CONTINGENCY EDITION S ,A In the shadow of conflict

Volume 79 Edition 248B ©SS 2021 CONTINGENCY EDITION SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2021 Free to Deployed Areas

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At the center of Kabul, a city of traditional ba-

zaars and tattered shopping malls, horse-

drawn carts and crumbling streets thronged

with automobile traffic, lies a heavily fortified

district that is a mystery to most Afghans.

What was once a cluster of key offices and

compounds has evolved into a 21st-century for-

tress encircled by blast walls, checkpoints and

security cameras, creating what for many is an

impenetrable urban void known as the Green

Zone.

Fortifications expanded rapidly after the

start of the war in 2001. The Green Zone be-

came an obstacle to ordinary urban life, caus-

ing a daily traffic nightmare that radiates

throughout this sprawling city of more than 4

million people. In Kabul, it is felt as an alien

presence, a source of deep resentment — and

an indelible legacy of two decades of U.S. mil-

itary intervention.

Above: Commuters walk near the heavily fortified Central Bank of Afghanistan.

LORENZO TUGNOLI/For The Washington Post

In the shadowof conflict

Decades of war have reshaped Afghan capital, and life in itBY PHILIP KENNICOTT

AND SUSANNAH GEORGE

The Washington Post

SEE CONFLICT ON PAGE 4

WASHINGTON — Soon after the

9/11 attacks, disease researchers at the

Department of Veterans Affairs began

internal discussions on how to prepare

for the war-related illnesses they knew

would follow, agency officials told

McClatchy.

“There were lots of conversations

about ‘we don’t know what to expect,

but we expect there to be consequenc-

es’” for the service members who

would deploy overseas in response to

the 2001 attacks, Victoria Davey, an

epidemiologist and associate chief re-

search officer at the VA, told

McClatchy in an exclusive interview.

“We expected there to be hazardous

exposures,” she said.

The VA was trying to be proactive,

after a general feeling among the re-

searchers that it had not been ready to

address toxic-exposure illnesses that

VA expected illnesses as result of toxic exposures in Iraq, Afghanistan wars

BY TARA COPP

McClatchy Washington Bureau

SEE TOXIC ON PAGE 3

MUSIC

Nostalgia drivingrenewed interestin cassette tapes4

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 4, 2021

BUSINESS/WEATHER

NEW YORK — Stocks rose in

many of the markets worldwide

that were open on Good Friday,

while Treasury yields rallied after

a report showed U.S. employers

added hundreds of thousands

more jobs last month than econo-

mists expected.

The U.S. bond market closed

early after an holiday-shortened

session that saw the yield on the

10-year Treasury climb to 1.72%

from 1.68% late Thursday. It’s

been rising sharply this year on

expectations that a supercharged

economic recovery and higher in-

flation are on the way due to CO-

VID-19 vaccinations and massive

spending by the U.S. government.

The yield began the year close to

0.90%.

In Asia, stocks in Tokyo, Seoul

and Shanghai all rose a day after

the S&P 500 passed the 4,000-

point level for the first time. Many

major stock markets were closed

in observance of Good Friday, in-

cluding in New York and much of

Europe.

Futures for U.S. stock indexes

rose, suggesting the S&P 500 may

add to its record when trading re-

sumes on Monday.

Friday morning’s U.S. jobs re-

port was highly anticipated, and

investors hoped it would show

their expectations for a strong ec-

onomic recovery were warranted.

Hiring blew past expectations,

with employers adding 916,000

more jobs than they cut last

month.

Economists had forecast

growth of 617,500.

Global stocks rise while Treasury yields rallyAssociated Press

Bahrain72/69

Baghdad76/49

Doha81/68

Kuwait City78/59

Riyadh79/57

Kandahar91/57

Kabul56/48

Djibouti90/76

SUNDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

57/39

Ramstein50/32

Stuttgart49/33

Lajes,Azores61/58

Rota63/50

Morón74/50 Sigonella

62/46

Naples60/52

Aviano/Vicenza54/43

Pápa49/37

Souda Bay68/56

Brussels47/35

Zagan45/32

DrawskoPomorskie

47/28

SUNDAY IN EUROPE

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Guam82/79

Tokyo63/56

Okinawa68/65

Sasebo56/54

Iwakuni58/50

Seoul58/42

Osan58/37

Busan56/43

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

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

MONDAY IN THE PACIFIC

WEATHER OUTLOOK

TODAYIN STRIPES

American Roundup ...... 11Comics .........................15Crossword ................... 15Food ............................ 12Movies ......................... 13Opinion ........................ 17Sports .................... 18-24

Military rates

Euro costs (April 5) $1.15Dollar buys (April 5) 0.8292 British pound (April 5) $1.34Japanese yen (April 5) 108.00South Korean won (April 5) 1099.00

Commercial rates

Bahrain(Dinar) 0.3772Britain (Pound) 1.3830 Canada (Dollar) 1.2561China(Yuan) 6.5646Denmark (Krone) 6.3211 Egypt (Pound) 15.7168Euro 0.8498Hong Kong (Dollar) 7.7765 Hungary (Forint) 307.31Israel (Shekel) 3.3290 Japan (Yen) 110.67 Kuwait(Dinar) 0.3023

Norway (Krone) 8.5345

Philippines (Peso) 48.54Poland (Zloty) 3.91Saudi Arabia (Riyal) 3.7512Singapore (Dollar) 1.3447

South Korea (Won) 1128.67Switzerland (Franc) 0.9416Thailand (Baht) 31.29Turkey (NewLira) 8.1078

(Military exchange rates are those availableto customers at military banking facilities in thecountry 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 withyour local military banking facility. Commercialrates are interbank rates provided for referencewhen buying currency. All figures are foreigncurrencies to one dollar, except for the Britishpound, which is represented in dollarstopound, and the euro, which is dollarstoeuro.)

