BY ARSALAN SHAHLAAND GOLNAR MOTEVALLI

Bloomberg News

Iran ridiculed a U.S. bid to forc-ibly restore United Nations sanc-tions on the Islamic Republic and said it would set Washington’s military outposts in the Persian Gulf “on fire at once” if its adver-sary tried to start a war.

“We have thousands of troops on the ground who can occupy and set fire to all U.S. bases in the re-gion if they start to move,” Gen. Hos-sein Salami, the commander of the IRGC — the most powerful and in-fluential branch of Iran’s armed forces — said in an inter-view with Iran state TV’s Channel One. The U.S. Army “is exhausted and doesn’t have the power to start a ground war with Iran,” he added.

The comments came hours before the U.S. formally invoked a sanctions “snapback” provi-sion from the 2015 nuclear deal, which it withdrew from two years ago, a move that’s widely seen as an effort to kill what’s left of the accord.

The plan, coming on the eve of the U.N. General Assembly, has deepened a chasm between the U.S. and most other nations, in-cluding its European allies, who say President Donald Trump’s abrogation of the multinational agreement means he doesn’t have the right to use its provisions.

“Even if the snapback is per-formed, it will fire blank shots,” Salami said late Saturday. “We will go ahead and take our ac-tions if our rights are not fulfilled within the nuclear deal. We’re not afraid of bluffs, threats and intimidations.”

Iran’s foreign ministry spokes-man Saeed Khatibzadeh said Sun-day the snapback sanctions have

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BY JENNIFER H. SVAN

Stars and Stripes

Infantry recruits will no longer have drill sergeants barking orders at them inches from their faces during basic training as the “shark attack” technique, which uses intimidation to

establish authority and weed out the weak, is dropped in favor of a new approach.

The Army’s Infantry School at Fort Ben-ning, Ga., said it’s switching from the “Full

Metal Jacket,” in-your-face practice to one called “The First 100 Yards,” which seeks to develop mental and physical toughness, instill pride in the infantry, and build trust among recruits and their leaders.

The coronavirus may have hastened the switch, since the pandemic has ended up-close shouting by instructors at basic training. Trainers and recruits in all the services wear face masks and maintain so-cial distancing during basic training, and

even Navy special warfare instructors yell through megaphones these days.

But “The First 100 Yards” is also “a com-plete rewrite of what was commonly re-ferred to as the ‘Shark Attack,’” Command Sgt. Maj. Robert K. Fortenberry, the infan-try school’s senior enlisted leader, said in an online commentary earlier this month.

While the shark attack was intended “to establish dominance and authority using

SEE APPROACH ON PAGE 4

Above: An Army drill sergeant uses the “shark attack’’ method on a recruit during basic training in 2017 . The Army says it willno longer shout in recruits’ faces and use intimidation to establish authority and weed out the weak during basic training.

DARIUS DAVIS/U.S. Army

Army infantry school doing away with ‘shark attack’ methodology

Ridiculing ‘snapback,’ Iran warns against war

Volume 79, No. 111 ©SS 2020 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 2 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

T O D A YIN STRIPES

American Roundup ..... 14Classified .................. 13Comics ...................... 16Crossword ................. 16Faces ........................ 15Opinion ..................... 17 Sports .................. 18-24

BUSINESS/WEATHER

Military ratesEuro costs (Sept. 21) ............................ $1.16Dollar buys (Sept. 21) .......................€0.8224British pound (Sept. 21) ...................... $1.26Japanese yen (Sept. 21) ....................102.00South Korean won (Sept. 21) ........1,136.00

Commercial ratesBahrain (Dinar) ....................................0.3768British pound .....................................$1.2926Canada (Dollar) ...................................1.3196China (Yuan) ........................................6.7690Denmark (Krone) ................................6.2769Egypt (Pound) ....................................15.7609Euro ........................................$1.1853/0.8436Hong Kong (Dollar) ............................. 7.7506Hungary (Forint) .................................304.32Israel (Shekel) ..................................... 3.4170Japan (Yen) ...........................................104.55Kuwait (Dinar) .....................................0.3056Norway (Krone) ...................................9.0879Philippines (Peso).................................48.48Poland (Zloty) .......................................... 3.76Saudi Arabia (Riyal) ........................... 3.7513Singapore (Dollar) ..............................1.3590South Korea (Won) ..........................1,164.64

Switzerland (Franc)............................ 0.9101Thailand (Baht) ..................................... 31.09Turkey (Lira) ......................................... 7.5659(Military exchange rates are those available to customers at military banking facilities in the country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check with your local military banking facility. Commercial rates are interbank rates provided for reference when buying currency. All figures are foreign currencies to one dollar, except for the British pound, which is represented in dollars-to-pound, and the euro, which is dollars-to-euro.)

EXCHANGE RATES

INTEREST RATESPrime rate ................................................ 3.25Discount rate .......................................... 0.25Federal funds market rate ................... 0.093-month bill ............................................. 0.1030-year bond ........................................... 1.45

WEATHER OUTLOOK

Bahrain101/87

Baghdad110/77

Doha101/85

KuwaitCity

107/81

Riyadh106/73

Djibouti98/87

Kandahar96/56

Kabul86/54

MONDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST TUESDAY IN THE PACIFIC

Misawa70/59

Guam87/80

Tokyo73/63

Okinawa81/73

Sasebo81/66

Iwakuni79/59

Seoul78/57

Osan77/56 Busan

74/65

The weather is provided by the American Forces Network Weather Center,

2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

73/49

Ramstein78/46

Stuttgart78/57

Lajes,Azores72/66

Rota80/66

Morón85/60 Sigonella

88/69

Naples87/72

Aviano/Vicenza78/62

Pápa79/56

Souda Bay77/66

MONDAY IN EUROPE

Brussels77/46

Zagan78/51

Drawsko Pomorskie

73/49

China announces rules for ‘unreliable entity’ list BY ZEN SOO

Associated Press

HONG KONG — China’s Min-istry of Commerce on Saturday issued regulations for its “unreli-able entity” list, aimed at foreign companies it says endanger its national sovereignty, security or development interests.

Companies that end up on the list could be banned from import-ing or exporting from China, and may be barred from investing in the country.

Other measures include im-posing fines, entry restrictions on employees into China and re-voking their work or residence permits.

Although China has announced the regulations, the list has not been published.

The announcement of the new regulations comes after the Unit-ed States said that it would ban Chinese-owned TikTok and We-Chat from U.S. app stores Sunday, and bar such apps from assess-ing essential internet services in

the country based on concerns over national security and data privacy.

China’s Ministry of Commerce officially condemned the ban, and urged the U.S. to stop what it called bullying behavior and wrongdoing.

China had previously pledged to draw up a list of companies that harm its interests after the U.S. imposed sanctions on Chi-nese telecommunications gear supplier Huawei and placed it on a trade blacklist.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 3Monday, September 21, 2020

A Sept. 18 caption with a story about a change-of-command for Naval Air Fa-cility Atsugi misidentified the commander of Naval Forces Japan, Rear Adm. Brian P. Fort .

Correction

BY SETH ROBSON

Stars and Stripes

Guam urgently needs an Aegis Ashore missile defense system to protect vital military assets from an increasingly aggressive China, according to the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

“There are billions of dollars in defense capability on Guam,” Adm. Phil Davidson said Thurs-day during an online forum or-ganized by the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. “There needs to be some investment in defend-ing that.”

The U.S. territory is home to air and naval bases and serves as a launching point for strategic bombers. The Navy is also build-ing facilities to house a Marine Corps air-ground task force to ac-commodate a planned drawdown of Marines on Okinawa.

Aegis Ashore is a land-based version of the short- and interme-diate-range missile defense sys-tem deployed on dozens of U.S. and Japanese navy cruisers and destroyers. NATO and the United States deployed the first ashore system in Romania in 2016. Japan scuttled plans for an Aegis Ashore installation earlier this year due to worries about rocket boosters falling on populated areas.

China’s rapid development of the world’s largest rocket force is a concern, Davidson said during the forum.

The force could strike U.S. forc-es on Guam and in the Far East with everything from ballistic missiles to maneuverable cruise and hypersonic missiles, warned the commander of 380,000 troops and civilians responsible for an area of operations stretching from the U.S. West Coast to India.

China’s ability to launch mis-siles from submarines ranging

farther from shore means Guam needs the 360-degree protection that Aegis can provide, he said.

Guam’s Terminal High Alti-tude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile defense battery can sense targets only within a 120-degree range, and it’s pointed at North Korea, Davidson said.

“It’s going to require a much deeper 360-degree persistent capability,” he said, adding that it’s important to invest in Guam’s missile defense now.

“It is not necessarily about de-signing or creating a defensive system that is impenetrable or invulnerable against the entire missile inventory of a potential ad-versary. Rather it is about develop-ing a combat credible deterrent.”

INDOPACOM, in a report to

Congress, put the cost of a system providing 360-degree air-missile defense on Guam at just under $1.7 billion.

Davidson has requested fund-ing for the system starting in the next fiscal year as part of a Pa-cific Deterrence Initiative that parallel s a similar program in Europe designed to deter Russia.

Building Aegis Ashore is a pathway to defending against hy-personic missiles, Davidson said, adding that China’s rocket force fires and exercises more often than that of any other nation.

“The vast capacity that China possesses when it comes to land-based … cruise missiles and ground-based conventional mis-siles and where they are headed with ground-based hypersonic

missiles represents an offensive threat throughout the region that is alarming not only to the United States but to all our allies and partners there as well,” he said.

However, U.S. deterrence can’t be fully dependent on missile de-fense and will require closing the gap in offensive missile capability with China, Davidson said.

“China has a profound advan-tage in ballistic missiles against the United States,” he said. “They also have a profound advantage in ground-launched cruise missiles. We have to get into that offensive force game as well.”

Last month, the U.S., citing Russian violations, withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a 1987 pact with Russia that limited both

nations from fielding short- andintermediate-range land-basedballistic missiles, cruise missilesand missile launchers that could be used to house nuclear or con-ventional payloads.

Rapidly growing capability inChina and North Korea requires that Aegis be the starting pointfor the defense of Guam, David-son said.

“We can’t … wait for some per-fect solution to manifest itself in2035 or 2040. We are in the threatenvironment now,” he said.

China is building combat sup-port, cyber and space capability, developing fourth- and fifth-gen-eration fighters jets, deployinglong-range air-to-air missiles andbuilding maneuvering and hy-personic missiles and advanced warships comparable to the U.S.Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruiserand Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, Davidson said.

Riki Ellison, founder of the Mis-sile Defense Advocacy Alliance,which lobbies for missile defense,deployment and development,said U.S. forces can’t protect for-ward bases today in the Far Eastfrom Chinese missiles.

“Our (aircraft) carriers can(protect themselves) with theirAegis ships but on the land side wedon’t have the capability,” he saidin a telephone interview Tuesday. “That has to be addressed.”

The U.S. has been investing for 20 years on defeating ballisticmissiles from North Korea, butthe Chinese missile threat is far more advanced, Ellison said.

“This is a different game. Itcan’t just be the U.S.,” he said.“Australia has to chip in; so doesJapan. This is not something that the U.S. can do on its own.”robson.seth@stripes.comTwitter: @SethRobson1

BY CAITLIN DOORNBOS AND HANA KUSUMOTO

Stars and Stripes

TOKYO — Japanese lawmak-ers are calling for joint U.S.-Japan military drills near a group of small islands in the East China Sea that have become a target of frequent incursions by Beijing, according to a blog post by one of the legislators.

About 100 members of Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party in a draft proposal Thurs-day suggested joint operations to

strengthen control of the Senkaku Islands, according to the post. Japan asserts sovereignty over the islands, which are about 250 miles west of Okinawa, according to the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

The proposal, which was post-ed on the blog of upper house member Masahisa Sato, raised in a concern that Beijing has “esca-lated acts of provocation” around the Senkakus, which China and Taiwan also claim.

“The Defense Ministry should conduct joint drills with the Unit-ed States around the Nansei island chain including Kuba and Taisho islands,” the proposal stated.

Kuba and Taisho islands are part of the Senkakus. Though the chain is a barren group of rocks and islands that total 7 square miles, the surrounding area is a rich fishing ground and may hold oil and natural gas deposits.

The U.S. military in Japan “looks forward to any opportuni-ty to increase our interoperabil-

ity and strengthen the U.S.-Japan Alliance,” U.S. Forces Japan spokesman Gunnery Sgt. Derek Carlson told Stars and Stripes in an email Friday. “Interoperabil-ity” is a term the U.S. military uses to describe the ability of a country’s armed forces to use an-other country’s training methods and military equipment.

“Training and readiness is our top priority and we will continue to engage with the government of Japan to find new ways to grow stronger, together,” Carlson said. “The alliance has never been stronger, and it’s never been more important to this region than right now as we face difficult security challenges.”

Chinese ships had sailed through the waters surround-ing the Senkakus, which Beijing calls Diaoyu, for 111 consecutive days between April 14 and Aug. 2, according to the proposal. Last year, China sent a record-break-ing 1,004 ships past the islands, the Japan Coast Guard said in

December.“It is necessary to recognize

that it is an extremely important issue surrounding Japanese sov-ereignty as China has raised its level of provocation,” the propos-al said.

Japan has effectively dominat-ed the islands but needs to fur-ther enhance the effectiveness of its control, according to the proposal.

The Senkakus are part of the “first island chain” that China uses to distinguish its controver-sial nine-dash line, which Beijing says outlines what it considers its territorial waters. An interna-tional tribunal refuted this claim in 2016, and the U.S. in July an-nounced a formal policy rejecting the concept.

Protecting Japan’s sovereignty over the islands is key to both Jap-anese and U.S. strategy regard-ing China, said Stephen Nagy, a politics and international studies professor at Tokyo’s International Christian University.

“The first island chain is anartificial boundary line where Chinese ships need to penetrate ifthey want to go out to the Pacific,” Nagy said. “If [Japan] can main-tain control on this island chain,what they can do is limit Chinese assertive behavior beyond that point.”

The Pentagon has said an at-tack on the islands would invokethe U.S.-Japan Treaty of MutualCooperation and Security, mean-ing the U.S. military would be ob-ligated to respond.

“Our partners in the JapanSelf-Defense Forces are incred-ibly capable allies, and we contin-ue to train and exercise together to improve interoperability andstrengthen our capabilities,”Carlson said.

The Liberal Democrats plan tosubmit the proposal to the appro-priate ministries soon, according to the post. doornbos.caitlin@stripes.com Twitter: @CaitlinDoornbos kusumoto.hana@stripes.comTwitter: @HanaKusumoto

PACIFIC

Aegis Ashore sought for defense of Guam

Japan’s legislators want US-Japan drills near disputed islands

U.S. sailors visit an Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Poland in 2019. The head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command says Guam needs an Aegis Ashore system to defend against an aggressive China.AMY FORSYTHEU.S. Navy

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 4 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

FROM FRONT PAGE

intimidation and fear, to weed out the weak of heart,” it helped to create “a chaotic environment that centered around applying physical exertion under stress,” Fortenberry said in a video made for a virtual warfighter conference.

The video showed angry-looking drill sergeants in wide-brimmed hats swarming around and yelling at Army recruits.

“Drill sergeants were charged with assessing the trainee’s ability to handle stress … by enveloping them in a manner that emulated a shark attack,” Fortenberry said.

Sometimes, half a dozen drill sergeants would “gang up on you and be absolutely relentless,” causing some recruits to cry, said James Dalman, who was infantry in the Army Reserves and Na-tional Guard for six years, on his website.

Although the shark attack method was “mean, nasty, and overwhelming,” and a “deeply un-pleasant experience, it does serve an important purpose — prepar-

ing troops for stressful situations including combat,” he said.

But Fortenberry said the ac-tivity “betrays the innate trust between teammates, and worse, betrays the crucial bond of trust with our leaders.”

The new training program, on the other hand, uses physical training to prepare for the new Army Combat Fitness Test and puts recruits through mock ex-

ercises, including working with other trainees to move a load of supplies on the fly, just as they might have to do in an actual combat zone, the Army said.

In “The First 100 Yards,” the drill sergeant and other training cadre formally introduce them-selves to the trainees instead of shouting in their faces, and then watch an Infantry Demonstration Squad showcase their combat

skills, a video about the new tech-nique shows.

Trainees will have to memorize facts about the infantry and their new units, including names and positions of leaders, the unit’s his-tory and mottos.

The new method will allow new soldiers “to realize this journey in the infantry is one that we’ll never take alone, and it is defined by leaders’ willingness to share in the hardship,” Fortenberry said.svan.jennifer@stripes.comTwitter: @stripesktown

FROM FRONT PAGE

only happened in “the fantastical world” of the Trump administra-tion, The Associated Press re-ported. He said the U.S. stands onthe wrong side of history.

“They are attempting to makeeveryone believe it, but nobody isbuying it except for themselves,” Khatibzadeh said during hisweekly press briefing.

“It is a television show whosesole presenter, viewers and thosecheering it on are Mr. Pompeohimself and a handful of others,” the AP reported the spokesmansaid, referring to the U.S. secre-tary of state.

“Tehran’s message to Washing-ton is clear: return to the interna-tional community, return to your commitments and stop bullyingso the international community will accept you,” he added.

Salami’s comments came with-in minutes of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif ridicul-ing U.S. “snapback” gambit.

“This is a propaganda trick.There’s no snapback resolution,”Zarif said in the interview withIranian state TV.

MILITARY

US claims Iran’s sanctions restoreddespite opposition

Sanctions: Iran calls move a ‘propaganda trick’ by the US

Approach: Army makes changes to ‘stressful’ basic training

BY MATTHEW LEE

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration declared Saturday that all U.N.34 sanctions against Iran have been restored, a move most of the rest of the world re-jects as illegal and sets the stage for an ugly showdown at the world body ahead of its annual General Assembly.

The administration said that its triggering of the “snapback” mechanism in the U.N. Security Council resolution that enshrined the 2015 Iran nuclear deal had taken effect at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. That is 30 days after Secre-tary of State Mike Pompeo noti-fied the council that Iran was in “significant non-performance” with its obligations under the accord, known as the Joint Com-prehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

“The United States took this de-cisive action because, in addition to Iran’s failure to perform its JCPOA commitments, the Secu-rity Council failed to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran, which had been in place for 13 years,” Pompeo said in a statement re-leased at precisely 8 p.m.

“In accordance with our rights ... we initiated the snapback pro-cess to restore virtually all previ-ously terminated U.N. sanctions, including the arms embargo,” he

said. “The world will be safer as a result.”

The White House plans to issue an executive order on Monday spelling out how the U.S. will enforce the restored sanctions, and the State and Treasury de-partments are expected to out-line how foreign individuals and businesses will be penalized for violations.

“The United States expects all U.N, member states to fully com-ply with their obligations to imple-ment these measures,” Pompeo said. “If U.N, member states fail to fulfill their obligations to implement these sanctions, the United States is prepared to use our domestic authorities to im-pose consequences for those fail-ures and ensure that Iran does not reap the benefits of U.N.-pro-hibited activity.”

But the U.S. move faces stiff op-position from the other members of the Security Council who have vowed to ignore it. They say the U.S. lost legal standing to invoke snapback when President Donald Trump withdrew from the nucle-ar deal in 2018 and reimposed American sanctions on Iran. The U.S. argues it retains the right to do it as an original participant in the deal and a member of the council.

Even before the U.S. decla-ration, fellow Security Council members said the declaration had no legal force, calling into

question the ability to enforce snapback. Snapback means that international sanctions eased or lifted by the nuclear deal are re-imposed and must be enforced by U.N. member states, including hitting Iran with penalties for ura-nium enrichment to any level, bal-listic missile activity and buying or selling conventional weapons.

Those bans were either re-moved or set to expire under the terms of the deal in which Iran was granted billions of dollars in sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

China and Russia have been particularly adamant in reject-ing the U.S. position, but U.S. al-lies have not been shy either. In a letter sent Friday to the president of the Security Council, Brit-

ain, France and Germany — the three European participants who remain committed to the deal — said the U.S. announcement “is incapable of having legal effect and so cannot bring in to effect the procedure.”

“It flows from this that any de-cisions and actions which would be taken based on this procedure or on its possible outcome would also be incapable of having any legal effect,” they wrote. Thus, the three countries said, the sanc-tions relief provided by the nucle-ar deal will remain in place.

In its own letter to the Security Council on Saturday, Iran said the U.S. move “is null and void, has no legal standing and effect and is thus completely unacceptable.”

MIKE SEGAR, POOL/AP

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo departs a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council about Iran’s alleged non-compliance with a nuclear deal at the United Nation in New York.

Saudi state TV: Bahrain stops planned attacks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates— Bahrain broke up a plot by mil-itants backed by Iran to launch at-tacks on diplomats and foreigners in the island nation home to theU.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, just days after normalizing relations withIsrael, Saudi state television re-ported Sunday.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry and its state media did not imme-diately acknowledge the arrests.

The Saudi state TV report airedfootage of what appeared to be po-lice raiding a home with a hiddenpassage. The footage showed as-sault rifles and explosives, appar-ently seized in the raid. A Saudistate TV reporter said those plan-ning the attacks wanted to carrythem out in revenge for the U.S.killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani .

Iranian state media acknowl-edged the reports of the Bahraini arrests, but no official comment-ed on them. From The Associated Press

PATRICK A. ALBRIGHT/U.S. Army

Infantry trainees at Fort Benning, Ga., work together to figure out how to move supplies from one point to another in August 2020 during their first day of training.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 5Monday, September 21, 2020

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 6 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

WAR/MILITARY

BY J.P. LAWRENCE Stars and Stripes

KABUL, Afghanistan — An airstrike by Afghan security forces targeting Taliban forces Saturday killed noncombatants, local officials and media reports said.

