointing to many of the same issues in a ruling legal scholars largely panned as troubling.
But the bulk of the argument for a partial stay of her ruling granting a special master relies on the impact her decision could have on national security.
Cannon allowed an intelligence community-led review of the documents to continue so that national security leaders could work to mitigate any fallout from the mishandling of records.
But the DOJ’s brief argues the intelligence community’s damage assessment and its own criminal investigation “are inextricably intertwined.”
“The ongoing Intelligence Community (“IC”) classification review and assessment are closely interconnected with—and cannot be readily separated from—areas of inquiry of DOJ’s and the FBI’s ongoing criminal investigation,” they write, taking pains to note that “the FBI itself is a part of the intelligence community.”
The intelligence community has had access to an earlier tranche of records turned over by Trump since May, after the National Archives recovered 184 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago in January.
“Before the Court’s Order, the same personnel from the FBI involved in the criminal investigation were coordinating appropriately with the IC in its review and assessment,” DOJ wrote, adding that the order “frustrate[s] the government’s ability to conduct an effective national security risk assessment and classification review and could preclude the government from taking necessary remedial steps in light of that review—risking irreparable harm to our national security and intelligence interests.”
DOJ even specifically points to the 48 empty folders with classified banners as well as another 42 empty folders that were labeled “return to staff secretary/military aide” that were recovered during the search of Mar-a-Lago.
It is the FBI, they say, that would typically carry out an investigation into such a matter.
“Within the United States, the FBI would pursue any allegation or lead indicating that the classified records may have been accessed, retained, or disseminated in violation of the law, including by using the tools and authorities of a criminal investigation,” the filing states.
“If, for example, another department or agency in the IC were to obtain intelligence indicating that a classified document in the seized materials might have been compromised, the FBI would be responsible for taking some of the necessary steps to evaluate that risk.”
The filing includes a declaration from Alan Kohler, assistant director for the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI, backing DOJ’s argument and calling the two investigations “inextricably linked.”
DOJ’s filing comes ahead of a Friday deadline to work with Trump’s legal team to propose a list of candidates to serve as the special master responsible for reviewing the documents. Cannon directed Trump’s team to consider DOJ’s position in their Friday filing and to respond to it fully by 10 a.m. Monday.
Elsewhere in the motion for a stay, DOJ picks apart the argument that Trump would have any executive privilege claims to classified records.
“The classification markings establish on the face of the documents that they are government records, not Plaintiff’s personal records. The government’s review of those records does not raise any plausible attorney-client privilege claims because such classified records do not contain communications between Plaintiff and his private attorneys. And for several reasons, no potential assertion of executive privilege could justify restricting the Executive Branch’s review and use of the classified records at issue here,” DOJ argued.
“There is no valid purpose to be served by a special master’s review of classified materials.”
DOJ also noted that Trump’s legal team never raised the concept of being able to claim executive privilege over any classified records after Trump’s custodian of records was subpoenaed in May and asked to turn over any remaining documents.
“To the extent that Plaintiff believed that any such records could be subject to a valid assertion of executive privilege, he should have advised the government of such a claim at that time and could have attempted to pursue such a claim through a motion to quash. But despite having several weeks to respond to the subpoena, plaintiff did not do so,” DOJ wrote.
Trump mocked the appeal on his social media platform, saying that DOJ was “going to spend Millions of Dollars, & vast amounts of Time & Energy, to appeal the Order on the ‘Raid of Mar-a-Lago Document Hoax,’ by a brilliant and courageous Judge whose words of wisdom rang true throughout our Nation.”
DOJ’s appeal of the ruling came after many legal experts said they had but little choice to fight the decision, even if additional litigation could also drag out its ability to reinitiate review of classified records in a crucial step for its investigation.
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, said if the Justice Department’s primary goal is to indict Trump, an appeal could slow that process. But if DOJ decides the main goal is to protect executive privilege and its limitations from the potential precedent set by Cannon’s ruling, then a challenge makes more sense.
“They may need to appeal even if it means adverse impact on this particular case,” she told The Hill prior to DOJ’s filing.
As DOJ officials wrestled with the question of how to proceed, they even got a huge nudge from Bill Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, who came out sharply against Cannon’s ruling and urged the Justice Department to appeal it.
“The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it. It’s deeply flawed in a number of ways,” Barr said during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday.
“Her decision is premature. And the dispute isn’t over whether this document is potentially executive privilege and this one isn’t. That’s not the dispute. The dispute is whether the president – even if it is executive privilege – can the president bar DOJ from reviewing the documents? And the answer to that I think is clearly no.”
Whatever the outcome of the DOJ’s challenge, some legal experts said the delay brought about by Cannon’s decision is already benefiting the former president.
“Delay is sweet for a prospective criminal defendant, especially a prospective criminal defendant who doesn’t seem to have any defense,” Jeff Robbins, a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigative counsel, told The Hill.
Mike Lillis and Morgan Chalfant contributed.
— Updated at 8:33 p.m.
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:19Z
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Democrats are beginning to pressure President Biden to take on marijuana reform as Congress struggles to find a path forward on decriminalization and as the party contemplates what’s possible before the midterms.
Liberals have been building momentum with just two months until the November elections with back-to-back wins on key pieces of Biden’s agenda, from student loans to health care and tax reform.
With the wind at their sails, they are now hoping to get the president on their side once again by moving toward what they believe would change the nation’s criminal justice system in a meaningful way.
“Now that the president has delivered on a progressive policy of student debt relief, he has seen an uptick in the polls, he’s united the base, put Republicans on the defensive and Democrats across the country seem to be riding the wave as well,” said Stacey Walker, an influential Iowa Democrat and former surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who focused on cannabis reform during the “unity task force” negotiations between the Biden and Sanders camps in 2020.
“Along with several members of President Biden’s senior leadership team, we all agreed that at the very least the president should decriminalize marijuana and reschedule it through executive action at the federal level,” Walker said of the negotiations following the last presidential election.
On the campaign trail, some Democratic candidates are becoming more vocal about the issue, seeking to reignite what they see is not only a moral imperative but a smart political move to maintain their majority.
The loudest call in recent weeks came from Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, one of the most prominent Democrats to publicly urge Biden ahead of a visit to the Keystone State to direct his political will toward reforms where a closely watched race to flip a Senate seat is currently skewing in Fetterman’s favor.
“It’s long past time that we finally decriminalize marijuana,” said Fetterman, who is comfortably leading against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz. “The president needs to use his executive authority to begin.”
Fetterman was not alone. His request came after a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to the Biden administration ahead of the August recess pushing the president to start addressing the issue. They asked officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to remove marijuana from the list of federal controlled substances and pardon those convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related offenses.
“I think Biden understands the larger issues at play here and I’m encouraged by that,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), one of the Democrats who signed on to the letter, told The Hill on Tuesday. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who also helped lead the letter, stressed, “There is more that we could do.”
The lawmakers said the request was a follow-up after receiving a “disappointing” response months prior, claiming the DOJ’s sole reason for not acting was a determination by the Department of Health and Human Services that “cannabis has not been proven in scientific studies to be a safe and effective treatment for any disease or condition.”
Erik Altieri, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, called the rationale “the complete illustration of the government having its head in the sand on this issue.”
“There’s well over 33,000, peer reviewed studies on cannabis for all kinds of ailments,” Altieri said, “and as everyone knows, there is about 36 states in this country that currently have active medical marijuana programs that have thousands and thousands of individuals in them that are benefiting from its therapeutic use.”
Progressives have also prioritized marijuana decriminalization by framing it as a racial justice issue, as people of color have continued to bear an outsized burden from the nation’s drug policies through the years, especially Black Americans.
A 2020 report from the American Civil Liberties Union found Black people were more than three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana offenses than their white counterparts in the U.S. That disparity, the report said, has only worsened in dozens of states over a decade, despite both racial groups having similar usage rates.
At the same time, as a growing number of states have moved toward legalization or decriminalization in recent years, data shows Black Americans are drastically underrepresented in the country’s booming cannabis industry.
Figures crunched in Leafly’s 2021 Jobs Report showed that Black Americans accounted for “only 1.2 percent to 1.7 percent of all cannabis company owners,” despite making up about 12 percent of the country’s population.
Lawmakers and activists have urged Biden to sign reform from the Oval Office, which in their view would further round out what has become a staunchly progressive agenda from the moderate president. They claim the more Biden signs, the more he elevates his standing with the public.
Recent polling has provided credibility to that argument. Biden’s low approval, which has haunted his presidency for more than a year since the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, began to change after he signed the Inflation Reduction Act last month.
He further bolstered his credentials by putting forth a plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan relief meant to help low-income young people and other Americans pay off debt for their education.
By decriminalizing marijuana, some activists and strategists say Biden would give another potential bump to voters in key swing states, noting that the policy is popular among many constituencies important to Democrats. Any move at the federal level could help inspire turnout among young voters and minority populations and could make a difference in races where the margin of error is tight.
“He gets a lot of flack from Democrats when he gives a speech on a single issue and they say, man you could have done this months ago,” said Douglas Wilson, a Democratic consultant from North Carolina.
Altieri, however, cautioned that drug scheduling is usually done through Congress and the process through the executive branch is “not as straightforward” as some Democrats have made it seem.
“It does involve interagency cooperation that largely will have to come from both the attorney general as well as the Department of Health and the secretary of Health,” Alteri said, before listing a series of steps the agencies would likely have to take to determine if marijuana needs to be descheduled.
“It’s a bit of a lengthy process to go through but, assuming the president put priority on it and he had supportive heads of those agencies, it’s something they could do,” he added.
Proponents agree, as marijuana decriminalization efforts have not yet found a place of consensus in Congress.
“I’d like for Congress to take this up, and I have a bill with others to do that. It’s long past time,” Warren told The Hill in July. “But so long as we’ve got Republicans blocking everything that we try to do, then the administration has an opportunity to step in and give us some much-needed relief.”
Many activists also recognize that, like the pathway to student loan forgiveness, decriminalization is likely to come from a grassroots-led approach.
Those who are mobilizing support on the ground see it as a numbers game: The more voices that are amplified in front of Biden, the easier it becomes to influence policy. Even better, some say, is that they have the support of key lawmakers in Congress, whom Biden has regularly expressed a desire to continue working with to enact his agenda.
According to a Pew Research study taken in April, 91 percent of respondents said they believe in legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, with 61 percent saying it should also be approved for recreational use.
While the issue has come up periodically, Biden has been cautious about appearing too enthusiastic about it. He campaigned in 2020 in support of what many progressives are pushing for, including prohibiting anyone from going to jail for recreational use and allowing states to legalize it, but he’s been slow to sign any type of executive action that grants broad federal rules.
Liberals are hoping that will change as the midterms get closer and as the president has momentum coming off of some of their previous hardest-fought policy pushes.
“We need Biden to take action,” said Moné Holder, senior director of advocacy and programs at Florida Rising. “I don’t see waiting as being an option. I think the time to strike is now. Those who are impacted by it, those who partake in it, whether we want to admit it or not can definitely see this as a gleam of hope.”
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:27Z
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A large majority of Americans favor a maximum age limit for elected officials, a new CBS News/YouGov poll found.
When asked if there should be an upper age restriction at which point lawmakers are forced to leave office, 73 percent of poll respondents agreed. Only 27 percent of those surveyed did not agree with the idea.
The majority across all political parties polled were in favor of the maximum age limit, with 71 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of independents supporting it.
The majority support also held through every age group of respondents.
Most of those polled (40 percent) said 70 would be an appropriate cut-off age. The other ages offered were age 50 (8 percent), age 60 (26 percent), age 80 (18 percent) and age 90 (2 percent).
Currently, the oldest members of Congress are 87-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). President Biden is 79 years old.
The poll, conducted on a sample of 2,085 U.S. adults between August 29-31, 2022, has a margin of error of 2.6 points points.
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:34Z
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The White House on Thursday said it had purchased 100 million rapid at-home COVID-19 tests with its “limited funding,” as the administration continues to call on Congress to pass more pandemic funds.
The Biden administration said in a press release that the 100 million domestically manufactured tests would be directed into the Strategic National Stockpile. White House officials had no further comment on the tests when reached by The Hill.
“While insufficient to adequately replenish our existing stockpile of at-home tests, this procurement will help meet some testing needs in the months ahead and will put us in a better position to manage a potential increase in testing demand this fall and winter,” the White House said in its release.
It was announced in late August that the federal government would cease providing free at-home COVID-19 tests. At the time, the administration said this decision was made because “Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests.”
The White House has kept up its calls for Congress to pass more funding, having requested $22.4 billion to combat the coronavirus pandemic earlier this month.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said this week that there is currently an insufficient supply of COVID-19 tests in the national stockpile to handle another potential “omicron-like event.”
“We had promised the American people we would make sure that we did not get into that, but we needed Congress to step up. Congress has not stepped up,” Becerra said.
Health officials are hoping to avoid a major surge in cases this fall and winter with the rollout of the bivalent COVID-19 booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna. In order to fund vaccines and treatments for the upcoming seasons, the administration pulled funds from other areas of the pandemic response effort.
The rate of new coronavirus cases both globally and in the U.S. has been steadily declining in recent weeks, though experts have warned that it is still too soon to pull back mitigation efforts. Apart from the ongoing monkeypox outbreak, officials have expressed concerns that the flu season this year may be more severe than usual, citing early data coming from the Southern Hemisphere.
During a press briefing this week, Becerra encouraged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as the flu at the same time.
“I really believe this is why God gave us two arms, one for the flu shot and the other one for the COVID shot,” said Becerra.
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:42Z
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BEIJING (AP) — Chinese state media say a man has been found safe after he spent two days aloft in a hydrogen balloon, traveling about 320 kilometers (200 miles), after it became untethered and flew away while he was using it to harvest pine nuts from a tree.
The man, identified only by his surname, Hu, and a partner were collecting pine nuts on Sunday in a forest park in Heilongjiang province in northeastern China when they lost control and the balloon sailed off.
The other person jumped to the ground, and a search was launched for the escaped balloon and Hu.
State broadcaster CCTV said rescuers were able to contact the man by cellphone the following morning and instructed him to slowly deflate the balloon to land safely. It took another day before he reached the ground about 320 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast in Fangzheng region, close to the border with Russia.
Hu was in good health, apart from a pain in his lower back, possibly from standing the entire time he was in the air, CCTV said.
An official who gave only his surname, Fu, at the publicity department of the Hailin Forestry Administration Co. on Thursday confirmed the balloon incident and described Hu as being in his 40s. He said Hu was recovering in a hospital but declined to give further details.
Pine nuts are found inside pine cones and are a frequent ingredient in dishes served in the northeast, formerly known as Manchuria.
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:49Z
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Finding out that shrinkflation, adorkable, subvariant and even pumpkin spice are now officially in the dictionary might make you exclaim “Yeet!”
ICYMI, those are five of the 370 words and phrases that Merriam-Webster added to its dictionary this month, the publisher announced Wednesday. Oh yeah, ICYMI, short for “in case you missed it,” was also added.
“Some of these words will amuse or inspire, others may provoke debate. Our job is to capture the language as it is used,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, said in a statement. “Words offer a window into our ever-changing language and culture, and are only added to the dictionary when there is clear and sustained evidence of use.”
Worldwide inflation has made shrinkflation a household word. It is defined by the Springfield, Massachusetts publisher as “the practice of reducing a product’s amount or volume per unit while continuing to offer it at the same price.” Think, going to the grocery store and finding that orange juice is no longer available in 64 fluid ounce (1.9 liter) cartons, just 59 ounce.
Pumpkin spice — that polarizing blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspice that’s used to flavor, well, just about everything every fall these days — has been around for years but is finally in the dictionary.
Many of the words are slang or used informally on social media. Adorkable, a mashup of dorky and adorable, means “socially awkward or quirky in a way that is endearing.” Yeet is either “used to express surprise, approval, or excited enthusiasm” or as a verb to mean “to throw especially with force and without regard for the thing being thrown,” according to Merriam-Webster’s definition.
The worldwide coronavirus pandemic has pushed terms once heard almost exclusively in medical circles onto everyone’s tongue, including subvariant, booster dose, and emergency use authorization, which are all new dictionary entries.
Many new words are drawn from popular culture, including the verb MacGyver, inspired by the television character who can make or repair just about anything with ordinary items within reach.
If all the new words are overwhelming, try listening to the calming dawn chorus, defined as: “the singing of wild birds that closely precedes and follows sunrise especially in spring and summer.”
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| 2022-09-21T03:23:55Z
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Which Christmas throw pillow cover is best?
Instead of switching out pillows that take up a lot of space in the closet this holiday season, consider picking up some new Christmas throw pillow covers. A pillow cover is easy to slip over the pillows you already have, and when it comes time to put them away again, they fold up nicely for easy storage. The Afirmly Christmas Blessing Throw Pillow Cover Pair is a festive set with a fun wintry pattern perfect for getting into the Christmas spirit.
What to know before you buy a Christmas throw pillow cover
Cover size vs. pillow size
The standard square throw pillow is 18 inches or 20 inches, but the size can range from 16-24 inches. The dimensions for rectangular pillows are different, so be sure to check the size of your pillow against the size of the cover before purchasing.
To make the pillow look fluffy and full, it should be 2 inches bigger than the cover you are using for it. For example, if you have a 20-inch pillow insert you should use an 18-inch pillow cover.
Fabrics
A Christmas throw pillow cover is usually made from a soft, washable material. Popular options include polyester, linen, canvas, cotton or a cotton-blend. All of these materials are durable, making them excellent choices for throw pillows that get a lot of use on the couch.
Style
Christmas decor tends to lean toward a modern design with clean lines and elegant accents or vintage-inspired iconography with classic imagery and text. Some covers can even be embroidered with your family’s name for an extra personal touch, though these personalized covers are often more expensive.
Modern, vintage-inspired and personalized covers can all feature fun imagery or phrases like “Merry Christmas” across the front, so it depends on the vibe you’re going for. If you can’t quite decide which way to go, plaid patterns are a practical compromise that invoke the modern and the vintage vibes with a farmhouse feel to it.
What to look for in a quality Christmas throw pillow cover
Full set of four
A full set of four pillow covers gives you more for your money and guarantees that all your throw pillows will match. Full sets can come in one print or four different designs, the latter of which is great if you have fewer than four pillows to cover but want to change up the design year after year.
Embroidery
An embroidered pillow cover looks extra cozy, especially for the holiday season when cozy goes a long way. Embroidery can mean a soft, raised design to give the presentation a little depth or well-detailed sewing that sits flat on the fabric but adds a homemade feel to it. Embroidered designs look high-end but don’t always cost more.
Invisible zipper
The zipper closure should be well-concealed so that it looks just like the other seams. This is best achieved by an ultra-thin, perfectly aligned lip of fabric over the zippered area so that you can’t see the line of the zipper or the metal hardware.