INTEREST RATES

Prime rate 3.25Interest Rates Discount �rate 0.75Federal funds market rate �0.093month bill 0.0230year bond 2.34

EXCHANGE RATES

Sunday, April 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3

A disaster at sea that killed nine

Marines and a Navy sailor last

summer will face more scrutiny

after the release of the service’s

investigative findings, with Con-

gress taking interest and families

involved pressing the Marine

Corps for answers.

The service members, all be-

tween 18 and 23 years old, died af-

ter a 35-year-old armored vehicle

meant to carry Marines from ship

to shore sank to the ocean floor off

the coast of California on July 30.

A Marine Corps investigation re-

leased last week found that the sit-

uation was preventable, with

shoddy maintenance, a lack of

safety boats, insufficient training

and complacency all playing a

role.

Marine Corps officials and staff

members in the House discussed

the matter this week, said Rep.

John Garamendi, D-Calif., the

chairman of the House Armed

Services Committee’s subcom-

mittee on readiness. What they

shared, coupled with the details in

the investigation, made clear to

him that the service has a “sys-

temic, cultural safety problem”

that also includes fatal vehicle rol-

lovers and aircraft collisions in

training over the last few years, he

said.

“It cuts across the entire Corps,

it is outrageous, it is deadly, and it

has to change,” Garamendi said in

an interview.

The congressman said that

committee members will be

briefed by Marine Corps officials

about its safety issues next week,

and that he will seek participation

from Gen. David H. Berger, the

service’s commandant, at an open

hearing in May.

“I will invite the commandant to

testify about the culture of safety

— or, rather, the lack of a safety

culture in the Marine Corps, and

demand answers to how the Ma-

rine Corps plans to deal with this,”

Garamendi said.

The recent disasters include a

2018 collision between an F/A-18

jet and a KC-130 plane off the coast

of Japan that killed six Marines

and a 2016 accident in which two

CH-53E helicopters crashed into

each other off the coast of Hawaii,

killing 12.

In both cases, training problems

were exposed. In the Japan case,

an initial service investigation

blamed the fighter jet pilot for be-

ing unqualified, but a second in-

vestigation overturned the results

and said there were systemic

problems in his squadron that se-

nior Marine officers had over-

looked.

Senior service officials have ac-

knowledged mistakes in the disas-

ter and taken steps to discipline

several officers. Among them is

Col. Christopher Bronzi, who was

removed last week as commander

of the 15th Marine Expeditionary

Unit after deploying with the unit

last fall despite the mishap.

Before the deployment, the Ma-

rine Corps removed Lt. Col. Mi-

chael Regner, the commander of

1st Battalion, 4th Marines, an in-

fantry unit that oversaw the ser-

vice members who were killed,

and a more junior company com-

mander who reported to Regner

and Bronzi.

USMC under more scrutiny after deathsBY DAN LAMOTHE

The Washington Post

CURTIS KHO, U.S. NAVY/AP

Undersea Rescue Command deploys the Sibitzky Remotely OperatedVehicle, on Aug. 3 in the recover the bodies of nine people killedwhen a Marine landing craft sank in hundreds of feet of water off theSouthern California coast.

troops developed after previous

conflicts, Davey said.

“I think our major, major im-

pulse was — not another Viet-

nam,” Davey said. “To not follow

these people and to look forward

and to expect consequences of

service in the deployed environ-

ment.”

So the VA started tracking ser-

vice members as military oper-

ations began in Afghanistan and

eventually Iraq following the Sept.

11, 2001, attacks.

“We have had eyes on these

populations, we have been collect-

ing data since the conflicts be-

gan,” said Davey, who has been

with the VA since before 9/11.

“I think the first features that

we saw coming back were what

was called the ‘Iraqi lung,’ the re-

spiratory problems,” Davey said.

“It’s complicated because it’s a

sandstorm environment and in ad-

dition there’s just a lot of smoke,

dust, solvent exposure in the mil-

itary occupation of many kinds,

and then we had these chemical,

biological weapons worries going

on.”

The revelation that the VA was

concerned that some veterans

would return home with illnesses,

and that it has been collecting data

on those service members since

the Iraq and Afghanistan wars be-

gan, deeply angered veterans who

have spent years trying to con-

vince the agency their illnesses

were linked to their service over-

seas.

Many of them have spent the

last two decades being told by the

VA that there was no known con-

nection yet between their over-

seas deployments and their ail-

ments, which has resulted in their

claims for medical care or com-

pensation being denied.

“This is an insult to know that

the VA started planning for toxic

exposure shortly after the planes

hit the Twin Towers,” said retired

Army Capt. Le Roy Torres, a re-

servist who deployed to Balad,

Iraq, from 2007 to 2008 and now

relies on supplemental oxygen to

breathe. He had daily exposure to

the military’s football field-sized

open air trash burning pit at the

base.

“It’s been over a decade for

those deployed to Iraq, and the on-

ly conversations I have witnessed

[with the VA] are regarding how

we do not have enough science,”

Torres said.

Both Davey and chief VA re-

search officer Rachel Ramoni

said the agency’s focus now is two-

pronged: to identify what made

the veterans ill and to improve

their health situation now.

“Whether or not you know the

reason for the symptoms doesn’t

mean we can’t treat them,” Davey

said.