The airstrike killed civilians — including women and children — living in a Taliban-controlled part of the northern province of Kunduz, Ghulam Rabbani Rabbani, provincial council head, told Stars and Stripes.

Various reports had as many as 24 civil-ians killed.

The Afghan Ministry of Defense de-nied any civilians had been killed and in-

sisted that the attack killed more than 30 Taliban.

No U.S. air assets were involved in the strike, a spokesman for NATO Resolute Support said Sunday in a statement.

The Taliban attacked Afghan security force checkpoints Saturday morning, lead-ing to a counterattack, Afghan defense of-ficials said in a statement.

Kunduz and other provinces throughout the country have seen heavy fighting, even as the Afghan government and the Taliban conduct high-level talks aimed at ending the country’s decadeslong war.

A Taliban offensive encircled and al-most seized the province’s capital late last month, Reuters reported.

The initial airstrike by an Afghan attack plane targeted the home of a Taliban fight-er, leading to an explosion that set a nearby home on fire, trapping the family inside, witnesses told The Associated Press.

Farmers and villagers who ran to douse the fire and rescue the trapped family members were killed when the plane cir-cled back around to attack again, the AP reported.

The New York Times reported more than a dozen civilians dead, while the local news organization Pajhwok estimated about 20 civilians were killed or wounded.

The attack occurred in Taliban-con-trolled territory, so it is difficult to in-dependently confirm death counts and

culpability. The Afghan and U.S. governments have

sometimes denied civilian deaths in air-strikes in the past, only to be contradictedby reports from the United Nations and in-dependent watchdog groups.

In June, the U.N. determined the Afghan army fired mortars into a busy market inthe southern province of Helmand, killing23 people, after military officials blamedthe Taliban and denied responsibility.

The Defense Ministry is still investigat-ing that incident, the AP reported Sunday.

Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report. lawrence.jp@stripes.com Twitter: @jplawrence3

BY KIM GAMEL AND YOO KYONG CHANG

Stars and Stripes

SEOUL, South Korea — The driver of a sport utility vehicle that rear-ended a U.S. armored personnel carrier last month was drunk and speeding at the time of the fatal collision, police said Friday.

The Aug. 30 crash occurred on a bridge as two American sol-diers in the military vehicle were headed home after a training at the Rodriguez Live Fire Com-plex in Pocheon, 30 miles north of Seoul. The soldiers were not seriously injured; all four people in the SUV died.

The collision prompted the U.S. military to suspend training in the area, which has long been the source of frequent complaints from locals about noise and stray ordnance. The SUV passengers — two South Korean couples in their 50s — were from Pocheon and were on the way home after having dinner with friends in the area, an investigator at the local police station said.

The driver had a blood alcohol content well above the legal limit and was going more than 60 mph

in a 40 mph zone when the crash occurred, according to the of-ficer, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with depart-ment rules.

The vehicle had pulled over be-fore the crash to allow the driver to switch places with another man, and nobody appeared to no-tice the military vehicle in front of them, the police said, citing data from the dashboard camera and roadside surveillance footage.

The speed was determined from the event data recorder in the airbag control module.

“The SUV owner was at the wheel when they left the house they had been visiting, but the owner gave control to the driver a few minutes before the crash,” the investigator said. “The driver is suspected of having neglected to keep his eyes on the road in ad-dition to being drunk at the wheel and speeding.”

An autopsy by the National Forensic Service found that both men had a blood alcohol content level higher than 0.1%, which would have been high enough to merit license revocation, the in-vestigator said. Police declined to give more exact figures be-cause of rules about personal

information.U.S. Forces Korea has ex-

pressed deep condolences for the loss of life and suspended train-ing in the mountainous area near the border with North Korea “out of respect to those killed and their families.”

Tensions with the local popu-lace have forced the military to send Air Force and Army combat helicopter crews off the peninsula to maintain their live-fire qualifi-cations, USFK commander Gen. Robert Abrams said recently.

He said USFK was working closely with South Korea’s De-fense Ministry to resolve the concerns.

Meanwhile, a left-wing uni-versity student activist group claiming that the military vehicle should have had an escort has held near-daily protests outside Camp Casey, the main U.S. base in the area, occasionally forcing gates to be closed.

Police said the investiga-tion was ongoing and they have asked USFK to provide informa-tion about the status of forces agreement.gamel.kim@stripes.comTwitter: @kimgamelchang.kyong@stripes.com

Civilians reported killed in Afghan military strike

Pocheon Fire Station

Emergency workers tend to the scene after a collision involving a U.S. armored personnel carrier and a civilian SUV near the Rodriguez Live-Fire Complex in Pocheon, South Korea, on Aug. 30 . Police say the driver of the SUV was drunk and speeding at the time of the crash.

Police: South Korean driver was drunk, speeding before fatal crash

BY JOHN VANDIVER

Stars and Stripes

STUTTGART, Germany — NATO’s Atlantic Command has begun operations, marking anoth-er step forward for the alliance as it rebuilds itself to counter an in-creasingly assertive Russia.

“NATO is a transatlantic al-liance and the North Atlantic is vital for the security of Europe,” Secretary-General Jens Stolten-berg said Thursday. “Our new Atlantic Command will ensure crucial routes for reinforcements and supplies from North America to Europe remain secure.”

Set up to help allies move forc-es across the ocean in a crisis, the Norfolk, Va.-based command has been under development since 2018, when NATO approved the concept.

The first NATO headquarters since 2003 dedicated to protect-ing Atlantic sea lanes, the com-mand is co-located with the U.S. Navy’s 2nd Fleet. Disbanded in 2011, the 2nd Fleet was re-estab-lished seven years later to counter Russia in the North Atlantic amid warnings from U.S. military of-ficials that a military moderniza-tion campaign had led to a more

lethal Russian navy. The 2ndFleet became fully operationalagain earlier this year.

NATO’s Atlantic Command is tasked with drawing up opera-tional plans that cover an areastretching from the U.S. eastcoast, across the Greenland-Ice-land-U.K. gap and into the Arctic,NATO said.

The so-called GIUK Gap pas-sage in the North Atlantic is re-garded by military planners as apossible chokepoint in the eventof conflict between Russian andallied warships and submarines.

The return of the U.S. andNATO Atlantic-focused com-mands is the latest move to beefup alliance capabilities amid con-cerns about Russia.

Among those moves was thecreation in 2018 of a logisticscommand in Ulm, Germany. The Joint Support and EnablingCommand, which is expected tobe fully operational in 2021, istasked with ensuring allied troopsand tanks can move freely across Europe and is expected to help al-lies manage the flow of forces in a crisis. vandiver.john@stripes.com

Twitter: @john_vandiver

NATO’s Atlantic Command will protect sea routes

NATO

U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis and British Royal Navy Rear Adm. Andrew Betton held a ceremony at Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Va., on Thursday to mark the start of operations of NATO’s Atlantic Command.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 7Monday, September 21, 2020

NATION

BY MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZAND CHRISTOPHER WEBER

Associated Press

JUNIPER HILLS, Calif. — Strong winds stoked a wildfire burning for nearly two weeks in mountains northeast of Los Angeles, prompting authorities to issue new evacuation orders for desert communities that lost some homes a day earlier.

Meanwhile, officials were in-vestigating the death of a fire-fighter on the lines of another Southern California wildfire that erupted earlier this month from a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used by a couple to reveal their baby’s gender.

The death occurred Thursday in San Bernardino National For-est as crews battled the El Dora-do Fire about 75 miles east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement.

In northern Los Angeles County, firefighters focused on protecting homes Saturday as in-creasingly erratic winds pushed the Bobcat Fire toward foothill communities in the Antelope Val-ley after churning all the way across the San Gabriel Moun-

tains. An evacuation order was issued Saturday for all residents in that zone as the fire burned toward Wrightwood, a mountain community of 4,000, said fire spokesman Andrew Mitchell.

The fire grew to 142 square miles Saturday when winds pushed it into Juniper Hills.

Some residents fled as blowing embers sparked spot fires, hit-ting some homes but sparing oth-ers. Bridget Lensing feared her family’s house was lost on Fri-day after seeing on Twitter that a neighbor’s house three doors down went up in flames.

The house stood when she made her way back Saturday afternoon, but her neighbors’ houses in the remote community were burned to the ground.

“Everything around us is gone,” she said.

The extent of the destruction in the area about 50 miles north-east of downtown LA wasn’t im-mediately clear. But Los Angeles County park officials said the blaze destroyed the nature cen-ter at Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area, a geological wonder that at-tracts some 130,000 visitors per

year. No injuries were reported.On the south side of the Bob-

cat Fire, firefighters continuedto protect Mount Wilson, which overlooks greater Los Angelesand has a historic observatoryfounded more than a century agoand numerous broadcast anten-nas serving Southern California.

The fire that started Sept. 6 hadalready doubled in size over thelast week. It is 15% contained.

Officials said the fire has beenchallenging because it is burningin areas that haven’t burned in de-cades, and because the firestorms across California have limited re-sources. There were about 1,660firefighters on the lines.

The name of the firefighter killed in the nearby El Dorado Fire was being withheld until family members are notified.The body was escorted down the mountain in a procession of first-responder vehicles. No other in-formation was released about thecircumstances of the death.

A statement from the Califor-nia Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, saidit was the 26th death involvingwildfires besieging the state.

Associated Press

HOUSTON — Tropical Storm Beta trudged toward the coasts of Texas and Louisiana on Sun-day, threatening to bring more rain, wind and stress to a part of the country that has already been drenched and battered during this year’s unusually busy hurri-cane season.

While Beta could bring up to 20 inches of rain to some areas of Texas and Louisiana over the next several days, it was no longer ex-pected to reach hurricane inten-sity, the National Weather Service said Sunday. Beta was set to make landfall along Texas’ central or upper Gulf Coast late Monday or early Tuesday, with rainfall as its biggest threat. It was then expect-ed to move northeastward along the coast and head into Louisiana sometime midweek.

Forecasters said Beta was not expected to bring the same amount of rainfall that Texas experienced during either Hurricane Harvey in 2017 or Tropical Storm Imelda last year. Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain on Houston and caused $125 billion in dam-age in Texas. Imelda, which hit Southeast Texas, was one of the wettest cyclones on record.

The first rain bands from Beta reached the Texas coast on Sun-

day, but the heaviest rain wasn’t expected to arrive until Monday into Tuesday.

In low-lying Galveston, which has seen more than its share of tropical weather over the years, officials didn’t expect to issue a mandatory evacuation order but they advised people to have supplies ready in case they have to stay home for several days if roads are flooded. The coastal city about 50 miles south of Hous-ton was expected to get up to 10 inches of rain.

“We’re not incredibly worried,” Galveston resident Nancy Kitcheo said Sunday. Kitcheo and her fam-ily had evacuated last month when forecasts suggested Hurricane Laura could make landfall near Galveston, but they’re planning to buy supplies and wait out Beta. Laura ended up making landfall in neighboring Louisiana.

Beta was one of three named storms whirling in the Atlantic basin during an exceptionally busy hurricane season. If the sys-tem makes landfall in Texas, it would be the ninth named storm to make landfall in the continen-tal U.S. in 2020. That would tie a record set in 1916, according to Colorado State hurricane re-searcher Phil Klotzbach.

BY MICHAEL BALSAMO

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Federal offi-cials intercepted an envelope ad-dressed to the White House that contained the poison ricin, a U.S. law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The letter appeared to have originated in Canada, according to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which said it was assisting the FBI.

The letter was intercepted at a government facility that screens mail addressed to the White House and President Donald Trump, the U.S. official said. A preliminary investigation indi-cated that it tested positive for ricin, a deadly poison found natu-rally in castor beans, the U.S. of-ficial said.

The U.S. official was not autho-rized to discuss the ongoing in-vestigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Federal investigators were working to determine where the

enveloped originated and who mailed it. The FBI, the Secret Service and the U.S. Postal In-spection Service were leading the investigation.

In a statement, the FBI said agents were working to investi-gate “a suspicious letter received at a U.S. government mail facil-ity” and that there is “no known threat to public safety.”

A Navy veteran was arrested in 2018 and confessed to sending en-velopes to Trump and members of his administration that contained the substance from which ricin is derived.

Authorities said the man, Wil-liam Clyde Allen III, sent the en-velopes with ground castor beans to the president, FBI Director Christopher Wray, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, Adm. John Richardson, who at the time was the Navy’s top officer, and then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wil-son. The letters were intercepted, and no one was hurt.

BY STAN CHOE

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A judge has ap-proved a request from a group of U.S. WeChat users to delay loom-ing federal government restric-tions that could effectively make the popular app nearly impos-sible to use.

In a ruling dated Saturday, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in California said the government’s actions would affect users’ First Amendment rights as an effec-tive ban on the app removes their platform for communication.

WeChat is a messaging-focused

app popular with many Chinese-speaking Americans that serves as a lifeline to friends, family, customers and business contacts in China. It’s owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent.

The group of WeChat users had requested an injunction after the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday that it would bar WeChat from U.S. app stores and keep it from accessing essential internet services in the country, begin-ning Sunday night at 11:59 p.m.

WeChat users argued the moves targeting the all-in-one app with instant-messaging, social media and other communication tools

would restrict free speech.In the ruling, the court said

that a WeChat ban “eliminates all meaningful access to communi-cation in the plaintiffs’ communi-ty,” and that an injunction would be in public interest.

The U.S. government had ear-lier argued that it is not restrict-ing free speech because WeChatusers still “are free to speak onalternative platforms that do not pose a national security threat.”

Specific evidence about We-Chat posing a national securitythreat was also “modest,” accord-ing to Judge Beeler.

Tropical storm on slow trek to Gulf Coast

Desert communities ordered to evacuate as winds stoke flames

Judge agrees to delay US ban on WeChat

Official: Ricin found in letter sent to White House

MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP

Alexis Miller of Los Angeles County Fire holds a water hose while protecting a home from the advancing Bobcat Fire along Cima Mesa Road on Friday in Juniper Hills, Calif.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 8 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

NATION

GOP confronts past high court comments

Trump promises to fill court’s vacancy with a woman

BY MATTHEW DALY

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Republican senators weighing what to do about the vacancy on the Supreme Court are facing questions about their own past comments amid com-plaints by Democrats that their views have shifted with changing political reality.

President Donald Trump on Saturday urged the GOP-run Senate to consider “without delay” his upcoming nomina-tion to fill the seat vacated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday. The move comes just six weeks before the election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCon-nell, a Kentucky Republican, vowed in a statement Friday night, hours after Gins-burg’s death, to call a floor vote on Trump’s nominee, although he did not specify a date. McConnell, who sets the calendar in the Senate, has made judicial appointments a top priority.

McConnell’s statement on the latest va-cancy stands in stark contrast to the po-sition he took in 2016 when he refused to consider President Barack Obama’s choice for the high court months ahead of the election. McConnell blocked hearings for Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge, saying the choice should be left to voters in an election year.

Democrats said Republicans should fol-low the precedent they set in 2016 by not considering a Supreme Court choice in the run-up to an election, but McConnell’s comments make it clear he has no inten-tion of doing so.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who will oversee the vet-ting of the nomination as Judiciary chair-man, tweeted Saturday that he will support Trump “in any effort to move forward re-

garding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.”

Graham’s comment contradicts his state-ments in 2018 and 2016 that a Supreme Court nominee should not be considered in an election year.

“If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election,” Graham said in 2018 at an event hosted by The Atlantic magazine.

Two years earlier, in the midst of the Gar-land battle, the South Carolina senator was even more emphatic, urging listeners at a Judiciary Committee meeting to “use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president (elected) in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you

can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.’ ”

Despite those comments, Graham said Saturday that he supports moving forward on a new nomination because Democrats had changed the Senate rules to confirm more circuit court judges during Obama’s tenure, and because Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer “and his friends in the liberal media conspired to destroy the life of Brett Kavanaugh and hold that Su-preme Court seat open.”

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who is considered a moderate, said Sat-urday that “in fairness to the American people,” the Senate should not vote on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court

until after the election and that the nomi-nation “should be made by the president who is elected on November 3rd.”

Collins voted in favor of Kavanaugh in2018 — a vote that has played a key rolein her reelection campaign. Liberal groups have targeted Collins over her support forKavanaugh, and she trails her Democrat-ic opponent in publicly released opinionpolls.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Repub-lican who opposed Kavanaugh’s confir-mation, said in an interview hours beforeGinsburg’s death that she “would not voteto confirm” her replacement before thenext president is inaugurated.

Her comments to Alaska Public Radio on Friday also occurred before McCon-nell said the Senate will vote on Trump’snominee to replace Ginsburg. Murkowski’scomment appeared to put her at odds with McConnell, who will need at least 50 votesto push a Trump nominee through the Sen-ate, plus a tie-breaking vote by Vice Presi-dent Mike Pence.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Re-publican who serves on the Judiciary panel, was among several GOP senators intough reelection battles to join Trump incalling for a swift vote on a Supreme Court nominee.

“There is a clear choice on the future of the Supreme Court between the well-qualified and conservative jurist PresidentTrump will nominate and I will support,and the liberal activist Joe Biden will nom-inate ,” Tillis said on Twitter .

In 2016, Tillis opposed giving Merrick Garland a hearing, saying “the voice of theAmerican people should be weighted heav-ily” in filling a Supreme Court vacancy, adding that the nomination “would be bestleft to the next president.”

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is promising to put forth a female nominee in the coming week to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Gins-burg, pushing the Republican-controlled Senate to consider the pick without delay.

Taking the stage Saturday night at a North Carolina rally to chants of “Fill that seat,” the president said he would nominate his selec-tion despite Democrats’ objec-tions. And, after conducting what he joked was a “very scientific poll” of the Fayetteville crowd as to whether supporters wanted a man or a woman, he declared the choice would be “a very talented,

very brilliant woman.”He added that he did not yet

know whom he would choose.“We win an election and those

are the consequences,” said the president, who then seemed to signal that he’d be willing to ac-cept a vote on his nominee during the lame-duck period after the election. “We have a lot of time. We have plenty of time. We’re talking about January 20th.”

But one Republican senator had already broken ranks. Maine’s Susan Collins, who is in a tough reelection battle, said earlier Sat-urday that she believed replacing Ginsburg should be the decision of the president who is elected Nov. 3. Three more defections from the GOP ranks would be needed to stop Trump’s nominee

from joining the court.At stake is a seat held by a jus-

tice who was a champion of wom-en’s rights and spent her final years on the bench as the unques-tioned leader of the court’s liberal wing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. vowed to call a vote for Trump’s nominee, but Democrats countered that Republicans should follow the precedent that GOP legislators set in 2016 by refusing to consid-er a Supreme Court choice in the run-up to an election.

The impending clash over the vacant seat — when to fill it and with whom — scrambles the stretch run of a presidential race for a nation already reeling from the pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 people, left mil-

lions unemployed and heightened partisan tensions and anger.

McConnell pledged to Trump in a phone call Friday night to bring the choice to a vote though he has not said if it would be be-fore the election.

Democratic presidential nomi-nee Joe Biden said any selection should come after Nov. 3. “Voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice to consider,” he said. Biden has promised to nominate a Black woman to the high court if given the chance, but he has said he will not release names of possible nominees before the election.

Trump this month added 20 more names to his roster of po-tential court nominees, and aides in recent days have focused on

a shortlist heavy on female can-didates, according to four WhiteHouse aides and officials close tothe process. They spoke on condi-tion of anonymity because they were not authorized to publiclydiscuss private conversations.

Those under close consider-ation for the high court includethree women who are federal ap-peals court judges: Amy ConeyBarrett, beloved among conser-vatives and an early favorite; Barbara Lagoa, who is Hispanicand comes from the battlegroundstate of Florida; and AllisonJones Rushing, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and forNeil Gorsuch, when the current Trump-appointed justice was an appeals court judge.

JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed to call a floor vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacant seat.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 9Monday, September 21, 2020

Colleagues reminisce on their time with Ginsburg

Over the years RBG told many stories, shared lots of advice

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The remain-ing eight Supreme Court justices, and two former colleagues, are speaking out about their col-league Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday at age 87.

Some, like Clarence Thomas, and Stephen Breyer, served with her for nearly all of her 27 years on the high court and wrote emo-tional statements following news of her death. The justices all spoke of her undying devotion to the law and her grace as a colleague.

Excerpts from their state-ments, as released Saturday by the court:

Chief Justice John Roberts said: “Our Nation has lost a ju-rist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cher-ished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute cham-pion of justice.”

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: he was heartbroken to

learn of her passing. “Through the many challenges both profes-sionally and personally, she was the essence of grace, civility and dignity. She was a superb judge who gave her best and exacted the best from each of us, whether in agreement or disagreement. And, as outstanding as she was as a judge, she was an even better colleague — unfailingly gracious, thoughtful, and civil.”

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: he heard of her death while he was reciting the “Mourner’s Kaddish” at the Rosh Hashanah service.

He wrote: “I thought:a great Justice; a woman of valour;a rock of righteousness;and my good, good friend. The world is a better place for

her having lived in it.” Justice Samuel Alito wrote:

he and his wife were deeply saddened.

“Ruth and Marty made us feel at home immediately when I joined the Court, and we will cer-

tainly miss her. Justice Ginsburg will go down as a leading figure in the history of the Court. She will be remembered for her in-telligence, learning, and remark-able fortitude. She has been and will continue to be an inspiration for many. ”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor called: her a dear friend and col-league, and “an American hero” who spent her life “fighting for the equality of all people, and she was a pathbreaking champion of women’s rights.”

“I will miss Ruth greatly,” So-tomayor wrote.

Justice Elena Kagan echoed: Sotomayor’s comments that Ginsburg was a hero and tireless fighter for equal rights.

“Ruth reached out to encour-age and assist me in my career, as she did for so many others, long before I came to the Supreme Court,” Kagan said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote: he and his wife had lost a cherished friend and colleague who was a distinguished judge.