How much you can expect to spend on a Christmas throw pillow cover
A standard single throw pillow cover costs $6-$13, while a set of two or four can cost up to $25. A single personalized throw pillow costs $20-$50.
Christmas throw pillow cover FAQ
What’s the best way to spot clean?
A. Mix a little water with a little dish soap and blot the stain as needed until it is gone. Leave the throw cover out to dry.
Can you iron a throw pillow cover?
A. This depends on the material and how any images or texts are applied to it. Check the care instructions and if ironing is permitted, set the iron on a low setting. For polyester, make sure to set the iron to the “synthetic” setting so it doesn’t get too hot.
What’s the best Christmas throw pillow cover to buy?
Top Christmas throw pillow cover
Afirmly Christmas Blessing Throw Pillow Cover Pair
What you need to know: This set features two identical 18-inch cotton covers with a raised snowflake pattern and a zipper closure.
What you’ll love: These throw pillow covers are durable and well-made. The snowflake embroidery is raised and soft to the touch, and they come in white, gray, blue and red, so if you need four, you can get two sets in different colors. They are machine-washable on a gentle cycle and you can put them in the dryer.
What you should consider: Additional sizes are not available.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top Christmas throw pillow cover for the money
Joybest Christmas Throw Pillow Cover Set
What you need to know: This set features four 18-inch cotton-blend covers each with a different design and zipper closures.
What you’ll love: There is a festive red-and-black plaid theme across all four covers. Imagery includes a reindeer silhouette, Christmas ornaments, and Christmas tree in the back of a red pickup truck. It’s a great value for four covers, all of which are machine-washable on a gentle cycle.
What you should consider: There are no additional size options and they might shrink if you put them in the dryer.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Creative in the Clouds Personalized Christmas Pillow
What you need to know: This single polyester cover comes in four sizes with your family name personalized on the front and a concealed zipper closure.
What you’ll love: There is a decorative Christmas tree design and the words “Merry Christmas” above your family name. The fabric is durable and attractive, and if you pay a little more you can get the pillow insert with it. The cover is machine-washable and safe to iron or put in the dryer.
What you should consider: It’s a little expensive for a single pillow cover and there aren’t more color options.
Where to buy: Sold by Etsy
Want to shop the best products at the best prices? Check out Daily Deals from BestReviews.
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Emily Verona 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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| 2022-09-21T03:24:01Z
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What is the best chelated copper supplement?
Copper is a trace mineral that plays an important role with many bodily functions. Along with iron, it aids the formation of red blood cells while also keeping your nervous and immune systems running smoothly.
A copper deficiency is rare, but there are other naturopathic benefits claimed for taking a copper supplement, such as pain relief, reversing gray hair and increasing metabolic energy. The key is to take the right amount under the supervision of your health care provider. For its excellent reputation and patented formula, the best chelated copper supplement is Solgar Chelated Copper.
What to know before you buy a chelated copper supplement
What is chelated copper?
Copper is a trace mineral. Chelated copper means that the copper has been combined with an amino acid. Amino acids are readily absorbed by the body, so chelated copper is a more absorbable form of copper. The bond between copper and the amino acid creates a protective outer layer that slowly dissolves and lets copper be absorbed gradually in the body.
What is chelated copper used for?
Most people get enough copper in their diets, but there are targeted uses of chelated copper based on your health care provider’s recommendation.
Chelated copper may be used by people with anemia, celiac disease, arthritis, Crohn’s disease and Menkes disease, which involves a genetic defect that makes it difficult to transport copper throughout the body.
Some people use chelated copper to restore gray hair to a darker or close-to-original color. Copper aids in the production of melanin, which is the pigment that colors our eyes, hair and skin.
Chelated copper safety
As with any supplement, talk with your health care provider before starting a regimen. Chelated copper supplements can cause digestive discomfort, sleepiness and an aftertaste. They also can interact with certain medications.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the recommended daily dose of copper for adolescent and adult females is 1.5 to 3 milligrams. Adolescent and adult males should take between 1.5 and 2.5 milligrams. Never exceed 10 milligrams in one day, since too much copper can cause toxic symptoms affecting the cardiovascular and digestive systems. Always follow your supplement’s dosage recommendations.
What to look for in a chelated copper supplement
Certifications
Copper supplements have no oversight from the federal government. Look for supplements that are non-GMO and avoid artificial colors and fillers. Certifications from the National Sanitation Foundation and Underwriters Laboratory are gold standards for nutritional supplements.
Just enough zinc
Zinc is another essential mineral that strengthens the immune system. Zinc and copper can each negatively affect the absorption of the other mineral if taken in disproportionate ratios. There are combination supplements available with copper and zinc already properly allocated.
Gluten-free
People with celiac disease are at greater risk for copper deficiency. Gluten intolerance leads to malabsorption of nutrients, which can cause weaker bones. Since copper helps strengthen bones, it’s paramount to maximize its absorption in those with celiac disease. Most copper supplements are manufactured gluten-free, but review your supplement’s label to make sure.
How much you can expect to spend on a chelated copper supplement
Inexpensive copper supplements, which cost $5-$10, are typically not organic and can leave an aftertaste. Copper supplements in the $10-$30 range are certified organic and packaged in larger quantities. For $30-$35 or higher, you’ll find supplements that are medical-grade copper, manufactured in small quantities.
Chelated copper supplement FAQ
What are natural sources of copper?
A. Organ meats such as liver and kidneys are good sources of copper. Beans, nuts, potatoes, dark leafy vegetables and prunes also provide copper. Shellfish and oysters, cocoa and black pepper can also be consumed.
What are side effects of chelated copper supplements?
A. The most common side effects are digestive discomfort such as pain, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. Some supplements leave an unpleasant metallic aftertaste. Some users have reported dizziness and unusual tiredness when taking copper. Discuss any side effects with your health care provider as soon as they occur.
How do you know if you have a copper deficiency?
A. Blood tests measure the level of copper in your body. You may also notice physical symptoms such as an unsteady gait, tremors, fatigue or anemia. Your health care provider can diagnose a copper deficiency, which is rare among the general population.
What is the best chelated copper supplement to buy?
Top chelated copper supplement
What you need to know: Made by a trusted brand with over 70 years manufacturing nutritional supplements, this copper supplement has a patented formula.
What you’ll love: Excellent for collagen formation and used in combination with zinc supplements, each copper tablet is 2.5 milligrams. The pills are non-GMO, vegan and free of allergens, sweeteners and preservatives.
What you should consider: Some consumers found the uncoated pills difficult to swallow.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and iHerb
Top chelated copper supplement for the money
What you need to know: This supplement is a copper amino acid chelate complex to speed absorption.
What you’ll love: This affordable copper supplement is chelated in rice protein to be free of soy. It’s designed to provide energy through red blood cell formation and may improve immune system function. The pills are non-GMO and verified for purity and potency.
What you should consider: The pills are large and difficult to swallow for some reviewers.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and iHerb
Worth checking out
What you need to know: This hypoallergenic supplement features the glycinate form of chelated copper.
What you’ll love: Made with pure ingredients, this supplement is meant to aid iron absorption and activate enzymes responsible for metabolism. It’s free from most allergens, sweeteners, preservatives and fillers.
What you should consider: A small number of consumers experienced nausea.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Steve Ganger 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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| 2022-09-21T03:24:09Z
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Remaining brave in frightening times
The horrific news of Eliza Fletcher has affected more than just the Memphis community. It has rippled out across the country, leaving people grieving, angry, confused and scared. It’s hard to feel safe when something as innocent as a morning jog can end so tragically, but it’s important not to let that fear cripple you.
In this article: Defender Ring, She’s Birdie — The Original Personal Safety Alarm for Women by Women and Sabre Advanced Compact Pepper Spray
Why it’s important to face your fears
Fear is important. It helps keep you safe and alive. However, when irrational fear keeps you from living, it is no longer beneficial.
After learning there was a crime in your neighborhood, for instance, it can take a while to feel safe again, even if you weren’t directly affected. While it’s never wise to put yourself in a dangerous situation, facing your fears in a controlled way with a predictable outcome is one of the best ways to help you reclaim your life.
Tips for staying safe
The best way to stay safe is to never be alone. If you’re walking to your car after work or running through a park, always do it with at least one other friend. But if you find yourself alone, there are a few things you can do to help you stay safe:
- Always be aware of the people around you.
- Keep to populated, well-lit routes.
- In an urban environment, keep close to the curb, away from doors and alleys.
- Walk with purpose.
- Do not converse with strangers.
- Never do anything that disengages you from the environment — no talking on the phone or listening to music.
- Keep items at the ready that can help you avoid or get out of an unpleasant situation (a whistle, pepper spray, etc.).
What is a Defender Ring?
A Defender Ring is a ring that doubles as a defensive weapon. There are two types of Defender Rings. One has a concealed blade hidden beneath a decorative element. This element can be unscrewed in about two seconds. The other is a ring that has an exposed blade, so there is no prep time required before use.
According to the company, “Defender Ring was founded as a practical self-defense tool for women, following the deaths of Karina Vetrano and Vanessa Marcotte, two women who were attacked in broad daylight while out for a jog.”
A Defender Ring can inflict pain or damage to an attacker by puncturing, slicing or tearing. The ring will also collect a DNA sample from your attacker. The rings range in price from $45-$149 and are sold on the company’s website, with some options available on Etsy.
Open-blade Defender Ring options
The Solo Stacker is a white gold-plated stainless steel ring with stabilizing side supports that features one point. Sold by Etsy
The Duo Stacker is a white gold-plated stainless steel ring with stabilizing side supports that features two points. Sold by Etsy
The Trio Stacker is a stainless steel ring (no plating) with stabilizing side supports that features three points. Sold by Etsy
The Crest Stacker is a stainless steel ring (no plating) with stabilizing side supports that features a single, curved point. Sold by Etsy
Three other devices that may help keep you safe
She’s Birdie — The Original Personal Safety Alarm for Women by Women
When activated, the Birdie blasts a loud siren and flashing strobe lights to help frighten off a potential attacker. The device is easy to use, and the battery lasts for up to 40 minutes. Sold by Amazon
Sabre Advanced Compact Pepper Spray
This widely popular pepper spray has a three-in-one formula that includes CS tear gas for a more debilitating effect and UV marking to help identify suspects. The sprayer has a 10-foot range and contains 35 bursts. Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
The stainless steel whistles in this two-pack create a shrill 120-decibel sound that can scare away attackers before they even get close. The included lanyard means you’ll always have your whistle at the ready. Sold by Amazon
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Allen Foster writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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| 2022-09-21T03:24:17Z
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Skip the lines at Starbucks with this tasty, easy-to-follow recipe
For many people, fall starts as soon as Starbucks and other coffee chains bring pumpkin spice lattes back to their menu. The pumpkin spice latte has become such a beloved beverage that most fans count down the days to its return each year.
But if you love these lattes, you don’t have to venture out to Starbucks when the craving hits. Our coffee expert, Branson Stowell, shared his favorite pumpkin spice latte recipe with us and how you can make it easily at home.
In this article: Bodum Pour Over Coffee Maker, Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine and Rae Dunn Milk Handheld Milk Frother
How to make pumpkin spice milk/syrup
The star of any pumpkin spice latte recipe is the pumpkin spice milk or syrup that gives the latte its warm, fall-centric flavor and rich, creamy texture. To make your own pumpkin spice milk, you’ll need:
- 2 cups milk
- 2 to 3 ½ tablespoons pumpkin puree
- 2 ½ to 3 tablespoons sugar
- ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
While you can use any type of dairy or nondairy milk, Stowell prefers oat milk because it has some sweetness that enhances the other flavors in the mix. You can make your own pumpkin puree by roasting a pumpkin and running it through a food processor. According to Stowell, canned pumpkin puree from your local grocery store works just as well — and can save you valuable time when whipping up these lattes.
The same is true for the pumpkin pie spice itself. You can find pre-mixed bottles at the grocery store, though you’ll usually get a fresher taste if you mix it yourself. Stowell suggests combining freshly grated ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves and cinnamon to make your own pumpkin pie spice. He even recommends adding a pinch of black pepper for some added heat.
Once you have your ingredients prepared, whisk them all together in a saucepan. Bring it to a simmer over medium-high heat, removing it from the stove just before it reaches a boil. Each batch is enough for several drinks, so you can store any unused pumpkin spice milk in a mason jar or other sealed container in your fridge. It should last for about a week.
Keep in mind that you can play around with the amount of each ingredient in the pumpkin spice milk to get the flavor you prefer. For example, Stowell recommends using the full 3 ½ tablespoons of pumpkin puree if you want a stronger pumpkin flavor for your latte — or less if you want a subtle hint of pumpkin. You can also adjust the sugar, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice amounts to get the milk to meet your taste preferences.
How to make a pumpkin spice latte
While waiting for the pumpkin spice milk to simmer on the stove, start brewing a strong cup of black coffee. Stowell likes using pour-over coffee, but you can also make your latte with coffee made in a French press or a drip coffee machine. Cold brew is ideal if you enjoy iced pumpkin spice lattes. Coffee houses usually use espresso in their pumpkin spice lattes, so that works well, too.
The recipe calls for three parts coffee to one part pumpkin spice milk. If using espresso, use at least two shots of Americano-style espresso. Before combining the milk with your coffee, though, Stowell likes to take the extra step of using a milk frothing wand or frother to froth the milk. That creates a creamier consistency for your finished latte.
And if you want an authentic coffee house experience, top your latte with whipped cream and a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice.
Essentials for making a pumpkin spice latte at home
Hamilton Beach Stack and Snap Food Processor and Vegetable Chopper
If you want to make your own pumpkin puree, this 12-cup food processor makes the task much easier. Its powerful 450-watt motor and two speeds can tackle even the hardest fruits and veggies. It’s also easy to assemble with a stack and snap design that doesn’t require twisting or locking.
Sold by Amazon, Kohl’s and Wayfair
Cuisinart Multiclad Pro Triple Play Stainless Steel 3-quart Saucepan with Cover
This premium saucepan is ideal for mixing a batch of pumpkin spice milk. It has a pure aluminum core with heat surround technology that ensures even heat distribution. It’s also dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning.
Sold by Amazon
This whisk has a narrow shape that makes it easy to mix all your pumpkin spice ingredients together in a saucepan. Its handle has a contoured shape that fits well in your hand, while the nonslip grip ensures you have control while you whisk.
Sold by Amazon
This quick and easy pour-over coffee maker comes in multiple sizes, depending on how many cups you need each day. It has a permanent stainless steel mesh filter that provides the best-tasting coffee. Its compact design makes it easy to store, too.
Sold by Amazon
Frieling Double-Walled Stainless Steel French Press Coffee Maker
This elegantly-designed French press features double-walled construction that provides excellent durability and reliability. All the parts are dishwasher-safe, and the two-stage filter system ensures there’s no sediment in your coffee. It also works well for loose tea.
Cuisinart Brew Central 12-cup Programmable Coffeemaker
This drip coffee maker offers 24-hour programmability, so you can have hot coffee waiting for you in the morning. It also has a variable heater plate that provides adjustable temperature control. The 12-cup glass carafe allows you to make coffee for a group when entertaining, too.
Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine
This professional-grade espresso machine features an integrated grinder and steam wand, so you have everything you need to make a delicious shot of espresso. It has digital temperature control and a grind size dial.
Bodum Bean Cold Brew Coffee Maker
If you prefer iced pumpkin spice lattes, this easy-to-use cold brew coffee maker is an excellent option. It can hold up to 51 ounces and contains BPA-free plastic parts that are all dishwasher-safe. The locking lid also prevents spills.
Sold by Amazon
Rae Dunn Milk Handheld Milk Frother
This portable, battery-operated frother makes it easy to froth your milk in any container. It offers 1200 revolutions per minute for quick foaming, but it doesn’t make much noise when in use. It also cleans easily with hot water and has a slim design to fit in any cabinet or drawer.
Sold by Amazon
Capresso Froth Max Milk Frother
This pitcher-style frother makes it easy to froth larger quantities of milk quickly and easily. It also allows you to heat your milk and has a cool-touch handle to prevent burns. It has dishwasher-safe components for easy cleaning.
Sold by Amazon
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Jennifer Blair writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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| 2022-09-21T03:24:24Z
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Which personalized dog bowl is best?
Personalized dog accessories are easier to get than ever. From small artist shops to big retailers, there are plenty of places that will customize dog tags, collars, beds, shirts and bowls.
Personalized dog bowls are a fun, colorful touch for your dog’s eating area. They’re especially useful in households with more than one pet, so each gets a designated bowl. Check out the Mod Paws Custom Dog Bowl for a bowl that can be customized with your pet’s name and face.
What to know before you buy a personalized dog bowl
Types of bowls
The way your pet’s name is applied across the dog bowl varies depending on how the bowl is made. Stainless steel, ceramic and plastic are the most popular materials.
- Stainless steel bowls can usually go in the dishwasher. They are not microwave-safe but they are incredibly durable. The personalization is laser-engraved, printed on enamel or attached through an adhesive material.
- Ceramic bowls are usually microwave- and dishwasher-safe, provided they are properly glazed. They are breakable but are also heavy, so your dog won’t be as likely to knock it around or make a mess. The personalization is molded into the clay, painted by hand or professionally printed across the surface.
- Plastic bowls are lightweight and inexpensive. Some are dishwasher-safe but not microwave-safe. They are easy to travel with but more prone to collecting bacteria. The personalization is either shaped into the plastic or printed across the surface.
Shape
A personalized dog bowl is usually round or square. Both styles sit flat on the floor or fit into a raised base so your dog doesn’t have to bend into the bowl.
If you are looking for a slow-feed bowl that features ridges on the inside to keep your dog from eating too quickly, some personalized plastic bowls can make those ridges so that they spell out your dog’s name.
Size
Multiple size bowls are offered to accommodate the smallest to the largest breeds. Most bowls come in two standard sizes: a small that holds up to 2 cups of food and a large that holds 3 to 5 cups of food. Some bowls come in more sizes, including extra-small, medium and extra-large.
What to look for in a quality personalized dog bowl
Non-skid base
A rubber non-skid base keeps lightweight stainless steel or plastic bowls from sliding around on the floor while your dog eats or drinks. Some rubber bases are dishwasher-safe but not all, so be sure to check the instructions.
Custom imagery
There are plenty of personalized dog bowls that display your dog’s across the front, but custom imagery goes further than just text. It includes trees and mountains for your furry hiking buddy or bones and treats for the dog who loves to eat.
Custom imagery can also feature a personalized illustration or photos of your pup. Photos are less expensive, while hand-painted portraits cost more.
Fonts and colors
Look for a personalized bowl with a font that reflects your pup’s personality or your sense of style. Some bowls only come in one or two basic fonts, but there are bowls that come in lots of font and color options to better customize the bowl.
How much you can expect to spend on a personalized dog bowl
A single personalized dog bowl costs about $18-$50. A matching set of two costs up to $95.