As the 20th anniversary of the 9/

11 attacks approaches, there’s

been a growing momentum on

Capitol Hill to provide remedy for

veterans who became ill after

serving overseas.

Some breathed air contaminat-

ed with ash and metal particulates

from hundreds of burn pits across

Afghanistan and Iraq, where the

military incinerated human feces,

ammunition, plastics and other

toxins in massive fire trenches.

Some deployed to toxic bases

such as Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbe-

kistan, known as “K2.” A

McClatchy investigation on K2

first exposed that “black goo”

emerged from soil that was con-

taminated with radiation, chem-

ical weapons and jet fuel.

“I’m hoping this will be the year

of toxic exposure, at least the re-

medies to it, because I think we’ve

reached a sort of critical mass of

understanding and perhaps politi-

cal support, a feeling that we have

a moral imperative as well as a po-

litical reckoning here” to care for

those veterans, Sen. Richard Blu-

menthal, D-Conn., told McClatchy

in an interview.

It has become a generational is-

sue, with some of the ill veterans

fighting for change witnessing

their younger family members

serving in the military and facing

the same toxins.

Retired Army Staff Sgt. Mark

Jackson was 26 when he first de-

ployed to K2 in 2003. He spent lat-

er deployments in Iraq and at Ba-

gram Air Base in Afghanistan.

He’s a cancer survivor who has re-

cently undergone a series of tests

to determine if cancer or some-

thing else is causing a severe deg-

radation of his bone density.

“I remember the first time I ran

around it and it was around dusk.

And I remember people had told

me how big the burn pit was, but I

didn’t really prepare myself,”

Jackson said of the Bagram burn

pit. “It just looked like rivers of

fire. Just this molten mass and of

course this oily smoke rising up

out of it.”

Jackson now has a son-in-law

who is in the military and who re-

cently returned from a deploy-

ment to Bagram.

“My son-in-law described it the

same way. He described the ash

that falls like snow but sticks to

your skin, and the smell that you

first taste, then feel in your lungs.

And he’s 24,” Jackson said.

“I hope by the time he retires in

20 years that we’re not still talking

about this, although I do hope that

I am around to talk about some-

thing,” Jackson said.

Blumenthal and several other

lawmakers have introduced legis-

lation this year to improve care for

ill veterans who served at toxic

bases overseas. A rally on Capitol

Hill is planned for April 13 with

comedian Jon Stewart, who previ-

ously championed providing

health care for firefighters and

first responders exposed to toxins

at the site of the collapsed World

Trade Center. He is now pressur-

ing Congress and the VA to make

it easier for post-9/11 veterans to

receive health care benefits for ill-

nesses related to toxic exposure.

For some, it’s too late.

“I just lost my son, and I don’t

want any more sons to be taken

away,” Ludy Gilkison, mother of

Marine Corps Sgt. Mark S. Villa-

mac Ho, said through tears over

the phone.

Ho had served as a firefighter in

Iraq, where he was exposed to

cancer-linked PFAS chemical

compounds in the military’s fire-

fighting foam and to burn pits.

Ho’s battle with multiple myelo-

ma after he was diagnosed at age

38 was featured in McClatchy’s

2019 series “Stricken,” which re-

ported skyrocketing rates of can-

cer treatments at VA hospitals.

“I got cancer because of my ser-

vice in the military,” Ho told

McClatchy in 2019. “There could

be hundreds, thousands of veter-

ans behind me getting cancer.”

Late last year, doctors found

more tumors in Ho’s lungs and

spine, Gilkison said. He had com-

pleted another round of radiation

therapy when he contracted CO-

VID-19. He was hospitalized and

died Dec. 27 at age 41.

“If not for his cancer Mark

could have really fought the CO-

VID because Mark was so strong,”

his mother said.

Ho had frequently helped other

veterans navigate VA health care.

He also advocated for the govern-

ment to recognize how many of

them were sick from toxic expo-

sure.

He told Gilkison before he died

that she had to keep being his

voice, she said.

“I know he’s not going to be at

peace until this thing is fixed,” she

said.

Toxic: Veterans, families share pain caused by burn pits overseasFROM PAGE 1

MILITARY


If Afghanistan had enjoyed po-

litical and civil stability over the

past century, central and southern

Kabul would be on every tourist’s

itinerary, incorporating neighbor-

hoods of elegant villas and tree-

lined streets, a grand boulevard

serviced by a narrow-gauge rail

line and the ancient city along the

Kabul River, with courtyard

homes decorated with elaborately

carved wooden screens.

Instead, ordinary Afghans see a

bristling phalanx of T-walls that

turn the city’s streets into canyons

of concrete.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-

journalist Lorenzo Tugnoli photo-

graphed the streets and neighbor-

hoods near the Green Zone over

the past several months. His pho-

tos trace a route around the en-

clave — which houses embassies,

dignitaries and international orga-

nizations — and south to the palace

where Afghanistan’s last kings

hoped a parliament would preside

over a Western-leaning, modern

country.

■ ■ ■

Massoud Square is named for

Ahmad Shah Massoud, a powerful

mujahideen leader who fought

against the Soviet occupation and

later against the Taliban. His as-

sassination on Sept. 9, 2001, pres-

aged the al-Qaida attacks two days

later in New York and Washing-

ton, an ominous overture to nearly

20 years of anxiety, war, occupa-

tion and insecurity.

A column honoring Massoud

sits near the U.S. Embassy in a

traffic circle that serves as a vital

connection from Airport Road to

the city center.

To the south of the square, the

old road is now blocked. After the

sun rises, traffic snarls at this key

nodal point of city life.