“We are blessed by the happy

memories that will remain, like traveling with Ruth to London where (to her delight) an unin-formed guide kept calling her ‘Ruthie,’ or all the opera she tried so valiantly to teach me . We will miss Ruth and our hearts go out to her family. May she rest in peace.”

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote: that no American had ever done more than Ginsburg to en-sure equal justice under the law for women.

“A meticulous and pathmarking judge, she held herself to the high-est standards of precision and ac-

curacy in her beautifully crafted opinions. And she inspired all of us to try to meet those same ex-acting standards. ”

Retired Justice David Souterwrote: that “Ruth Ginsburg was one of the members of the Courtwho achieved greatness beforeshe became a great justice. I loved her to pieces.”

Retired Justice Anthony Ken-nedy said: “The members of theCourt always will cherish all thatJustice Ginsburg meant to us asa distinguished jurist and an in-spiring, wonderful person,” he wrote.

BY JESSICA GRESKO

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — In recent years Jus-tice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was surprised to find herself so popular that “everyone wants to take a picture with me.” The jus-tice, who died Friday at 87, had become a feminist icon, with books, movies, clothing and even coloring books devoted to her.

People wanted to give her awards. They wanted to hear her talk.

Ginsburg was invited to speak so often that inevitably she was asked the same questions and delivered the same punch lines, always, it seemed, to a delighted new audience.

Some of the things Ginsburg liked to tell groups:

Her shared name with a rapperGinsburg came to be known as “The No-

torious RBG,” a play on the name of the rapper “The Notorious B.I.G.” Ginsburg liked to note they had one important thing in common. Both were born and bred in Brooklyn, N. Y .

On facing discrimination

Ginsburg often noted that she had “three strikes” against her in trying to get a job when she graduated from Columbia’s law school in 1959, despite graduating at the top of her class. She was Jewish. She was a wife. And she was a mother.

“Getting the first job was hard for women of my vintage,” she’d say. “But once you got the first job you did it at least as well as the men and so the next step was not as hard.”

Ginsburg also liked to note something Justice Sandra Day O’Connor would say: “Sandra said, ‘Where would the two of us be if there had been no discrimination?’ Well, today we’d be retired partners from a large law firm.”

On her friendship with ScaliaThe genuine friendship between the

liberal Ginsburg and conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, puzzled many audiences. Ginsburg explained: “The number one reason why I loved Jus-tice Scalia so is he made me laugh.”

The two shared a love of opera. And they were close enough that their families spent New Year’s together. Scalia would some-times call to point out grammar errors in Ginsburg’s opinion drafts. Ginsburg, for her part, would sometimes tell him: “This opinion is so overheated, you’d be more persuasive if you tone it down.” She liked to say: “He never listened to that.”

On her achievementsGinsburg’s mother, Celia Bader, who

died the day before Ginsburg graduated high school, never attended college but worked as a bookkeeper. Ginsburg would

sometimes ask audiences: “What’s the difference between a bookkeeper in NewYork’s Garment District and a U.S. Su-preme Court justice?” Her answer: “Onegeneration.”

On changing the ConstitutionWhen asked how she might change the

Constitution if given the opportunity, Gins-burg liked to point to the effort in the 1970sto pass the Equal Rights Amendment,which fell three states short of ratification.Ginsburg said passing it was still a goodidea.

“I have three granddaughters,” Ginsburgliked to say. “And I’d like to be able to takeout my pocket Constitution and say that theequal citizenship stature of men and women is a fundamental tenant of our society.”

On Supreme Court womenGinsburg, the second female justice,

was sometimes asked when there would be enough women on the Supreme Court. Herresponse: “When there are nine.” She’dexplain: “Some people are taken abackuntil they remember that for most of our country’s history there were only men onthe high court bench.”

NATION

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

From left , U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, are seen on stage during a Women’s History Month reception in 2015 in Washington.

COLLECTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES/AP

Ruth Bader Ginsburg types while on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in Italy in 1977.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 10 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

BY SYLVIA HUI AND VADIM GHIRDA

Associated Press

LONDON — Demonstrators took to the streets of London, Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday to protest coronavirus restric-tions, decrying how the measures have affected daily life even with infection rates rising in many places and the global death toll approaching 1 million.

In the U.K., the latest official estimates released Friday showed that new infections and corona-virus hospital admissions have been doubling every seven to eight days. Britain has Europe’s highest death toll since the start of the pandemic, with 41,821 con-firmed virus-related deaths.

The government recently banned social gatherings of more than six people in the hopes that it would help reverse a steep rise in COVID-19 cases and suggested that tougher restrictions could be coming.

Saturday’s protest in Trafalgar Square, which was themed “Re-sist and Act for Freedom,” ended

in clashes between demonstra-tors and London police, as offi-cers tried to disperse hundreds of people holding banners and placards scrawled with anti-re-striction messages such as “This is now Tyranny.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned that the city may add cur-fews, force pubs to close earlier and ban household visits to try to limit the city’s sharp rise in new cases.

“I am extremely concerned by the latest evidence I’ve seen today from public health experts about the accelerating speed at which COVID-19 is now spreading here in London,” Khan said Friday. “It is increasingly likely that, in London, additional measures will soon be required to slow the spread of the virus.”

In Israel, meanwhile, authori-ties ordered a full lockdown that began Friday and coincided with the Jewish High Holidays, which are typically celebrated with fam-ily gatherings and large prayer services.

Demonstrators in swim-suits gathered on a beach in Tel

Aviv and waved black and pink flags connoting various protest movements.

In Australia, about 100 protest-ers gathered in the Melbourne beachside suburb of Elwood on Saturday before being scattered by police.

Police in the region have tried to dissuade lockdown opponents from protesting, but the rallies have become routine. The Victo-

ria police said in a news release that “the behaviour of these self-ish few who choose to blatantly ignore the directions will not be tolerated.”

In Romania’s capital city, Bu-charest, several hundred people protested against virus restric-tions, including the mandatory use of masks in schools. About 2.8 million children in Romania began the school year Monday and

schools took various precautions to try and prevent outbreaks.

Romania is among the coun-tries that has had a new spike inconfirmed cases, including a na-tional daily record of 1,713 casesearlier in the week and 1,333 moreon Saturday. In all, Romania hashad 111,550 confirmed cases ofCOVID-19 and 4,402 deaths from the disease since the start of thepandemic.

BY IAN DUNCAN

The Washington Post

The Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention has investi-gated 1,600 cases of people who flew while at risk of spreading the coronavirus, identifying nearly 11,000 people who poten-tially were exposed to the virus on flights.

Though the agency says some of those travelers subsequently fell ill, in the face of incomplete contact tracing information and a virus that incubates over several days, it has not been able to con-firm a case of transmission on a plane.

That does not mean it hasn’t happened, and recent scientific studies have documented likely cases of transmission on flights abroad.

“An absence of cases identified or reported is not evidence that there were no cases,” said Caitlin Shockey, a spokeswoman for the CDC’s Division of Global Migra-tion and Quarantine.

“CDC is not able to definitively determine that potential cases were associated (or not) with ex-posure in the air cabin or through air travel given the numerous op-portunities for potential exposure associated with the entire travel

journey and widespread globaldistribution of the virus,” Shock-ey wrote in an email.

She said that though the agencyhas received information about people who may have been ex-posed on flights subsequentlybecoming ill with the novel coro-navirus, pinpointing when some-one was exposed is difficult. Local health authorities also might not be able to test people reported asexposed or share test results with the CDC, she said.

The CDC’s guidance for all kinds of travel remains that stay-ing home is the best way to pro-tect yourself and other people from the virus.

Michael Carome, the directorof health research at the consum-er organization Public Citizen,said the CDC numbers demon-strate that flying poses at least some risk of being exposed to the virus. Public Citizen has calledon the Department of Transpor-tation to mandate that masks beworn on planes.

“Wearing masks or face cover-ings is a simple, easy public healthmeasure to take,” Carome said. “There have been people who were infectious who traveled, and that means, indeed, there is realmeasurable risk of exposure on airliners.”

BY DAVID KEYTON

Associated Press

STOCKHOLM — A train pulls into the Odenplan subway station in central Stockholm, where morn-ing commuters without masks get off or board before settling in to read their smartphones.

Whether on trains or trams, in supermarkets or shopping malls — places where face masks are commonly worn in much of the world — Swedes go about their lives without them.

When most of Europe locked down their populations early in the pandemic by closing schools, restaurants, gyms and even bor-ders, Swedes kept enjoying many freedoms.

The relatively low-key strategy captured the world’s attention, but at the same time it coincided with a per capita death rate that was much higher than in other Nordic countries.

Now, as infection numbers surge again in much of Europe, the country of 10 million people has some of the lowest numbers of new coronavirus cases — and only 14 virus patients in intensive care.

Whether Sweden’s strategy is

succeeding, however, is still very uncertain.

Its health authorities, and in particular chief epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell, keep repeat-ing a familiar warning: It’s too early to tell, and all countries are in a different phase of the pandemic.

That has not stopped a World Health Organization Europe of-ficial from saying the continent could learn broader lessons from Sweden that could help the virus battle elsewhere.

“We must recognize that Swe-den, at the moment, has avoided the increase that has been seen in some of the other countries in western Europe,” WHO Europe’s senior emergency officer, Cath-erine Smallwood, said Thursday. “I think there are lessons for that. We will be very keen on working and hearing more from the Swed-ish approach.”

According to the European Cen-ter for Disease Control, Sweden has reported 30.3 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, compared with 292.2 in Spain, 172.1 in France, 61.8 in the U.K. and 69.2 in Den-mark, all of which imposed strict lockdowns early in the pandemic.

Today, as fears of a second wave grow across Europe, it’s fash-ionable to praise Sweden, with reporters from France, the U.K. and elsewhere traveling to Stock-holm to ask about its success.

Tegnell also refuses to rule out a second wave of coronavirus in-fections in Sweden. A particular concern is the return of students to high schools for the first time since March.

“We need to be very careful and find the first sign that some-thing is going on so that we can do as much as possible to prevent it from escalating,” he told The As-sociated Press.

Localized outbreaks are ex-pected, but rather than fight them with nationwide rules, officials plan to use targeted actions based on testing, contact-tracing and isolating patients rapidly.

From the beginning, health of-ficials argued that Sweden was pursuing a sustainable approach toward the virus that the popula-tion could adopt — for years, if necessary. “This is a marathon, not a sprint,” became a slogan repeated by ministers at every opportunity, given that neither a vaccine nor a cure yet exist.

Protests against virus restrictions erupt globally

MATT DUNHAM/AP

A protester holds up a placard as they take part in a “Resist and Act for Freedom” protest against a mandatory coronavirus vaccine, wearing masks, social distancing and a second lockdown Saturday in Trafalgar Square, London.

CDC: 11,000 people likely exposed to virus on flights

Sweden numbers remain low despite fewer restrictions

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 11

BY STEVE PEOPLES

Associated Press

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump is escalating his promise for a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day.

But across America, Democrats, inde-pendents and even some Republicans do not trust his administration to produce a safe and effective vaccine on such an ag-gressive timeline. Such hesitancy threat-ens to exacerbate the public health risk for millions of Americans whenever a vaccine is released.

With the Nov. 3 election fast approach-ing, Democratic officials face a delicate political challenge.

Should they attack Trump’s vaccine claims too aggressively, Democrats risk further undermining public confidence in a possible lifesaving medicine while look-ing as though they are rooting against a potential cure. But if they don’t push back, it makes it easier for Trump to use the real or imagined prospect of a vaccine to boost his reelection campaign.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee demonstrat-ed the Democrats’ balancing act on Friday when asked whether he would be willing to take a vaccine released by the administra-tion before the election.

“If all the protocols had been followed and the evidence is in, of course, I’d follow science. It doesn’t matter when it happens,” Inslee told The Associated Press. “But I

would have to look at the science, not Don-ald Trump. There isn’t one single thing I would ever trust from Donald Trump to be true.”

The focus on a speedy vaccine could be overshadowed by a sudden fight over the

future of the Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Friday. But Inslee’s comments are in line with a growing consensus of Democrats in leadership positions, including the party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

They have repeatedly cast doubt onTrump’s promises but pledged to fol-low the guidance of scientists and healthcare experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist.

Trump restates his promise of an immi-nent vaccine almost daily.

Trump on Friday promised that 100 million doses of a still-unknown vaccine would be produced by the end of the yearand there would be enough vaccines for all Americans by April.

“Three vaccines are already in the finalstage,” Trump said at a briefing.

“Joe Biden’s anti-vaccine theories areputting a lot of lives at stake, and they’re only doing it for political reasons,“ thepresident said from a White House po-dium. “It’s part of their war to discredit the vaccine now that they know we essen-tially have it. We’ll be announcing it fairlysoon.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are sticking with a simple, consistent message pushing for a vaccine as soon as possible, but not amoment earlier. House Speaker Nancy Pe-losi, D-Calif., on Friday praised the FDAscientists and researchers helming thevaccine initiative, but she has been high-ly critical of the Trump-appointed FDAcommissioner.

“We all hope and pray for a vaccine, andthat will make a tremendous difference,”Pelosi said.

Monday, September 21, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

As US death toll rises, Trump sees no need for regret

Dems face quandary on vaccine support as election nears

BY JULIE PACE

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — As the coro-navirus pandemic began bear-ing down on the United States in March, President Donald Trump set out his expectations.

If the U.S. could keep the death toll between 100,000 to 200,000 people, Trump said, it would in-dicate that his administration had “done a very good job.”

In the coming days, the number of U.S. deaths is set to clear the outer band of the president’s pro-

jections: 200,000, according to the official tally, though the real number is certainly higher. The virus continues to spread and there is currently no approved vaccine. Some public health ex-perts fear infections could spike this fall and winter, perhaps even doubling the death count by the end of the year.

Yet the grim milestone and the prospect of more American deaths to come have prompted no rethinking from the president about his handling of the pan-demic and no outward expres-sions of regrets. Instead, Trump has sought to reshape the signifi-

cance of the death tally, trying to turn the loss of 200,000 Ameri-cans into a success story by con-tending the numbers could have been even higher without the ac-tions of his administration.

“If we didn’t do our job, it would be three and a half, two and a half, maybe 3 million people,” Trump said Friday, leaning on extreme projections of what could have happened if nothing at all were done to fight the pandemic. “We have done a phenomenal job with respect to COVID-19.”

Trump’s reelection prospects will hinge in part on whether enough voters agree with that as-sessment. The challenge he faces in making his case, with just over six weeks before the Nov. 3 elec-tion and voting already underway in some states, is clear.

Just 39% of Americans ap-prove of the president’s handling of the pandemic, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Roughly one-quarter of Republicans say they don’t ap-prove of Trump’s stewardship of the public health crisis, though his overall backing among GOP voters sits at a comfortable 84%.

There’s also little doubt that the

death toll in the U.S. has soared past where Trump repeatedly as-sured the public it would be. In February, when the first corona-virus cases were detected in the U.S., the president said the num-bers would be “down to close to zero” within days. In early April, when U.S. officials estimated at least 100,000 people would die from the pandemic even if all con-ceivable steps were taken against it, Trump suggested the numbers would be lower, saying: “I think we’re doing better than that.”

He’s shifted again in recent days, saying that the U.S. re-mains a success story because

some models showed the nation could have 240,000 deaths — a threshold that appears likely to be eclipsed by the end of the year.

After revelations in a new book from journalist Bob Wood-ward that Trump intentionally played down the seriousness of the virus earlier this year, Biden said of a president’s responsibili-ties: “You’ve got to level with the American people — shoot from the shoulder,” adding, “There’s not been a time they’ve not been able to step up.”

Trump has insisted he wasn’t downplaying the severity of virus when he compared it with the

seasonal flu and undercut pub-lic health officials who pushedfor more stringent mitigation ef-forts. Yet he’s repeatedly floutedhis own administration’s safetyguidelines, rarely wearing amask himself and holding large campaign events with little evi-dence of social distancing amonghis crowds.

The question looming over his presidency now, as Americans mourn 200,000 lives lost, is what the effects of his handling of the pandemic will be on his political future.

ANDREW HARNIK/AP

President Donald Trump, accompanied by, from left, National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, Vice President Mike Pence, and Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reacts to a question during a news conference in February.

JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., right, speaks next to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., during a news conference about COVID-19 last week. Democrats say they will follow the guidance of scientists when it comes to a vaccine.

ANALYSIS

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 12 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

WORLD

Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine — Police in the capital of Belarus cracked down sharply Saturday on a women’s protest march demanding the authoritarian president’s resig-nation, arresting more than 300 including an elderly woman who has become a symbol of the six weeks of protest that have roiled the country.

More than 2,000 women took

part in the march in Minsk. Such anti-government marches have become a regular feature of the unprecedented wave of large, persistent protests that began after the Aug. 9 presidential elec-tion. Officials said President Al-exander Lukashenko won a sixth term in office with 80% support in that vote, but opponents and some poll workers have said the results were rigged.

Large demonstrations have

been held in cities throughout the country, and some Sunday protests in Minsk have attracted crowds estimated at up to 200,000 people.

The human rights group Viasna said more than 320 people were arrested in Saturday’s march.

“There were so many people detained that lines formed at the prisoner transports,” Viasna member Valentin Stepanovich told The Associated Press.

Among those detained was Nina Bahinskaya, a 73-year-old former geologist whose defiance and tart tongue have made her a popular figure in the protests. Many of the women in Saturday’s march chanted “We’re walking!” referring to when police told Ba-hinskaya that she was taking part in unauthorized protest and she snapped back by saying, “I’m tak-ing a walk.”

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya,

Lukashenko’s main opponent inthe election, praised the women’smarch in a video statement from Lithuania, where she took refugeafter the election.

“They have frightened and putpressure on women for the second month, but despite this, Belaru-sians are continuing their peace-ful protest and showing theiramazing fortitude,” she said.

Associated Press

PARIS — With precision and boundless energy, a team of car-penters used medieval techniques to raise up — by hand — a three-ton oak truss Saturday in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, a rep-lica of the wooden structures that were consumed in the landmark’s devastating April 2019 fire that also toppled its spire.

The demonstration to mark Eu-

ropean Heritage Days gave the hundreds of people a first-hand look at the rustic methods used 800 years ago to build the trian-gular frames in the nave of Notre Dame de Paris.

It also showed that the decision to replicate the cathedral in its original form was the right one, said Gen. Jean-Louis George-lin, who heads the cathedral’s reconstruction.

“It shows … firstly that we

made the right choice in choosing to rebuild the carpentry identi-cally ,” Georgelin said in an inter-view. “Secondly, it shows us the … method by which we will rebuild the framework, truss after truss.”

A total of 25 trusses are to beinstalled at an unknown datein the cathedral nave. PhilippeGourmain, a forestry expertworking on the cathedral project, said the carpentry phase will notcome before 2022.

Associated Press

BANGKOK — Anti-govern-ment demonstrators occupying a historic field in the Thai capital on Sunday installed a plaque symbol-izing the country’s transition to democracy to replace the original one that was mysteriously ripped out and stolen three years ago, as they vowed to press on with calls for new elections and reform of the monarchy.

The mass student-led rally that began Saturday was the largest in a series of protests this year, with thousands camping overnight at Sanam Luang field near the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

A group of activists drilled a hole in front of a makeshift stage and, after Buddhist rituals, laid down a round brass plaque in ce-ment to commemorate the 1932 revolution that changed Thailand from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

“At the dawn of Sept. 20, here is where the people proclaim that this country belongs to the people,” read part of the inscription on the plaque. In April 2017, the original plaque vanished from Bangkok’s Royal Plaza and was replaced by one praising the monarchy.

Activist, Panusaya Sithijirawat-tanakul, said their demands do not propose getting rid of the monarchy.

“They are proposals with good intentions to make the institution of the monarchy remain gracious-ly above the people under demo-cratic rule,” Panusaya said.

Protesters’ demands seek to limit the king’s powers, establish tighter controls on palace financ-es and allow open discussion of the monarchy. Their boldness was unprecedented, as the monarchy is considered sacrosanct in Thai-land, with a harsh law that man-dates a three- to 15-year prison term for defaming it.

Thai protesters call for reform of the monarchy

Carpenters use medieval techniques in restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral

Rights group: More than 300 detained at Minsk women’s march

FRANCOIS MORI/AP

Carpenters use medieval techniques in building a truss in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 13Monday, September 21, 2020

Associated Press

BERLIN — Oktoberfest cel-ebrations got underway Saturday in Munich with the traditional tapping of a keg and the cry of “O’zapft is!” — “It’s tapped!” — but this year’s festival is very non-traditional and highly regulated due to coronavirus concerns.

The official Oktoberfest has been cancel ed, so there’s no huge tents full of people or hundreds of stands selling food. Instead, 50 of the southern German city’s beer halls and other establishments are hosting their own, smaller parties that follow guidelines on mask wearing, social distancing and other restrictions.

Former Mayor Christian Ude got the party started, hammer-ing a tap into a 5 gallon keg — a tenth of the size of the Oktober-fest norm — at the Schillerbraeu beer hall while dressed in Bavar-ian lederhosen leather pants and wearing a protective mask.

Meantime, police patrolled the

regular festival grounds to make sure no spontaneous parties broke out.

The loss of Oktoberfest is a huge

hit for the Bavarian city, which saw 6.3 million guests flood in last year for the festival’s 186th year.

They were served about 15.5 mil-lion pints of beer over 16 days and consumed 124 oxen, among other

traditional foods.This year’s toned-down cel-

ebrations run through Oct. 4.

Toned-down tapping

FELIX HORHAGER, DPA/AP

Christian Ude, former Mayor of Munich, taps the first barrel at the tapping in the Schillerbrau Saturday in Munich, Germany.