Personalized dog bowl FAQ
How do you wash the bowl?
A. If the bowl is not dishwasher-safe, hand-wash it with dish detergent and hot water. Dry thoroughly before filling to prevent dry food from sticking.
How do you stop a bowl from sliding on the floor?
A. A bowl without a non-skid base is prone to sliding around, depending on how aggressively your dog eats. To keep the bowl in place, consider placing a non-slip feeding mat beneath the bowl. These mats are easy to clean, and some styles can be personalized to match the bowl.
What’s the best personalized dog bowl to buy?
Top personalized dog bowl
What you need to know: Available in three sizes and 10 colors, this stainless steel bowl is coated in enamel with your dog’s name and photo illustration across the front.
What you’ll love: This modern bowl is stylish and features your dog’s face in addition to the name at no extra cost. It’s dishwasher-safe and shatter-resistant. It has a non-slip rubber base and comes with a translucent lid so you can take the bowl on the go.
What you should consider: It is not microwave-safe and there’s only one font.
Where to buy: Sold by Etsy
Top personalized dog bowl for the money
Frisco Preppy Stripes Ceramic Personalized Bowl
What you need to know: Available in two sizes and seven colors, this ceramic bowl features a striped pattern around the sides with your dog’s name printed across the front in bold lettering.
What you’ll love: It offers personalization at a great price. It has a clean, simple design. The font is large and easy to read. The ceramic is thick and the bowl sizes are practical.
What you should consider: It is not dishwasher or microwave-safe.
Where to buy: Sold by Chewy
Worth checking out
Earth Gifts Creations Pet Portrait Bowl
What you need to know: This 5-inch-across white ceramic bowl holds about 2 cups of food and features a hand-painted portrait of your dog on the inside.
What you’ll love: The portrait is beautifully painted in vivid color to resemble your pet and your pup’s name is painted below it. The clay is hand-poured and the trim is customizable. It’s great for animal or human use. It’s dishwasher- and microwave-safe.
What you should consider: It’s too small for medium to large dogs.
Where to buy: Sold by Etsy
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Emily Verona writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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| 2022-09-21T03:24:31Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — This was a match that would not end. Should not end, one might say. Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, two of the brightest young stars of men’s tennis, traded shots of the highest quality and countless momentum swings across five sterling sets for 5 hours, 15 minutes until Alcaraz finally won the last point at 2:50 a.m. on Thursday, the latest finish in U.S. Open history.
It was “only” a quarterfinal, no trophy at stake, yet was as taut a thriller as this year’s tournament has produced or, likely, will, a tour de force of big cuts on the full sprint and plenty of guts, concluding as a 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-7 (0), 7-5, 6-3 victory for the No. 3-seeded Alcaraz, a 19-year-old from Spain.
“Honestly,” said Alcaraz, who saved a match point in the fourth set, “I still don’t know how I did it.”
He also used words such as “unbelievable” and “amazing.” No hyperbole there.
“This one will hurt for quite a while,” said No. 11 Sinner, a 21-year-old from Italy. “But tomorrow, I will wake up — or today, I will wake up — trying to somehow (take away) only the positives.”
When the 382nd, and final, point was over, Sinner and Alcaraz hugged each other. A handshake at the net would not suffice.
Alcaraz reached his first Grand Slam semifinal and is the youngest man to get that far at the U.S. Open since Pete Sampras won the title at 19 in 1990.
Alcaraz has a chance to move up to No. 1 in the rankings next week, and will face No. 22 Frances Tiafoe of the United States on Friday. The other men’s semifinal that day is No. 5 Casper Ruud of Norway vs. No. 27 Karen Khachanov of Russia.
This match began Wednesday evening at about 9:35 p.m. and easily surpassed the previous mark for latest time of finish at the U.S. Open, which had been 2:26 a.m., shared by three matches.
Alcaraz has been working overtime in New York: His five-set victory over 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic in the fourth round wrapped up at 2:23 a.m. on Tuesday.
“I always say you have to believe in yourself all the time,” Alcaraz said. “The hope is the last thing that you lose.”
After his much more mundane, three-set victory over Andrey Rublev in a quarterfinal that finished at about 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Tiafoe was rather prescient when asked about Alcaraz and Sinner.
“I just hope they play a marathon match, super-long match,” Tiafoe said with a smile, “and they get really tired come Friday.”
Not only did this one run late, it ran long: Only a 5-hour, 26-minute match between Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang in 1992 took more time at the U.S. Open.
Asked afterward how he was feeling physically out there against Sinner, Alcaraz began with a quick response: “I felt great.”
Then he paused, and smiled, before continuing: “Well, probably at the end of the match, I was (at) my end.”
The clock already was past 2 a.m. when Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who was the runner-up at the French Open and bowed out in the U.S. Open quarterfinals on Tuesday, spoke for anyone paying attention to Alcaraz vs. Sinner when she tweeted: “this match is insane. I leave at 6am for the airport but I refuse to sleep and miss this. #Sinner #Alcaraz”
Still, even with thousands and thousands of empty seats, there were enough who remained on hand to make as much noise as a full house at times. Both players would wave their rackets or motion with their arms to encourage the fans to get even louder. And, naturally, the fans would oblige.
“Could have finished in three sets. Could have finished in four sets. Could have finished in five sets,” Sinner said. “We both wanted to win, for sure. We both tried our best.”
It was as back-and-forth as could be. The highlights were too many to list. Just one: Alcaraz won one point after extending a rally by wrapping his racket behind his back to make contact with the ball. One more: Alcaraz fell onto his backside, then sprung up to race to smack a backhand that won that point.
After taking the first set, Alcaraz held five set points in the second — but Sinner saved them all.
In the third, Alcaraz broke to lead 6-5 and served for that set — but Sinner broke to force a tiebreaker that he dominated.
In the fourth, it was Sinner who served for the match at 5-4, even coming within a point of victory there — but Alcaraz broke and wound up pushing what already was a masterpiece to a fifth.
And in the fifth, after another memorable shot — a running backhand passing winner that sailed just past Sinner’s outstretched arm — earned a break point and a chance for a 5-3 lead, Alcaraz put a finger to his ear.
He would convert that, then serve it out. When the end did arrive, Alcaraz dropped to his back, his chest heaving, and covered his face with his hand.
___
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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| 2022-09-21T03:24:39Z
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INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — The Buffalo Bills have fallen short in enough playoff games in recent years to know the season is long and the opener doesn’t mean much in January.
They still felt justified in their championship aspirations after going into the Super Bowl winners’ home stadium and completely wrecking their banner-raising party on the NFL’s opening night.
“We’re going to make the plane do backflips on the way home tonight,” Von Miller said. “We’re going to celebrate this win, because you have to, but then we’re going to go back to the lab.”
Josh Allen passed for 297 yards while accounting for four touchdowns, Miller had two of Buffalo’s seven sacks, and the Bills stamped themselves as a clear contender for the Rams’ crown with a 31-10 victory over Los Angeles on Thursday night.
Gabe Davis, Isaiah McKenzie and Stefon Diggs caught TD passes as the two-time defending AFC East champions began the NFL’s 103rd season by overcoming four turnovers and running away with a blowout win in the same arena where the Rams won it all nearly seven months ago.
Allen went 26 for 31 despite two interceptions. He also rushed for 56 yards, scrambling for a 4-yard TD when he stretched the ball over the line with 13:27 to play.
The star quarterback took his share of hits, but he also dished them out and showed off a mean stiff-arm while Buffalo’s offense under new coordinator Ken Dorsey largely dominated the champs. The Bills went 9 for 10 on third downs and racked up 413 total yards, eventually pulling away after three first-half turnovers kept it close early.
“There’s a lot to learn, but that second half, that’s who we want to be, going out there and executing that way,” Allen said. “We were 90% on third down. That’s a recipe for success.”
Matthew Stafford passed for 240 yards with one TD and three interceptions on a bruising night for the Rams, who lost a season opener and fell below .500 for the first time in coach Sean McVay’s six seasons in charge.
“Very humbling night, but one where you look yourself in the mirror and say you have to be better,” McVay said. “We weren’t ready to go. That’s on me. … There were a lot of decisions I made that didn’t put us in the best position to succeed. It was a very humbling night.”
The Bills’ seven sacks were the most allowed in McVay’s tenure with the Rams, who lost two starters from last year’s offensive line and attempted to replace them internally. Miller came through, but he was just one contributor on a night when Buffalo didn’t even need to blitz once to keep Stafford in check.
Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp had 13 catches for 128 yards and a touchdown, but the Rams’ night went quickly downhill. Los Angeles could not keep up with Allen’s creative playmaking or the Bills’ pass rush, and its only major offseason addition on offense — receiver Allen Robinson — had one catch on two targets.
Los Angeles trailed 17-10 after three quarters, but Buffalo ran away with two lengthy TD drives early in the fourth. The Rams even got shut out in the second half, ending a streak of 89 consecutive halves with a point since November 2019.
“We could play a whole lot better than that, no doubt,” Stafford said. “The one thing that gives me a good feeling is knowing the guys in that locker room and knowing we’re going to band together.”
Miller made an immediate impact in his debut for the Bills, who signed him away from the Rams after he won a ring in his half-season in LA. But he was just one part of a defense that yielded only 177 yards before Los Angeles’ final, meaningless drive.
Aaron Donald made his 99th career sack in the first half, but the seven-time All-Pro had just two tackles as the Rams became only the second defending champions in the last 10 years to lose the following season opener. They also lost by the second-biggest margin in league history for a Super Bowl winner beginning its next season; Baltimore lost by 22 to Denver in 2013.
After falling behind 10-0 despite two Bills turnovers, Los Angeles finally scored on its fourth drive when Kupp made an exceptional toe-tapping TD catch three minutes before halftime. After Allen threw his second interception, Matt Gay hit a 57-yard field goal to pull the Rams even at the halftime gun.
And Los Angeles never scored again.
PUNCTUATION
Diggs capped the domination with a 53-yard TD catch with 9:25 to play, talking trash to Rams All-Pro defensive back Jalen Ramsey afterward.
“You’ve got the two top guys in the NFL competing against each other,” Davis said of Diggs and Ramsey. “Both going to be talking back and forth, and we’re going to see who comes out on top, you know. And 14 came out on top today, and that’s what I expect from him.”
50K
With a long third-down pass to Kupp on his opening drive, Stafford became the 12th quarterback in NFL history to pass for 50,000 career yards. He tied Drew Brees as the fastest to the mark, doing it in 183 games.
TO THE RAFTERS
Along with the banner to celebrate last February’s title, the Rams also hung a banner in the south rafters at SoFi Stadium honoring the 1999-2000 Super Bowl champions from the St. Louis era. The brief pregame ceremony included owner Stan Kroenke, retired left tackle Andrew Whitworth — and free agent Odell Beckham Jr., who held aloft the Lombardi Trophy.
INJURIES
Bills DL Ed Oliver injured his ankle in the first half and tried to play through it, but couldn’t do much. … Rams rookie RB Kyren Williams injured his ankle in the opening minutes. … The Rams played without WR Van Jefferson, who had knee surgery early in training camp after starting 21 games last season.
UP NEXT
Bills: Host Tennessee on Monday, Sept. 19.
Rams: Host Atlanta on Sunday, Sept. 18.
___
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-21T03:24:46Z
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Lance Mackey, one of mushing’s most colorful and accomplished champions who also suffered from health and drug issues, has died.
The four-time Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race winner died Wednesday from cancer, his father and kennel announced on Facebook. He was 52.
Officials with the world’s most famous sled dog race said Iditarod Nation was in mourning.
“Lance embodied the spirit of the race, the tenacity of an Alaskan musher, displayed the ultimate show of perseverance and was loved by his fans,” officials said in a statement.
The son of 1978 Iditarod champion Dick Mackey and brother of 1983 champion Rick Mackey, Lance Mackey overcame throat cancer in 2001 to win an unprecedented four straight Iditarod championships, from 2007 through 2010.
It wasn’t just the 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) race across Alaska where he excelled. During his Iditarod run, twice he also won the 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race between Canada and Alaska with only two weeks’ rest between races.
But after the string of wins, he was beset by personal problems, health scares and drug issues that prevented him from ever again reaching the top of the sport.
The treatment for his throat cancer cost him his saliva glands and ultimately disintegrated his teeth.
He was then diagnosed with Raynaud’s syndrome, which limits circulation to the hands and feet and is exacerbated by the cold weather that every musher must contend with in the wilds of Alaska.
In the 2015 race, he couldn’t manipulate his fingers to do simple tasks, like putting booties on his dogs’ paws to protect them from the snow, ice and cold. His brother and fellow competitor Jason Mackey agreed to stay with him at the back of the pack to help him care for the dogs.
It was a life-changing blow for Lance Mackey, who knew no other lifestyle.
“I love this sport,” he told an Iditarod TV crew during that race while choking back tears. “I can’t do it no more.”
Documentary filmmaker Greg Kohs spent two weeks with Mackey during the 2013 Iditarod, filming “The Great Alone.” He was waiting in the tiny, remote village of Takotna for Mackey to arrive, and he was encouraged to go there because village residents make amazing pies to serve the mushers as they come through the race checkpoint.
“I realized Lance Mackey was a lot like a piece of pie. Once you got a taste of his story and personality, you wanted to share it with others,” he said in a statement issued after learning of Mackey’s death.
“And like a homemade pie, the tin is often dinged up, and the crust might not look perfect, but inside is a delicious recipe richened by time, wisdom and soul,” Kohs wrote.
Whether he won or lost, or when talking about problems, Mackey was always transparent.
“That honesty is what allowed him to be fearless,” five-time champion Dallas Seavey told The Associated Press on Thursday. “He didn’t have to see himself in a different light than he actually was.”
Seavey said Mackey gave it everything, racing to the limit.
“If it didn’t work, it didn’t work, and that was fine by him,” Seavey said. “It made him a heck of a competitor.”
Another musher, four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King, said Mackey was a fabulous competitor.
“He will be missed and always remembered as a great dog man,” King said.
After his string of first place finishes, Mackey dropped back in the standings, finishing a career-worst 43rd in 2015. The next year he scratched and didn’t race the Iditarod again until 2019, when he placed 26th.
In the 2020 race, his last, he carried his mother’s ashes in his sled to the finish line in Nome to honor her, but he was later disqualified after testing positive for methamphetamine. He entered rehab on the East Coast.
Before the Iditarod began drug testing in 2010, Mackey also acknowledged using marijuana on the trail.
Months after the 2020 race finished, his partner Jenne Smith died in an all-terrain vehicle accident. They had two children.
Last month, he told the Iditarod website that an examination after a car accident discovered more cancer, and he thought treatment had taken care of it. “But came up with some other issues that aren’t gone and seem to have moved rapidly and left me in the position I’m in at the moment,” he said, noting he was on oxygen and had lost 30 pounds.
When asked if he was fearful, Mackey responded: “I’m not fearing nothing. You know, it is what it is, but I’m not any different than the rest of the people on the planet. When it’s my bus stop, I’ll get off.”
He also used the opportunity to apologize to his fans for his past problems.
“I’m still, like never before, embarrassed and ashamed and disappointed,” he said following his disqualification.
He said he knew he had lost fans and wasn’t looking to change their opinion of him.
“I am truly sorry for the many embarrassing moments, but I’m also grateful for the support that I also received from a lot of the same people,” he said.
DeeDee Jonrowe, a retired musher who had known Lance since he was a junior musher, went through cancer treatments about the same time as Mackey.
“I admire him for what he fought through, but I’m really sad for the fact he wasn’t able to survive the dysfunction of it all,” she said, noting the loss of mother, partner and the substance abuse, which didn’t help the cancer treatments.
“He’s a legend,” Jonrowe said. “But I don’t think he would want anybody to follow his lifestyle footsteps. He would wish that they would learn from the stumbles that he made.”
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DALLAS (AP) — In a meeting room just down the hall from where the plan for a 12-team College Football Playoff came to life almost 2 1/2 years ago, the conference commissioners who manage the postseason system finally began the next phase of expansion: implementation.
The 11-member management committee gathered Thursday for 4 1/2 hours at a hotel in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for the first time since their bosses voted last week to expand the CFP from four to 12 teams.
The frustrations and hard-feelings that hung over expansion talks most of last fall, and led to some icy gatherings, have seemingly been lifted. The goal is to sort through myriad issues and have a new format in place for the 2024 season.
It’s unclear whether there is still time to accomplish that, but at least now everybody involved appears to be pulling in the same direction.
“It’s like when you wait in a long line,” American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco said. “You finally get there, and you kind of forget about the long wait.”
Among the critical items that need to be sorted out to transform the playoff in two years are media rights, revenue sharing and working with and around existing contracts with ESPN and bowl partners.
“There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of pieces,” Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said. ”It won’t be by lack of effort, whatever happens.”
But first they need to figure out where and when 11 playoff games can be played. Availability of venues and television time slots could ultimately determine whether early expansion is possible.
“Really, everything falls from the calendar, kind of feeds from the calendar,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said.
The management committee, comprised of 10 conference commissioner and Notre Dame’s athletic director, meet again later this month at the Big Ten offices in Rosemont, Illinois.
Last week, the university presidents and chancellors who oversee the CFP pushed forward expansion and directed the management committee to implement a 12-team model by 2026, but as soon as 2024 — if feasible.
“We looked at everything today,” Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips said. “’24, ‘25, ’26. So it’s kind of parceled together. But I’m optimistic.”
Early expansion for the 2024 and 2025 seasons appeared to be off the table in February after months of haggling among the commissioners failed to produce the necessary unanimous consensus.
Phillips, along with Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren and Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff, had opposed the 12-team plan last year.
The presidents had other ideas, but that lost time makes the task more difficult.
“We didn’t move down the road on details,” Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey. “Well, now the good news is, the spirit is, ‘hey, we need to get after this.’ So attention is high. Prioritization is high.”
Sankey was part of the four-person subcommittee that began working on expansion in 2019. The group met here in February 2020 to hone in on the 12-team plan, but the pandemic put that on hold and it wasn’t unveiled until June 2021.
The 12-team format calls for four first-round games played at or near campus sites about two weeks after conference championship games, typically held the first weekend of December.
Quarterfinals will be held at bowl sites on or around New Year’s Day, followed by neutral site semifinals about a week later and a championship game in mid-January.
Last month, the CFP announced the sites for the 2024 and 2025 championship games based on a four-team model, another hurdle to changing the format.
A new format before 2026 would also mean going back to the bargaining table with ESPN, which pays about $470 million per year for the CFP, plus another $125 million in separate agreements with the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl.
Expansion for the final two years of the current 12-year deal that ends after the 2025 season is estimated to be worth an additional $450 million in net revenue to the conferences.
The estimated value of the television rights to a 12-team playoff beyond 2025 is about $2 billion per year.
A newcomer was welcomed to the management committee this week: Brett Yormark officially replaced Bob Bowlsby as Big 12 Commissioner in August.