■ ■ ■

Today, urban life is improvised

in the shadow of blast walls. Along

the perimeter of the Wazir Akbar

Khan neighborhood, concrete in-

trusions take over sidewalks, ren-

dering pedestrian life chaotic.

Outside the Green Zone, shop-

keepers set up business wherever

they can find space.

Public space becomes alien and

disorienting, said Ajmal Maiwan-

di, head of the Afghanistan office

of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

“It is a stressful thing to be out in

the city, because there is no clear

path, no clear way, through the

town,” Maiwandi said.

■ ■ ■

The T-wall — a blast-proof, rein-

forced concrete barrier that looks

like an inverted “T” — defended

domestic compounds. The T-wall

has updated the urban pattern of

medieval Afghanistan for a neigh-

borhood of 21st-century outsiders.

In May 2017, a massive truck

bomb exploded near this site, out-

side the German Embassy. More

than 90 people were killed, and

hundreds were injured.

Afghans responded with pro-

tests against the government’s in-

ability to secure the city, while the

Afghan government responded by

expanding the Green Zone that de-

fends foreigners. T-walls prolifer-

ated.

■ ■ ■

Commerce still clusters around

Malik Asghar Square. On one side

of the security barriers there is a

frenetic world of street vendors, a

popular shopping mall and a

checkpoint giving access to the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and

the executive palace.

On the other side is a world of

parks, palaces and gardens.

“You would love walking in the

city before these walls,” said 64-

year-old Nik Mohammad Sangar,

who has spent almost his entire life

in Kabul. “You could walk by the

palace without being stopped by

checkpoints.”

“I really miss old Kabul,” he

said.

Ahmad, a 29-year-old taxi driv-

er who because of security con-

cerns spoke on the condition that

only his first name be used, said

the ever-expanding fortifications

have made his work more difficult.

“We have to spend an hour and a

half to drive a one-hour distance,”

he said. “The traffic jams mean we

lose financially.”

■ ■ ■

In August 2016, militants blew a

hole into a defensive wall around

American University of Afghanis-

tan. Gunmen entered through the

breach and killed 13 people, in-

cluding seven students and a pro-

fessor. The university responded

by erecting blast walls and guard

towers and consolidating students

and staffers on campus, according

to Scott Brant, the university’s vice

president for operations and ad-

ministration.

“We don’t want any of this,”

Brant said. “We want what you

have generally around the world,

where people can come and go as

they please, a nice, permissive en-

vironment, but it is just not feasi-

ble.”

Behind the security walls is a

modern campus of contemporary

academic buildings. But the stu-

dents, who are mostly Afghans,

live in two worlds — the safety

bubble of the university and the

country outside, where carrying

anything that links them to the uni-

versity, or the American presence,

can put them in danger of attack by

militants.

They make the best of the secu-

rity measures, said Victoria Fon-

tan, vice president of academic af-

fairs at the university, “because

they know that this architectural

safety is also an illustration of the

freedom they have to think and in-

teract together.”

■ ■ ■

The main campus of American

University faces Darul Aman Bou-

levard, created in the 1920s by the

reform-minded King Amanullah

Khan I. Just as the British created

New Delhi apart from the old city a

decade earlier, Amanullah Khan

dreamed of a new capital removed

from the cluttered, densely pop-

ulated core of old Kabul.

Darul Aman Palace was one of

several buildings finished before

civil war forced the king into exile

in 1929.

Reduced to ruins by fighting be-

tween rival mujahideen factions in

the 1990s, it haunted the city as an

empty shell before a three-year

restoration was finished in 2019.

It has been incorporated into an-

other security zone that includes

the new Afghan parliament build-

ing. But the palace and its grounds

remain mostly unused.

■ ■ ■

Pashtunistan Square was the

site of a major Taliban attack in

2010. Traffic once flowed around

its distinctive, multitiered circular

fountain. Today, the roundabout is

clogged with taxis waiting for pas-

sengers, and its blast walls have

become billboards for public ser-

vice announcements.

“I can see you! You who takes a

bribe is a nonbeliever,” reads one

billboard lining a wall that serves

as a cordon for the presidential

palace, the Justice Ministry and

the Central Bank.

“These walls have done no good

for the security of the city,” said

Farhad, who is one of many bever-

age sellers in Pashtunistan Square

and who spoke on the condition

that only his first name be used, out

of fear for his safety. “Instead they

cause inconvenience to the ordi-

nary people.”

The ministries and office build-

ings that ring Pashtunistan Square

have been the target of attacks

over the years, including the Aria-

na Cinema. The Taliban shuttered

the theater while in power, and af-

ter it reopened it was struck by a

suicide bomber in 2010.

■ ■ ■

The heart of old Kabul was a

warren of houses and markets

along the Kabul River. The Old

City lies just outside the Green

Zone, but ongoing security mea-

sures have put it mostly off limits

to the diplomats and Western

workers who live in the security

bubble.

The Old City is home to a large

Shiite population, and its Abu Fazl

Mosque was the site of a terrorist

attack in December 2011 that

killed dozens of Shiite worshipers.

Since the Americans arrived, the

capital has grown enormously,

with about 2 million new residents

in the past 10 years, according to

Sasaki, an international architec-

ture and urban planning firm

hired by the Afghan government

to create a new city plan for Kabul.

While the population growth has

been rapid, the Old City is also a re-

minder of the relatively short span

of the American presence in Kabul

—just under 20 years, in a city that

has lasted centuries.

The Sasaki plan imagines a ma-

jor transformation of the Green

Zone, pictured here to the right of

the Kabul River, and Darul Aman

Boulevard if the city's rapid, un-

regulated growth can be chan-

neled and directed — and if stabil-

ity prevails.