PETER KNEFFEL, DPA/AP

Brewery carriages are surrounded by a heart formed from beer benches Saturday on the former parade grounds of the Luitpold Barrack in Munich, Germany.

WORLD

Small-scale Oktoberfest kicks off in Munich with safety conscious parties

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 14 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

ued at more than $31,000 were damaged.

Petting zoo will get its 9 animals back

NE OMAHA — An Omaha petting zoo will get

nine seized animals back after ci-tations against it were dropped.

City Prosecutor Matt Kuhse told the Omaha World-Herald that Scatter Joy Acres meets the definition of a zoo, meaning it meets the exemption in city ordi-nance that allows the housing of non-domesticated animals.

The animals taken Aug. 24 by the Nebraska Humane Society include a porcupine, seven Pata-gonian cavies and a coatimundi. The Patagonian cavies look like jackrabbits and are native to Argentina. The coatimundi is a mammal that looks like a cross between a cat and a raccoon and is native to the Americas.

Coyote bites woman on her leg at the beach

CA SAN FRANCISCO — A woman was hospital-

ized after a coyote bit her leg on a beach north of San Francisco that is part of a recreational area where there has been an increase in interactions between humans and wildlife, authorities said.

The woman told park rangers the coyote was acting aggres-sively as it approached her on

a remote beach in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin County.

After the animal bit her, she walked 1.7 miles on a trail back to a road and drove to a hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries, Charles Strickfaden, a spokesman for the National Park Service, told the Marin Indepen-dent Journal.

He said park rangers have noted a “large increase” in reports of people feeding coyotes. As a re-sult, “food-conditioned coyotes” are increasingly approaching visitors to beg for food.

Teacher gave ‘pretend you are a slave’ project

IA IOWA CITY — A high school teacher in Iowa

was placed on leave for assign-ing students to “pretend you are a black slave.”

The Iowa City Press-Citizen re-ported that the assignment for an online freshman class at Liberty High School in Iowa City asked

students to write four sentences about what they would do if they were a slave who was freed.

“Think very, very carefully about what your life would be like as a slave in 1865,” the assign-ment reads. “You can’t read or write and you have never been off the plantation you work on. What would you do when you hear the news you are free? What factors would play into the decision you make?”

The teacher, whose name was not released, was placed on ad-ministrative leave and the as-signment was removed, Iowa City Community School District spokeswoman Kristin Pedersen said.

Man puts up electric fence to stop sign theft

MA NEW BEDFORD — A Massachusetts man

tired of people stealing his Don-ald Trump campaign sign came up with a shocking solution — he put an electrified fence around it.

John Oliveira, 54, a disabledNavy veteran and a member ofthe New Bedford School Commit-tee, first put the fence up a fewweeks ago.

Oliveira told Southcoasttoday.com he started displaying theTrump sign on his lawn in late May. They started to disappear in July.

In all, six signs were taken, hetold The Boston Globe. His latest sign has not been stolen since thefence went up.

“I’m defending my propertyand my right to free speech,” hesaid.

Couple celebrates 85 years of marriage

NE OMAHA — Ralph and Dorothy Kohler cel-

ebrated their wedding anniver-sary — for the 85th time.

WOWT-TV reported that he wasjust 17 and she was 16 when theytied the knot on Sept. 17, 1935, atthe Burt County Courthouse inTekamah, Neb .

“Everybody said it would never last,” Ralph said.

Ralph credits longevity in lifeand marriage to healthy habits— neither of them has ever drankalcohol or smoked. “I cooked, and he liked to eat,” Dorothy said.

The couple moved to Califor-nia a few years ago to be closeto a daughter, one of their three children.

AMERICAN ROUNDUP1-year-old conjoined twins separated

MI ANN ARBOR — Doc-tors at the University

of Michigan separated 1-year-old conjoined twin sisters.

Sarabeth and Amelia Irwin of Petersburg each had their own arms and legs and heart, but their livers were connected, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital said .

The nearly 11-hour surgery to separate them was performed in August, about 14 months after their birth. They’re now at home.

“For everyone in the room, it was a very emotional and ex-traordinary moment when the last incision was made to separate these girls from one to two,” said Dr. George Mychaliska, who led the surgical team at Mott.

Refuge rescues abused wild cats from zoo

AR LITTLE ROCK — An Arkansas wildlife ref-

uge will be rescuing eight big cats from an Indiana zoo after a fed-eral court found that the facility mistreated its animals.

Scott Smith, co-owner of Tur-pentine Creek Wildlife Refuge near Eureka Springs, said he and his staff retrieved the ani-mals from Wildlife in Need and Wildlife in Deed Inc. in Charles-town, Ind . He noted that the U.S. Marshals Service assisted them, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

“We’re going to give them a good home in the Ozark hills,” Smith said of the four tigers, three lions and hybrid they are taking. “They deserve a better life than what they’ve been given.”

Border officials report $1.4 million meth haul

AZ TUCSON — U.S. Bor-der Patrol officials in

Arizona said they arrested a U.S. citizen after finding $1.4 million worth of methamphetamine in a modified work truck at an immi-gration checkpoint near the bor-der community of Sasabe.

Agents searching the vehicle at the inspection point reported finding several packages of the drug in a compartment hidden under the truck. A Border Patrol police dog discovered more pack-ages inside the truck’s frame.

In all, about 600 pounds of the drug were seized. The 26-year-old man driving the truck was turned over to agents with Home-land Security Investigations.

Expensive bags stolen from Neiman Marcus

IL NORTHBROOK — Hand-bags valued at more than

$43,000 were stolen from a Nei-man Marcus store in a suburban Chicago shopping center.

At least 10 people wearing hooded sweatshirts and masks walked into the Northbrook store around closing time , knocked over glass display cases, grabbed 13 handbags and ran out, police said.

Celine handbags were taken, ac-cording to the Chicago Tribune.

Another 11 handbags val-

Father, daughter time

The number of days Las Vegas has gone without rain, setting a new record. The National Weather Service said Las Vegas broke a record Friday of 151 days with-out measurable rain, passing a mark set in 1959. The official regional monitoring station at McCarran Interna-

tional Airport recorded a sprinkling of rain on April 20, just 0.2 inches. A trace of rain fell July 19, but the amount didn’t register at McCarran. In 1959, the Las Vegas area went without rain for 150 days, from Feb. 22 to July 21. Officials say rain isn’t forecast anytime soon.

THE CENSUS

151

ELIAS FUNEZ, THE (GRASS VALLEY, CALIF.) UNION/AP

From wire reports

Father and daughter duo Jesse and Inese Cohen work side-by-side during a Come Paint With Us event in Grass Valley, Calif. All students are placed 6 feet apart unless living in the same household.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 15

BY JONATHAN LANDRUM JR.Associated Press

DJ Jazzy Jeff knew “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” made a mark in television history after filming six seasons during the mid-’90s, but he thought the show’s popularity would eventually fizzle out at some point.

So far, that hasn’t happened. The NBC sitcom starring Will Smith has grown more popular over three de-cades with the help of its catchy theme song, enduring social themes and comedy. The show starred Smith as a street-smart teen from Philadelphia who moved into his aunt and uncle’s home in the wealthy Bel-Air neighbor-hood of Los Angeles.

DJ Jazzy Jeff played the recurring role of Smith’s best friend named Jazz. The show also starred Tatyana Ali, Al-fonso Ribeiro, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, Daphne Maxwell Reid and James Avery, who played Uncle Phil.

The show became a cultural phe-nomenon, and now it’s being celebrat-ed in a variety of ways. The original cast of “The Fresh Prince” will re-unite for the show’s 30th anniversary, which will air on HBO Max around Thanksgiving. The unscripted special will take a look back on the impact of the series since it debuted in 1990.

Five groups of Los Angeles County residents will have a chance to stay at the show’s iconic mansion — which is located in Brentwood, not Bel-Air — through Airbnb in October.

In a recent interview, DJ Jazzy Jeff spoke to The Associated Press about the show’s relevance and his fondest memories on set .

Monday, September 21, 2020

Associated Press

Winston Groom, the writer whose novel “Forrest Gump” was made into a six-Oscar winning 1994 movie that became a soaring pop cultural phenomenon, has died at age 77 in Fairhope, Ala.

“While he will be remembered for cre-ating Forrest Gump, Winston Groom was a talented journalist & noted author of American history. Our hearts & prayers are extended to his family,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.

“Forrest Gump” was the improbable tale of a slow-witted but mathematically gifted man who was a participant or wit-ness to key points of 20th century his-tory — from Alabama segregationist Gov. George Wallace’s “stand at the school-house door,” to meetings with presidents.

It was the best-known book by Groom, who grew up in Mobile, Ala., and gradu-ated from the University of Alabama in 1965, according to a biography posted by the university.

Groom served in the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division from 1965 to 1969, the university said. His service included a tour in Vietnam — one of the settings for “Forrest Gump.”

He wrote 16 books, fiction and non-fiction. One, “Conversations with the Enemy,” about a American prisoner of war in Vietnam accused of collaboration, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, according to the university.

It was “Forrest Gump” — and the suc-cess of the 1994 movie starring Tom Hanks in the iconic role of Gump, as well as Sally Field and Gary Sinise — that earned him widespread fame and some financial success.

The novel is considerably different from the film. Don Noble, University of Ala-bama professor emeritus of English, and a 40-year friend of Groom’s told The Tus-caloosa News that the novel was “darker” and “richer” than the movie.

The film dominated the 1995 Acad-emy Awards, winning six Oscars includ-ing best picture, best director for Robert Zemeckis and best actor for Hanks.

Groom also wrote nonfiction on di-verse subjects including the Civil War, World War I and Alabama’s Crimson Tide football.

Woody Allen’s ‘A Rainy Day in New York’ to get US release

After being shelved for two years, Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York” will finally land in U.S. theaters next month.

MPI Media Group and Signature En-tertainment announced Sept. 17 that the companies will release “A Rainy Day in New York” in North American theaters on Oct. 9. Shot in 2017 and originally for re-lease in 2018, Allen’s film was dropped by Amazon Studios after the #MeToo move-

ment brought a reappraisal of Allen.Attention was renewed on the allega-

tions by Allen’s daughter Dylan Farrow that he molested her as a child in the early 1990s. Allen has denied any wrongdoing .

Several stars of “A Rainy Day in New York” distanced themselves from their director. Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez announced that they donated their salary from the film to Time’s Up and other organizations. Amazon terminated its four-film production and distribution deal with Allen.

“A Rainy Day in New York” was re-leased in Europe last year . Reviews were mostly poor. In it, Chalamet stars as Gatsby Welles, a student at Yardley Col-lege torn between his journalist girlfriend (Elle Fanning) and the younger sister of an old flame (Gomez).

Other news

� The U.K. production of “The Bat-man” is starting up again after being shut down this month when an individual test-ed positive for COVID-19. A spokesperson for Warner Bros. said Sept. 17 that filming had resumed after a hiatus for quarantine precautions. Robert Pattinson stars in the film from director Matt Reeves, which had been on hiatus for almost six months because of the pandemic. The positive case came just three days after “The Bat-man” had initially resumed shooting.

FACESSinger to anti-maskers: Don’t use Twisted Sister song

Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider took tosocial media to condemn anti-maskers whowent into a Florida Target store blaring the group’s hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It”while ripping off their masks.

In a tweet Sept. 16, Snider called the stunt “moronic,” and shared a video that was recorded by an upset customer insidethe Target at Coral Ridge Mall in Fort Lau-derdale. The video had more than 30 mil-lion views.

Snider said the group doesn’t have his“permission or blessing to use my song fortheir moronic cause.”

The stunt drew quick action from Bro-ward County officials. Target was fined fornot enforcing the county’s mask law and citations were mailed to the protesters, theSouth Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

Fort Lauderdale resident Chris Nelsontold the newspaper that his group, ReOpenSouth Florida, organized the “flash mob.”He posted a YouTube video of it Sept. 15.

“In celebration of Burn Your Mask Day,we decided to spread some freedom dustover the shoppers and employees of Tar-get!” the YouTube caption said.

The small group of anti-maskers ap-proached customers inside the store.

“We’re Americans; breathe,” a womanyelled. “It’s all a lie!”

Another woman screamed that a cus-tomer should take the mask off. “You don’t need it,” she said.

If a guest complied, the group cheered.Federal health officials have said masks

could effectively halt the spread of COVID-19 and have begged the public to embracethem. Robert Redfield, director of the Cen-ters for Disease Control and Prevention,said Sept. 16 that a simple face coveringcould be more effective than a vaccine in protecting people from the virus.

Van Morrison targets virus restrictions in 3 new songs

Van Morrison is certainly not holdingback on what he thinks of the lockdownrestrictions put in place by governmentsaround the world in response to thecoronavirus.

The 75-year-old singer-songwriter,whose decades as a musician producedclassic hits such as “Brown Eyed Girl.”“Gloria” and “Moondance,” revealed Sept.18 that he is releasing three protest songsthat call for the restrictions on routine ac-tivities to be lifted.

In ‘No More Lockdown,’ the NorthernIrishman says the curbs “enslave” people,effectively labels the British governmentas “fascist bullies,” condemns celebrities for “telling us what we are supposed tofeel” and charges scientists for “making upcrooked facts.”

“I’m not telling people what to do orthink. The government is doing a great jobof that already,” Morrison said. “It’s aboutfreedom of choice. I believe people shouldhave the right to think for themselves.”

Morrison, who was knighted in 2016 forhis services to music and to tourism in Northern Ireland, is also releasing “BornTo Be Free” and “As I Walked Out.” The former is due to be released on Sept. 25, fol-lowed by the other two songs in October. From The Associated Press

‘Forrest Gump’ author Winston Groom dies

Associated Press: Are you surprised by how relevant the show still is today?

Jeff: I grew up with my favorite TV shows, and at a point in time, they just kind of faded away. So for 30 something years, I’m wondering, “Is this the year ‘Fresh Prince’ is going to fade away?” Not because you want it to, but because of the natural laws of things. For this show to jump from one generation to another — there are fans that weren’t even born when the show came on. You can’t plan that.

What brought the cast together?

Once quarantine happened, and we were on lockdown, Will (Smith) came up with the idea of getting the cast together on a Zoom call. That was the tipping point. People were like ‘Oh my God, all of them are there. All of them are having conversa-tions.’ That’s what got the ball rolling.

What were your fondest memories from the show?

We were family. We all hung out in each other’s dressing room and laughed and joked. James Avery, rest in peace, he was a humongous jazz head. He would give me CDs every week. He was the one that would tell me about traveling. So to have that type of relationship, especially with me being the person who was the most non-traditional actor on that show, I felt extremely comfortable.

What did it mean for you and Smith to take the photo together in front of the mansion?

For us to stand

on our step, you’re sitting back saying ‘Yo, 30 years is a long time.’ My kid wasn’t born 30 years ago. But to kind of take people down this journey, it’s incredible. It gives us a level of appreciation of what we’ve done and how far we’ve come.

Jazzy Jeff’s ‘Fresh’ memoriesActor/DJ says reuniting with cast 30 years after show ‘incredible’

DJ Jazzy Jeff in 2013AP

MorrisionAP

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 16 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

Monday, September 21, 2020 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 17

OPINIONMax D. Lederer Jr., Publisher

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BY HENRY OLSEN Special to The Washington Post

Democrats have started to worry about polls that show former Vice President Joe Biden doing worse among Hispanic voters than

Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Most punditry ascribes that to Biden’s presumed weak-ness. The data, though, suggest President Donald Trump’s own appeal is the cause.

Analysts and partisan strategists have long assumed Trump’s inflammatory rhet-oric and hard-line immigration policies would alienate Hispanic voters. There’s some evidence that it did in 2016. Trump fared worse among Hispanic voters than did 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Rom-ney in Florida and California, which to-gether made up more than a third of the U.S. Hispanic population. Trump did bet-ter than Romney, however, in many other states, and the national exit poll found that he lost among Hispanics by only 38 points, compared with Romney’s 44-point deficit.

Data from 2018 also provide evidence the reigning narrative is flawed. Florida’s Hispanic voters moved sharply toward Re-publicans, with Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis losing Hispanics by only 10 points and Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott losing them by only 9 points. Their improvement on Trump’s 27-point deficit among Florida Hispanics is why both men narrowly defeated their Democratic rivals.

Trump’s job approval ratings this year among Hispanics have also been much better than the traditional narrative would suggest, as polling data for Hispanics on the RealClearPolitics average demon-strate. Trump’s net job approval this year

was at a high point nationally in February, save for a brief blip caused by the “rally round the flag” phenomenon right after the coronavirus hit. His net job approval rating among Hispanics then was negative 26 points. That’s much lower than the 38 points Trump lost Hispanics by in 2016.

Trump’s larger-than-expected strength among this demographic has continued to this day. Trump’s polling low point was roughly in the second week of July; his net job approval among Hispanics then was negative 32 points. His job approval has risen since then overall and among Hispanics. As of Thursday afternoon, his net job approval among Hispanics in polls taken since Aug. 28 is negative 28 points, nearly the same as it was in February. That’s exactly the margin by which Biden leads among Hispanics, according to a recent analysis by noted election analyst Harry Enten.

This is surely not a coincidence. Analy-sis shows that a president’s job approval in his reelection campaign is an excellent predictor of his final share of the popular vote. Currently, 33% of Hispanics approve of Trump’s performance as president; it would be shocking if his share of that de-mographic’s vote were significantly lower than this. If Trump gets 33% of the His-panic vote on Election Day, it would be the highest share of the Hispanic vote for a Re-publican nominee since George W. Bush won 44% of the demographic in 2004.

Bush’s showing provides a clue as to why Trump might be doing better than ex-pected. Both Ronald Reagan and Bush saw notable increases in their Hispanic vote totals in their successful reelection bids. Even Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, did

relatively better among Hispanics in hisfailed 1992 reelection bid, losing them by 39 points that year vs. losing them by 36points in 1988 (despite Bush going from winning in 1988 overall by 8 points to los-ing the 1992 race to Bill Clinton by 6 pointsoverall). All three men presided overstrong economies for Latino voters while also sounding nationalist themes in foreignpolicy. Trump is nationalism personified,and median income among Hispanic vot-ers had soared by nearly 29% since 2013,a higher gain than experienced by whites,Blacks or Asians. With this backdrop, thepunditry’s shock over Hispanic pollingdata is the only real surprise.

Cuban voters have particular reason tothink well of Trump and poorly of Demo-crats. Cubans are largely refugees from Fidel Castro’s Communist regime ortheir descendants. While Biden has notexpressed sympathy for the dictatorship,leading liberals such as Sen. Bernie Sand-ers, I-Vt., and Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif.,have. Cubans can see that many Demo-crats view the Castro regime much morebenignly than they do and apparently be-lieve this is more important than other issues. Republicans lead in recent pollsin two Cuban-dominated Florida congres-sional districts captured by Democratsin 2018, a sign that Cuban Americans aremoving back to the Republicans.

Team Biden will surely make a greater effort to more actively compete for the Hispanic vote. The consistent pro-Trump,pro-GOP polling and election data, though,show that likely won’t help them as muchas they think.Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

BY MAX BOOT The Washington Post

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute has gotten a lot of attention — most of it critical and even satirical — for

her Washington Post op-ed about why she might be “forced” to vote for President Donald Trump (“Dems may force me to vote for Trump,” Sept. 16 Stars and Stripes).

In brief, her case is that the Democratic Party, whose presidential nominee has a record of centrism and compromise going back nearly 50 years, is controlled by the “extreme left.” But the Republican Party, whose nominee is Donald Trump, is not controlled by the extreme right. She con-cedes that there are “horrible nasties” on the right. She even acknowledges: “These execrable gun-toting racists have re-ceived too much tacit encouragement from Trump.” “But,” she blithely asserts, “they do not represent the mainstream of the Republican Party or guide the choices of the vast mass of Republican members of Congress.”

Wait. What? Pletka admits that the presi-dent encourages “gun-toting racists,” but somehow his views “do not represent the mainstream” of the party that he leads? How can the views of a candidate support-ed by 92% of Republicans not represent the party? Even if that were true, it would be an argument for voting for GOP congressio-nal candidates rather than for Trump. But it’s not true: Several in-depth studies have shown that the primary reason Trump won in 2016 was because of his appeals to racial, rather than economic, anxiety.

Not all Trump supporters are racists, to be sure, but even those who are not appear to be indifferent to the president’s blatant racism. Either way, the entire Republican Party has become complicit in a presi-

dency that depends on crude appeals to the fears of White voters. Trump warns that if he loses “America’s suburbs will be OVER-RUN with Low Income Projects,” champi-ons Confederate monuments, calls Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” denies the existence of “White privilege,” and tells congresswomen of color to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

If Trump’s racism doesn’t represent “the mainstream of the Republican Party,” then the mainstream should denounce him. But it is nearly impossible to find a Republican elected official who will criticize Trump for anything.

CNN just tried and failed to get Senate Republicans to call out Trump. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri was asked if it troubles him that Trump is holding indoor rallies during a pandemic. “No, it doesn’t,” he re-plied. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina was asked if it troubles him that Trump told his supporters to vote twice — a felony in many states, including North Carolina. “I’m fine with the fact that they check up on whether their vote counted,” he replied. Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia was asked if it troubles her that Trump admitted to Bob Woodward that he deliberately down-played COVID-19. “No. It’s fake news,” she replied. When asked the same question, Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona said: “You guys are awful.”

This is the ugly reality of the modern Re-publican Party, which is cringingly servile to the occupant of the Oval Office. There is no longer any non-Trumpified Republican-ism on offer. Trumpism is the mainstream. Even mild criticism of the great leader is extirpated. The whole party is in lockstep with a president who, in Pletka’s own es-timation, not only gives encouragement to racists but is also guilty of “chronic men-dacity” and “erratic, personality-driven decision-making” — and whose policies

“will encourage conflict and terrorism”and “hurt the U.S. economy.” (This is thecase for Trump?)