Yormark said he spent most of Thursday’s meeting asking questions.
He previously spent 14 years leading the company that manages Barclays Center and other sports and entertainment venues in New York. He said he didn’t know the nuances of the CFP well enough to gauge how complicated early implementation will be.
But if all the stakeholders are on board, he said, that goes a long way.
“When an event’s worth it, you do what you need to do to execute it,” he said.
___
Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.appodcasts.com
___
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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| 2022-09-21T03:25:02Z
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Chelsea’s new American owners took a gamble with the first managerial appointment of their tenure, hiring Graham Potter from Premier League rival Brighton on Thursday despite his lack of experience coaching at soccer’s highest level.
The 47-year-old Potter agreed to a five-year deal as the replacement for Thomas Tuchel, who was fired on Wednesday after an apparent breakdown in his relationship with Chelsea’s recently installed ownership team fronted by Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly.
While Tuchel won the Champions League with Chelsea last year and previously ran a locker room of soccer superstars — such as Kylian Mbappé and Neymar — at Paris Saint-Germain, Potter has a more obscure coaching past and has won only one trophy, the Swedish Cup in 2017.
That came during a seven-year stint at remote Swedish club Ostersund (2011-18), which he led from the country’s fourth tier to the first division and then into the Europa League for the first time.
Since then, he has coached Swansea for one season in English soccer’s second division, guiding the team to the FA Cup quarterfinals, before taking over at Brighton in 2019. Brighton is currently in fourth place in the Premier League, having finished last season in ninth — the highest in the club’s history.
Chelsea said Potter would bring “progressive football and innovative coaching” to the club, while Boehly said the new coach “fits our vision.”
“Not only is he extremely talented on the pitch,” Boehly said of Potter, “he has skills and capabilities that extend beyond the pitch which will make Chelsea a more successful club.”
Potter, who played mostly for lower-league English teams in an undistinguished career from 1992-2005 before retiring at the age of 30 and going into higher education, is widely admired as one of the country’s best tacticians and has a brave, entertaining style of play that has won plaudits if not trophies. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has said he is a “big fan” of Potter because of the way his “players move with freedom and … have the courage to play everywhere.”
And Boehly, the face of Chelsea’s ownership, has been convinced that Potter is the man to instill a long-term soccer ethos and identity throughout the club at the start of the new era.
The demands Potter will face at Chelsea will contrast sharply with those at his previous clubs, however, unlikely giving him as much time to cultivate a team as he has had so far in his career.
“He’ll be expected to win every week, to challenge for trophies,” said former Chelsea player and assistant coach Jody Morris. “It’s totally different to being in a club where you are expected to be midtable and can go a couple of months without winning a game. You go a couple of games without winning at Chelsea and it’ll be totally different.”
Potter’s time in Sweden offers an interesting insight into why he is lauded as a good man-manager and a thinker of the game.
Under Potter, Ostersund, which prides itself on developing its players as people before sportsmen, started what it called a “Culture Academy” where squad members and coaches were faced with challenges to their mental process and decision-making under pressure.
After achieving promotion one year, Potter and his players put on a modern-dance production in the city’s theater, set to music from Swan Lake.
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More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/Soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has a reworked contract that will pay him $115 million over 10 seasons through 2031.
Swinney’s enhanced contract follows megadeals given to Alabama’s Nick Saban, Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Ohio State’s Ryan Day earlier this season. Swinney’s average yearly salary of $11.5 million sits only behind Saban’s $11.7 million average compensation.
The university’s board of trustees compensation committee approved the deal Thursday.
Swinney will make $10.5 million this season, a raise of $2 million scheduled under his old agreement signed in 2019. He’ll earn $12.5 million in the contract’s final year, 2031.
Each year, Swinney will get $305,000 in base salary. His supplemental income this season will be $6.695 million plus $3.5 million in licensing money.
Swinney’s total compensation will go up $250,000 for the next four years. He will remain at $11.5 million in 2026 and 2027, then continuing increasing by $250,000 the final four years of the agreement.
“I remain eternally grateful and honored for the opportunity to continue coach and developing young people of excellence,” said Swinney, who is in his 14th full season with the Tigers. “This agreement is representative of what has been collectively built here.”
The 52-year-old has won seven Atlantic Coast Conference titles, made the College Football Playoff six times and won national crowns after the 2016 and 2018 seasons.
The Tigers, fifth in the latest poll, open the home season Saturday against FCS opponent Furman.
Athletic director Graham Neff said it was “critical that Clemson invest in our football program and ensure our head coach is at Clemson for a long, long time.”
The contract includes a different tier for any buyout if Swinney were leave to coach his alma mater, Alabama — $9 million to join the Crimson Tide this year, but just $6 million for any other college head coaching job. Those figures are reduced, but remain different, as the contract continues.
Swinney wouldn’t owe anything if he left to become an NFL head coach.
Clemson would have to pay Swinney $64 million if it dismissed him without cause, a figure that decreases throughout the length of the deal.
There are several contract performance bonuses, including $350,000 for a national title and $200,000 for an ACC championship. Swinney would get $100,000 if his team’s Academic Progress Rate reaches 975 out of 1,000, according to the NCAA’s scale that tracks academic performance.
Swinney was elevated to interim head coach in 2008 at midseason when Tommy Bowden was let go . Then the receivers’ coach, Swinney went 4-2 down the stretch to earn the full-time job.
The Tigers reached their first ACC championship game in 2009, then won the title two years later. In 2015, Clemson began run of six straight league crowns and six consecutive CFP berths.
The Tigers have had 11 straight seasons of 10 wins or more.
___
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://bit.ly/3pqZVaF
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The first clue that, no, Manu Ginobili did not invent the Eurostep should come from the move’s name. Ginobili isn’t from Europe. He’s from South America. And it’s not called the South Ameristep.
Perhaps it should be. The long, lateral move — step one way to get a defender leaning, then cut the other way into open space — was Ginobili’s signature, something he mastered, something that he brought into the mainstream.
In turn, it brought him to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The four-time NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs is one of the headliners for Saturday night’s enshrinement ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ginobili spent all 16 of his NBA seasons in San Antonio, partnering with Tim Duncan and Tony Parker to form a Big Three that was, and surely will remain, one of the best trios the league has ever seen.
“It’s something you never expect,” Ginobili said of entering the Hall. “You start playing ball because you love it, because it’s fun, because you’re there with your friends. … And now, when I thought there were not going to be more surprises after my career was done, you get a recognition like this which makes you think, go back a little bit in time, and relieve your story, and it’s incredible.”
Ginobili isn’t the first international NBA player to make the Hall. He is, however, the first to be selected by the North American committee, which means he got into the Hall solely on the merits of his NBA career and not what he did playing internationally.
He’s quick to point out that he won’t be the last name on that list. Parker, Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol will be getting their calls before long.
“I’m proud of being part of that generation that changed the way the game was played, the game was perceived, the international players were recognized,” Ginobili said. “It was fun to be part of that.”
The Spurs drafted Ginobili in 1999, when he was playing in Italy, and it took more than three years for him just to come to the NBA. It’s not like San Antonio had made a huge investment: Ginobili was the next-to-last pick in his draft class, 57th out of 58. And most of the players taken in the bottom 15 picks of that draft never played a single game in the NBA.
But in 2002, he showed up. With his Eurostep.
“I didn’t know what the hell it was,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “But it didn’t look right.”
Turns out, it was legal and lethal. The true measure of whether a move has captured the attention of NBA players comes by seeing if others have copied it and tried to put it into their own repertoires. And that’s been happening for two decades now.
Nobody knows for sure how the move truly originated, and Ginobili insists that he didn’t create it, either. The commonly held belief is that Lithuanian great Sarunas Marciulionis — a Hall of Famer himself, class of 2014 — brought it to the NBA.
But there isn’t much argument that Ginobili is the one who made it popular. Thing is, he can’t teach it very well, despite being asked countless times to do so over the years.
“I couldn’t exactly explain it,” Ginobili said. “Some basics of it, yes, but it was super natural, it was super instinctive.”
It’s not the move that got Ginobili into the Hall, though. It was the winning.
When Ginobili played, the Spurs won. It’s that simple. They were 762-295 when Ginobili appeared during the regular season. That winning percentage of 72.1% is just a smidge better than the 71.9% posted by Duncan, who went into the Hall in 2020 and, fittingly, will present Ginobili this weekend.
Ginobili is one of two players (Bill Bradley being the other) to have won championships in the NBA, the Euroleague and the Olympics. He got four rings with the Spurs, the Euroleague title with Italian club Kinder Bologna in 2001, then led his native Argentina to Olympic gold at Athens in 2004. Ginobili had 29 points in the semifinal win over the U.S., outplaying everybody else who was on the court that day, Duncan included. The Americans haven’t settled for anything less than gold at any of the four Olympics that have been played since.
“It’s not just about individual accomplishments,” Ginobili said. “I never won a scoring championship, an MVP, even first-team. I’m here because of my surroundings, of the players I play with, of the coaches I’ve been coached with, and the organizations. I know I’ve been very lucky to have played with such teammates … so definitely, I don’t take it as an individual achievement. It’s just that I’ve been in the right place, in the right time.”
Case in point: San Antonio.
Ginobili didn’t know what, or even where, San Antonio was when he first went there. He never left — it’s still home for Ginobili and his family. He works for the Spurs now, drives his three kids to and from school, takes them to Argentina for time with family every summer, and then it’s back to San Antonio.
“I didn’t know how I was going to pair up with Tony and Tim, play with David Robinson, being coached by Pop, so yeah, full of uncertainties,” Ginobili said. “And I wanted to do good, I wanted to help, I wanted to grow, but I wasn’t the No. 1, first pick, right? I was 57, so I knew that the odds of me staying for long here were not with me because it doesn’t usually happen. So, it turned out to be an incredible story and enjoyed 16 wonderful years.”
There’s another place that Ginobili hasn’t been: Springfield, Massachusetts.
He was with Duncan for his enshrinement two years ago, but because of the pandemic, that ceremony took place at a casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. Ginobili didn’t get to Springfield on that trip.
He’s there now. Forever.
“We knew we had a wild, competitive, young man who was in love with basketball and was quite athletic and just fierce,” Popovich said. “Just seemed to have no fear and do whatever it might be that he needed to do to win. He was a force of nature.”
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More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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NEW YORK (AP) — Getting to a Grand Slam final is no longer new to Ons Jabeur. She figures it’s time to add a major trophy to her list of groundbreaking accomplishments.
And she’s sure she is more ready to do it at the U.S. Open than she was at Wimbledon two months ago.
Jabeur reached a second consecutive Slam title match without needing to produce her best tennis Thursday night, taking full advantage of a shaky showing by Caroline Garcia to win their semifinal at Flushing Meadows 6-1, 6-3.
“Feels more real, to be honest with you, just to be in the final again. At Wimbledon, I was kind of just living the dream, and I couldn’t believe it,” Jabeur said after ending No. 17 Garcia’s 13-match winning streak, which included a victory over Coco Gauff. “Now maybe I know what to do.”
On Saturday, with a championship on the line, Jabeur will go up against No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek, who grabbed the last four games, and 16 of the last 20 points, to come back and beat No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
The first step for Swiatek to turn things around came when she headed to the locker room after the first set — to use the bathroom and think about what to adjust on court.
“I needed to get it together,” said Swiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland who already owns two trophies from the French Open’s red clay, including one this June, but never had been past the fourth round on New York’s hard courts.
Sabalenka, meanwhile, dropped to 0-3 in Slam semifinals for her career and 12-11 in three-setters this year. She broke for a 4-2 lead in the third set — and 17 minutes later, it was over, as Swiatek surged to the finish.
“She was just going for it,” said Sabalenka, who wore large blue mirrored sunglasses and a black cap pulled low to her news conference. “She was hitting every ball and putting me under pressure and playing really aggressively.”
Swiatek has emerged as a dominant figure in women’s tennis, with a 37-match winning streak that brought her six titles in one stretch. If she can defeat Jabeur, Swiatek will become the first woman since Angelique Kerber in 2016 to win two majors in one season.
The No. 5-seeded Jabeur, a 28-year-old from Tunisia, was the runner-up at the All England Club in July and now will be the first African woman to participate in a final at the U.S. Open in the professional era, which dates to 1968.
“After Wimbledon, (there was) a lot of pressure on me,” Jabeur said following a win that took barely more than an hour, “and I’m really relieved that I can back up my results.”
The men’s semifinals are Friday: No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain vs. No. 22 Frances Tiafoe of the United States, and No. 5 Casper Ruud of Norway vs. No. 27 Karen Khachanov of Russia.
With four-time major champion Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in her guest box — they traded thumbs-up signals at match’s end — Jabeur improved to 6-0 in semifinals this season and earned her tour-leading 92nd victory in all since the start of 2021. No. 91 came when she defeated Ajla Tomljanovic, who eliminated Serena Williams in the third round.
To Jabeur’s surprise, and delight, she heard Tuesday’s victory over Tomljanovic on Tuesday was drawing viewers back home, even though it there also was a Champions League game between Juventus and Paris St. Germain on TV.
“In Tunisia, it’s all about soccer,” she said. “But people were not watching (that) game, they were watching my game, which is impressive to me.”
Just one example of how she is changing views about tennis in her country — and on a continent.
Since pro players were first admitted to major tennis tournaments, never had an African woman or Arab woman been to a Slam final until she did that at the All England Club before losing to Elena Rybakina.
At the 2020 Australian Open, she became the first Arab woman to reach the quarterfinals at a major. Last year, she was the first Arab player to break into the top 10 of the men’s or women’s rankings and first with a WTA title.
“Definitely saying out loud what I want to do is part of me achieving things,” said Jabeur, who dropped to her knees and let out a yell when Thursday’s semifinal ended, then layed on her back.
“I’m sure it’s a lot of pressure on her shoulders,” said Garcia, a 28-year-old from France. “But she looks like to be managing it really well.”
On this 75-degree (24 Celsius) evening under the lights in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Jabeur finished with 21 winners — after one was aided by a fortuitous net cord, Jabeur put up a hand to apologize, then blew a kiss to the sky — and just 15 unforced errors.
She delivered eight aces. She went 4 for 4 on break chances and didn’t face any.
After a moment of silence to commemorate the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Garcia won the coin toss and chose to serve. She got broken right away, thanks to four mistakes. Most concerning and perhaps most reflective of nerves Garcia later acknowledged were there: She dumped what should have been an easy put-away volley into the bottom of the net.
It was a rather inauspicious start for Garcia, who hadn’t lost a set on the way to her debut in a Slam semifinal.
“Mentally,” said Jabeur, who travels with a sports psychologist, “I was so ready.”
She plans to be again on Saturday. Swiatek will stand in the way.
___
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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CINCINNATI (AP) — Xiyu “Janet” Lin of China opened with five birdies in six holes, birdied all but one of the par 5s and had an 8-under 64 on Thursday for a one-shot lead over Nasa Hataoka in the Kroger Queen City Championship.
The LPGA Tour returned to Cincinnati for the first time in 33 years and was greeted with a gorgeous day and plenty of good scoring at Kenwood Country Club.
That included a remarkable performance by 14-year-old Gianna Clemente, who made it through Monday qualifying for the third week in a row on the LPGA Tour and this time has a chance to play all four days. Clemente played bogey-free for a 70.
It did not include Lexi Thompson. One week after she played in the final group and didn’t make a birdie until the 18th hole to tie for 16th, Thompson didn’t make a single birdie in her round of 76, her highest of the year at a regular LPGA event. She had a 77 at Muirfield when she missed the cut in the Women’s British Open.
Lin is coming off a tie for seventh at the Dana Open, showing signs of life after a good start to the year. Playing in the afternoon, she opened with three straight birdies on the back nine, made par, and then added two more birdies.
“That was a dream start. You can’t ask for a better start,” Lin said. “So I just tell myself, ‘Need to keep going.’’
Her lone bogey came on the par-4 seventh toward the end of her round, and she responded with her ninth birdie of the round to regain the lead over Hataoka.
“I still do need to adjust my tee shots, but other than that, my iron and putting is good. I just have to keep that going,” Hataoka said.
The surprise was Clemente, who splits time between her native Ohio and Florida and lost in the championship match of the U.S. Junior Girls this year.
She got through Monday qualifying for Canada and missed the cut, then did it again for the Dana Open outside Toledo and missed the cut.
For her third straight start, the teenager made only two birdies and very few mistakes. And she wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“I feel good about it. Could have been a little better. I can think of a couple putts that maybe I should have made,” Clemente said. “But it was all right. I definitely know that I can go lower than that, so I’m going to go work on my putting a little bit and we’ll get that fixed up a little bit and hopefully it’ll be lower tomorrow.”
Former U.S. Women’s Open champion A Lim Kim and Sarah Kemp were at 66, while the group at 67 included Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand and former Women’s PGA champion Sei Young Kim.
The most exciting round belonged to Paula Creamer in her second tournament back from having her first baby. She shot a 72 that was far from even. Creamer holed out from 104 yards with a gap wedge for an eagle on par-4 fifth hole. Three holes later, Creamer made a hole-in-one with a 7-iron.
That’s two eagles in one round, along with three birdies. But she also had five bogeys and a double bogey, and had to settle for at least being inside the cut line going into Friday.
“I made a lot of putting mistakes and did some mental errors here and there. Unfortunately, my scorecard is a roller coaster. But that’s golf,” Creamer said.
“I feel good with where my game is at. I know it’s an up and down thing, but I just need to stay on path with what we’re doing,” she said. “I really do think it’s going to produce great things here eventually.”
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More AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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MILWAUKEE (AP) — There was more than one opportunity for sibling rivalry Thursday in a Milwaukee Brewers-San Francisco Giants doubleheader that featured two sets of brothers.
Brewers left-hander Taylor Rogers and Giants right-hander Tyler Rogers are twins who were warming up at the same time late in the opening game. Giants lefty Scott Alexander and his younger brother, Brewers right-hander Jason Alexander, conducted the lineup exchange before the second game.
“It was weird,” Scott Alexander said. “While we were playing catch, I saw him over there playing catch and it was hard not to keep looking over to see what he was doing. I’m sure it will hit days from now, but definitely a special moment.”
According to Elias Sports Bureau, the last time two sets of brothers played against each other in the same game was Aug. 6, 1977, when St. Louis’ Hector Cruz and Bob Forsch and Houston’s Jose Cruz and Ken Forsch all played in a game the Cardinals won 3-1.
Elias’ records only accounted for instances in which all four siblings saw action in the game. Only Tyler Rogers and Scott Alexander played in the opening game of Thursday’s doubleheader, a 2-1 Brewers victory.
Taylor Rogers struck out the side in the ninth inning of the second game to earn the save in Milwaukee’s 4-2 triumph.
“It’s one of those things you can’t really explain how cool it is watching your brother, and like Jason knows what I feel when I’m watching my brother,” Taylor Rogers said. “That’s kind of cool, we can share that.”