■ ■ ■

Less than a mile from where

Massoud Square is Abdul Haq

Square. Massoud and Abdul Haq

were commanders of the anti-Tali-

ban Northern Alliance, which

came close to creating a diverse,

multiethnic unifying force in parts

of Afghanistan.

But that was more than 20 years

ago, and the monuments to both

men will be a discordant reminder

of a distant past if the Taliban,

which is in peace talks with the Af-

ghan government, plays a major

role in the next stage of Kabul's ur-

ban evolution.

■ ■ ■

The Soviet presence in the 1980s

brought almost a decade of suffer-

ing and instability to Afghanistan,

but it also left behind a legacy of

hospitals, schools and housing, in-

cluding this development, known

as Macroyan, near the Green

Zone.

They may look bleak, but these

boxy, mass-produced towers are

popular places to live, in part be-

cause they form self-contained,

relatively defensible neighbor-

hoods.

The neighborhood boasts one of

the few housing developments in

Kabul serviced with central heat-

ing.

The formal American presence

in Kabul may be drawing to a

close, and the U.S. legacy remains

tenuous. The Soviet occupation is

not remembered fondly, but it left

behind some public services. The

United States invested in the Af-

ghan government, but even the

form of governance could change

drastically in the Afghan peace

talks — leaving only the remains of

its security architecture in cities

such as Kabul.

Conflict: City streetshave transformed intocanyons of concreteFROM PAGE 1

LORENZO TUGNOLI/For The Washington Post

A man walks near the American Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan's Massoud square.

WAR ON TERRORSM


PHOTOS BY LORENZO TUGNOLI/For The Washington Post

People walk near Darul Aman Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, in February 2021.

Concrete blast walls have been built on both sides of this entrance to Massoud square in Kabul.

Abdul Haq square is on the northeastern side of the Green Zone and is the main access point from the city center to the road to Jalalabad and the east of the country.

A street vendor works near Malik Azghar Square in Kabul.

WAR ON TERRORISM


NATION

WASHINGTON — A Capitol

Police officer has died after a man

rammed a car into two officers at a

barricade outside the U.S. Capitol

and then emerged wielding a

knife. It was the second line-of-du-

ty death this year for a department

still struggling to heal from the

Jan. 6 insurrection.

Video shows the driver of the

crashed car emerging with a knife

in his hand and starting to run at

the pair of officers, Capitol Police

Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman

told reporters Friday. Authorities

shot the suspect, who died at a hos-

pital.

“I just ask that the public contin-

ue to keep U.S. Capitol Police and

their families in your prayers,”

Pittman said. “This has been an

extremely difficult time for U.S.

Capitol Police after the events of

Jan. 6 and now the events that

have occurred here today.”

Police identified the slain offi-

cer as William “Billy” Evans, an

18-year veteran who was a mem-

ber of the department’s first re-

sponders unit.

Two law enforcement officials

told The Associated Press that in-

vestigators initially believed the

suspect stabbed one of the offi-

cers, but it was later unclear

whether the knife actually made

contact, in part because the vehi-

cle struck the officers with such

force. The officials were not au-

thorized to publicly discuss the in-

vestigation and spoke on condition

of anonymity.

Authorities said there wasn’t an

ongoing threat, though the Capitol

was put on lockdown for a time as

a precaution. There was also no

immediate connection apparent

between Friday’s crash and the

Jan. 6 riot.

Law enforcement officials iden-

tified the suspect as 25-year-old

Noah Green. Investigators were

digging into his background and

examining whether he had any

mental health history as they tried

to discern a motive. They were al-

so working to obtain warrants to

access his online accounts.

Pittman said the suspect did not

appear to have been on the police’s

radar. But the attack underscored

that the building and campus —

and the officers charged with pro-

tecting them — remain potential

targets for violence.

Green described himself as a

follower of the Nation of Islam and

its founder, Louis Farrakhan, and

spoke of going through a difficult

time where he leaned on his faith,

according to recent messages

posted online that have since been

taken down. The messages were

captured by the group SITE,

which tracks online activity.

“To be honest these past few

years have been tough, and these

past few months have been tough-

er,” he wrote. “I have been tried

with some of the biggest, unimag-

inable tests in my life. I am cur-

rently now unemployed after I left

my job partly due to afflictions,

but ultimately, in search of a spiri-

tual journey.”

President Joe Biden said in a

statement that he and his wife

were heartbroken to learn of the

attack and expressed condolences

to Evans’ family. He directed flags

at the White House to be lowered

to half staff.

The crash and shooting hap-

pened at a security checkpoint

near the Capitol typically used by

senators and staff on weekdays,

though most were away from the

building for the current recess.

The attack occurred about 100

yardsfrom the entrance of the

building on the Senate side. One

witness, the Rev. Patrick Maho-

ney, said he was finishing a Good

Friday service nearby when he

heard three shots ring out.

The Washington region re-

mains on edge nearly three

months after a mob of insurrec-

tionists loyal to former President

Donald Trump stormed the Capi-

tol as Congress was voting to certi-

fy Biden’s presidential win.

Five people died in the Jan. 6

riot, including Capitol Police offi-

cer Brian Sicknick, who was

among a badly outnumbered force

trying to fight off the intruders

seeking to overturn the election.

Authorities installed a tall perim-

eter fence around the Capitol and

for months restricted traffic along

the roads closest to the building,

but they had begun pulling back

some of the emergency measures.

Fencing that prevented vehicular

traffic near that area was only re-

cently removed.