Indeed, the longer that Trump stays in office, the crazier the “mainstream” of theGOP becomes. A recent poll asked Repub-licans about QAnon, the insane conspiracytheory that holds Trump’s opponents are a cabal of child-molesting Satanists. Thirty-three percent said QAnon is “mostly true,”and another 23% said “some parts” aretrue. At least 80 QAnon believers have run in Republican primaries this year — andsome have won.

A QAnon believer in Georgia, Marjo-rie Taylor Greene, is virtually certain to be elected to the House. Greene has saidthat the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon didn’treally happen, called President BarackObama a Muslim and George Soros a Nazi,and suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., should be executed fortreason. Trump called Greene a “Star”and “a real WINNER,” while the House Republican leadership has now endorsedher candidacy.

Tuesday’s election results in Delawareshowed why Pletka’s arguments about the two parties are a perfect inversion of real-ity. The winner of the Republican Senateprimary was Lauren Witzke, a QAnon ad-herent (though she has lately tried to dis-tance herself from the group) who has said the Earth is flat and that Hillary Clinton is guilty of “child sacrifice.” The winner of the Democratic primary was Sen. Christo-pher Coons, a bipartisan dealmaker whohas been called “the GOP’s favorite Demo-crat.” Despite his deviations from progres-sive orthodoxy, Coons crushed a socialistchallenger with 73% of the vote.

Remind me of which party is in the gripof “extremists”? Washington Post columnist Max Boot is the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.”

Biden’s weakness among Hispanics is Trump’s fault

Pundit’s concern over far left ignores QAnon’s gains

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 18 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

Go to the American Forces Network website for the most up-to-date TV schedules.myafn.net

Sports on AFN

Deals

Auto racing

Pro basketball

Pro soccer

Tennis

SCOREBOARD/NBA

Saturday’s transactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

BALTIMORE ORIOLES — Optioned 3B Andrew Velazquez to alternate training site. Recalled RHP Evan Phillips from al-ternate training site.

BOSTON RED SOX — Placed INF/OF Yairo Munoz on 10-day IL. Recalled OF Cesar Puello from alternate training site. Transferred RHP Zack Godley from 10-day IL to 45-day IL.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX — Activated LHP Dallas Keuchel from 10-day IL. Option RHP Jonathan Stiever to alternate train-ing site.

DETROIT TIGERS — Announced retire-ment of manager Ron Gardenhire.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS — Recalled RHP Patrick Murphy from alternate training site. Optioned INF Santiago Espinal to alternate training site.

National LeagueARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS — Acquired

LHP Julio Frias from Miami.CHICAGO CUBS — Activated LHP An-

drew Chafin from the 10-day IL. Placed RHP Rowan Wick on the 10-day IL.

COLORADO ROCKIES — Recalled RHP A.J. Ramos and RHP Antonio Santos from alternate training site. Optioned RHP Jesus Tinoco to alternate training site. Designignated RHP Wade Davis for as-signment.

MIAMI MARLINS — Optioned LHP Dan-iel Castano to alternate training site.

NEW YORK METS — Optioned RHP Franklyn Kilome to alternate training site. Activated RHP Corey Oswalt from 10-day IL.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES — Optioned RHP Ramon Rosso to alternate training site.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES — Optioned CF Jason Martin to alternate training site.

ST. LOUIS CARDINALS — Optioned RHP Daniel Ponce de Leon to alternate train-ing site.

SAN DIEGO PADRES — Recalled RHP Luis Patino from alternate trainig site. Activated 1B Eric Hosmer from 10-day IL. Optioned C Francisco Mejia and RHP Luis Perdomo to alternate training site.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — Placed OF Alex Dickerson on paternity list. Op-tioned LHP Andrew Suarez to alternate training site. Recalled LHP Wandy Per-alta and INF Daniel Robertson from alter-nate training site.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS — Optioned RHP Wil Crowe to alternate training site.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

ARIZONA CARDINALS — Recalled TE Jordan Thomas from practice squad.

BALTIMORE RAVENS — Recalled DB Jordan Richards from practice squad.

BUFFALO BILLS — Signed C Jonotthan Harrison to practice squad. Recalled LB Andre Smith and Deon Lacy from prac-tice squad. Released OL Victor Salako.

CAROLINA PANTHERS — Signed CB Trumaine Johnson and K Kai Forbath to practice squad. Recalled DT Woodrow Hamilton for practic squad. Released DB T.J. Green and OL Aaron Monterio.

CHICAGO BEARS — Recalled LB Devon-

te Bond from practice squad.DALLAS COWBOYS — Placed CB An-

thony Brown on IR. Recalled OT Eric Smith from practice squad.

DENVER BRONCOS — Recalled RB Le-Vante Bellamy and LB Derrek Tuszka from practice squad.

DETROIT LIONS — Placed G Joe Dahl on IR. Signed G Kenny Wiggins. Recalled DT Kevin Strong and CB Dee Virgin from practice squad.

GREEN BAY PACKERS — Placed WR Equanimeous St. Brown on IR. Recalled TE John Lovett and DL Willington Pre-vilon from practice squad.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS — Recalled TE Farrod Green from practice squad.

HOUSTON TEXANS — Recalled RB C.J. Prosise from practice squad.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS — Recalled TE Ben Ellefson from practice squad. Signed TE Eric Saubert to practice squad.

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS — Placed DT Khalen Saunders on injured reserve. Re-called DT Praxton Hoyett from practice squad.

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS — Signed G Pat-rick Omameh to practice squad. Placed WR Marcell Ateman on practice squad injured reserve.

LOS ANGELES RAMS — Recalled LB Na-trez Patrick from practice squad.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS — Recalled CB Mark Fields from practice squad.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS — Recalled DE Nick Thurman from practice squad.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS — Placed WR Michael Thomas on IR. Signed DB Grant Haley and LB Anthony Zettel to practice squad.

NEW YORK GIANTS — Recalled DB Ryan Lewis and DB Sean Chandler from the practice squad.

NEW YORK JETS — Recalled RB Josh Adams from practice squad.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES — Recalled CB Trevor Williams from practice squad.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS — Signed OT Brandon Walton to practice squad.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Recalled C Hroniss Grasu from practice squad.

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS — Recalled DT Anthony Rush from practice squad.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS — Recalled WR Cyril Grayson, CB Mazzi Wilkins and TE Tanner Hudson from practice squad. Place WR Chris Godwin on injured re-serve.

TENNESSEE TITANS — Recalled RB Jer-emy McNichols and WR Cameron Batson from practice squad.

WASHINGTON — Recalled WR Cam Sims and LB Jared Norris from practice squad.

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

COLORADO RAPIDS — Signed D Steven Beitashour.

D.C. UNITED — Acquired F Yordy Reyna from Vancouver.

MINNESOTA UNITED — Acquired F Kei Kamara from Colorado for a second-round pick in the 2021 MLS Superdraft and allocation money.

Bass Pro Shops NRA Night RaceNASCAR Cup Series

SaturdayAt Bristol Motor Speedway

Bristol, Tenn.Lap length: 0.53 miles

(Start position in parentheses)1. (4) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 500 laps, 57

points.2. (9) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 500, 54.3. (20) Erik Jones, Toyota, 500, 36.4. (17) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, 500, 33.5. (10) Aric Almirola, Ford, 500, 36.6. (11) Clint Bowyer, Ford, 500, 34.7. (6) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 499, 48.8. (23) Chris Buescher, Ford, 499, 29.9. (22) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet, 499, 28.10. (26) Michael McDowell, Ford, 498,

27.11. (2) Joey Logano, Ford, 498, 35.12. (5) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 498, 26.13. (14) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 498, 24.14. (19) Matt Kenseth, Chevrolet, 498,

23.15. (13) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 498, 33.16. (8) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 498, 33.17. (24) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 498,

20.18. (28) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 497, 19.19. (16) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford, 497, 18.20. (31) John H. Nemechek, Ford, 497,

17.21. (7) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 497, 16.22. (27) Bubba Wallace, Chevrolet, 497,

16.23. (12) Cole Custer, Ford, 497, 14.24. (3) Martin Truex Jr, Toyota, 496, 13.25. (25) Ryan Newman, Ford, 496, 12.26. (29) Daniel Suarez, Toyota, 495, 11.27. (37) Gray Gaulding, Chevrolet, 488,

0.28. (18) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 487,

15.29. (33) Quin Houff, Chevrolet, 483, 8.30. (32) JJ Yeley, Chevrolet, 479, 0.31. (36) Joey Gase, Ford, 463, 0.32. (40) Garrett Smithley, Chevrolet,

436, 0.33. (30) Corey Lajoie, Ford, garage, 419,

4.34. (1) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 412, 7.35. (35) James Davison, Ford, accident,

401, 2.36. (34) Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet, elec-

trical, 317, 1.37. (38) Timmy Hill, Toyota, garage, 313,

0.38. (15) William Byron, Chevrolet, acci-

dent, 232, 4.39. (39) Josh Bilicki, Chevrolet, fu-

elpump, 53, 0.40. (21) Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Chevrolet,

accident, 28, 1.Race Statistics

Average Speed of Race Winner: 95.905 mph.

Time of Race: 2 hours, 46 minutes, 43 seconds.

Margin of Victory: 0.310 seconds.Caution Flags: 5 for 50 laps.Lead Changes: 14 among 8 drivers.Lap Leaders: B.Keselowski 0-17;

K.Harvick 18-34; B.Keselowski 35; M.DiBenedetto 36-42; B.Keselowski 43-106; C.Elliott 107-129; C.Bell 130; Ky.Busch 131-236; D.Hamlin 237; Ky.Busch 238-280; K.Harvick 281-411; A.Almirola 412; K.Harvick 413-458; Ky.Busch 459-468; K.Harvick 469-500

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Led, Laps Led): K.Harvick, 4 times for 226 laps; Ky.Busch, 3 times for 159 laps; B.Keselowski, 3 times for 82 laps; C.Elliott, 1 time for 23 laps; M.DiBenedetto, 1 time for 7 laps; A.Almirola, 1 time for 1 lap; D.Hamlin, 1 time for 1 lap; C.Bell, 1 time for 1 lap.

Wins: K.Harvick, 9; D.Hamlin, 6; B.Keselowski, 4; J.Logano, 2; C.Elliott, 2; A.Dillon, 1; A.Bowman, 1; M.Truex, 1; C.Custer, 1; W.Byron, 1; R.Blaney, 1.

Top 16 in Points: 1. K.Harvick, 2205; 2. J.Logano, 2144; 3. D.Hamlin, 2138; 4. C.Elliott, 2135; 5. Ky.Busch, 2131; 6. A.Dillon, 2120; 7. B.Keselowski, 2119; 8. A.Bowman, 2118; 9. M.Truex, 2109; 10. A.Almirola, 2101; 11. Ku.Busch, 2098; 12. C.Bowyer, 2095; 13. C.Custer, 2067; 14. W.Byron, 2062; 15. R.Blaney, 2058; 16. M.DiBenedetto, 2054.

MLSEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GAColumbus 8 1 3 27 20 4Orlando City 6 2 4 22 23 14Toronto FC 6 2 4 22 20 14Philadelphia 6 2 3 21 17 10New York City FC 5 5 2 17 10 9Montreal 5 5 1 16 17 16New England 3 3 6 15 10 11New York 4 6 2 14 9 14Nashville SC 3 5 3 12 9 13Cincinnati 3 6 3 12 8 17Inter Miami CF 3 7 2 11 11 15D.C. United 2 5 5 11 11 17Atlanta 3 7 2 11 12 17Chicago 2 7 3 9 12 22

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GASeattle 6 2 3 21 26 10Sporting KC 6 4 2 20 23 18FC Dallas 5 2 4 19 19 12Minnesota United 5 4 3 18 23 19Portland 5 4 3 18 25 24Colorado 4 4 4 16 20 20Vancouver 5 7 0 15 17 24LA Galaxy 4 4 3 15 16 17Los Angeles FC 4 5 3 15 25 27Houston 3 3 6 15 20 19Real Salt Lake 3 4 5 14 17 21San Jose 2 5 5 11 17 33

Note: Three points for victory, one point for tie.

Friday’s gameSeattle 3, Los Angeles FC 0

Saturday’s gamesFC Dallas 3, Sporting Kansas City 2New York City FC 0, New England 0, tieMiami 2, Atlanta 1Cincinnati 1, New York 0Columbus 2, Nashville 0Toronto FC 2, D.C. United 2, tieOrlando City 4, Chicago 1Minnesota 2, Houston 2, tieVancouver 2, Real Salt Lake 1Portland 6, San Jose 1Colorado 2, LA Galaxy 0

Sunday’s gamePhiladelphia at Montreal

NWSL W L T Pts GF GANorth Carolina 1 0 1 4 4 3Sky Blue FC 1 0 0 3 2 1Washington 1 1 0 3 3 3Orlando 0 0 1 1 0 0Reign FC 0 0 0 0 0 0Portland 0 0 0 0 0 0Utah 0 0 0 0 0 0Houston 0 1 0 0 3 4Chicago 0 1 0 0 1 2

Note: Three points for victory, one point for tie.

Saturday’s gameOrlando 0, North Carolina 0, tie

Sunday’s gamesSky Blue FC at ChicagoUtah at Portland

Italian OpenSaturdayAt Rome

Purse: $3,465,045Surface: Red clay

(seedings in parentheses):Men’s SinglesQuarterfinals

Casper Ruud, Norway, def. Matteo Ber-rettini (4), Italy, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5).

Novak Djokovic (1), Serbia, def. Dominik Koepfer, Germany, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

Diego Schwartzman (8), Argentina, def. Rafael Nadal (2), Spain, 6-2, 7-5.

Denis Shapovalov (12), Canada, def. Grigor Dimitrov (15), Bulgaria, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2.

Women’s SinglesQuarterfinals

Simona Halep (1), Romania, def. Yulia Putintseva, Kazakhstan, 6-2, 2-0, ret.

Garbine Muguruza (9), Spain, def. Vic-toria Azarenka, Belarus, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Marketa Vondrousova (12), Czech Re-public, def. Elina Svitolina (4), Ukraine, 6-3, 6-0.

Karolina Pliskova (2), Czech Republic, def. Elise Mertens (11), Belgium, 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

WNBA playoffsSeeding in parentheses

All games played at Bradenton, Fla. Semifinals

(Best-of-five; x-if necessary)(1) Las Vegas vs. (7) Connecticut

Sunday: Game 1Tuesday: Game 2Thursday, Sept. 24: Game 3x-Sunday, Sept. 27: Game 4x-Tuesday, Sept. 29: Game 5

(2) Seattle vs. (4) MinnesotaSunday: Game 1Tuesday: Game 2Thursday, Sept. 24: Game 3x-Sunday, Sept. 27: Game 4x-Tuesday, Sept. 29: Game 5

Scoreboard

PlayoffsCONFERENCE FINALS

(Best-of-seven; x-if necessary)Eastern ConferenceMiami 2, Boston 1

Miami 117, Boston 114, OTMiami 106 Boston 101Saturday: Boston 117, Miami 106Wednesday: Game 4 (AFN-Sports, 2:30

a.m. Thursday CET; 9:30 a.m. Thursday JKT)

Friday, Sept. 25: Game 5x-Sunday, Sept. 27: Game 6x-Tuesday, Sept. 29: Games 7

Western ConferenceL.A. Lakers 1, Denver 0

Friday: L.A. Lakers 126, Denver 114Sunday: Game 2Tuesday: Game 3 (AFN-Sports, 3 a.m.

Wednesday CET; 10 a.m. Wednesday JKT)

Thursday, Sept. 24: Game 4x-Saturday, Sept. 26: Game 5x-Monday, Sept. 28: Game 6x-Wednesday, Sept. 30: Game 7

SaturdayCeltics 117, Heat 106

BOSTON — Brown 11-17 3-5 26, Tatum9-20 5-5 25, Theis 3-6 2-2 8, Smart 5-10 10-10 20, Walker 8-16 1-2 21, Hayward 2-7 1-2 6, Williams 2-4 0-0 5, Kanter 1-4 2-2 4, Wa-namaker 0-1 2-2 2. Totals 41-85 26-30 117.

MIAMI — Butler 6-13 5-6 17, Crowder2-10 4-4 10, Adebayo 10-14 7-9 27, Dragic2-10 6-7 11, Robinson 4-8 1-2 13, Olynyk 0-6 3-4 3, Iguodala 0-1 0-0 0, Jones Jr. 1-4 0-0 3, Herro 8-18 2-2 22, Nunn 0-1 0-0 0. Totals33-85 28-34 106.

Boston 31 32 26 28—117Miami 22 28 24 32—106Three-Point Goals—Boston 9-26 (Walk-

er 4-8, Tatum 2-7, Brown 1-2, Williams 1-2, Hayward 1-3, Smart 0-2), Miami 12-44 (Robinson 4-8, Herro 4-12, Crowder 2-10, Jones Jr. 1-3, Dragic 1-5, Olynyk 0-4).Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Boston 50 (Tatum 14), Miami 42 (Adebayo 16).Assists—Boston 27 (Tatum 8), Miami 21 (Crowder, Dragic 5). Total Fouls—Boston 29, Miami 24.

Associated Press

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Getting big leads has been rel-atively easy for the Boston Celt-ics in these Eastern Conference finals.

This time, they also found a way to finish the job.

And just like that, the East title series got a whole lot closer.

Jaylen Brown scored 26 points, Jayson Tatum added 25 and the Celtics got right back into the East finals with a 117-106 victory over the Miami Heat in Game 3 on Saturday night. Kemba Walker added 21 to help Boston pull to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series.

“There’s some great guys in that locker room,” Brown said. “A lot of emotion, a lot of passion, but we’re a family and we’re here for each other at the end of the day. We exemplified that when we came out together ... we kept our will high and we persevered to win this game.”

Marcus Smart scored 20 points for the Celtics, going 9-for-9 from

the foul line in the fourth quar-ter. Boston— which also got 14rebounds and eight assists fromTatum — outscored Miami 60-36inside the paint, led by as manyas 20 and never trailed.

The Celtics, who were angry intheir postgame locker room afterGame 2, were obviously far hap-pier Saturday after holding theHeat to 39% shooting.

“We have great competitivespirit and we showed it tonight,”Walker said.

Bam Adebayo had 27 pointsand 16 rebounds for Miami, whichfell for just the second time in 12games in these playoffs. TylerHerro scored 22 points, JimmyButler had 17 and Duncan Rob-inson 13.

“We’re not the type of teamwhere we can go through themotions and try and figure outeverything in the first half, andthen in the third or fourth we justtry to turn it on,” Adebayo said.“It’s not like that. We are not thattype of team. We’ve got to playwith detail.”

Celtics finish job, cut Heat’s edge to 2-1 in East finals

MARK J. TERRILL/AP

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart (36) competes for a rebound against Miami Heat’s Jae Crowder, left, and Bam Adebayo, right. Smart had 20 points in a 117-106 win Saturday.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 19

Associated Press

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Feeding off one of the largest crowds at a sporting event during the pan-demic, Kevin Harvick steam-rolled his way into the second round of NASCAR’s playoffs in a championship that is clearly his to lose.

Harvick held off a charging Kyle Busch over the final 40 laps Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway for his career-best and Cup Series-high ninth victory of the season. He did it in front of a sold-out crowd of 30,000 specta-tors, the most Bristol was allowed to admit and the largest crowd since March.

“I hadn’t been to too many races where I’ve been that jacked up getting in the race car,” Harvick said. “The fans were so enthusi-astic tonight and I don’t know if we’ve just been away from them for that long, but you could feel the enthusiasm in the stadium tonight.

“As I was getting in the car, I

was just wound up and just really, really ready to race.”

Harvick took the lead from Busch and denied Busch his first

victory of the season. Busch furi-ously tried to catch him as the two weaved their way through lapped traffic, but Harvick held firm in

the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing.

Only six cars finished on the lead lap in a tepid event at the 0.533-mile bullring revered for bumping and banging. Track of-ficials sold all 30,000 tickets al-lowed — making Bristol one of the largest sporting events since the pandemic — and the specta-tors crowded the fence as Har-vick celebrated his second win of the playoffs.

Harvick also won the South-ern 500 at Darlington Raceway to open the playoffs. He’s ninth on NASCAR’s career list with 58 Cup victories.

Busch, who failed inspection twice before the race and drove from the back of the field to lead in his Toyota, was disappointed to finish second. Busch took aim at Joey Logano, who failed to move out of the way as Harvick and Busch battled for the lead — “he’s nobody’s friend for a reason” — as well as younger drivers Garrett Smithley and Joey Gase.

“If that lap car wasn’t there, I would have blown it in on theoutside or the inside and maybewe would have banged each oth-er’s doors or whatever and had a greater finish to the checkered,” Busch said. “But some of them(idiot) kids don’t know whatthe hell they’re doing or wherethey’re at and can’t stay out of the way. Nothing like a Gase and a Smithley.”

The first elimination race ofthe playoffs knocked WilliamByron, Cole Custer, Ryan Blaneyand Matt DiBenedetto from con-tention. All four were below thecutline at the start of the race and failed to produce a strong enough finish to get into the next round.

The second round of the playoffsbegin next Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the opener ofthe most challenging three-raceseries. The playoffs go from LasVegas to Talladega Superspeed-way and then end at CharlotteMotor Speedway on the combina-tion road course and oval.