Although each of the Rogers twins were warming up late in the first game of the Brewers’ doubleheader sweep, only Tyler Rogers ended up pitching at that point.
“If I was going to go out in that inning, when the inning ended, I planned on just staying out there and handing him the ball if that had happened,” Taylor Rogers said.
In the first game, Scott Alexander pitched a scoreless first inning as the Giants’ opener and Tyler Rogers pitched a scoreless eighth inning.
Jason Alexander didn’t appear in either game of the doubleheader. He’s the Brewers’ scheduled starter Friday against the Cincinnati Reds.
Even so, the siblings considered this a special moment. They particularly appreciated the opportunity to meet for the lineup exchange.
“This will probably go down as one of my favorite moments in baseball,” Jason Alexander said.
The Alexanders said this was the first time they had ever been involved in the same game as teammates or opponents. Scott is almost four years older than Jason.
“So we missed each other in high school and things like that,” Scott Alexander said. “That was the first time we’ve ever been on the field at the same time.”
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T03:25:56Z
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MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) — What’s 10 points worth? That’s what Will Power hopes he doesn’t find out while trying to close out the closest IndyCar championship fight in nearly 20 years.
Power takes a 20-point lead into Sunday’s season finale at Laguna Seca Raceway over six-time champion Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden, Power’s Team Penske teammate and a two-time IndyCar champion. Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson remains in contention, as does Scott McLaughlin, who sits 41 points behind teammate Power.
In all, five drivers mathematically have a shot and two contenders, reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward, were only eliminated last Sunday in IndyCar’s closest title race since 2003 — when the Indy Racing League was called “The IRL.”
But there are plenty of Power fans who believe the Australian could have had some breathing room in this title fight had Team Penske done him any favors.
McLaughlin last week dominated at Portland to win his third race of the season and Power finished second to retain his hold on the points lead. Power definitely did not have a car as good as McLaughlin’s, but challenger Dixon was closing fast behind him in both the race and title fight.
If Team Penske had called for “team orders” and asked McLaughlin to cede the lead to Power, he’d have 10 additional points over Dixon and Newgarden. The call Dixon considered a “no-brainer” never came and now Power must finish no lower than third to clinch the title.
Those additional points could have taken some of the pressure off Power to be perfect on Sunday and helped him preserve the hold he’s had on the championship three different times this season, including the last four races.
Even though Power was calling for the team orders over his radio at Portland, he knows that Team Penske has never used them and it’s the fairest way to manage three individual teams.
“They’ve never done that. When you think about it, it would have been unfair on Josef to do that because if I was in his position, I would not be happy to be put 30 points back,” Power said Thursday. “ From a team perspective, it was a fair thing to do. It would be great to get 10 points. But yeah, Team Penske doesn’t do that.”
Dixon and Ericsson are teammates at Chip Ganassi Racing and understand how the boss wants them to race.
“I think the thing Chip stresses is that you race clean, you race fairly, you help your teammates and you hope the organization wins,” Dixon told The Associated Press. He added that the Penske trio “do seem to race more singularly.”
It’s a sensitive topic in that team orders are essentially manipulating both the outcome of the race with a focus on the championship picture. It is common in Formula One but typically not popular, and although it’s been illegal in NASCAR since a 2013 scandal, teammates and manufacturer allies can and do often subtly help each other on the track.
It’s not so clear-cut in IndyCar, and not always subtle: there’s been wide speculation that McLaughlin allowed Newgarden to take the lead and the win after a late restart at Gateway last month. McLaughlin has said publicly that Newgarden, his close friend and co-host of their YouTube series, used “the slipstream effect” to pass him fairly.
Team Penske has weaved through the team orders issue since Sunday at Portland, while Dixon admits that Chip Ganassi Racing races with the greater organization in mind. And while Penske and Ganassi have teamed to win 14 of the last 16 IndyCar championships, nine have gone to Ganassi, including the last two.
Power, coincidentally, was on the losing end of three consecutive title races from 2010 to 2012 and finished runner-up twice to a Ganassi driver. He won his only title in 2014, his only Indianapolis 500 four years later, and has had to go head-to-head with his Penske teammates every year.
Coming off his the worst season of his 14 years driving for Roger Penske — Power had career lows in nearly every category and was ninth in the final 2021 standings — he’s returned at top form.
He attributes it to now being 41 years old and a father, which have both mellowed many of his quirks and matured his approach to performance. Although he has only one win this season, Power has been remarkably consistent with an average finish of sixth and at Gateway tied Mario Andretti for most poles in IndyCar history with 67.
But he’s been seemingly cast away at Penske, where the tight bond between Newgarden and McLaughlin has made Power the odd driver out of the cool club on a three-car team. Power wasn’t really joking when asked about McLaughlin allegedly giving Newgarden the Gateway win and said “that’s his best buddy, so he is probably going to do that.”
Penske team president Tim Cindric seemed irritated this week by the entire topic. He first dismissed Dixon’s take as “a little mental game going on” with Power because “if you focus on last week, you’re not focused on this week.”
Cindric, who is also Newgarden’s strategist, then brushed off the insinuation no team orders were called at Portland because padding Power’s lead would have dropped both Dixon and Newgarden to 30 points out.
“That was never a consideration,” said Cindric. “From all-the-eggs-in-one-basket perspective, or Will versus Josef, no, certainly not. Not one of the considerations there.”
Cindric grew curt when, still on the team orders topic, he was asked if seeing Dixon drive into third at Portland didn’t make him consider cycling Power into the lead.
“If we have another restart, Dixon passes both of them, then how do you feel?” he retorted.
Dixon explained the four drivers at Ganassi work as teammates and have some added help Sunday since Palou and Jimmie Johnson aren’t racing for the title. It won’t be the case at Penske.
“All of us have a general understanding that if there’s a point you can help your teammate, that’s what you are going to do,” Dixon told AP. “But I think their situation is a little bit different between Josef and Will. By all means, Josef will be trying to beat Will. I don’t think there will be any help there. At all. No help at all from Josef.”
That’s how it goes, Cindric insisted, with Penske’s decision to run three championship-contending full-time cars. Newgarden has won a series-high five races this season, McLaughlin is next with three and Power’s lone victory gives Team Penske nine victories through 16 races.
“When it comes to team orders, that type of thing, people forget that you have other obligations to other people aside from yourself,” Cindric said. “You have obligations to the driver, to your sponsors, to their families and all the rest on down the line. Those aren’t very obvious things, especially when you’re talking about whether someone wins a race or doesn’t win a race.
Mike Hull, Cindric’s contemporary at Ganassi, said his drivers will race professionally with integrity. But he, too, shifted away from the team orders concept by pointing out that IndyCar, on pace for its most watched season since 2008, is the real winner come Sunday.
“Who wins here is IndyCar. With the success that IndyCar is having this year with the absolute strength that’s created in growth, they’re going to win,” Hull said. “It comes down to the quality teams racing with quality drivers. I think that’s a testament to how far the series has come in a very short period of time with its ownership and with the direction that its ownership is creating.”
IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Ganassi won the Indy 500 this year with Ericsson, have been owned by Roger Penske since 2020.
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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T03:26:03Z
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead have agreed to contract extensions through the 2026 season, keeping the defending Super Bowl champions’ brain trust in place with lucrative new deals.
The Rams announced the extensions Thursday, several hours before they opened the NFL’s 103rd season by hosting the Buffalo Bills at SoFi Stadium.
McVay finalized his new deal several weeks ago, but the Rams waited to formally announce the extensions until Snead’s new contract was also completed. Los Angeles didn’t announce the financial terms of the deals, but both are expected to make them among the top-paid handful of people in their positions.
“They have been crucial to many of our successes that transcend wins and losses,” Rams owner Stan Kroenke said in a statement. “They epitomize the ‘We not me’ mantra that permeates the entire organization. Their extensions are well deserved. We look forward to many more exciting seasons at SoFi Stadium as Sean and Les continue to play meaningful roles within the organization and throughout the community.”
The Rams have been in a renaissance ever since Snead hired McVay in 2017 as the youngest head coach in the Super Bowl era. Los Angeles has enjoyed five winning seasons, four playoff berths, three NFC West titles, two Super Bowl appearances and one league title in the ensuing half-decade, going 55-26 with seven postseason victories.
The 36-year-old McVay is still the youngest head coach in the NFL, and he became the youngest to win the Super Bowl last February when the Rams rallied past the Cincinnati Bengals at the Rams’ home SoFi Stadium. He has the sixth-best winning percentage in NFL history among coaches with at least 50 games of experience.
The 51-year-old Snead has been in charge of the Rams’ front office since he was hired by Kroenke in St. Louis in February 2012. Along with drafting the likes of Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp, Snead has built a reputation as an aggressive roster-builder who didn’t hesitate to make costly moves to improve the team, although his Rams didn’t end the franchise’s 12-year playoff drought until they paired Snead’s personnel acumen with McVay’s coaching abilities.
With Snead in charge, the Rams traded up to choose Jared Goff with the first overall pick in their first draft after coming home to Los Angeles in 2016. The Rams haven’t made a first-round pick since then, with Snead repeatedly trading top draft choices to acquire talent capable of helping his team to win now.
Under Snead’s leadership over the past five seasons, the Rams have sacrificed assets to land veterans ranging from receivers Sammy Watkins and Brandin Cooks to All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey and edge rusher Von Miller. Los Angeles still doesn’t have a first-round pick until 2024 after trading this year’s pick and next year’s pick — along with Goff — in the package to land quarterback Matthew Stafford, who promptly led the Rams to the title.
Snead also has a history of signing his good players to lucrative contract extensions — and then sometimes trading them or releasing them before those extensions even kick in, as he did with Goff, running back Todd Gurley and receiver Robert Woods in recent years.
Stafford, All-Pro Aaron Donald and right tackle Rob Havenstein are among the veterans who agreed to big contract extensions and restructured deals with the Rams this year.
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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-21T03:26:10Z
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CHICAGO (AP) — The Connecticut Sun made no secret about wanting revenge against Chicago in the teams’ WNBA Playoffs semifinal series, especially after the Sky sent them packing from the semifinals in 2021 while on the way to the title.
“We come up here every year and Chicago kicks our (butt),” Sun forward DeWanna Bonner said of the Sky, who swept all four regular-season meetings.
Jonquel Jones had 15 points and 10 rebounds and the Sun overcame an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter, beating the Sky 72-63 on Thursday night in the decisive fifth game. The Sun scored the final 18 points to overcome a 63-54 deficit with 4:46 remaining.
All the Sun starters scored in double figures and Connecticut advanced to the Finals for the third time overall and first time since 2019.
Connecticut will face the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces for the WNBA title. The first game of the series is Sunday in Las Vegas.
“There will be a new champion in this league,” Sun coach Curt Miller said. “There will be a first-time franchise champion. There will be a new coach, once again, that will be a first-time champion.”
Chicago was attempting to become the first team to repeat as WNBA champions since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001-02.
Jones scored inside to put the Sun ahead with two minutes left, hitting an ensuing free throw for a three-point lead. A pull-up jumper by Courtney Williams with 47.5 seconds remaining gave the Sun a five-point cushion, and DeWanna Bonner knocked down four free throws to put the game out of reach.
Connecticut outscored Chicago 25-5 in the fourth quarter, recovering from a disastrous third period in which it scored eight points and turned the ball over seven times.
“When adversity hits, sometimes we fold,” Natisha Hiedeman said. “Not no more, we’re not folding no more. As you all saw (after) the third quarter, we picked up right back up once again. Now we’re going to the championship. Job not done yet.”
Kahleah Copper led the Sky with 22 points on 8-for-19 shooting, including 3 of 5 from long distance, and added four steals.
Bonner chipped in with 15 points, Hiedeman added 14 and Williams and Alyssa Thomas each added 12 for Connecticut.
Emma Meesseman, who finished with 14 points on 6-for-14 shooting and six rebounds, gave the Sky an 11-point lead with 7:20 to play.
Chicago coach James Wade called the late collapse “one of the biggest disappointments” of his professional career.
“We haven’t had a quarter like that, and to end the season off it, (that) didn’t display what we’ve actually done,” Wade said. “I just wish I could’ve got them a bucket and I just couldn’t. It’s just a tough feeling.”
In the opening half, the Sun continued the torrid shooting they had in Game 4, when they made 56.9% of their shots. But that slowed in the third quarter, as the Sky defense tightened.
Candace Parker buried a 3-pointer and Copper followed with three-point play to give Chicago a 10-point lead entering the fourth. But Chicago’s shooting went cold and the Sky missed their last eight shots.
“Of course it was not intentional, but maybe we stopped attacking,” Courtney Vandersloot said. “(Maybe) we were scared to lose, rather than trying to win. But I feel like we got good looks, we just didn’t knock them down.”
Parker finished with seven points and nine rebounds.
DOUBTERS BEWARE
Miller called the Sun’s fourth quarter performance “historic,” but he is well aware his team will once again be considered underdogs in the final against Vegas.
“Not many people will pick us against Vegas either, and that’s OK,” Miller said. “We’re going to prepare and try to make it a Connecticut Sun style of game.”
To do so, he’ll rely on more stellar post play from Jones, Thomas and Brionna Jones.
“(Parker) is an incredible, all-time great in this league,” Miller said. “But I hope that someone writes (about how) the combination of JJ, AT and Bri Jones have knocked her out three of the last four years. I hope that post group gets credit for what they do, night in and night for us.”
PARKER’S DECISION
Parker once again finds herself with a difficult decision about retirement after the 36-year-old decided to hunt back-to-back titles this year with Chicago.
“I’m going to go back and reevaluate whether I’m able to continue to play at the level that I hold myself to,” Parker said. “And I think that’s the biggest thing, I don’t ever want to cheat the game. I won’t cheat the game.”
Just as in 2021, Parker will take her time weighing her options during the offseason.
“So when I’m not able to go out and play and be the Candace that I want to be, I won’t play,” Parker said. “And I think that comes in the offseason.”
WINDOW CLOSED?
Parker, Vandersloot and Quigley all indicated they would make decisions about their basketball futures during the offseason.
All three of their contracts are set to expire. The same goes for Belgian forward Meesseman, who joined the Sky on a one-year deal in February.
“Every single day, we are all committed, 100% invested into winning a championship and making history,” Vandersloot said. “We fell short, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. It wasn’t for lack of commitment.”
Quigley reflected on her tenure with the Sky and expressed gratitude for how she and Vandersloot, now married, came to meet in Chicago.
“I never imagined it ending up like this or having the career I had,” Quigley said. “Especially being able to do it in Chicago with my family, meet my wife, it’s unbelievable. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
TIP-INS
Connecticut’s 18-0 scoring run to end the game is the longest scoring run any WNBA team has mounted to finish a playoff game. … Chicago averaged over 40 points in the paint throughout the season, but scored just 24 on Thursday. … Parker added nine more boards to extend her all-time WNBA playoff record to 609 rebounds. She surpassed Tamika Catchings (598) on Tuesday.
UP NEXT
Chicago will face the top-seeded Aces in Las Vegas in the opener of the WNBA Finals on Sunday afternoon.
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More WNBA playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-playoffs and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T03:26:18Z
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It was a classic and comforting sight on the British sporting calendar, Queen Elizabeth II smiling and waving from inside a horse-drawn carriage leading other members of the royal family in a procession along the racetrack at Royal Ascot.
The monarch would then spend the day watching the races from the Royal Enclosure, cheering on her horses — win or lose.
And she won plenty.
Horse racing was the big sporting fascination of the queen, who died on Thursday at the age of 96. She first rode a horse at the age of 3 — and was immediately besotted with them — and would inherit the breeding and racing stock of her father, King George VI, when she acceded to the throne in 1952.
She became one of the biggest faces of British and global horse racing.
The queen was also present at some of the most famous occasions in British sporting history.
She handed the Jules Rimet Trophy to England captain Bobby Moore when the national soccer team won the men’s World Cup by beating West Germany at Wembley Stadium in 1966.
She was in the Royal Box on Centre Court at Wimbledon when British player Virginia Wade won the women’s singles title in 1977, the championship’s centenary year.
And, more recently, she had a cameo in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012, filming a comedy sketch with James Bond actor Daniel Craig where the queen — well, a stunt double, anyway — jumped out of a helicopter and parachuted into the Olympic Stadium. She allowed Danny Boyle, who directed the ceremony, and his crew access to her quarters at Buckingham Palace for a one-day shoot a few months earlier.
Horse racing was her big love, though, and she was often seen visiting The Royal Stud at her estate at Sandringham, patting her horses tenderly.
“My philosophy about racing is simple,” she said in a BBC documentary, The Queen’s Racehorses: A Personal View. “I enjoy breeding a horse that is faster than other people’s.
“And to me, that is a gamble from a long way back. I enjoy going racing but I suppose, basically, I love horses, and the thoroughbred epitomizes a really good horse to me.”
The queen had approaching 2,000 winners as a racehorse owner, with her jockeys always wearing purple, gold and scarlet — the colors of the storied royal racing silks also used by father and great grandfather, King Edward VII.
Her first winner was a horse called Monaveen, at Fontwell in 1949, and she went on to win all of the so-called “classics” in British horse racing except for The Derby, another event she attended for most of her life.
One of the queen’s most famous wins came at Royal Ascot in 2013 when Estimate became the first horse owned by a reigning monarch to win the prestigious Gold Cup. It was her first win in an elite race since 1989 and she was seen clapping enthusiastically as jockey Ryan Moore powered through to finish first by a neck in front of 61,000 racegoers.
Michael Stoute, who trained the queen’s horses, said winning races gave her a “special thrill.”
“She really loves this game,” he said after Estimate’s victory, “and it’s a great recreation for her.”
She was the champion owner in British flat racing on two occasions, in 1954 and ’57.
The queen even attended America’s greatest horse race, the Kentucky Derby, in 2007 while visiting the heart of U.S. racing in Kentucky bluegrass country.
Following the announcement of the queen’s death, the British Horseracing Authority said racing in Britain for the rest of Thursday and Friday would be suspended “as we begin to grieve Her Majesty’s passing and remember her extraordinary life and contribution to our sport and our nation.”
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More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T03:26:26Z
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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Tom Brady says he’s focused on helping the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win, not how much longer he may want to play.
“I think we’re all getting one day older at a time. We’re all not sure whether we’re going to be here next year or not,” the 45-year-old quarterback said Thursday “That’s the reality for every player, every coach, every parent. You just never know, so we should all take advantage of the opportunity we have in front of us now.”
It’s been a newsy offseason for the seven-time Super Bowl winner.
He announced his retirement in February, unretired in March, and then missed a chunk of training camp for personal reasons that Brady has not discussed publicly since rejoining the team after an 11-day absence.
The Bucs open the season Sunday night at Dallas.
Brady reiterated he’s focused on the Cowboys, not lingering questions about why he left the team for part of August.
He’s accustomed to being in the spotlight off the field, as well as dealing with speculation about his personal life.