“Today, once again, these he-

roes risked their lives to protect

our Capitol and our country, with

the same extraordinary selfless-

ness and spirit of service seen on

January 6,” House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi said in a statement. “On be-

half of the entire House, we are

profoundly grateful.”

The Capitol complex was

placed on lockdown for a time af-

ter Friday’s shooting, and staffers

were told they could not enter or

exit buildings.

Capitol officer, driver dead after attackAssociated Press

ALEX BRANDON/AP

Authorities investigate at the scene after a man rammed a car into two officers at the barricade on CapitolHill in Washington, on Friday.

President Joe Biden under-

scored U.S. support for Ukraine

on Friday in his first call to that

country’s leader following re-

ports of Russian troop move-

ments on its eastern border.

Biden in his conversation with

Ukrainian President Volodymyr

Zelenskiy affirmed “unwavering

support for Ukraine’s sovereignty

and territorial integrity in the

face of Russia’s ongoing aggres-

sion,” according to a statement

from the White House.

The United States and Ukraine

say Russia is escalating tensions

in eastern Ukraine, where Rus-

sia-backed separatists have been

fighting Ukrainian forces since

2014. Russia denies having a mil-

itary presence there.

The Pentagon this week ac-

cused Russia of violating a 2020

ceasefire, including in a March

26 clash that killed four Ukrai-

nian soldiers. Ukraine’s military

blamed a Russian mortar attack.

Zelenskiy said in a tweet after

the call that Ukraine and the

United States “stand shoulder to

shoulder when it comes to pres-

ervation of our democracies.” He

called the partnership with

Americans “crucial” for Ukrai-

nians.

Biden also stressed his com-

mitment to revitalizing the two

countries’ strategic partnership,

and supporting efforts by Zelen-

skiy to fight corruption and pro-

mote democratic reforms, the

White House said.

Zelenskiy and Biden also dis-

cussed cooperation in strengthen-

ing democracy in Eastern Europe

and containing the COVID-19

pandemic, the White House said.

Biden affirms supportin 1st call to Ukraine

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane

Delta, which made landfall about

11 miles from where the devas-

tating Hurricane Laura hit a lit-

tle more than a month earlier,

cost $2.9 billion in the United

States and was linked to six

deaths in the U.S. and Mexico,

according to a report from the

National Hurricane Center.

The report released Tuesday

details the hurricane’s origins,

trajectory and things such as

wind speed and storm surge

when it made landfall in south-

western Louisiana.

The Center releases similar re-

ports on every named storm that

hits during a season. The reports

on some of the 2020 season’s

most devastating hurricanes —

including Laura, Iota and Zeta —

have yet to be published.

In the United States, two peo-

ple died as a direct result of Delta

— a 19-year-old woman and a 49-

year-old man who both drowned

in rip currents near Destin, Fla.,

— and there were two indirect

deaths associated with electrocu-

tions and fires. In Mexico, there

were two indirect deaths — an

electrocution and a fall — linked

to the hurricane.

The Center classifies deaths as

direct or indirect. Direct deaths

are those considered directly

tied to the storm such as drown-

ing in storm surge or being in a

house that collapses from wind.

Someone who dies of a heart at-

tack during a storm or is electro-

cuted by a downed power line,

for example, is considered an in-

direct death.

The hurricane came ashore as

a Category 2 storm with winds of

97 miles per hour and produced a

storm surge that got up to nine

feet in some areas east of where

it made landfall near Creole, the

report said. While Laura’s earli-

er damage came through devas-

tating winds, Delta produced

huge rain totals in some areas

particularly between Lake Char-

les and Alexandria. Nearly 18

inches of rain fell in LeBleu Set-

tlement northeast of Lake Char-

les, the report said.

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane

season set multiple records while

producing a record 30 named

storms. There were so many that

the list of 21 conventional names

was exhausted and the Greek al-

phabet was used for only the sec-

ond time. The season also saw the

second-highest number of hurri-

canes on record after 13 of the

storms reached hurricane status.

Hurricane Delta caused $2.9B indamage when it slammed South

Associated Press


NATION

ATLANTA — Liberal activists

are stepping up calls for corporate

America to denounce Republican

efforts to tighten state voting laws,

and businesses accustomed to co-

zy political relationships now find

themselves in the middle of a

growing partisan fight over voting

rights.

Pressure is mounting on leading

companies in Texas, Arizona and

other states, particularly after

Major League Baseball’s decision

Friday to move the 2021 All-Star

game out of Atlanta. The move

came a week after Georgia Re-

publicans enacted an overhaul of

the state’s election law that critics

argue is an attempt to suppress

Democratic votes.

Other companies have, some-

what belatedly, joined the chorus

of critics.

Delta Air Lines and The Coca-

Cola Co., two of Georgia’s best-

known brands, this past week

called the new law “unaccept-

able,” although they had a hand in

writing it. That only angered Re-

publicans, including Georgia Gov.

Brian Kemp and several U.S. sen-

ators, who accused the companies

of cowering from unwarranted at-

tacks from the left.

The fight has thrust corporate

America into a place it often tries

to avoid — the center of a partisan

political fight. But under threat of

boycott and bad publicity, busi-

ness leaders are showing a new

willingness to enter the fray on an

issue not directly related to their

bottom line, even if it means alien-

ating Republican allies.

“We want to hold corporations

accountable for how they show up

when voting rights are under at-

tack,” said Marc Banks, an

NAACP spokesman. “Corpora-

tions have a part to play, because

when they do show up and speak,

people listen.”

Civil rights groups have sued to

block the new Georgia law, which

was passed after Democrats

flipped the once-reliably Republi-

can state in an election that Do-

nald Trump falsely claimed was

rife with fraud. Some activists

have called for consumer boycotts

of Delta, Coca-Cola and others.