Monday, September 21, 2020

American ConferenceEast

W L T Pct PF PABuffalo 1 0 0 1.000 27 17New England 1 0 0 1.000 21 11Miami 0 1 0 .000 11 21N.Y. Jets 0 1 0 .000 17 27

SouthJacksonville 1 0 0 1.000 27 20Tennessee 1 0 0 1.000 16 14Houston 0 1 0 .000 20 34Indianapolis 0 1 0 .000 20 27

NorthBaltimore 1 0 0 1.000 38 6Pittsburgh 1 0 0 1.000 26 16Cleveland 1 1 0 .500 41 68Cincinnati 0 2 0 .000 43 51

WestKansas City 1 0 0 1.000 34 20L.A. Chargers 1 0 0 1.000 16 13Las Vegas 1 0 0 1.000 34 30Denver 0 1 0 .000 14 16

National ConferenceEast

W L T Pct PF PAWashington 1 0 0 1.000 27 17Dallas 0 1 0 .000 17 20N.Y. Giants 0 1 0 .000 16 26Philadelphia 0 1 0 .000 17 27

SouthNew Orleans 1 0 0 1.000 34 23Atlanta 0 1 0 .000 25 38Carolina 0 1 0 .000 30 34Tampa Bay 0 1 0 .000 23 34

NorthChicago 1 0 0 1.000 27 23Green Bay 1 0 0 1.000 43 34Detroit 0 1 0 .000 23 27Minnesota 0 1 0 .000 34 43

WestArizona 1 0 0 1.000 24 20L.A. Rams 1 0 0 1.000 20 17Seattle 1 0 0 1.000 38 25San Francisco 0 1 0 .000 20 24

Thursday’s gameCleveland 35, Cincinnati 30

Sunday’s gamesJacksonville at TennesseeN.Y. Giants at ChicagoDetroit at Green BayCarolina at Tampa BayBuffalo at MiamiSan Francisco at N.Y. JetsL.A. Rams at PhiladelphiaAtlanta at DallasDenver at PittsburghMinnesota at IndianapolisWashington at ArizonaBaltimore at HoustonKansas City at L.A. ChargersNew England at Seattle

Monday’s gamesNew Orleans at Las Vegas

NFL injury report NEW YORK — The National Football

League injury report, as provided by the league (DNP: did not practice; LIMITED: limited participation; FULL: Full partici-pation):

MONDAYNEW ORLEANS SAINTS at LAS VEGAS

RAIDERS — SAINTS: DNP: DE Marcus Dav-enport (elbow), WR Emmanuel Sanders (not injury related), WR Michael Thomas (ankle). LIMITED: LB Chase Hansen (hip). FULL: G Cesar Ruiz (ankle), S P.J. Williams (hamstring). RAIDERS: DNP: T Trenton Brown (calf), CB Lamarcus Joyner (not injury related), LB Nick Kwiatkoski (pecto-ral), WR Henry Ruggs (knee), T Sam Young (groin). LIMITED: G Richie Incognito (achil-les), G John Simpson (shoulder). FULL: CB Damon Arnette (wrist, thumb), RB Josh Ja-cobs (ankle), DE Arden Key (knee).

NFL scoreboard

NFL/AUTO RACING

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — The Death Star comes alive for the first time Monday night in a prime-time debut that just a few years ago would have been unimaginable.

The NFL in Sin City. Even the bookies in this gambling city would never have bet on this happening.

It took a seismic shift in philosophy from a league that once feared sports betting more than anything. It also took a leap of faith by

the Raiders — along with $750 million in tax-payer money — to em-brace a city that seems to fit perfectly with the culture of the Silver and Black fan base.

The gamble pays off Monday night when Las Vegas meet the New Orleans Saints in the

opening game of the glittering $2 billion sta-dium that Raiders owner Mark Davis dubbed the Death Star. They’ll do it in a spectacular new home that looms over the Las Vegas Strip, a far cry from the dilapidated stadium in Oak-land where players often churned through a dirt infield.

It’s a new era for the NFL, which once for-bid players to even go into casinos. It’s also confirmation of Las Vegas as one of the great sporting cities in the world, as well as a needed psychological boost to a town suffering badly from a drop in tourism caused by COVID-19.

“I feel bad that (fans) won’t be able to be at the game, but I do know that with us being here and playing a home game there is still a feel around town: ‘Oh, the Raiders are play-ing in town,’ ” quarterback Derek Carr said. “So, it’s still exciting and I got people driving up next to my car and waving and going nuts and stuff.”

If the Raiders have embraced Las Vegas, the city has embraced them back. Season tickets were quickly sold out even with hefty prices for seat licenses — and before it became clear that no fans would attend the Raiders were the hottest team in the NFL in the secondary ticket market.

Around the city there are fans wearing sil-ver and black, and you don’t have to drive far to see Raiders flags flying. There will be no

Black Hole filled with crazed fans as in Oak-land, largely because ticket prices are so ex-pensive, but the team is eager to create new traditions in a home it has committed to spend the next 30 years playing in.

And when the lanai doors open on the north end of the stadium Monday night to reveal a panoramic view of the Las Vegas Strip just past the massive torch honoring the late Al Davis, the moment will finally be at hand.

“This is our field of dreams,” Mark Davis told the team last month when it gathered at the stadium for the first time. “This is our house.’’

And quite a house it is. The black glassed stadium —which some say resembles a giant Roomba — sits just off I-15 next to the Las Vegas Strip, looming over the main road that brings tourists in from Southern California. It has a translucent roof, natural grass and seats 65,000, bringing the city a state-of-the-art

stadium venue it never had that will be usedfor concerts, fights, UFC events and likely a Super Bowl.

The view through the huge lanai doors and the Al Davis torch will be the iconic features, but everything about the stadium seems toscream Raiders in Las Vegas, including the location at Dean Martin Dr. and Al DavisWay.

“It’s imposing and intimidating, and it’sperfect for the Raiders,’’ team president MarcBadain said. “We love the way it looks.”

A city built on fun and games got its firstmajor professional sports team just three years ago in the NHL’s Golden Knights. Now it has a marquee team in the biggest leaguein the country — along with a stadium tomatch.

“This is now both the sports and entertain-ment capital of the world,” Badain said.”Who’sgoing to top this? There’s no competition.”

Raiders set to make Sin City debut

JOHN LOCHERE/AP

Allegiant Stadium, the new 65,000-seat state-of-the-art home of the Las Vegas Raiders.

‘ This is our fi eldof dreams. ’

Marc DavisRaiders owner

Harvick rolls into 2nd round behind 9th win of season

STEVE HELBER/AP

Kevin Harvick (4) steamrolled his way into the second round of the playoffs Saturday, holding off Kyle Busch (18) at Bristol Motor Speedway for his series-best ninth victory of the season.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 20 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

MLB SCOREBOARDAmerican League

East Division W L Pct GBz-Tampa Bay 35 18 .660 —New York 31 21 .596 3½Toronto 26 26 .500 8½Baltimore 22 31 .415 13Boston 19 34 .358 16

Central Divisionz-Chicago 34 18 .654 —z-Minnesota 32 22 .593 3Cleveland 28 24 .538 6Detroit 22 29 .431 11½Kansas City 21 31 .404 13

West Divisionz-Oakland 33 19 .635 —Houston 26 26 .500 7Seattle 23 29 .442 10Los Angeles 23 30 .434 10½Texas 18 34 .346 15

National LeagueEast Division

W L Pct GBAtlanta 30 22 .577 —Miami 27 24 .529 2½Philadelphia 27 25 .519 3New York 24 28 .462 6Washington 19 31 .380 10

Central DivisionChicago 31 21 .596 —St. Louis 25 24 .510 4½Cincinnati 26 27 .491 5½Milwaukee 25 26 .490 5½Pittsburgh 15 37 .288 16

West Divisionz-Los Angeles 38 15 .717 —San Diego 33 20 .623 5San Francisco 25 26 .490 12Colorado 22 29 .431 15Arizona 20 33 .377 18

z-clinched playoff berthFriday’s Games

Philadelphia 7, Toronto 0, 7 inn., 1st gamePhiladelphia 8, Toronto 7, 7 inn., 2ndCincinnati 7, Chicago White Sox 1Tampa Bay 2, Baltimore 1Cleveland 1, Detroit 0Chicago Cubs 1, Minnesota 0Arizona 6, Houston 3Milwaukee 9, Kansas City 5L.A. Angels 6, Texas 2N.Y. Yankees 6, Boston 5, 12 inn.Oakland 6, San Francisco 0San Diego 6, Seattle 1St. Louis 6, Pittsburgh 5, 7 inn., 1st gameSt. Louis 7, Pittsburgh 2, 7 inn., 2nd gameWashington 5, Miami 0, 7 inn., 1st gameMiami 14, Washington 3, 7 inn., 2nd gameAtlanta 15, N.Y. Mets 2L.A. Dodgers 15, Colorado 6

Saturday’s gamesOakland 6, San Francisco 0Detroit 5, Cleveland 2Philadelphia 3, Toronto 1Houston 3, Arizona 2Chicago White Sox 5, Cincinnati 0Milwaukee 5, Kansas City 0N.Y. Yankees 8, Boston 0Tampa Bay 3, Baltimore 1Minnesota 8, Chicago Cubs 1L.A. Angels 4, Texas 3Seattle 4, San Diego 1Miami 7, Washington 3St. Louis 5, Pittsburgh 4N.Y. Mets 7, Atlanta 2L.A. Dodgers 6, Colorado 1

Sunday’s gamesTampa Bay at BaltimoreN.Y. Yankees at BostonChicago White Sox at CincinnatiCleveland at DetroitArizona at HoustonKansas City at MilwaukeeToronto at PhiladelphiaSan Diego at SeattleSan Francisco at OaklandTexas at L.A. AngelsMinnesota at Chicago CubsAtlanta at N.Y. MetsWashington at Miami, 2L.A. Dodgers at ColoradoSt. Louis at Pittsburgh

Monday’s gamesTexas (Gibson 2-5) at L.A. Angels (Bundy

5-3)Chicago White Sox (Dunning 2-0) at

Cleveland (Civale 3-5)N.Y. Yankees (TBD) at Toronto (TBD)Tampa Bay (TBD) at N.Y. Mets (de-

Grom 4-1)St. Louis (Wainwright 5-1) at Kansas

City (TBD)Houston (TBD) at Seattle (Gonzales 6-2)Philadelphia (TBD) at Washington

(TBD)Milwaukee (Woodruff 2-4) at Cincin-

nati (TBD)Chicago Cubs (TBD) at Pittsburgh

(Brubaker 1-2)Miami (TBD) at Atlanta (TBD)Colorado (TBD) at San Francisco (Cueto

2-1)

SundayAngels 4, Rangers 3

Texas Los Angeles ab r h bi ab r h biTaveras cf 4 1 2 1 Fletcher 2b 3 1 1 1Solak lf 4 1 2 0 Walsh rf-1b 4 0 1 0Kner-Flfa 3b 3 0 0 0 Trout cf 4 0 1 1Odor 2b 4 1 1 2 Rendon 3b 4 0 1 0Apostel 1b 4 0 0 0 Pujols 1b 4 0 0 0Calhoun dh 3 0 1 0 Adell rf 0 0 0 0Tejeda ss 4 0 0 0 Ohtani dh 3 2 2 1White rf 3 0 0 0 Ward lf 3 1 1 1Gallo ph 1 0 0 0 Stassi c 3 0 0 0Mathis c 3 0 0 0 Smmons ss 3 0 1 0Totals 33 3 6 3 Totals 31 4 8 4Texas 300 000 000—3Los Angeles 010 020 01x—4

E—Apostel (2). DP—Texas 2, Los An-geles 0. LOB—Texas 5, Los Angeles 4. 2B—Simmons (7), Ward (5). HR—Taveras (3), Odor (7), Ohtani (6). SB—Solak (5), Taveras (5). IP H R ER BB SOTexasLynn 7 7 3 3 0 5Martin L,0-1 1 1 1 0 1 0Los AngelesHeaney 62⁄3 6 3 3 1 8Ramirez 1⁄3 0 0 0 0 0Mayers W,2-0 2 0 0 0 0 3

HBP—Heaney (Calhoun). WP—Lynn, Heaney. T—2:35.

Yankees 8, Red Sox 0New York Boston ab r h bi ab r h biLeMahieu 2b 5 1 2 0 Arroyo 2b 2 0 0 0Judge dh 3 1 0 0 Arauz 2b 2 0 0 0Gardner cf 4 2 2 0 Devers 3b 4 0 0 0Voit 1b 4 1 2 1 Bgaerts ss 4 0 1 0Urshela 3b 3 0 1 2 Mrtinez dh 4 0 2 0Frazier lf 4 2 3 3 Plawecki c 4 0 1 0Tchman rf 4 1 0 0 Bradley cf 3 0 0 0Higashioka c 4 0 1 1 Dalbec 1b 3 0 1 0Wade ss 2 0 0 1 Chavis lf 3 0 0 0 Puello rf 3 0 0 0Totals 33 8 11 8 Totals 32 0 5 0New York 200 230 001—8Boston 000 000 000—0

E—Bogaerts 2 (5), Devers (11). DP—New York 1, Boston 2. LOB—New York 6, Boston 5. 2B—Gardner (5), Plawecki (5), Dalbec (2). HR—Frazier (8). SF—Urshela 2 (4). IP H R ER BB SONew YorkHapp W,2-2 8 4 0 0 0 9Nelson 1 1 0 0 0 0BostonMazza L,1-2 4 5 4 2 3 1Covey 2 4 3 3 1 3Tapia 1 1 0 0 0 1Stock 2 1 1 0 2 2

WP—Stock. T—2:59.

Mariners 4, Padres 1San Diego Seattle ab r h bi ab r h biTatis Jr. ss 4 1 2 0 Crawford ss 4 0 1 0Machado 3b 4 0 2 1 Moore rf-lf 2 1 0 0Nola c 4 0 0 0 Lewis cf 4 1 1 1Myers rf 3 0 2 0 Seager 3b 2 1 0 0Hosmer 1b 4 0 1 0 France 2b 4 0 2 1Phm dh 4 0 1 0 Sg-Gr pr-2b 0 0 0 0Crnnwth 2b 3 0 0 0 Mrmlejs dh 4 1 0 0Profar lf 4 0 1 0 Torrens c 4 0 2 2Grisham cf 2 0 0 0 White 1b 4 0 1 0 Lopes lf 3 0 1 0 Ervin rf 0 0 0 0Totals 32 1 9 1 Totals 31 4 8 4San Diego 001 000 000—1Seattle 102 010 00x—4

DP—San Diego 0, Seattle 2. LOB—San Diego 7, Seattle 7. 2B—Tatis Jr. (11), Tor-rens (4). HR—Lewis (11). SB—Moore (12). IP H R ER BB SOSan DiegoPatino 12⁄3 3 1 1 2 3Altavilla L,1-2 11⁄3 1 2 2 2 3Morejon 3 2 1 1 0 3Stammen 1 1 0 0 0 1Richards 1 1 0 0 0 1SeattleSheffield W,4-3 6 6 1 1 2 5Sadler H,1 1 0 0 0 0 1Graveman H,4 1 0 0 0 0 0Hirano S,3-3 1 3 0 0 0 0

HBP—Sheffield (Grisham). WP—Alta-villa. T—2:59.

Twins 8, Cubs 1Minnesota Chicago ab r h bi ab r h biWade Jr. lf 4 0 0 0 Happ cf-rf 4 0 0 0Buxton cf 4 0 1 1 Bryant 3b 4 0 0 0Rosario dh 4 1 2 2 Rizzo 1b 4 0 0 0Sano 1b 4 1 1 1 Caratini 1b 0 0 0 0Kepler rf 4 1 1 0 Cntreras c 3 1 0 0Polanco ss 4 1 2 0 Schwrber lf 4 0 0 0Gonzalez 2b 3 1 0 0 Baez ss 3 0 1 0Adrianza 3b 2 0 0 0 Hamilton cf 1 0 0 0nldsn ph-3b 2 2 1 1 Hyward rf 3 0 3 0Avila c 1 0 1 0 Vargas 2b 0 0 0 0Cave pr 0 1 0 0 Bote dh 3 0 1 1Jeffers c 0 0 0 0 Hrnr 2b-ss 3 0 0 0Garver ph-c 2 0 1 2 Totals 34 8 10 7 Totals 32 1 5 1Minnesota 100 001 501—8Chicago 010 000 000—1

E—Baez (7). DP—Minnesota 0, Chicago 2. LOB—Minnesota 1, Chicago 5. 2B—Avi-la (2), Kepler (6), Bote (3). HR—Rosario (12), Sano (13), Donaldson (6). IP H R ER BB SOMinnesotaPineda W,2-0 5 4 1 1 0 1Duffey H,12 1 0 0 0 0 1Wisler 2 1 0 0 0 6Clippard 1 0 0 0 0 1ChicagoMills L,5-4 6 6 4 4 1 7Osich 0 1 3 2 0 0Underwood Jr. 1 2 0 0 0 0Brothers 1 0 0 0 0 3Winkler 1 1 1 1 0 1

Mills pitched to 2 batters in the 7th, Osich pitched to 3 batters in the 7th. HBP—Pineda (Contreras), Osich (Gonza-lez). T—3:10.

Dodgers 6, Rockies 1Los Angeles Colorado ab r h bi ab r h biBetts rf 5 1 1 0 Tapia lf 4 1 1 0Muncy 1b 4 0 0 0 Story ss 4 0 1 0Turner dh 3 1 2 0 Arenado 3b 3 0 0 1Bellinger cf 3 1 1 0 Blckmon rf 3 0 0 0Taylor ss 3 1 2 3 Pillar cf 3 0 2 0Pollock lf 4 1 1 1 Fuentes 1b 3 0 0 0Rios 3b 4 0 0 0 Kemp dh 3 0 0 0Lux 2b 4 0 0 0 Hmpson 2b 3 0 1 0Barnes c 3 1 0 0 Butera c 2 0 0 0 McMhon ph 1 0 0 0Totals 33 6 7 4 Totals 29 1 5 1Los Angeles 200 100 300—6Colorado 100 000 000—1

E—Givens (1). DP—Los Angeles 2, Col-orado 1. LOB—Los Angeles 4, Colorado 1. 2B—Turner (8), Tapia (4), Pillar (2). 3B—Taylor (2). HR—Taylor (7), Pollock (12). SB—Tapia (6), Barnes (3). IP H R ER BB SOLos AngelesKershaw W,6-2 7 4 1 1 0 6McGee 1 1 0 0 0 2Jansen 1 0 0 0 0 1ColoradoC.Gonzalez L,0-2 5 4 3 3 1 2Kinley 1 0 0 0 1 0Givens 1 2 3 2 0 0Ramos 1 1 0 0 1 1Bard 1 0 0 0 0 0

HBP—Givens (Barnes). WP—Givens. T—2:32.

Rays 3, Orioles 1Tampa Bay Baltimore ab r h bi ab r h biTsutsugo lf 3 2 1 1 Mullins cf 5 0 1 0Margot lf 1 0 0 0 Iglesias ss 1 1 1 0B.Lowe 2b 4 0 2 0 Vlaika pr-ss 2 0 0 0Arzarena dh 4 1 2 2 Stewart rf 2 0 0 0N.Lowe 1b 4 0 1 0 Mntcstle 1b 4 0 2 0Wendle ss 4 0 1 0 Sevrino dh 4 0 0 0Brosseau 3b 4 0 2 0 Sisco c 3 0 0 1Krmaier cf 4 0 0 0 Alberto 2b 3 0 0 0B.Phillips rf 3 0 0 0 Ruiz 3b 4 0 0 0Perez c 4 0 0 0 Hays lf 4 0 2 0Totals 35 3 9 3 Totals 32 1 6 1Tampa Bay 001 020 000—3Baltimore 100 000 000—1

E—Stewart (2), Sisco (1). DP—Tampa Bay 0, Baltimore 1. LOB—Tampa Bay 7, Baltimore 9. 2B—Wendle (8), Iglesias (15). HR—Tsutsugo (8), Arozarena (5). SB—B.Phillips (2). IP H R ER BB SOTampa BayMorton W,2-2 5 5 1 1 2 6Loup H,4 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 1Slegers H,2 22⁄3 1 0 0 0 2Thompson S,1-1 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 0BaltimoreLopez L,2-1 6 8 3 3 1 5E.Phillips 2 1 0 0 0 4Lakins Sr. 1 0 0 0 1 0

HBP—Morton 2 (Sisco,Iglesias), Loup (Alberto). T—3:04.

Cardinals 5, Pirates 4St. Louis Pittsburgh ab r h bi ab r h biWong 2b 5 0 1 1 Reynolds cf 3 0 0 0Edman 3b 4 0 1 1 Hayes 3b 4 2 2 1Gldschdt 1b 3 0 0 0 Gnzalez ss 4 1 2 0B.Miller dh 2 1 0 0 Moran 1b 4 0 1 1DeJong ss 3 1 0 0 Bell dh 4 0 0 0Molina c 2 1 0 0 Stallings c 3 0 0 1Wters ph-c 1 0 0 0 Nwman 2b 3 0 0 0O’Neill lf 3 1 1 2 Riddle pr 0 0 0 0Carlson rf 3 0 0 1 Frazier lf 4 0 0 0Bader cf 3 1 0 0 Osuna rf 2 1 1 1Totals 29 5 3 5 Totals 31 4 6 4St. Louis 000 000 500—5Pittsburgh 101 002 000—4

E—DeJong (3). DP—St. Louis 2, Pitts-burgh 0. LOB—St. Louis 6, Pittsburgh 4. 2B—O’Neill (4), Hayes (4). HR—Hayes (3), Osuna (2). SF—Carlson (1), Stallings (1). IP H R ER BB SOSt. LouisKim 51⁄3 6 4 4 1 4Woodford W,0-0 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 0Helsley H,1 11⁄3 0 0 0 1 1Cabrera S,0-0 12⁄3 0 0 0 0 3PittsburghKeller 6 0 0 0 2 6Hartlieb 0 0 3 3 2 0Howard L,2-3 BS,0-1 1⁄3 3 2 2 0 0Stratton 2⁄3 0 0 0 1 1Cederlind 1 0 0 0 0 2Rodriguez 1 0 0 0 0 2

Hartlieb pitched to 3 batters in the 7th. HBP—Keller (B.Miller), Hartlieb (Mo-lina), Howard (Bader), Cabrera (New-man). T—3:06.