“It’s been like that for a long time for me. … I professionally show up every day and do my job the best way I can” Brady said.
Coach Todd Bowles said this week that he has no doubt Brady will be ready for the season opener and remains fully committed to helping the Bucs get back to the Super Bowl.
“He’s been all-in since we got him. He’s all-in now,” Bowles said. “I don’t follow the off-the-field stuff.”
Brady spoke for 10 minutes on Thursday, fielding questions from local reporters for only the third time since training camp opened in July.
He lauded the addition of Julio Jones to an offense that was already one of the most potent in the NFL.
Brady also spoke highly of two young starters on an injury-depleted offensive line and acknowledged it won’t be easy to replace longtime favorite target Rob Gronkowski, who retired.
“You’d much rather play with a guy like Gronk than not. But he’s not here. We’ve got to do other things and play to the strengths of the players that we have,” Brady said.
“This is what football is all about. The season isn’t going to go like it went last year for anybody. That’s not the reality. You have to deal with where you are in the moment and deal with the challenges you face,” Brady added. “Certain guys aren’t here, certain guys are going to get hurt, things are going to happen to teams. It’s a long marathon, and we’re not even at the starting gate yet.”
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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-21T03:26:42Z
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ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright and catcher Yadier Molina made their 324th career start Thursday, tying the major league mark set by Detroit’s Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan from 1963-1975.
Wainwright and Molina got a standing ovation from the crowd as they made their way in from the bullpen moments before first pitch against the Washington Nationals, as well as after the top of the first inning.
Wainwright and Molina are scheduled to break the record against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 14.
The duo made their first start together on April 6, 2007, at Houston. Wainwright notched his first of 212 wins as a starter with Molina as his catcher, which is a major league record for batterymates.
Molina, 40, will retire at the end of the season, but Wainwright, 41, has not publicly announced a decision on his plans for 2023.
Molina debuted in 2004. Wainwright broke into the majors in 2005, but was used mostly as a reliever his first two seasons.
Notably, Wainwright struck out Carlos Beltrán to clinch the 2006 NLCS and Brandon Inge to clinch the 2006 World Series, both with Molina behind the plate.
Wainwright and Molina have 13 total All-Star Game appearances between them. The Cardinals have reached the postseason in 11 of the 17 seasons that the two have been 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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| 2022-09-21T03:26:50Z
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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Russell Wilson has started 84 games at Lumen Field in Seattle, including a half dozen playoff matchups. His return Monday night with the Denver Broncos marks his first game there as a visitor.
So, he knows he’ll hear the full-throated din of the Seahawks’ famed “12th man” crowd while he’s trying to listen to play calls from rookie head coach Nathaniel Hackett and relay them to his teammates.
What he’s unsure of is whether he’ll be treated with venom or veneration in his return to Seattle, where he played for a decade, leading the Seahawks to the playoffs eight times with two trips to the Super Bowl and the franchise’s only championship parade.
“I know they’ll be rowdy. I know they’ll be excited. I know it’s ‘Monday Night Football’. So, it’ll be a special environment,” Wilson said Thursday. “Listen, I think that I gave my heart and soul every day, and I know nothing less. So, hopefully it’ll be positive. But at the end of the day we’ve got a game to play.”
One thing’s for sure, Wilson said: No matter how he’s viewed at his homecoming, “I’ll forever have love in my heart for Seattle.”
Wilson had a record of 104-53-1 for the Seahawks, but his relationship with coach Pete Carroll soured in recent years and he was traded to Denver last March for a package of draft picks and players, including QB Drew Lock, who lost a training camp competition with Wilson’s former backup, Geno Smith.
Wilson has made a point of saying nothing but positive things about his time in Seattle, but an ESPN story this week detailed the drama that led to the blockbuster trade, including juicy tidbits suggesting some in Seattle’s camp felt Wilson was a declining player and was more concerned with personal accolades than winning games.
“I don’t worry about all this stuff,” Wilson said. “People have opinions and thoughts and ideas and everybody has their own right to think what they want to think. You know, I know how the whole thing went and how it transpired and just the whole situation.
“At the same time, I know every second of it I enjoyed in terms of being there and just trying to give my all every day,” Wilson added. “That’s all I know. And at the end of the day, every play, every game, every situation, hurt, dinged up, highest moments, lowest moments sometimes, I gave my all and that’s all I can give.”
The ESPN article noted Wilson’s camp was upset when it learned the Seahawks had called the Browns before the 2018 NFL draft to discuss a trade that would have swapped Wilson for the top overall pick.
“Definitely they tried to (trade me) a couple times and tried to see what was out there,” Wilson said. “It’s part of the business and it’s part of being a professional. Upset probably is the wrong word.
“I believe in my talent and who I am, and I believe that I’m one of the best in the world. I don’t worry about anything else other than that. My focus has always been on winning.”
The Broncos gave up Lock and two starters, tight end Noah Fant and defensive end Shelby Harris, along with five draft picks, including their first- and second-rounders this year and next for Wilson and a fifth-round pick.
Last week they signed their 33-year-old QB to a five-year, $245 million extension through 2028.
General manager George Paton’s trade for Wilson solved a six-year QB conundrum in Denver, where the Broncos churned through 10 different starters following Peyton Manning’s retirement in 2016, including a different one in each of the past five season openers.
Wilson, who didn’t take a single snap in the preseason, insists he won’t get caught up in the emotions of his return to Seattle.
“At the end of the day you’ve still got to get prepared the way you always get prepared and when you get outside of that realm and start thinking about everything else … you’re wasting time,” Wilson said. “I don’t think winners waste time on things that have nothing to do with the game.”
Relishing his reunion is something that will come down the road, Wilson added.
“There’ll be time in place to think back and reflect on it all and like I said, Seattle forever means the world to me, man,” Wilson said. “I just loved it there, you know? Like I said, I played 10 years there, it was amazing experience and I loved every second of it.”
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More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-21T03:27:05Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. Open tennis tournament (all times local):
11:05 p.m.
Iga Swiatek has reached the U.S. Open final and will play for her third Grand Slam title.
The No. 1 seed from Poland rallied for a 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Aryna Sabalenka and will face No. 5 seed Ons Jabeur on Saturday.
Swiatek won her second French Open title this year.
Sabalenka, the No. 6 seed, fell to 0-3 in Grand Slam semifinals.
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10:15 p.m.
Iga Swiatek has sent the second U.S. Open women’s semifinal to a third set.
The No. 1 seed from Poland won the second set 6-1 after No. 6 seed Aryna Sabalenka took the opener 6-3.
Swiatek turned around the match by breaking Sabalenka’s serve three times in the second set.
Sabalenka is trying to reach her first Grand Slam final. Swiatek has won the French Open twice.
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9:35 p.n.
Aryna Sabalenka is a set away from her first Grand Slam final.
The No. 6 seed from Belarus won the first set 6-3 against top-ranked Iga Swiatek.
Sabalenka has lost both previous times she reached a major semifinal, including last year at the U.S. Open against eventual runner-up Leylah Fernandez.
The winner will play No. 5 Ons Jabeur on Saturday.
___
8:55 p.m.
Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka have begun their match that will determine the second women’s finalist.
The top-ranked Swiatek is hoping to add a U.S. Open title to her two French Open championships. The No. 6-seeded Sabalenka has never played for a Grand Slam title, losing in the U.S. Open semifinals last year.
The winner will play No. 5 seed Ons Jabeur on Saturday.
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8:25 p.m.
Ons Jabeur dominantly advanced to her second straight Grand Slam final, beating Caroline Garcia 6-1, 6-3.
The No. 5 seed from Tunisia will play top-seeded Iga Swiatek or No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday.
Jabeur lost in a bid for her first major title at Wimbledon, where she was beaten by Elena Rybakina in three sets in the final.
Garcia, the No 17 seed from France, had won 13 straight matches and hadn’t dropped a set at the U.S. Open.
___
8 p.m.
Ben Bartram has become the first player to win a junior wheelchair match at a Grand Slam tournament.
The 17-year-old from Britain, who is the No. 1 seed in the boys’ wheelchair singles division, beat 15-year-old Ivar van Rijt 6-1, 6-2 on Thursday.
The U.S. Open this year became the first of the four major tournaments to have a junior wheelchair division.
The men’s and women’s fields were also expanded to 16 players. Top seeds Diede de Groot and Shingo Kunieda won their quarterfinal matches Thursday in those events.
___
7:45 p.m.
Ons Jabeur has raced to a surprisingly easy 6-1 lead over Caroline Garcia in the women’s semifinals.
Garcia has won 13 straight matches and hadn’t dropped more than four games in any set during her first five matches in Flushing Meadows.
But the No. 17 seed from France looked overwhelmed in her first Grand Slam semifinal, making 14 unforced errors while winning only 13 points in the 23-minute set.
Jabeur, the No. 5 seed from Tunisia, is bidding for her second straight major final.
___
7:20 p.m.
Ons Jabeur and Caroline Garcia are on the court in the opening match of the women’s semifinals.
The fifth-seeded Jabeur is trying to reach her second straight Grand Slam final. Garcia, seeded 17th, is in a major semifinal for the first time.
That match was preceded by a moment of silence to commemorate the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
The winner will face either top-ranked Iga Swiatek or No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka for the title.
___
6 p.m.
Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury will play for a second straight U.S. Open men’s doubles title after fighting off the Colombian team of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah.
The top seeds won 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (6) in a match that lasted 3 hours, 12 minutes.
That put the American Ram and Britain’s Salisbury a win away from joining only Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde as teams to defend a U.S. Open men’s doubles title in the professional era, dating to 1968. The Hall of Famers from Australia won in 1995 and 1996.
In Friday’s final, Ram and Salisbury will meet the No. 2-seeded team of Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski, who downed the third-seeded duo of Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer 6-4, 7-5.
___
5:30 p.m.
The women’s semifinals take place under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, with Ons Jabeur facing Caroline Garcia in the opening match before top-ranked Iga Swiatek meets Aryna Sabalenka.
Swiatek is the only major champion left, having won her second French Open title this summer. She also reached the Australian Open semifinals and is 19-2 in Grand Slam tournaments this year.
The No. 6-seeded Sabalenka lost last year in the U.S. Open semifinals, which remains her best performance in a major.
Jabeur is bidding for a second straight major final, having made her deepest run yet at Wimbledon. The No. 5 from Tunisia is 5-0 in semifinal matches this season.
In the surging Garcia, she meets a player who has won 13 straight matches. Seeded 17th, the Frenchwoman’s first career Grand Slam appearance will send her back into the top 10 next week.
The U.S. Tennis Association announced there would be a moment of silence before the first semifinal match “to commemorate the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.”
___
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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| 2022-09-21T03:27:12Z
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Southern (1-0) at LSU (0-1), 7:30 p.m. ET (SEC Network)
Line: No line, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
Series record: First meeting
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
New LSU coach Brian Kelly is looking for his first victory with the Tigers, who had a lot of cleaning up to do after a slew of miscues, including that blocked extra point with no time left, in the 24-23 season-opening loss to Florida State in New Orleans. Southern has already won, financially speaking. This game is a $700,000 payday for the Jaguars, who have only to bus across Baton Rouge to reach Tiger Stadium. Although the historically Black university plays in the Football Championship Subdivision, the game is generating a lot of fanfare. The two Baton Rouge schools have each played football more than a century and have large fan bases, but they have never played each other.
KEY MATCHUP
LSU’s defensive front against Southern QB BeSean McCray, who ran for a 65-yard TD and completed 7 of 12 passes for 79 yards in the only quarter he played in an 86-0 win over NAIA Florida Memorial. If McCray can continue to run new coach Eric Dooley’s up-tempo offense efficiently against the Tigers, Southern could have a more competitive showing than some might expect against its power-conference host.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Southern: DB Glenn Brown returned an interception for a touchdown and LB Jordan Lewis had a sack and strip that he converted into a fumble return for a score.
LSU: QB Jayden Daniels, a transfer from Arizona State, started the opener and displayed his dual-threat capabilities. He rushed for 114 yards, mostly on scrambles, and completed 26 of 35 passes for 209 yards and two TDs. Daniels became the first QB in LSU history to pass for 200 yards and rush for 100 yards in a game decided in regulation. Former LSU QB Joe Burrow also did so in a seven-overtime game in 2018.
FACTS & FIGURES
Southern’s 86 points last week ranked as the second-highest scoring total in program history. The Jaguars beat Bishop College 105-0 in 1952. … Southern amassed 611 yards, including 396 rushing, against Florida Memorial. … Southern’s defense held Florida Memorial to minus-11 yards. … LSU has won 23 of 25 Tiger Stadium openers dating to a 35-34 win over Houston in 1996. … LSU has won 34 consecutive games against in-state opponents. … The LSU defense is looking to solidify its rotation at defensive end following the season-ending injury to Maason Smith (left ACL tear) last week.
(Story via The Associated Press)
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| 2022-09-21T03:27:20Z
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GRAMBLING, La (KMSS/KTAL) – On week two of the Southern Quality Ford G-Men Nation, LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly discusses how former Grambling head coach Eddie Robinson inspired him and the college football hall of famer’s impact on the sport.
You can catch the Southern Quality Ford G-Men Nation every Thursday at 6:30 on KSHV.
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| 2022-09-21T03:27:34Z
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GRAMBLING, La (KMSS/KTAL) – On week two of the Southern Quality Ford G-Men Nation, we preview Grambling’s matchup with Northwestern State in the Shreveport Classic.
You can catch the Southern Quality Ford G-Men Nation every Thursday at 6:30 on KSHV.
GRAMBLING, La (KMSS/KTAL) – On week two of the Southern Quality Ford G-Men Nation, we preview Grambling’s matchup with Northwestern State in the Shreveport Classic.
You can catch the Southern Quality Ford G-Men Nation every Thursday at 6:30 on KSHV.
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| 2022-09-21T03:27:49Z
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SHREVEPORT, La (KMSS/KTAL) – The Captain Shreve Gators scored the final fourteen points of the ballgame, in a 27-14 win against Calvary on Thursday night to move to 2-0 on the young season.
Jayden Edwards’ two second half rushing touchdowns proved to be the difference in the Gator victory.
The Gators face 3A power Union Parish next week. Calvary falls to 1-1 and will square off against another district 1-5A foe in Byrd in week three.
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| 2022-09-21T03:27:56Z
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SHREVEPORT, La (KMSS/KTAL) – With Southwood’s 14-12 win against Green Oaks to open the season, the Cowboys had a major opportunity against Woodlawn on Thursday.
The last time the Southwood Cowboys were 2-0, most of the team’s players weren’t born yet. Southwood defeated Northwood 26-7 on September 8th, 2006. The team hadn’t started a season perfect through two games since, until tonight.
After a scoreless first half, the Southwood defense continued to pitch a shutout, allowing the Cowboys lone score of the night to be all they needed, defeating Woodlawn 8-0 to start 2-0 for the first time in 16 years.
After beating Byrd 37-14 on September 24, 2009 the Cowboys hadn’t won back-to-back games until tonight.
Southwood will face Carroll next week. Woodlawn falls to 0-2 and will square off against Red River in week three.
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| 2022-09-21T03:28:04Z
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INDIANAPOLIS – The wait is finally over for football fans!
The 2022 NFL season kicks off Thursday night in Los Angeles.
For the second straight year, the new season begins where the last one ended. The reigning world champion Rams will host the Buffalo Bills on Thursday Night Football at SoFi Stadium, the site of last year’s Super Bowl.
“Big Game Bound” is back for another season. WXIN’s Chris Hagan will preview each week’s schedule with help from reporters across the Nexstar Nation.
KTLA’s David Pingalore joins Chris from Los Angeles to talk about what the Rams need to do to become the first repeat champions since the 2003-04 Patriots.
Also on the season premiere: reports from Charlotte, Green Bay and Tampa plus the “Son of Sweetness” Jarrett Payton gives his picks.
“Big Game Bound” streams every Thursday at 12 p.m. ET.
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| 2022-09-21T03:28:11Z
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A much drier weather pattern is developing over our part of the country with only a chance for a little rain Saturday. All of next week is looking dry with somewhat normal daytime temperatures and rather mild nighttime temperatures.
A little rain Saturday: The upper-level trough of low pressure that has been hanging near the ArkLaTex recently and producing the scattered showers and thunderstorms has moved enough to the east that some drier air had invaded our area on the west side of its circulation. Consequently, we have seen more sunshine and very little rain Thursday. Expect much of the same Thursday night and Friday. Futurecast shows that we will see a clear to partly cloudy sky Thursday night and a mix of sunshine and clouds Friday. By Saturday the upper-level disturbance to our east will move back towards our area. This will increase the clouds Friday night. This disturbance will move close enough to us Saturday that we will see a few scattered t’showers. The rain should be fairly scattered with rather light amounts and most widespread over the eastern half of the area. The weekend will end with the return of some sunshine Sunday.
Very warm days and mild nights ahead: Drier air over the ArkLaTex means that overnight temperatures will likely fall below slightly below normal for this time of year. Lows Thursday night will dip into the mid to upper 60s. On average, lows are right around 70 degrees. Daytime temperatures should be near normal with highs Friday in the upper 80s to low 90s. Expect similar temperatures this weekend and all of next week. Upper-level high pressure will build back over the plains by the end of next week. This will bring above-normal temperatures by next weekend with highs in the low to middle 90s and lows in the lower 70s.
The pendulum swings back to the dry side: The rain that we could see Saturday will likely be the only chance of rain that we will see for the next week or two. Futurecast shows that even then, it won’t be much with totals likely being less than 1/10” for most areas. Much of the ArkLaTex could stay dry.
Get daily forecasts and exclusive severe weather details on storms as they approach your area by downloading the Arklatex Weather Authority app now available in the App Store and Google Play
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| 2022-09-21T03:28:27Z
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Headlines on this here:
Bank of Japan buying 10 to 25 year JGBs
Bloomberg recap (gated) :
- Bank of Japan unscheduled bond-purchase operation
- The BOJ said it would buy 150 billion yen ($1.04 billion) of debt due in five to 10 years, and 100 billion yen of securities maturing in 10 to 25 years.
- That’s in addition to the central bank’s daily offer to purchase an unlimited quantity of 10-year bonds at 0.25%.
- “The unscheduled operation is a message to restrain rise in yields,” said Mari Iwashita, chief market economist at Daiwa Securities Co. in Tokyo. “It may also be a warning against some misguided speculation about a possible tweak to BOJ policy.”
---
USD/JPY update:
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| 2022-09-21T03:30:36Z
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Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) is the latest Democrat to distance herself from the president, saying in a new ad that she “doesn’t work for Joe Biden. She works for you.”
“Joe Biden’s letting Ohio solar manufacturers be undercut by China. But Marcy Kaptur’s fighting back, working with Republican Rob Portman. protecting our jobs. Communist China’s not happy,” a narrator says in the 30-second ad.