They dismiss business leaders’ as-

sertions that they helped water

down the bill to ease earlier, more

restrictive proposals; those lead-

ers, they argue, should have tried

to block the plan altogether.

In Texas, the NAACP, League of

Women Voters and League of

United Latin American Citizens,

among other organizations, are

urging corporations in the state to

speak out against a slate of Repub-

lican-backed voting proposals.

“Democracy is good for busi-

ness,” the campaign says.

Unlike their Georgia-based

counterparts, American Airlines

and Dell Technologies didn’t wait

for the Texas measure to pass. “To

make American’s stance clear:

We are strongly opposed to this

bill and others like it,” American

said in a statement.

Firms pressuredto denounceGOP voting bills

BY BILL BARROW

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The political

peril for conservative Republican

Rep. Matt Gaetz deepened Friday

as the often outlandish, Trump-

styled provocateur appeared po-

litically isolated amid a federal

sex-trafficking investigation.

Few Republicans rushed to of-

fer any kind of support to the

three-term Florida congressman

known for espousing high-volume

attacks — sometimes against

those in his own party — during

his frequent media appearances.

Several GOP lawmakers and top

aides who requested anonymity to

discuss the sensitive situation said

Gaetz’s prospects for remaining in

Congress were bleak and were

complicated in particular by his

unpopularity among colleagues in

his own party.

Federal prosecutors are exam-

ining whether Gaetz and a politi-

cal ally who is facing sex traffick-

ing allegations may have paid un-

derage girls or offered them gifts

in exchange for sex, two people fa-

miliar with the matter told The As-

sociated Press on Friday.

The scrutiny of Gaetz stemmed

from the Justice Department’s

probe into the political ally, Joel

Greenberg, the people said.

Greenberg, a former Florida tax

collector, was indicted last year

and is accused of a number of fed-

eral crimes. He has pleaded not

guilty.

Republican congressional lead-

ers have largely been silent about

the investigation, which contin-

ues.

That reflected the serious na-

ture of the charges in a story that

seems to add new elements by the

day, giving lawmakers little moti-

vation to attach themselves to

Gaetz.

In one potentially ominous sign,

Gaetz spokesman Luke Ball has

resigned, according to one Repub-

lican who was not authorized to

speak publicly on the matter and

spoke on condition of anonymity.

Part of the investigation is ex-

amining whether Gaetz, 38, had

sex with a 17-year-old and other

underage girls and violated feder-

al sex trafficking laws, the people

familiar with the probe told the

AP. Federal agents suspect

Greenberg may have enticed the

girls and then introduced some of

them to Gaetz, and they are exam-

ining whether both men may have

had sex with the same girls, the

people said.

Few in GOP rush to defend Gaetzamid sex trafficking investigation

Associated Press

HOUSE TELEVISION/AP

Rep. Matt Gaetz, RFla., speaks as the House reconvenes, Jan. 6, todebate the objection to confirm the Electoral College vote fromArizona, after protesters stormed into the U.S. Capitol.

MINNEAPOLIS — Kneeling on

George Floyd’s neck while he was

handcuffed and lying on his stom-

ach was top-tier, deadly force and

“totally unnecessary,” the head of

the Minneapolis Police Depart-

ment’s homicide division testified

Friday.

“If your knee is on a person’s

neck, that can kill him,” said Lt.

Richard Zimmerman, adding that

when a person is handcuffed be-

hind their back, “your muscles

are pulling back ... and if you’re

laying on your chest, that’s con-

stricting your breathing even

more.”

Zimmerman, who said he is the

most senior person on the police

force, also testified at Derek

Chauvin’s murder trial that once

Floyd was handcuffed, he saw “no

reason for why the officers felt

they were in danger — if that’s

what they felt — and that’s what

they would have to feel to be able

to use that kind of force.”

“So in your opinion, should that

restraint have stopped once he

was handcuffed and thrown on the

ground?” prosecutor Matthew

Frank asked.

“Absolutely,” replied Zimmer-

man, who said he has received

use-of-force training annually —

as all officers do — since joining

the city force in 1985.

He said he has never been

trained to kneel on someone’s

neck if they’re handcuffed behind

their back and in the prone posi-

tion.

“Once you secure or handcuff a

person, you need to get them out of

the prone position as soon as pos-

sible because it restricts their

breathing,” Zimmerman said,

adding “you need to turn them on

their side or have them sit up.”

He also testified that officers

have a duty to provide care for a

person in distress, even if an am-

bulance has been called.

Officers kept restraining Floyd

— with Chauvin kneeling on his

neck, another kneeling on Floyd’s

back and a third holding his feet —

until the ambulance arrived, even

after he became unresponsive.

One officer asked twice if they

should roll Floyd on his side to aid

his breathing, and later said calm-

ly that he thought Floyd was pass-

ing out. Another checked Floyd’s

wrist for a pulse and said he

couldn’t find one.

The officers also rebuffed of-

fers of help from an off-duty Min-

neapolis firefighter who wanted to

administer aid or tell officers how

to do it.

COURT TV, POOL/AP

Witness Lt. Richard Zimmerman of the Minneapolis Police Department testifies, Friday, at the HennepinCounty Courthouse in Minneapolis, Minn.

Lieutenant: Kneeling on Floyd’sneck was ‘totally unnecessary’

Associated Press


President Joe Biden on Friday

lifted sanctions that Donald

Trump had imposed on two top

officials of the International

Criminal Court, undoing one of

the past administration’s more

aggressive moves targeting inter-

national institutions and officials.