Brewers 5, Royals 0Kansas City Milwaukee ab r h bi ab r h biMerrifield rf 4 0 0 0 Garcia cf 4 0 0 0Mondesi ss 4 0 0 0 Yelich lf 2 1 0 0Perez c 4 0 1 0 Braun dh 4 1 1 3Dozier 1b 4 0 1 0 Gyorko 1b 3 0 1 0Gordon lf 3 0 0 0 Hiura 2b 3 0 0 0Franco 3b 3 0 1 0 Taylor rf 3 0 0 0O’Hearn dh 3 0 0 0 Arcia ss 3 1 1 0Heath cf 2 0 0 0 Urias 3b 2 1 0 0Lopez 2b 3 0 1 0 Nttngham c 2 1 1 1Totals 30 0 4 0 Totals 26 5 4 4Kansas City 000 000 000—0Milwaukee 001 000 04x—5

E—Lopez (2), Barlow (1), Burnes (1). DP—Kansas City 2, Milwaukee 0. LOB—Kansas City 4, Milwaukee 2. 2B—Notting-ham (1). HR—Braun (7). IP H R ER BB SOKansas CityBubic L,1-6 51⁄3 1 1 0 4 7Hahn 12⁄3 0 0 0 0 2Barlow 1 3 4 4 1 2MilwaukeeBurnes W,4-0 6 4 0 0 0 9Williams H,8 2 0 0 0 0 4Rasmussen 1 0 0 0 0 2

HBP—Burnes (Heath). T—2:55.

Phillies 3, Blue Jays 1Toronto Philadelphia ab r h bi ab r h biBiggio rf 2 0 0 0 McCtchn lf 3 0 1 1Bichette ss 4 0 0 0 Harper rf 4 0 1 0Hrnndez dh 4 0 1 0 Segura 3b 4 0 0 0Gurriel Jr. lf 4 0 0 0 Grgorius ss 4 0 0 0Grichuk cf 3 0 0 0 Gosselin 1b 4 1 1 0Panik 3b 2 0 0 0 Bruce dh 3 1 1 0Villar 2b 3 0 0 0 Monk pr-dh 0 0 0 0Shaw 1b 3 1 1 1 Kingery 2b 3 0 1 0Jansen c 2 0 0 0 Knapp c 3 1 2 1Gurrro Jr. ph 1 0 0 0 Haseley cf 4 0 2 1Kirk c 0 0 0 0 Totals 28 1 2 1 Totals 32 3 9 3Toronto 000 010 000—1Philadelphia 000 020 01x—3

DP—Toronto 0, Philadelphia 1. LOB—Toronto 3, Philadelphia 10. 2B—Bruce (4). HR—Shaw (5). S—Kingery (1). IP H R ER BB SOTorontoRyu, L, 4-2 6 6 2 2 1 8Font 1⁄3 0 0 0 2 0Borucki 1 0 0 0 0 0Cole 2⁄3 3 1 1 1 2PhiladelphiaVelasquez, W, 1-1 6 2 1 1 3 6Parker, H, 1 1 0 0 0 0 1Phelps, H, 2 1 0 0 0 0 2Hunter, S, 1-3 1 0 0 0 0 2

Borucki pitched to 1 batter in the 8th. T—3:16.

Tigers 5, Indians 2Cleveland Detroit ab r h bi ab r h biLindor ss 4 0 1 0 V.Reyes cf 4 0 2 1Hrnandez 2b 4 0 2 0 W.Cstro ss 4 0 0 1Ramirez 3b 4 0 1 2 Candlio 1b 3 1 0 0Santana 1b 4 0 0 0 H.Cstro dh 3 0 2 1F.Reyes dh 4 0 2 0 Hill pr-dh 0 1 0 0Naquin rf 4 0 0 0 Bnifacio lf 3 0 0 0R.Perez c 4 1 1 0 Gdrum 2b 4 1 1 0Naylor lf 2 1 1 0 Haase c 4 1 2 1Luplow ph-lf 1 0 0 0 Cameron rf 4 1 2 1Mercado cf 3 0 0 0 Paredes 3b 2 0 1 0 Cabrera ph 0 0 0 0 Altra pr-3b 0 0 0 0Totals 34 2 8 2 Totals 31 5 10 5Cleveland 002 000 000—2Detroit 100 000 04x—5

DP—Cleveland 2, Detroit 1. LOB—Cleveland 5, Detroit 10. 2B—Ramirez (10), F.Reyes (10), Lindor (12), H.Castro (4). SB—V.Reyes (7). SF—W.Castro (2). IP H R ER BB SOClevelandMcKenzie 4 6 1 1 3 3Quantrill 2 1 0 0 1 1Wittgren, H, 9 1 0 0 0 0 2Maton, L, 2-3, BS, 0-1 1⁄3 3 4 4 2 1C.Hill 2⁄3 0 0 0 1 0DetroitTurnbull 6 5 2 2 0 7Norris 11⁄3 2 0 0 0 2Cisnero, W, 3-3 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 0Garcia, S, 3-4 1 1 0 0 0 3

T—3:00.

Athletics 6, Giants 0San Francisco Oakland ab r h bi ab r h biSlater dh 4 0 0 0 La Stella 2b 3 1 1 2Solano 2b 4 0 2 0 Semien ss 3 0 1 1Ruf lf 4 0 1 0 Canha dh 3 1 0 0Flores 1b 4 0 0 0 Olson 1b 3 0 1 1Longoria 3b 4 0 1 0 Piscotty rf 4 1 1 0Dubon cf 3 0 1 0 Lamb 3b 4 1 1 2Rbertson ss 3 0 1 0 Grssman lf 3 0 0 0Bart c 3 0 0 0 Lreano cf 3 1 0 0Basabe rf 3 0 0 0 Heim c 3 1 1 0Totals 32 0 6 0 Totals 29 6 6 6San Francisco 000 000 000—0Oakland 000 100 50x—6

E—La Stella (1). DP—San Francisco 1, Oakland 1. LOB—San Francisco 5, Oak-land 4. 2B—Semien (8). 3B—La Stella (1). HR—Lamb (2). SB—Olson (1). IP H R ER BB SOSan FranciscoGausman L,3-3 6 1 1 1 3 6Selman 1⁄3 2 3 3 1 0Coonrod 2⁄3 3 2 2 0 0Garcia 1 0 0 0 0 0OaklandLuzardo W,3-2 6 5 0 0 0 7Diekman H,12 1 0 0 0 0 2Soria 1 0 0 0 0 0Trivino 1 1 0 0 0 0

HBP—Garcia (Olson). WP—Gausman, Luzardo. T—2:34.

Mets 7, Braves 2Atlanta New York ab r h bi ab r h biAcuna Jr. cf 2 0 0 0 Nimmo cf 3 1 1 2Freeman 1b 5 0 0 0 Conforto rf 4 1 1 0Ozuna lf 3 0 0 0 Davis 3b 4 0 0 0d’Arnaud dh 3 1 1 1 Frazier 3b 0 0 0 0Duvall rf 4 1 2 1 D.Smith 1b 4 1 1 1Albies 2b 4 0 0 0 Cano 2b 4 1 3 3Swanson ss 3 0 1 0 Rosario ss 0 0 0 0Riley 3b 3 0 1 0 Alonso dh 4 0 0 0Flowers c 4 0 1 0 McNeil lf 4 1 1 0 Ginz ss-2b 3 2 1 0 Chirinos c 4 0 2 1Totals 31 2 6 2 Totals 34 7 10 7Atlanta 000 001 010—2New York 200 100 04x—7

E—Duvall (2). DP—Atlanta 0, New York1. LOB—Atlanta 9, New York 8. 2B—Duvall (8), Riley (6), Swanson (13), Flowers (6), Chirinos (2), McNeil (14). HR—Duvall (16),d’Arnaud (9), D.Smith (9), Cano (9). IP H R ER BB SOAtlantaAnderson L,3-1 42⁄3 4 3 3 4 8Matzek 11⁄3 0 0 0 0 2W.Smith 1 1 0 0 0 1Greene 1⁄3 5 4 4 0 0Webb 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 1New YorkPeterson W,5-2 6 3 1 1 4 10Castro H,1 1⁄3 1 0 0 2 1Wilson H,8 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 0Familia H,5 1 1 1 1 0 2Ramirez 1 1 0 0 1 2

HBP—Greene (Gimenez). WP—Ander-son. T—3:32. A—0 (41,922).

Marlins 7, Nationals 3Washington Miami ab r h bi ab r h biTurner ss 3 0 0 1 Rojas ss 5 2 3 1Soto lf 4 0 0 0 Marte cf 5 1 2 0Cabrera 1b 3 1 1 0 Cooper 1b 4 1 2 3Thames dh 2 0 0 0 Aguilar dh 5 0 1 0Hrrsn ph-dh 1 0 0 0 Andrsn 3b 4 0 2 1Gomes c 4 0 0 0 Brnson rf-lf 4 1 2 0L.Garcia 2b 4 1 2 0 Dckrson lf 3 1 1 1Kieboom 3b 2 1 0 0 Hrrison rf 0 0 0 0Stevenson rf 2 0 1 2 Rdrguez 2b 4 0 0 0Robles cf 4 0 1 0 Wallach c 4 1 2 1Totals 29 3 5 3 Totals 38 7 15 7Washington 000 200 100—3Miami 102 211 00x—7

E—Turner (8), Anderson (9). DP—Washington 1, Miami 1. LOB—Washing-ton 6, Miami 9. 2B—Cabrera (7), Rojas (9), Brinson (6), Cooper (7). HR—Rojas (4), Cooper (5). SB—Stevenson (2), Dickerson(1), Brinson (4). SF—Turner (2). IP H R ER BB SOWashingtonCorbin L,2-6 6 14 7 7 0 7Finnegan 1 1 0 0 1 1Harper 1 0 0 0 1 1MiamiLopez W,5-4 51⁄3 3 2 2 3 7Hoyt 2⁄3 0 0 0 0 1Boxberger 2⁄3 1 1 0 0 0Bleier 11⁄3 0 0 0 0 1Kintzler 1 1 0 0 1 0

HBP—Lopez (Stevenson), Boxberger (Kieboom). T—3:06.

White Sox 5, Reds 0Chicago Cincinnati ab r h bi ab r h biAndrson ss 5 2 2 2 Aquino lf 4 0 1 0Grandal c 4 1 1 1 Barnhart c 0 0 0 0Abreu 1b 4 1 2 1 Cstllnos rf 4 0 1 0Jimenez lf 4 0 0 0 Votto 1b 3 0 2 0Encrncn dh 4 0 0 0 Suarez 3b 3 0 0 0Moncada 3b 3 0 1 0 Stphnsn dh 2 0 0 0Robert cf 4 0 0 0 Gdn ph-dh 2 0 0 0Mazara rf 4 1 1 1 Mstakas 2b 4 0 1 0Madrigal 2b 3 0 1 0 Senzel cf 4 0 1 0 Garcia ss 2 0 0 0 Galvis ph-ss 0 0 0 0Totals 35 5 8 5 Totals 31 0 6 0Chicago 000 020 030—5Cincinnati 000 000 000—0

DP—Chicago 2, Cincinnati 0. LOB—Chicago 5, Cincinnati 9. 2B—Senzel (6),Moustakas (5). 3B—Moncada (1). HR—Mazara (1), Anderson 2 (10), Grandal (7),Abreu (18). IP H R ER BB SOChicagoKeuchel 4 4 0 0 3 7Foster W,5-0 2 0 0 0 0 2Heuer H,5 1 0 0 0 1 1Cordero 1 1 0 0 0 2Fry 1 1 0 0 1 0CincinnatiBauer L,4-4 7 5 2 2 1 5R.Stephenson 1 3 3 3 0 2Jones 1 0 0 0 1 1

WP—Bauer. T—2:57.

Astros 3, Diamondbacks 2Arizona Houston ab r h bi ab r h biVarsho c 4 1 1 0 Springer cf 4 1 1 0VnMeter 2b 3 0 0 0 Altuve 2b 4 1 1 2Rojas ss 3 0 0 1 Brantley lf 4 0 2 0Calhoun rf 4 1 2 1 Brgman 3b 4 0 0 0Escobar 3b 4 0 0 0 Tucker rf 3 0 1 1Peralta lf 4 0 1 0 Correa ss 3 0 0 0P.Smith 1b 3 0 0 0 Diaz 1b 3 0 0 0Mthisen dh 1 0 0 0 Reddick dh 3 1 1 0Jay cf 3 0 0 0 Mldnado c 2 0 0 0Totals 29 2 4 2 Totals 30 3 6 3Arizona 011 000 000—2Houston 001 002 00x—3

E—Escobar (7). DP—Arizona 1, Houston 1. LOB—Arizona 5, Houston 4. 2B—Peralta (8), Varsho (4), Altuve (7). HR—Calhoun(15). SF—Rojas (2). IP H R ER BB SOArizonaWeaver L,1-8 51⁄3 5 3 3 1 5Lopez 12⁄3 0 0 0 0 0Mella 1 1 0 0 0 1HoustonJavier 4 4 2 2 1 6Paredes W,3-2 2 0 0 0 0 0James H,4 1 0 0 0 1 0Raley H,6 1 0 0 0 1 2Pressly S,11-14 1 0 0 0 0 2

HBP—James (Mathisen). T—2:37.

LAURENCE KESTERON/AP

Vince Velasquez got the win as Philadelphia beat Toronto 3-1.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 21

Associated Press

HOUSTON — Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander will undergo Tommy John surgery and is ex-pected to be out through the 2021 season, ending his bid to make a late return for a playoff push.

The reigning AL Cy Young Award winner announced the news Satur-day on his Instagram account in a 1½-minute video.

“In my simulated game a cou-ple days ago, I felt some-thing in my elbow, and after look-ing at my MRI and conversing with some of the best doctors in the world, we’ve determined that Tommy John surgery is my best option,” Verlander said.

The 37-year-old right-hander threw to hitters on Wednesday for the first time since he was in-jured in the team’s opener on July 24. He threw 50 pitches in the bullpen before throwing about 25 pitches to hitters in two simulated innings.

“I tried as hard as I could tocome back and play this season,”Verlander said. “Unfortunately,my body just didn’t cooperate.”

Houston manager Dusty Baker said he was hopeful Ver-lander would return, but he wasalso fearful of how things werelooking.

“I talked to him this morn-ing,” Baker said. “He’s not crazy about the outcome, but it is what it is. He has to get it taken care of.He’s pitched for years. He’s beena warrior and a leader. Hope-fully, this will prolong his career, and he can be back to pitching.I always told him he’s a medical marvel, and he’s a great physicalspecimen.“

Houston general managerJames Click said he and Verland-er spoke earlier this week abouttrying to plan the rest of the sea-son if the throwing session on Wednesday had gone well.

“First of all, you can’t replaceJustin Verlander,” Click said. “Noone person can replace JustinVerlander. This is going to haveto be a total team effort. If every-body steps up a little bit, your No.2 starter steps into a No. 1, yourNo. 3 into a No. 2 and on down theline, we can try to cover that alittle bit.”

Verlander is under contract with the Astros through 2021.

Monday, September 21, 2020

Associated Press

CHICAGO —Eddie Rosario, Miguel Sano and Josh Donaldson homered as the Minnesota Twins clinched a second straight post-season berth with an 8-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Satur-day night.

The Twins are guaranteed at least a wild-card berth. They trail the Chicago White Sox by three games in the AL Central with six games to play .

Coming off a no-hitter on Sun-day against Milwaukee, Cubs starter Alec Mills (5-4) allowed four runs and six hits in six-plus innings. He struck out seven and walked one as Chicago’s five-game winning streak ended.

Rosario and Mitch Garver had a two-run pinch-hit single as Min-nesota rebounded after dropping four of five on the current road trip against both Chicago teams.

The Twins, who won the divi-sion last year, will make back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since 2009-10.

Minnesota starter Michael Pineda (2-0) permitted one run on four hits in five innings.

Donaldson added a solo shot in the ninth.

White Sox 5, Reds 0: Tim An-derson hit two of Chicago’s five solo homers, and the White Sox — already guaranteed a playoff spot — took another step toward the AL Central title by winning at Cincinnati.

Chicago has won eight of its last 10 games, securing at least a wild card and its first postseason ap-pearance since 2008.

Jose Abreu hit his fifth homer in eight games as the White Sox piled them up, including three in a row in the eighth off Robert Stephenson .

Yankees 8, Red Sox 0: J.A. Happ pitched eight scoreless in-nings, Clint Frazier hit a two-run home run and accounted for three of New York’s 11 hits as the Yankees won at Boston, their 10th consecutive win.

The victory is New York’s 12th straight over the Red Sox, dat-ing to last season, tying the Yan-kees’ longest winning streak in baseball’s most historic rivalry. It also dropped New York’s magic number to one to clinch its fourth consecutive postseason berth.

Astros 3, Diamondbacks 2: Jose Altuve drove in two, Kyle Tucker had a tiebreaking single and host Houston beat Arizona to get back to .500.

Altuve tied it at 2 in the sixth with an RBI double, and Tucker put the Astros ahead with his single three batters later, chasing starter Luke Weaver (1-8). Altuve also had a run-scoring groundout in the third.

Athletics 6, Giants 0: Jake Lamb hit a two-run homer and Oakland beat visiting San Fran-cisco for the second straight game.

Lefty starter Jesus Luzardo (3-2) gave up five hits over six innings, striking out seven with-out a walk. He ended a four-start winless stretch.

Rays 3, Orioles 1: Charlie Morton pitched five effective innings and AL East-leading Tampa Bay used homers by Yoshi Tsutsugo and Randy Arozarena to win at Baltimore.

Arozarena’s two-run drive in the fifth off Jorge Lopez (2-1) put the Rays up 3-1, and that was enough offense .

Marlins 7, Nationals 3: Miguel Rojas and Garrett Cooper each had a double and a homer and Miami beat visiting Washington

and maintained its hold on sec-ond place in the NL East.Starling Marte and Brian Anderson each singled twice for the Marlins .

Tigers 5, Indians 2: Eric Haase and Daz Cameron hit RBI singles during a four-run eighth inning, and host Detroit won their first game following manager Ron Gardenhire’s retirement.

Phillies 3, Blue Jays 1: — Vince Velasquez pitched six strong in-nings, Andrew McCutchen hit the go-ahead single in the fifth inning and host Philadelphia beat slumping Toronto.

Brewers 5, Royals 0: Corbin Burnes threw six solid innings of four-hit ball and Ryan Braun hit a two-run homer in Milwaukee’s four-run eighth inning in a win over visiting Kansas City.

Cardinals 5, Pirates 4: Tyler O’Neill hit a two-run double to end a no-hit bid started by Pitts-burgh’s Mitch Keller, and St. Louis rallied to win on the road.

Dodgers 6, Rockies 1: Clay-ton Kershaw held Colorado to four hits and a run over seven strong innings to lead Los Angeles to the road win.

Mets 7, Braves 2: Rookie David Peterson struck out NL batting leader Freddie Freeman three times and fanned a career-high 10 in six sharp innings as host New York beat Atlanta.

Angels 4, Rangers 3: Mike Trout delivered a tiebreaking RBI single in the eighth inning, and host Los Angeles rebounded from a rough start for its third straight victory, beating Texas.

Mariners 4, Padres 2: San Diego will have to wait at least one more day to clinch its first playoff berth in 14 seasons after former teammates Ty France and Luis Torrens led visiting Se-attle to a victory.

Verlander

Gardenhire

Tigers’ Gardenhire retiresAssociated Press

DETROIT — Ron Gardenhire mostly maintained his jovial de-meanor this season. As recently as Friday night, he was needling a reporter while discussing a strategic decision from the late innings.

Less than 24 hours later, Gar-denhire announced his retire-ment. This year was taking more of a toll on the 62-year-old Detroit Tigers manager than he’d neces-sarily let on.

As much as he enjoyed manag-ing, Gardenhire valued his health more.

“It’s been wonderful here, but I also know I have to take care of myself,” said Gardenhire, who was nearing the end of his third season with the Tigers. “When you come to the ballpark, and you’re stressed out all day, and your hands are shaking, that’s not fun. I’ve got grandbabies, I’ve got kids that I need to take care of, and my wife.”

Gardenhire’s announcement came in an abruptly scheduled video conference about an hour before Saturday night’s game against Cleveland. General man-ager Al Avila said he made a rou-tine visit to Gardenhire’s office Saturday, when the manager told

him about the decision.Gardenhire, who has battled

cancer and diabetes, recentlymissed a couple games becauseof stomach issues.

“This is tough. It’s a tough dayfor me. Didn’t expect it, tell you

the truth,when I walked in,“Gardenhire said. “ButI just knowhow I’vebeen feelinglately, and Iexpressed that to Al,and electedto just goahead and

step down.”A message of “Thank you,

Gardy” was posted on the score-board at Comerica Park.

Bench coach Lloyd McClendonis taking over as manager for the rest of the season, which is sched-uled to end Sept. 27. Detroit is22-29 after a win Saturday and is unlikely to make the postseason.

Gardenhire previously had a 13-year run with the Minnesota Twins that included six AL Cen-tral titles .