“Neither is extremist J.R. Majewski. He opposes Marcy’s all-of-the-above energy plan. Majewski let Ohio energy jobs die, but Marcy fights for every Ohio job. Marcy Kaptur: She doesn’t work for Joe Biden. She works for you.”
Majewski called Kaptur’s campaign ads “dishonest” in a statement on Twitter.
“The people of #OH09 know @Marcy_Kaptur works for @JoeBiden despite her dishonest ads. Marcy’s had 40 years to stand against her party by virtue of her vote. However, time after time, she’s voted with Joe and @SpeakerPelosi,” he tweeted. “Don’t blame them now Marcy. You had your opportunity.”
Majewski, in his statement, quote-tweeted a tweet by a Times reporter who noted that a clip of Kaptur saying in 2020 that “it would be my honor, to not just vote for Joe Biden, but to work for him and Sen. Kamala Harris “ was being shared by the House Republicans’ campaign arm.
But Kaptur’s remarks demonstrate the extent to which Democrats are going to distance themselves from the president ahead of the midterms, especially in battleground states that will prove decisive over whether Democrats retain control in either chamber. Her seat is rated as a “toss up” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
In recent weeks, several Democrats have either side-stepped questions about whether they want to see Biden run again or have said they would not support him. The president has been mired in lagging approval ratings, though he has seen several developments considered positive for him and his party recently, including the passage of Democrats’ sweeping reconciliation package.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
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| 2022-09-21T03:30:58Z
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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — A team of lawyers are suing Governor John Bel Edwards, the state Department of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice to stop the transfer of juvenile inmates to Angola.
In July, the governor announced plans to relocate some of the violent juvenile offenders from Bridge City Center for Youth to a separate facility at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. A group of Baton Rouge attorneys is fighting to keep these youths out of the adult prison.
After several escapes and reports of violence from inside the Bridge City Center for Youth, several juveniles will be relocated to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
Attorney Ron Haley is among those asking a judge to stop this move.
“We do not believe under any circumstance youth offenders should be housed in the same place as adults,” said Haley.
“With several attorneys and departments around the country, we filed a lawsuit against OJJ the governor’s office and the department of corrections to seek injunctive relief to permanently prevent them from moving juvenile offenders to the Louisiana State Penitentiary.”
Office of Juvenile Justice leaders have explained the juveniles will be in a separate facility from the adults but Haley says that’s not good enough.
“There is a policy already in place that kids are not supposed to be housed with adults. We are going to take kids and not just house them with adults, but we are going to send them to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the idea is on the table is asinine.”
The civil action filed in the Middle District Courthouse was just filed Friday and has not been heard yet but if the judge agrees, it could force OJJ to change its game plan.
“A part of this suit we are asking for injunctive relief immediate from the Middle District of Louisiana, basically putting a temporary restraining order to prevent these kids from being moved.”
BRProud reached out to OJJ, DOJ and the governor’s office, and we are waiting on a response.
“Our client and his mother have gotten notice that any day they could be moved to Angola, that is the reason for this action.”
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| 2022-09-21T03:31:13Z
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Porsche’s 963 and the rest of the new LMDh field are just months out from their first race, the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona, which will serve as the opening round of the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship.
Ahead of the new season, and that first race, Porsche has been conducting a series of tests for the 963, with the most recent taking place earlier in September at Daytona International Speedway. A total 397 laps were completed, representing a distance of more than 1,400 miles.
The conditions were particularly punishing, as man and machine faced ambient temperatures of around 95 degrees during the day (and even hotter at the track surface), and also humidity of over 90% and regular downpours. Taking turns behind the wheel were factory drivers Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell, and Mathieu Jaminet.
Unveiled in June at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Porsche 963 is the first of a new generation of top-level endurance racers built to LMDh regulations. The cars will compete alongside similar cars built to existing LMH regulations, with Balance of Performance rules to ensure an even playing field.
LMDh and LMH cars are both eligible for the new GTP class of the SportsCar Championship, which in 2023 replaces the current DPi premier class. Both car types are also eligible for the premier Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship, a series whose highlight is the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Acura, Alpine, BMW, and Cadillac are also committed to LMDh, while ByKolles, Ferrari, Glickenhaus, Peugeot, and Toyota are all committed to LMH. Lamborghini also announced in May it will join the LMDh fold in 2024. Audi was also set to join LMDh in 2023 but in August announced it had canceled the effort to focus resources on a planned Formula 1 entry in 2026.
In line with LMDh regulations, the powertrain in Porsche’s 963, a hybrid setup, can generate at any time a maximum output of around 670 hp. The internal-combustion component has been confirmed as a twin-turbo 4.6-liter V-8 related to the engine that powered the 918 Spyder hypercar. Porsche is yet to detail the electric side of the powertrain.
Porsche will run its LMDh campaign with America’s Team Penske, under the banner Porsche Penske Motorsport. The squad is based out of Penske’s headquarters in Mooresville, North Carolina, the same site where Penske oversees its IndyCar and NASCAR campaigns. In addition to the drivers mentioned above, the team has also confirmed Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen, Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor, and Felipe Nasr.
Related Articles
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- Le Mans Hypercar-derived Vanwall Vandervell 1000 starts testing
- Ford Mustang set for Le Mans return in 2024
- BMW Dune Taxi electric off-roader teased with 536 hp
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| 2022-09-21T03:44:00Z
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A new type of sensor could improve the accuracy of EV range estimates, which could effectively unlock more range for drivers, IEEE Spectrum reports.
Scientists in Japan are experimenting with diamond quantum sensors that can help improve battery-monitoring accuracy a hundredfold, addressing an issue with current battery-monitoring sensors.
Average EV battery-current output is roughly 10 amperes, but can reach as much as several hundred amperes. This wide range of current strengths means sensors used to monitor a battery’s state of charge are generally limited to an accuracy of 1 ampere, translating to an “ambiguity” of about 10% in range estimates, according to the report.
But a study from scientists in Japan claims diamond quantum sensors can work at a range of more than 1,000 amperes while also measuring current strengths with an accuracy of 10 milliamperes, reducing the ambiguity to around 1%, or even as little as 0.1%.
Quantum sensors are based on the strange properties of matter at the subatomic level, which also allows for extraordinary sensitivity.
In the study, researchers used square-shaped diamond quantum sensors measuring 2 mm wide and 1 mm thick. These sensors could detect battery currents as small as 10 milliamperes at the same range of temperatures expected in a vehicular application, researchers claim.
Researchers also noted that this level of sensitivity will be needed for anticipated solid-state batteries, which are expected to discharge at higher power levels, and with higher-powered fast charging.
While not ready for commercialization, the study suggests diamond quantum sensors could extend EV range by 10% by providing more accurate battery monitoring, or keep range the same but allow for a reduction in battery pack size. This goes along with what the federal government’s ARPA-E project reported in 2013—that smaller sensors alone might be able to reduce pack size by 20-30%.
Sensors also play an important role in predicting battery life. More granular battery management systems might also be an important part of such sensing. So just as silicon carbide semiconductors made 800-volt inverters possible, perhaps diamond sensors will unlock another level of EV performance.
Related Articles
- Bridgestone aims to make natural-rubber tires from a sustainable American southwest crop
- Lightyear 0 is the most aerodynamic production car in the world, wind-tunnel testing verifies
- Battery firm ONE reveals cell tech for 600-mile EVs, including trucks and SUVs
- 35 states get the green light for $7.5 billion national EV charging network
- Ford aims to make EV markups and haggling history with dealership rules starting in 2024
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The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is an enthusiast’s car, and the experience of building the engine that goes into their car will soon be a very special experience available for many a Z06 buyer.
Through the company’s Engine Build Experience program run out of the Performance Build Center located within the Corvette’s plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Chevy will soon let buyers of the latest C8-generation Z06 build the LT6 V-8 going into their cars.
The information was confirmed to Motor Authority by Chevy spokesman Trevor Thompkins, though without further detail.
News of the Z06’s Engine Build Experience was first reported earlier in September by Corvette Blogger, citing comments made by Kai Spande, Chevy’s Corvette assembly plant director, during an event celebrating the 28th anniversary of the National Corvette Museum. He said the program will start in the second quarter of 2023 and be slightly different than previous programs, in that the participant will remain at a single station and have all the engine parts brought to them, as opposed to moving to multiple stations in a line with other builders. Once completed, the engine will be dyno tested and then installed at a later date, which will align with the scheduled assembly of the participant’s Z06.
The experience previously cost $5,000 for a package that includes a full day with a Performance Build Center engine assembly technician who instructs and oversees the build, a personalized engine plaque identifying the owner as the builder, and professional photos of the day. The price is expected to be higher for the C8 Z06 program.
The Z06 is powered by a unique 5.5-liter V-8 that boasts a flat-plane crank design, dual overhead cams, dry-sump lubrication, and an output of 670 hp and 460 lb-ft of torque, or the highest output of any production naturally aspirated V-8. The engine is mated to the same 8-speed dual-clutch automatic found in the Corvette Stingray, but with a shorter 5.56 final drive ratio for improved acceleration. Performance claims include 0-60 mph acceleration in 2.6 seconds, a quarter-mile ET in 10.6 seconds at 130 mph, and a top speed of 195 mph.
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| 2022-09-21T03:44:16Z
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Lamborghini’s lineup will be fully electrified by the end of 2024, with the Urus and the successors to the Aventador and HuracaÌn all expected to adopt plug-in hybrid powertrains.
The Aventador successor will come first. Already spotted in prototype form, it’s due in 2023 with an updated version of the Aventador’s platform and a newly developed V-12.
A plug-in hybrid Urus using a twin-turbo V-8 as the internal-combustion component is also expected to arrive in 2023, with the HuracaÌn successor to follow in 2024.
According to a report from Motor Trend published last week, the HuracaÌn successor will also feature a twin-turbo V-8 as its internal-combustion component, as opposed to a version of the HuracaÌn’s current V-10.
The new supercar will also reportedly use an updated version of the HuracaÌn’s platform, which makes sense since there won’t be a related Audi model to share costs. The HuracaÌn’s Audi R8 twin is expected to switch to an electric platform for its successor.
Interestingly, the Motor Trend report points to the HuracaÌn successor’s V-8 only using its turbochargers between 7,000 rpm and a 10,000-rpm redline, meaning the engine will perform like it’s naturally aspirated most of the time.
As for the hybrid component, a single motor is expected to be sandwiched between the engine and transmission, with the possiblity of along another motor at the front axle to form an all-wheel-drive system instead of a conventional center differential.
Despite the impending arrival of the HuracaÌn successor, Lamborghini hasn’t finished launching new versions of the HuracaÌn. In April, we saw the HuracaÌn Technica and later this year there will be a high-riding HuracaÌn likely dubbed the Sterrato.
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- Electric Audi R8 successor reportedly due mid-decade
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| 2022-09-21T03:44:30Z
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A modern incarnation of historic French brand Delage made waves in 2020 with the reveal of the D12, a hypercar resembling a Formula-style race car and packing a V-12 hybrid powertrain.
While the D12 was originally shown as a coupe with a jet fighter-style canopy that flips open to provide access to the two tandem seats of the cabin, the reborn Delage has now announced two open-top options for the car: Speedster and F1.
The Speedster option sees the canopy roof removed, with only a raked windshield remaining to protect occupants from the elements. The F1 option goes with an even smaller wind deflector and a halo-style safety system inspired by Formula 1 race cars. With the F1 cockpit option, a helmet is required.
Each option costs $190,000, and buyers will be able to order both for $260,000, enabling them to switch between the two. The starting price for the D12 is $2.2 million.
Delage plans to build only 30 examples of the D12 for worldwide sale and has earmarked just 10 for the U.S. Cars coming to our shores will require the owner to register them under the Show or Display rule for import. We’re told a handful of examples were reserved following a recent showing of the D12 at West Hollywood dealership Specialty Car Collection.
The D12’s powertrain consists of a 7.6-liter V-12 paired to a single electric motor for a combined output of 1,100 hp. With a dry weight of only 3,086 lb, the D12 should reach 60 mph from rest in only 2.4 seconds, Delage estimates. The company has also hinted at a lighter Club version with a dry weight expected to come in at only 2,888 lb.
Founded in 1905 by a French engineer, Delage was one of the world’s most luxurious automotive brands during its heyday in the early 1900s. Delages also won on the racetrack, including at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Indianapolis 500. Despite the early success, the company struggled after World War II and in 1953 finally went under and the rights to the name passed to a non-profit organization made up of fans of the brand.
The modern Delage is headed by Laurent Tapie, who is using the name under license. He started work on the D12 before he had a brand, as his goal was simply to build an extreme car for enthusiasts, rather than resurrect a historic French brand. He first showed the D12 in 2020.
The D12 is slated to be delivered to its first customers by the end of 2023. Following the 30-car run, Delage plans a follow-up model that is expected to be more of a grand tourer.
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- Deep dive: How Koenigsegg reinvented the manual transmission for the CC850
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| 2022-09-21T03:44:38Z
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Porsche is recalling more than 193,000 cars and SUVs spanning nearly two decades for a missing screw cap on the headlight housing that can cause excessive glare for oncoming drivers. The recalls encompasses the Macan and Cayenne crossover SUVs, the Panamera sedan and wagon, and the Cayman S sport coupe, the NHTSA disclosed on Monday.
What sounds like a small issue affecting a lot of vehicles may be more than meets the eye. The missing screw cap acted as a seal on the angle and adjustment of a headlight. Without that sealing cap, the headlight could be inadvertently adjusted to a setting that could cause excessive glare to other motorists, or limit the driver’s vision in the affected vehicles.
Most of the Porsches affected by the recall are older models, and mostly Cayennes. Here’s the list:
2003-2006 Porsche Cayenne
2008-2014 Porsche Cayenne
2016-2017 Porsche Cayenne
2003-2006 Porsche Cayenne S
2008-2009 Porsche Cayenne S
2011-2015 Porsche Cayenne S and S Hybrid, E-Hybrid
2006 Porsche Cayenne Turbo and Cayenne Turbo S
2008-2015 Porsche Cayenne Turbo
2009-2010, 2014, 2016 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S
2008-2010, 2013-2014, 2016 Porsche Cayenne GTS
2010 Porsche Cayenne Transsyberia
2013-2015 Porsche Cayenne Diesel
2015 Porsche Macan S and Turbo
2018 Porsche Macan S
2020 Porsche Macan
2010-2016 Porsche Panamera S, 4S, Turbo, and Turbo S (2012-2016)
2011-2016 Porsche Panamera and Panamera 4
2012-2016 Porsche Panamera S Hybrid and S E-Hybrid (2015-2016)
2013-2016 Porsche Panamera GTS
Owners can expect a recall notice by mail as early as Oct. 29, 2022, as well as a reimbursement offer for owners who have already fixed the issue out of pocket. Porsche dealers will inspect the headlights for sealing caps and install missing caps where necessary, free of charge. For more info, contact Porsche’s customer service at 1-800-767-7243 or visit Porsche’s recall website.
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- Ford Expedition, Lincoln Navigator recalled for fires under the glovebox
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| 2022-09-21T03:44:45Z
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Volkswagen Group is taking its Porsche subsidiary public via an initial public offering, and on Sunday confirmed the offer period will start Sept. 20 and run until an expected closing date eight days later.
VW Group will price the shares at a range of 76.50 euros to 82.50 euros per share, which at the upper price limit will value Porsche at 75 billion euros (approximately $75 billion). The shares will be listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The valuation, while small compared to Tesla, is bigger than the market capitalization of fellow German automakers such as BMW (49 billion euros) and Mercedes-Benz (61 billion euros), and comes close VW Group’s own market capitalization of 88 billion euros.
“We believe Porsche AG, with its robust business model and compelling financial performance, is ready to launch its IPO,” Lutz Meschke, Porsche’s deputy chairman and head of finance and IT, said in a statement.
Ahead of the IPO, Porsche has been divided into 911 million shares, split evenly between preferred and ordinary shares. The preferred shares have no voting rights but come with higher dividends. Up to 113,875,000 preferred shares will be offered to investors in the IPO.
Porsche SE, the holding company majority owned by the Porsche and Piëch families, and the biggest shareholder in VW Group, plans to acquire 25% plus one share of the ordinary shares at the price of the preferred shares plus a 7.5% premium, a move that will provide the holding company with a blocking minority, and as a result sway in any key decisions.
Sovereign wealth funds from Abu Dhabi, Norway, and Qatar, as well as investment firm T. Rowe Price, will acquire preferred shares worth up to 3.68 billion euros in total at the upper price limit, VW Group said.
Should the IPO prove successful, VW Group may follow with an IPO of recently established battery company PowerCo. Speaking at an investor presentation in July, Arno Antlitz, VW Group’s chief financial officer, said the battery company has been set up in a way to make a listing next year or in 2024 possible. PowerCo is responsible for VW Group’s global battery activities. The company has announced plans for six battery plants in Europe and is considering establishing plants in North America as well.
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- VW’s New Mobility division to oversee EV, software programs
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| 2022-09-21T03:45:08Z
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(Our Auto Expert) — This is the sort of fan fair you would expect for a vehicle that has sold over 10 million units. The most powerful Mustang ever with a classic look but a very chiseled look. Capturing that iconic feel of freedom and disruptive spirit but for a new age.
The Mustang is not like other vehicles. Apart from the fact it has been the world’s best-selling sports coupe for the past seven years, it appeals to every demographic.
Groundbreaking features include owners being able to rev their vehicle directly from the key fob. This new electronic e-brake looks similar to a traditional parking brake but can be used in drift mode when activated from the touch screen.
This drift mode was developed by formula drift racer Vaughn Gittin jr, who has been working with Ford performance on the mustang and electric mustang Mach-E for several years to expand the brand’s drifting potential as the sport of drifting explodes.
Inside big steps have been made on-screen space. A new gauge cluster and a new infotainment display, each over 12 inches. Normal, sport, and track modes. Shift lights and fully customizable gauges are just a few of the features.
In years gone by, freedom was expressed in America with a driver’s license and a full tank of gas, but Ford understands that a new generation of Mustang owners may express freedom differently. Younger Americans express freedom with technology.
To reflect the younger generation’s idea of freedom, this Mustang has more technology than any other Mustang. With safety technology, connectivity technology, and communications technology. The 7th generation mustang should since it can communicate over the air for updates. After all, the interior was designed to resemble the cockpit of a jet fighter.
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| 2022-09-21T03:45:16Z
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Happy Meals might get a little spooky this October.
McDonald’s is rumored to be resurrecting its Halloween Happy Meal pumpkin pails, which first debuted nationwide in 1986. According to the blog, Nightmare Nostalgia, McDonald’s employees have been sharing the news on social media.
The buckets, which can adequately hold burgers and fries, and also plenty of Halloween candy, will return on Oct. 18 with the promotion ending on the holiday itself, Oct. 31, the website claims.
The original iteration of the Halloween pails were three orange jack-o-lantern pails named McPunk’n, McBoo, and McGoblin. According to Eat This Not That, the buckets were changed to a white ghost, green witch, and orange pumpkin during the 1990s.
The favorite items continued to transform throughout the years, with some themed for shows like “Scooby-Doo” and “Monster High,” or characters like Mr. Potato Head.
The buckets were last seen in 2016 when McDonald’s designed them based on the Halloween classic film, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
McDonald’s has not publicly confirmed or denied the rumors.
The company recently brought back the Cheese Danish, another customer-favorite item, to its menu at participating locations.
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| 2022-09-21T03:45:24Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Marilyn Nelson has won the $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award, a lifetime achievement honor presented by the Academy of American Poets for “proven mastery in the art of poetry.”
“For decades Marilyn Nelson has written a poetry that is insightful, moving, and clear, brimming with history but aimed at the future,” Academy chancellor and fellow poet Kevin Young said in a statement released Monday.
“Whether writing of her father’s generation of Tuskegee Airmen, in the voices of the enslaved speaking of freedom, or about the woman in the mirror, Nelson’s work is necessary and humane, and has led the way on the page and in the world.”
Nelson, 76, is known for such collections as “The Homeplace” and “Fields of Praise,” while also writing children’s books and translating works from the Danish and ancient Greek. John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich and Sonia Sanchez are among previous winners of the Stevens award.
The academy announced several other awards Monday, including the $25,000 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for Mai Der Vang’s “Yellow Rain” and the Academy of American Poets Fellowship for Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, an honor which includes a $25,000 cash award and a residency at the T.S. Eliot home in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Danielle Emerson won a $1,000 award for outstanding work by a young poet, 23 or younger, and the academy gave out two other $1,000 prizes: Adriana X Jacobs was cited for her translation from the Hebrew of Vaan Nguyen’s “The Truffle Eye” and Elizabeth Torres for a book-length manuscript originally written in Spanish and translated into English, “La Lotería: Sorteo Nocturno” (“The Lottery: Nocturnal Sweepstakes”). Her book will be published by the University of Arizona Press.
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| 2022-09-21T03:45:42Z
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — When Amanda Gorman was invited to read a newly developed poem at the U.N. General Assembly, the young sensation took a deep look at how several societal issues — such as hunger and poverty — have impacted Earth’s preservation.
Just like her stirring inauguration poem last year, Gorman felt compelled to express the impact of unity through her poetic words on the opening day of the 77th session Monday in New York. The 24-year-old poet created “An Ode We Owe” in hopes of bringing all nations together to tackle various issues of disparity along with preserving the planet.
Gorman once again graced center stage in front of world leaders. Her fame exploded after she recited her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, which made her the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. Her poem quickly topped bestsellers lists and made her one of the most in-demand poets, putting her on other big stages like the Super Bowl and in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Gorman talked about her hopes for the U.N. poem, her future presidency plans, resentment she’s gotten toward her commercial success and wanting to someday write a novel.
Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: What do you want listeners to take away from your poem?
GORMAN: What I hope people can garner from the poem is that while issues of hunger and poverty and illiteracy can feel Goliath and are so huge, it’s not necessarily that these issues are too large to be conquered. But they’re too large to be stepped away from.
AP: How important is having a young voice like yourself to speak at the General Assembly?
GORMAN: When I was writing this poem, I kept getting flashbacks of several years ago when I came to New York for the first time. I was 16 and I was coming as the United Nations delegate for the Commission on the Status of Women. That was the first time I’d really ever engaged the U.N. as a space in any way. I just remember not seeing people who looked as young as me. I also looked like I was 11 at the time. I started marinating on this idea of “I want to come back someday in the future. I don’t just want to be a delegate. I want to be a presenter.” I’m not here to speak on behalf of young people, but to speak alongside and with them.
AP: Why did you touch on Sustainable Development Goals in your poem?
GORMAN: I actually think that there’s swaths of the population which has yet to be engaged or kind of told or activated around the Sustainable Development Goals. So much of what I like to do in the poem is making sure that we raise awareness around these issues and show that these goals do exist.
AP: How have you managed the transition to being a high-level celebrity?
GORMAN: I’m still learning and growing so much. I think one of the things that changed so much for me was just privacy. All of a sudden I became someone — which I never really necessarily expected — who gets recognized on the street. If I go to a restaurant, even if I’m wearing a mask, people are very good at spotting my face and or my voice. I’m very grateful for that type of visibility, even though sometimes I do miss individual privacy because it means that I have a platform that I can use for good.
AP: How have people approached you while in public?
GORMAN: I had an experience (Saturday) night. I was eating at a restaurant and a woman just came up to me and started crying and saying how much my poetry meant to her. It’s flabbergasting to me. That’s not a rare occurrence in my life anymore. My friends started crying around me seeing this woman’s emotion. I had a great conversation with that woman before she moved on, and me having to take a moment, sit with the fact that there were so many people around the world who probably have this person’s same response that haven’t gotten to me. I want to do justice by them when I write. I want to honor them when I write. That’s a really hefty ask. But I also think it’s a deep seated privilege of mine. I think that’s the thing that I wrestle with and draw power from when I write.
AP: Has the fame changed your writing?
GORMAN: I think it hasn’t changed my writing in the sense that my voice and style is still the same because the roots of where I come from are still there. But I do think it makes me think more creatively and imaginatively about ways in which I can get those poems in the world.
AP: Is it much harder to write these days?
GORMAN: I think the main difficulty in writing poetry for me nowadays is, yes, that there’s a lot going on. But even if I’m able to carve out time and space to write, I think the biggest challenge that I can face sometimes is just my own self-sabotage in the sense that I feel so much pressure and so many eyes on me.
AP: How do you keep out the distractions?
GORMAN: I’m like a 70-year-old in an 11-year-old body. I have muscles from that of pulling away from technology and pretending like it’s not there. Like it doesn’t exist. When I write, I tend to put all my devices on “Do Not Disturb.”
AP: Have you had to deal with any resentment from the poetry community, who sometimes don’t look kindly upon commercial success?
GORMAN: The only type of trolling that I experience is actually not from other poets. It’s from people who don’t write poetry. I hear those kind of like “What Amanda Gorman does isn’t that difficult. I don’t understand why she’s famous.” I have no ill will towards those people. I actually, in a sense, feel bad for them because more often than not, these are people who haven’t been exposed to a lot of poetry in their lives, who haven’t been either encouraged or challenged to write poetry in their lifetimes.
AP: What are your thoughts toward those skeptics?
GORMAN: I think the one thing I have to say to those people would be if you’re reading my work and you’re saying, “Amanda Gorman’s writing is so easy for me to do and I can do better.” Oh, my God. We need you. We need you to pick up a pen and write. That means you’re going to be the next great voice of literature. I would love for you to find a way to, for lack of a better term, dethrone me.
AP: Do you still plan to run for president someday?
GORMAN: Yes, that’s still the case. I obviously have a long way to go — not just in terms of years, but in terms of learning.
AP: Is there a timetable?
GORMAN: No, I’m just living and enriching my life with the understanding of “Wow, girl you are a weapon of cultural and poetic power. Here’s where you decide what to do with it.” Whether that follows a specific table that’s explicit for the presidency or whether it’s one that’s a bit more unorthodox and nontraditional than we’ve seen, I think remains to be seen.
AP: Do you aspire to write something besides poetry?
GORMAN: I love poetry, but I love all forms of writing. When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a novel writer. But novels just take — for me — a longer amount of time than a single poem. That’s just how my brain and writing works. But I would love to get out some more prose, some more essay writing. You’ll definitely get more than just a verse for me.
AP: What kind of novels?
GORMAN: I really like to draw from what I consider to be my literary ancestors Zora Neale Hurston or Toni Morrison, who wrote this beautiful prose, which I think came out a culture of language that they drew from the African American community. I think about the titans of writing whose footsteps I would love to dance in.
___
Text of Amanda Gorman’s poem, “An Ode We Owe,” first read to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday:
How can I ask you to do good,
When we’ve barely withstood
Our greatest threats yet:
The depths of death, despair and disparity,
Atrocities across cities, towns & countries,
Lives lost, climactic costs.
Exhausted, angered, we are endangered,
Not because of our numbers,
But because of our numbness. We’re strangers
To one another’s perils and pain,
Unaware that the welfare of the public
And the planet share a name–
–Equality
Doesn’t mean being the exact same,
But enacting a vast aim:
The good of the world to its highest capability.
The wise believe that our people without power
Leaves our planet without possibility.
Therefore, though poverty is a poor existence,
Complicity is a poorer excuse.
We must go the distance,
Though this battle is hard and huge,
Though this fight we did not choose,
For preserving the earth isn’t a battle too large
To win, but a blessing too large to lose.
This is the most pressing truth:
That Our people have only one planet to call home
And our planet has only one people to call its own.
We can either divide and be conquered by the few,
Or we can decide to conquer the future,
And say that today a new dawn we wrote,
Say that as long as we have humanity,
We will forever have hope.
Together, we won’t just be the generation
That tries but the generation that triumphs;
Let us see a legacy
Where tomorrow is not driven
By the human condition,
But by our human conviction.
And while hope alone can’t save us now,
With it we can brave the now,
Because our hardest change hinges
On our darkest challenges.
Thus may our crisis be our cry, our crossroad,
The oldest ode we owe each other.
We chime it, for the climate,
For our communities.
We shall respect and protect
Every part of this planet,
Hand it to every heart on this earth,
Until no one’s worth is rendered
By the race, gender, class, or identity
They were born. This morn let it be sworn
That we are one one human kin,
Grounded not just by the griefs
We bear, but by the good we begin.
To anyone out there:
I only ask that you care before it’s too late,
That you live aware and awake,
That you lead with love in hours of hate.
I challenge you to heed this call,
I dare you to shape our fate.
Above all, I dare you to do good
So that the world might be great
___
For more on the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly.
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| 2022-09-21T03:45:48Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Thirteen years after James Cameron plunged moviegoers into the cosmic world of “Avatar,” the lush, distant moon of Pandora is finally orbiting back into view.
Cameron’s “Avatar” industrial complex has been whirling in high gear for some time; production on the upcoming sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” began back in 2017. But after shuffling through half a decade’s worth of release dates, Cameron’s science-fiction epic is poised to again blanket movie screens and transport willing travelers back, in 3-D, to the land of the Na’vi.
For even the visionary filmmaker of “Titanic” and “The Terminator,” the relaunch of “Avatar” is, as Cameron said in a recent interview from Wellington, New Zealand, “a big bet.” A third “Avatar” is already in post-production, and production has begun on a fourth. The record-breaking $2.8 billion in box office that “Avatar” grossed made the coming “Avatar” armada a far-from-risky wager. But a lot has changed since the original’s release, when Netflix was still renting DVDs by mail and Cameron was working for 20th Century Fox.
To whet moviegoers’ appetites ahead of the Dec. 16 debut of the three-hour “Avatar: The Way of Water” — and remind them of a movie world they may have lost touch with — the Walt Disney Co. on Friday will rerelease “Avatar” in a remastered, 4K, HDR version that he says is “better than it’s ever looked.”
It’s an opening salvo in Cameron’s ambitious plan to sketch a yet-grander sci-fi saga, and to again conjure a cinematic experience, as he says, “that you simply cannot have in the home.” Taking a break from all the “Avatar” juggling, Cameron talked re-watching the original, his expectation for “The Way of Water” and why he nearly quit the “Avatar” business.
Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: Does “Avatar” seem like a long time ago to you?
CAMERON: It feels like yesterday at times and then obviously it feels like more than a decade other times. The time has passed quickly. I’ve been doing all sorts of interesting things. Deep ocean research. Building submersibles. Writing four epic movies. Now finishing up “Avatar 2” and we’re mid-process in post on “Avatar 3.” So “Avatar” has never been far from my mind. I constantly go back to it, obviously in the remaster process making it better than it’s ever looked before. I’m kind of just living on Pandora right now.
AP: When you went back to watch “Avatar,” how did it look to you?
CAMERON: I see a lot of good work by a lot of good people in terms of the production design, the visual effects, the groundbreaking strides that were made at that time in capturing the performances of the actors, and the great work of the actors. It was tough to live up to. We had set the bar very high for ourselves back then and we had to live up to that bar this time with the new films. I remind our VFX team all the time: “Look at the bugs in the forest in the first movie. We had better bugs!”
AP: Moviegoing rebounded this summer but there’s been a late-summer lull that the “Avatar” re-release may help jumpstart. How do you see the health of theatrical right now?
CAMERON: It’s shown resiliency that I don’t think we expected. The pandemic, quite rightly, scared everybody. There was a period of time where you were basically risking your life to go to the movies. People did it anyway. Now, we feel like we’re past the hump or at least it’s a manageable problem. We’re seeing a resurgence back in cinemas. It’s not where we were before. Streaming has taken a bite. The pandemic has taken a bite. We’re probably down 20, 25% from where we were pre-pandemic. I think it’s going to be a very long tail on this thing before we’re back to where we were before. It’s incumbent on us to double down on showmanship.
AP: Over the years, some have argued that “Avatar,” despite its stature as the highest grossing film of all time, hasn’t stuck in the culture the way you’d expect. Do those arguments irk you?
CAMERON: I think it’s true for a specific reason, which is that we didn’t immediately follow it up with another film in two or three years, and another film in two or three years. We didn’t play the Marvel game. We’re playing a longer game here. “Avatar” isn’t going anywhere, it just didn’t follow up with a continuous barrage to keep it in the public eye and the public consciousness, which is what you have to do. Taking a lesson from that, we basically architected four sequels so that if “Avatar 2” is successful, we can follow it up with a regular cadence — two years, maybe three years at the most between “3” and “4.” It will be in the public consciousness more and more regularly, but only if people embrace “Avatar 2.”
AP: Your films have grossed more than $6 billion. I imagine you’re not a filmmaker who gets nervous before opening a movie.
CAMERON: You bet I do. Anyone who says they don’t get nervous before a movie drops is a lying son of a (expletive).
AP: And there is an awful lot riding on “The Way of Water.”
CAMERON: Yeah, it’s a big play. It’s a big bet. And we won’t know where we are until the second or third weekend. The success of the first film — we had a pretty good opening at $75 million. But openings are dwarfing that by factors of two or even three these days. Even if we have a stellar opening, we won’t really know where we are for a couple weeks because it was the return visits on the first one. It was people wanting to go share. If we get that again, we’ll probably be on solid ground.
AP: I think the odds are in your favor.
CAMERON: Nobody knows. The market has changed. Twenty-five percent could be our entire margin. It’s one thing to make a lot of money, it’s another thing to actually make a profit. We’re not going to keep making movies that lose money even though they look good and make a ton of money. This is a wait-and-see, let’s-put-it-out-there-and-see-if-people-embrace-it kind of situation.
AP: “Avatar” was especially rich in an ecological subtext. In the 13 years since, much has only gone worse for the climate and the health of the planet. How much was that on your mind making the sequels?
CAMERON: Very much so, even to the extent that I very strongly debated with myself and discussed with my wife whether I should stop filmmaking and work on the sustainability issues. But we managed to be able to do that in parallel with the filmmaking process. We’re doing all of our sustainability efforts — I don’t want to say as a side hustle, but in parallel. I put as much effort into that as I do the filmmaking.
That said, the new “Avatar” films aren’t any more like a lecture on climate or environmentalism than the first one was. The first one was an adventure. It captured you at the level of character, at a level of storytelling. I think subtext is a useful way of looking at it. It’s there but it’s not what’s driving the story. And we kept that in mind with the new films. Yes, “Avatar: The Way of Water” is about the oceans and our relationship with the oceans and the animals that live in it. But it’s driven by character.
AP: “Avatar: The Way of Water” will bring back 3D and feature high-frame rate footage, both of which moviegoers have mixed opinions on. What do you think has been the biggest technological leap in the last 13 years?
CAMERON: In terms of the presentation, we’re authoring in high-dynamic range, which I think is very important. Projection out there in the field is brighter now than it was a decade ago, which is much better for 3D. We’re judiciously using high-frame rates in the process of authoring our 3D because people become more sensitive to rapid lateral motion. Your mind is more sensitive, so we solved that by judiciously applying high-frame rate here and there throughout the film. That’s all at the service of making it a better viewing experience.
I don’t think anybody should go see a movie because it’s authored a certain way. That’s just part of our showmanship. I think the reasons to see this film are the same reasons to see the first one. You enter a world. You become fully immersed in it. You feel like it surrounds you and you become an inhabitant there, and you get to linger there. You go on that journey. Of course, in the new film, it’s a bit longer because we have more characters and more story to service. I think people are very story-driven. When they get a set of characters they like and they get involved in their problems, they’ll follow it for scores of hours across multiple years of limited series. I’m not worried about that part of it.
___
Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Grammy-nominated rapper Mystikal pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges accusing him of raping and choking a woman at his home in Louisiana and of possessing several drugs.
The 51-year-old performer whose given name is Michael Tyler is innocent of all charges, attorney Joel Pearce said after the arraignment in Ascension Parish court in Gonzales, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Baton Rouge.
The charges include first-degree rape, which carries an automatic life sentence.
Pearce said he has not been able to get copies of the two indictments, but they were read aloud in court.
Charges also include simple criminal damage to property, false imprisonment, domestic abuse battery by strangulation, simple robbery, possession of heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine and Xanax, and possession of drug paraphernalia, he said.
“My client doesn’t even do drugs, so he has absolutely no idea what they were talking about,” Pearce said in a telephone interview during his 250-mile (402-kilometer) drive from Gonzales to Shreveport.
He said bond may be discussed at a hearing Oct. 17. Prosecutors said they plan to bring up Tyler’s 2003 guilty plea to sexual battery and extortion as evidence of prior crimes, said Pearce.
Tyler and two bodyguards had videotaped themselves in sex acts with Tyler’s hairstylist. The prosecutor in that case, Sue Bernie, said in 2003 that the woman told investigators that Tyler accused her of stealing $80,000 worth of his checks and told her he would not go to police if she did something “degrading.” The woman denied stealing any money, Bernie said.
A letter in court records before Tyler’s sentencing stated that he had paid the woman $350,000.
He served six years in prison on that conviction, which came the same year that he was nominated for two Grammy awards. He also received a Grammy nomination in 2001.
Pearce said he doesn’t know what the woman who is now accusing Tyler allegedly was robbed of, but the criminal damage charge accuses him of breaking the band of her Apple watch.
Pearce represented Tyler on rape and kidnapping charges that prosecutors in northwest Louisiana dropped in December 2020. Those charges, brought in 2017, had kept Tyler jailed nearly 18 months before he was released on $3 million bond.
“People keep saying it’s his third time to be charged” with rape, Pearce said, but Tyler pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in Baton Rouge. “And in Caddo Parish, after a grand jury indicted him, they un-indicted him.”
Mystikal told The Associated Press in April 2021 that he used to be “a nasty lil’ rapper” but now is proud of lyrics he can imagine rapping to God.
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