Astros’ ace to have elbow surgery

Verlander likely out through 2021

MLB

Roundup

Twins rout Cubs, wrap up2nd straight playoff berth

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AP

Minnesota Twins’ Jake Cave slides to score on a single hit by Eddie Rosario as Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras waits for the ball during the Twins’ 8-1 win Saturday in Chicago.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 22 F3HIJKLM Monday, September 21, 2020

U.S. OpenSaturday

Winged Foot Golf ClubMamaroneck, New YorkYardage: 7,477; Par: 70

Third RoundMatthew Wolff 66-74-65—205 -5Bryson DeChambeau 69-68-70—207 -3Louis Oosthuizen 67-74-68—209 -1Hideki Matsuyama 71-69-70—210 EXander Schauffele 68-72-70—210 EHarris English 68-70-72—210 ERory McIlroy 67-76-68—211 +1Zach Johnson 70-74-68—212 +2Viktor Hovland 71-71-70—212 +2Rafa Cabrera Bello 68-70-74—212 +2Patrick Reed 66-70-77—213 +3Alex Noren 72-74-67—213 +3Lucas Glover 71-71-71—213 +3Webb Simpson 71-71-71—213 +3Joaquin Niemann 68-73-72—213 +3Thomas Pieters 66-74-73—213 +3Adam Long 71-74-69—214 +4Will Zalatoris 70-74-70—214 +4Billy Horschel 72-70-72—214 +4Justin Thomas 65-73-76—214 +4Paul Casey 76-70-69—215 +5Lee Westwood 67-76-72—215 +5Dustin Johnson 73-70-72—215 +5Tony Finau 69-73-73—215 +5Bubba Watson 72-69-74—215 +5Brendon Todd 68-72-75—215 +5Lanto Griffin 71-74-71—216 +6Renato Paratore 71-72-73—216 +6Thomas Detry 71-72-73—216 +6Jason Kokrak 68-71-77—216 +6Charles Howell III 73-72-72—217 +7Daniel Berger 73-70-74—217 +7Jon Rahm 69-72-76—217 +7Rickie Fowler 69-77-72—218 +8C. Bezuidenhout 70-76-72—218 +8Matt Wallace 70-75-73—218 +8Sungjae Im 70-75-73—218 +8

BY DOUG FERGUSON

Associated Press

MAMARONECK, N.Y. — Mat-thew Wolff is playing his first U.S. Open and carving his own path.

That starts with shots he gouges out of the rough. It ends with him making six birdies, the last one a towering 7-iron from the first cut of rough that landed over the steep slope on the 18th green at Winged Foot and settled 10 feet right of the pin to match the best score — a 5-under 65 — at Winged Foot in a major.

He hit only two fairways Sat-urday on a course — and a major — with a blueprint for avoiding the rough. The only number that mattered to the 21-year-old Cali-fornian was a two-shot lead going into the final round.

“There’s a lot of holes out there that maybe people would try to hit it in the fairway or maybe take the safe play because it is a U.S. Open, and they know that pars are a good score,” Wolff said. “But I don’t re-ally like to think of it that way. I like to go out there and do what I feel comfortable with, rip dog and see how it goes from there.”

It’s going so well that Wolff is one round away from becoming the youngest U.S. Open champion since Bobby Jones in 1923.

Maybe he’s too young to real-ize U.S. Open champions are sup-posed to play from the short grass Or maybe Wolff is so dynamic and talented that it doesn’t matter.

Either way, he held a two-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau, another guy with a recipe all his own, who only hit three fairways and managed to hang in there long enough to scratch out a 70 to keep his hopes very much alive.

“The round today was a huge

battle,” said DeChambeau, who was still on the range in darkness Saturday night. “I was proud of the way I persevered out there today. It was difficult. Especially when you’re not hitting it straight in the fairway. For me it felt like I kept myself in it, scrambled really well.”

Whether it was the first cut or the nasty rough, Wolff kept giving those hips one last swivel before blasting away and giving himself birdie chances. He shot 30 on the front nine — and missed a 6-foot birdie putt on No. 8 after hitting his first fairway of the round — and then let so many others fall apart.

Patrick Reed, tied for the lead at the turn, couldn’t find the fairway and paid dearly with a 43 on the back nine. Reed had a three-shot lead after two holes. He walked off the 18th green with a 77 and was eight shots behind.

“Anyone in my position would be frustrated, especially with having the lead going into today,” Reed said. “The great thing is there’s always tomorrow, and like I said, it’s a U.S. Open. Even though eight shots seems like a lot ... you never know.”

Collin Morikawa won the PGA Championship last month in his first try at age 23. Now here comes Wolff, playing his first U.S. Open at age 21. Is he next?

The last U.S. Open champion to win in his debut was Francis Oui-met in 1913. That also was the last time the U.S. Open was played in September.

“I’m probably going to be a little antsy. It’s the U.S. Open, and I have a lead,” Wolff said. “I’m going to try to keep my nerves as calm as they can be. I put myself in a really good spot. I did every-

thing that I could do up until this point, and tomorrow I’m going to go out there, I promise you I’m going to try my best.”

He was at 5-under 205.DeChambeau could easily have

gone the same route as Reed, missing left and right, gouging his way out of the grass. But after opening with two bogeys, he kept scrambling away — 15 straight holes with nothing worse than par. He rallied with two late bird-ies until missing a short par putt on the 18th for a 70.

He will be in the final group for the first time in a major, another quiet affair with no spectators on the course.

The U.S. Open began with 21 players under par. There were six going into the weekend. Now it’s down to three, with Louis Oost-huizen efficiently putting together a 68 to finish at 1-under 209.

Hideki Matsuyama (70), Xan-der Schauffele (70) and Harris English (72) were at even-par 210. Another shot back was Rory McIl-roy, who posted his 68 some three hours before the leaders finished.

“It doesn’t take much around here ... and all of a sudden you’re right in the thick of things,” McIl-roy said. “No matter where I am at the end of the day, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good shot.”

It all depends on Wolff, an NCAA champion at Oklahoma State who won on the PGA Tour in his third event as a pro last summer in the 3M Open in Minnesota.

I feel like I’m ready to win out here and win a major,” Wolff said. “It is a major. It’s really impor-tant and yes, it is really early in my career. But I feel like I have the game to win. Collin won at 23. I’m 21. And I’m not saying that it’s going to happen. But I put myself

in a really good spot, and obvi-ously I’m feeling really good with my game.”

From the first cut of rough on the opening hole, he hit it to the right level of the contoured green for a 15-foot birdie. From the right rough on No. 4, he wound up with another 15-foot birdie putt. And then he really poured it on.

He drove next to the green on the short par-4 sixth, getting up-and-down from a bunker for bird-ie. He holed a 12-foot birdie on the par-3 seventh. He finished the back nine with a two-putt eagle on No. 9 after hitting his last fairway of the round.

His lone bogey came on the 16th when he was in such a bad lie in the rough he couldn’t reach the green. And he finished with a most fortuitous hop. His iron off the tee bounced into the thick rough and hopped back out to the first cut. That set up his shot at green, and Wolff seized on the opportunity.

“If I don’t hit fairways tomor-row, I know I can play well,” Wolff said with a smile.

NHL PLAYOFFS/US OPEN

CHARLES KRUPA/AP

Matthew Wolff, right, bumps fists with his caddie after finishing the third round of the U.S. Open on Saturday in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Scoreboard

NHL scoreboard

BY STEPHEN WHYNO

Associated Press

EDMONTON, Alberta — Dallas Stars players on the bench yelled at their teammates, “Hit ’em!” They did, over and over, the body checks and the shouts easily heard throughout an arena left empty because of the pandemic for this most unusual Stanley Cup Final.

The well-rested Stars came out and hammered the banged-up Tampa Bay Lightning, taking it to them for two periods and relying on goaltender Anton Khudobin to close the door in the third to win 4-1 Saturday night for a 1-0 lead. By the time the talented Light-ning got rolling, it was too late.

“I don’t even know if you need to take a shower after the first two periods,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “They came out, they were skating and I think we probably dipped our toes in the water a little bit and watched them skate around for a bit.”

Game 1 started looking every bit like Dallas had four days off since winning the Western Con-ference final and the Lightning just one after clinching the East. The Stars, who grinded their way through the playoffs with tight-checking toughness, came out hitting, knowing Tampa Bay is not fully healthy.

“They were right on top of us,” said Yanni Gourde, who scored the Lightning’s only goal. “They were on top of us right from the get go, so we’ve got to adjust and do a better job.”

Blake Comeau hit 6-foot-6 Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman on one of the first shifts, and Joel Kiviranta crushed top center Brayden Point into the boards to set up Joel Hanley’s first NHL goal of any kind. De-fenseman Esa Lindell also got into the action early with Point, cross-checking him and leveling him in open ice.

“That’s just the makeup and

identity of our team,” Comeau said. “I think we’re playing our best hockey when we’re engaged emotionally, physically, and get-ting in on the forecheck, pressur-ing their D, and everyone on our team has done a good job. When there’s a chance to finish the hit, you finish the hit.”

Four of the 25 first-period hits by Dallas were on Point, who missed two games in the Eastern Conference final and is visibly playing through pain. No. 2 cen-ter Anthony Cirelli injured his right leg in the sixth game of that series 48 hours before this one started.

Hanley and Jamie Oleksiak continued the Stars’ postseason trend of getting goals from defen-semen, and Kiviranta scored late in the second period to provide some breathing room. Khudobin continued to shine in his first playoffs as the starter, making 35 often spectacular saves.

Khudobin was at his best mak-

ing 22 stops in the third when the Lightning found their legs and outshot Dallas 22-2. He came up big on two penalty kills and strengthened his case for the Conn Smythe Trophy .

“It’s a team sport, I tried to my part, they tried to do that part, and we all communicate there,” Khudobin said. “It’s always great when you see the guys blocking shots and things like that and cleaning front of the net, too.”

There was no rest for weary Tampa Bay, which was a step slow early after failing to close out the New York Islanders in five and needing overtime to move on. The final still would have started two days later as the league tries to speed through the bubble play-offs and award the Stanley Cup, but they would’ve accumulated 73 fewer minutes of wear and tear.

Taking advantage of that was a point of emphasis for the Stars, who took one big first step to try to wear down the Lightning much

like St. Louis did to Boston in thefinal last year. Coach Rick Bow-ness said the Stars “know how wehave to play” to be successful, andthat style seemed to catch TampaBay off guard.

Wolff eschews blueprint, leads entering final round

Stars hammer Lightning in Game 1 Stanley Cup final(Best-of-seven; x-if necessary)

At Edmonton, AlbertaDallas 1, Tampa Bay 0

Saturday: Dallas 4, Tampa Bay 1Monday: Game 2 (AFN-Sports2, 2 a.m.

Tuesday CET; 9 a.m. Tuesday JKT)Wednesday: Game 3Friday, Sept. 25: Game 4x-Saturday, Sept. 26: Game 5x-Monday, Sept. 28: Game 6x-Wednesday, Sept. 30: Game 7

SaturdayStars 4, Lightning 1

Dallas 1 2 1—4Tampa Bay 1 0 0—1

First Period—1, Dallas, Hanley 1(Hintz), 5:40. 2, Tampa Bay, Gourde 6(Goodrow, Coleman), 12:32.

Second Period—3, Dallas, Oleksiak 5 (Heiskanen, Radulov), 12:30. 4, Dallas, Ki-viranta 5 (Lindell, Klingberg), 19:32.

Third Period—5, Dallas, Dickinson 1 (Comeau), 18:42 (en).

Shots on Goal—Dallas 5-13-2—20.Tampa Bay 4-10-22—36.

Power-play opportunities—Dallas 0 of 2; Tampa Bay 0 of 3.

Goalies—Dallas, Khudobin 13-6-0 (36 shots-35 saves). Tampa Bay, Vasilevskiy14-5-1 (19-16).

T—2:21.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 23Monday, September 21, 2020

BY RALPH D. RUSSO

Associated Press

For the second straight week-end, the Big Ten made news with-out playing.

Last week, the conference was in the process of putting together a restart plan for football.

On Saturday, the Big Ten re-leased its schedule 3.0, doing it a little bit at a time on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show. The Big Ten also took up much of the conversation on ESPN’s “College GameDay,“ which had interviews with Michigan coach Jim Har-baugh, Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields and Big Ten Com-missioner Kevin Warren.

Nice flex and a heady play as the Big Ten is about to drop off the radar until its season starts the weekend of Oct. 24.

The Southeastern Conference kicks off next week and the ACC and Big 12 get cranked up, too.

Most notable on the Big Ten’s schedule was how Nebraska will start the season: at Ohio State and home for Wisconsin. Oof!

No Big Ten school made as much of a public fuss over the conference’s initial decision to postpone the season as Nebras-ka. The brutal opening schedule against the conference’s two di-vision winners from last season might have been a coincidence, but it did not go unnoticed.

The Huskers also play Penn State in the fourth game of the season, giving Nebraska easily the toughest cross-division games of any team in the West Division.

Nebraska had both Ohio State and Penn State on its original nine-game, pre-pandemic con-ference schedule, along with Rutgers. The Big Ten used those schedules to set these schedules, dropping one of the three cross-over games for each team.

Athletic director Bill Moos told the Omaha-World Herald that he pushed to rework schedules more thoroughly to provide competi-tive balance. He also suggested having only division games count toward the division race. He said he lost every argument.

“For obvious reasons, I was hoping we could dissemble the schedule because of unique cir-cumstances and rebuild it to be fair for each school in the con-ference,” Moos told the newspa-per Saturday. “I was outspoken on that, to the point where they heard it from me every day. The rationale was there, I didn’t think we needed to follow it. Nebraska is playing five AP preseason Top 25 teams. Ohio State’s playing two.”

Nebraska has lost five straightagainst Ohio State, which has be-came a yearly rivalry since theBig Ten went to an East-West di-vision structure. The Big Ten was hoping to create an annual show-down between two tradition-richprograms, but Nebraska has not held up its end of the deal. Aver-age score: Buckeyes 53, Corn-huskers 19.

Ohio State definitely caught a break with the new schedule. Thecrossover game that came off itsslate was Iowa, leaving the Buck-eyes with Nebraska and Illinois.

Meanwhile, Buckeyes’ rivalMichigan lost Purdue but keptWisconsin and Minnesota as its West games.

AlohaUCF has another Heisman Tro-

phy contender quarterback from Hawaii.

Dillon Gabriel, who ended upwinning the job during last sea-son as a freshman, appears even better this year. Gabriel went to the same high school as team-mate McKenzie Milton, who fin-ished in the Heisman top 10 in 2017 and ’18.

Few quarterbacks are as fear-less throwing deep as Gabriel.Against Georgia Tech, he passedfor 417 yards and four touch-downs, averaging 10 yards anattempt and 15 yards a comple-tion. It was a convincing victoryagainst a Power Five team, if onlya rebuilding P5 squad.

Milton is still hoping to play again after a gruesome leg injury two seasons ago. Just getting on the field would be a miraculous comeback. But make no mistake, Gabriel is the man at UCF and the Knights have a team that couldagain make a case for somethingmore than just an American Ath-letic Conference championshiptrophy.

“You saw what happened last week,” Gabriel said, referring to Georgia Tech’s victory at Florida State. “I guess you can say we’re the best team in Florida.”

Miami might take issue withthat assessment by Gabriel.

The 17th-ranked Hurricanes unleashed their new offense onNo. 18 Louisville and pulled awayfor a victory.

It’s a very different lookingMiami team with transfer quar-terback D’Eriq King running new coordinator Rhett Lashlee’sup-tempo attack. The Canesbroke off back-to-back 75-yard touchdowns in the third quarter,busting a Louisville defense thatwas often out of sorts.

AP Top 25 FaredNo. 1 Clemson (2-0) beat The Citadel

49-0. Next: vs. Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 3.No. 2 Alabama (0-0) did not play. Next:

at Missouri, Saturday.No. 3 Oklahoma (1-0) did not play.

Next: vs. Kansas State, Saturday.No. 4 Georgia (0-0) did not play. Next:

at Arkansas, Saturday.No. 5 Florida (0-0) did not play. Next: at

Mississippi, Saturday.No. 6 LSU (0-0) did not play. Next: vs.

Mississippi State, Saturday.No. 7 Notre Dame (2-0) beat 52-0 USF.

Next: at Wake Forest, Saturday.No. 8 Auburn (0-0) did not play. Next:

vs. No. 23 Kentucky, Saturday.No. 9 Texas (1-0) did not play. Next: at

Texas Tech, Saturday.No. 10 Texas A&M (0-0) did not play.

Next: vs. Vanderbilt, Saturday.No. 11 Oklahoma State (1-0) beat Tulsa

16-7. Next: vs. West Virginia, Saturday.No. 12 North Carolina (1-0) vs. Char-

lotte (Canceled). Next: at Boston Col-lege, Saturday, Oct. 3.

No. 13 Cincinnati (1-0) beat Austin Peay 55-20. Next: vs. No. 22 Army, Satur-day.

No. 14 UCF (1-0) beat Georgia Tech 49-21. Next: at East Carolina, Saturday.

No. 15 Tennessee (0-0) did not play. Next: at South Carolina, Saturday.

No. 16 Memphis (1-0) vs. Houston (postponed). Next: at UTSA, Friday.

No. 17 Miami (FL) (2-0) beat No. 18 Louisville 47-34. Next: vs. Florida State, Saturday.

No. 18 Louisville (1-1) lost to No. 17 Miami 47-34. Next: at No. 25 Pittsburgh, Saturday.

No. 19 Louisiana-Lafayette (2-0) beat Georgia State 34-31, OT. Next: vs Georgia Southern, Saturday.

No. 20 Virginia Tech (0-0) vs. Virginia (postponed). Next: vs. NC State, Satur-day.

No. 21 Brigham Young (1-0) at No. 22 Army (postponed). Next: vs. Troy, Satur-day.

No. 22 Army (2-0) vs. No. 21 BYU (post-poned). Next: at No. 13 Cincinnati, Satur-day.

No. 23 Kentucky (0-0) did not play. Next: at No. 8 Auburn, Saturday.

No. 23 Appalachian State (1-1) lost to Marshall 17-7. Next: vs. Campbell, Satur-day.

No. 25 Pittsburgh (2-0) beat Syracuse 21-10. Next: vs. No. 18 Louisville, Satur-day.

Saturday’s scoresEAST

Marshall 17, Appalachian St. 7Pittsburgh 21, Syracuse 10

SOUTHBoston College 26, Duke 6Clemson 49, The Citadel 0Liberty 30, W. Kentucky 24Louisiana Tech 31, Southern Miss. 30Louisiana-Lafayette 34, Georgia St. 31,

OTMiami 47, Louisville 34NC State 45, Wake Forest 42Navy 27, Tulane 24Texas State 38, Louisiana-Monroe 17Troy 47, Middle Tennessee 14UCF 49, Georgia Tech 21

MIDWESTCincinnati 55, Austin Peay 20Notre Dame 52, South Florida 0

SOUTHWESTOklahoma St. 16, Tulsa 7SMU 65, North Texas 35UTEP 17, Abilene Christian 13UTSA 24, Stephen F. Austin 10

BY BRETT MARTEL

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Cameron Kinley’s interception near his own goal line kept Navy’s 24-point hole from getting deeper and set the stage for previously benched quarterback Dalen Morris to win back his job by helping the Mid-shipmen stage a historic rally.

Jamale Carothers rushed for 125 yards, Bijan Nichols kicked a 33-yard field goal as time ex-pired, and Navy beat Tulane 27-24 for the largest comeback in school history on Saturday.

“I don’t have much to say other than, ‘Wow.’ A testament to the young men at the United States Naval Academy,” Midshipmen coach Ken Niumatalolo contin-ued. “These guys are going to protect us, serve our country. These are the type of young men that you have, that will not quit.”

Navy (1-1, 1-0 American), which lost its opener 55-3 to BYU, ran just two plays in Green Wave ter-ritory in the first half and looked in danger of being blown out again late in the second quarter.

“That first half looked like third half of the BYU game,” Niu-matalolo said. “We couldn’t stop them and we couldn’t move the ball an inch.”

Tulane (1-1, 0-1) was threaten-ing to build on a 24-0 lead before Kinley intercepted Green Wave quarterback Keon Howard at the Navy 3. The turnover looked far more consequential as the game wore on and the Midshipmen stunningly seized control in the second half, when they outgained Tulane 291 yards to 82.

The interception was “the play of the game,” Niumatalolo said. “It just gave us some life.”

In the last seven minutes of the third quarter, Navy scored 16 points on two short Nelson Smith touchdowns and a safety. The

Midshipmen tied it on Morris’ 32-yard touchdown pass to Mychal Cooper, followed by a 2-point conversion, early in the fourth quarter.

The Green Wave looked primed to regain the lead with about five minutes left, but elected to throw a deep pass, which fell incom-plete, on fourth-and-3 from the Navy 32.

“Obviously, we’d like to have it back,” said coach Willie Fritz, who endured his team’s collapse in his first game since Tulane announced his seven-year exten-sion, not to mention the first Tu-lane game broadcast on ABC in 40 years.

Navy kept the ball from there, driving in rainy conditions to the Green Wave 16 before Nich-ols, who kicked a game-winner against Tulane last season, did it again.

“I was thinking about the game last year,” Nichols said. “That’s the most fun you can have as a kicker in football. It’s really nice to be able to contribute at the end like that and I like the pressure on me.”

Morris passed 11 times, com-pleting six for 139 yards and a touchdown. His 44-yard pass to Mark Walker set up the Midship-men’s first TD with 6:43 left in the third quarter.

Seeking a spark on offense after its lopsided loss a week earlier, Navy had benched Morris and started freshman Xavier Arline at quarterback.

But he struggled to move the Midshipmen offense against the Green Wave. He did not attempt a pass and rushed seven times for 13 yards before being replaced by Morris in the first half.

“Being in that second game, knowing, this is your shot, I think I just played looser,” Morris said. “I got back to being myself.”

SCOTT THREKELD, THE TIMES-PICAYUNE/AP

Navy kicker Bijan Nichols (43) is congratulated after making the game-winning field goal in a 27-24 defeat of Tulane Saturday in New Orleans.

Scoreboard

Huskers get toughdraw; UCF has aHeisman hopeful

Top 25 takeaways

Navy’s record rally takes down Tulane

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