Secretary of State Antony Blin-

ken in a statement stressed that

the United States still strongly

disagreed with some actions by

the court, which is a standing

body based at The Hague in the

Netherlands charged with hand-

ling genocide, crimes against hu-

manity and war crimes. The Unit-

ed States is not one of the about

120 member countries of the

court.

“We believe, however, that our

concerns about these cases would

be better addressed” through di-

plomacy “rather than through the

imposition of sanctions,” Blinken

wrote.

The removal of the sanctions

was the latest signal that the Bi-

den administration is intent on

returning to the multilateral fold.

The Trump administration had

unapologetically removed the

United States from numerous in-

ternational institutions and

agreements and harshly criti-

cized others, including the ICC,

deeming them flawed and work-

ing against American interests.

Since Biden took office, his ad-

ministration has rejoined the

World Health Organization, re-

engaged with the U.N. Human

Rights Council, returned to the

Paris climate accord and on Fri-

day started talks aimed at return-

ing to the Iran nuclear deal.

Trump had pulled out of all five.

The court was created to hold

accountable perpetrators of war

crimes and crimes against hu-

manity in cases where adequate

judicial systems were not availa-

ble. The U.S. has not joined the

ICC, which began operations in

2002 after enough countries rat-

ified the treaty that created it, be-

cause of concerns the court might

be used for politically motivated

prosecutions of American troops

and officials.

Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi,

president of the court’s manage-

ment body of member states, said

the U.S. removal of sanctions was

helpful in promoting “a rules-

based international order.” She

noted the court and its managing

states are currently studying the

tribunal’s procedures to improve

its work providing accountability

in the worst crimes of interna-

tional concern.

Rights groups on Friday ap-

plauded Biden for throwing out

Trump’s sanctions — Amnesty

International called those an “act

of vandalism” against interna-

tional justice — but called for Bi-

den to go further, by supporting

the court’s work and making the

United States a member country.

The U.S. sanctions had target-

ed ICC chief prosecutor Fatou

Bensouda and the court’s head of

jurisdiction, Phakiso Mochocho-

ko, for pressing ahead with inves-

tigations into the United States

and its allies, notably Israel, for

alleged war crimes. Two sets of

sanctions were imposed, the first

being a travel ban on Bensouda in

March 2019, and then 18 months

later a freeze on any assets she

and Mochochoko may have in the

United States or U.S. jurisdic-

tions. The second round also

made giving the pair “material

support” a potentially sanctiona-

ble offense.

Both sets of sanctions had been

roundly denounced by the ICC it-

self as well as a number of court

members and human rights

groups. When former Secretary

of State Mike Pompeo imposed

the financial penalties in Septem-

ber 2020, he attacked the court as

“a thoroughly broken and corrupt

institution” and said “we will not

tolerate its illegitimate attempts

to subject Americans to its juris-

diction.”

U.S. presidents since Bill Clin-

ton have expressed deep reserva-

tions about the court, although

some, including President Ba-

rack Obama, agreed to limited

cooperation with it.

The Trump administration,

however, was openly hostile to

the tribunal and lashed out at

Bensouda and others for pursu-

ing prosecutions of Americans

for actions in Afghanistan and Is-

raelis for actions against the Pal-

estinians. Israel is not a member

of the ICC and, along with the

U.S., rejects Palestinian mem-

bership because it is not a state.

Blinken said the United States

sees accountability for atrocities

as a national security interest,

and pointed to U.S. support for

other, often temporary, tribunals

globally.

Biden removes

sanctions from

2 ICC officials Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Soon-to-be

newlyweds lined up out the door

of the marriage license office in

Las Vegas on Friday, ahead of a

unique date to tie the knot: 4/3/21.

Nearly 700 couples obtained li-

censes for the Saturday date, said

Jeff Klein, a spokesman for the

Clark County Marriage Bureau,

as the city where Elvis can be part

of the wedding party got set to

mark yet another quirky date for

nuptials. The clerk’s office

marked the occasion with keep-

sake marriage certificates.

“Specialty dates like 4/3/21 are

always immensely popular,” said

county Clerk Lynn Goya, who

noted that more than 1,800 cou-

ples were married on Dec. 13,

2014.

April is usually busy for wed-

dings, and past dates with notable

numeric sequences have tallied

more than 1,000 weddings in a

day, Goya said.

The office is bracing for a busy

first 10 days this December, offer-

ing what the clerk dubs “palin-

drome days” for numbers reading

the same forward and backward.

Nearly 2,700 couples married

on 10/10/10; more than 1,800 tied

the knot on 12/12/12; and 3,125

were wed on 11/11/11.

The most popular date to date?

Goya said 7/7/7 took the cake,

with 4,492 marriages.

JOHN LOCHER/AP

Couples wait in line for marriage licenses at the Marriage License Bureau in Las Vegas Friday. The bureauwas seeing busier than normal traffic ahead of 4/3/21, a popular day to get married in Las Vegas.

Unusual date draws linesfor Vegas marriage licenses

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A newlywed

husband and wife who expressed

interest in fighting for the Islamic

State were arrested Thursday at a

port near New York City as they

attempted to board a cargo ship

that an undercover law enforce-

ment officer said would take them

to Yemen, prosecutors said.

James Bradley, 20, and Arwa

Muthana, 29, were taken into cus-

tody on the gangplank at Port Ne-

wark — Elizabeth Marine Termi-

nal in New Jersey, prosecutors

said. They were charged in feder-

al court in Manhattan with at-

tempting and conspiring to pro-

vide material support to a desig-

nated foreign terrorist organiza-

tion.

Bradley and Muthana made an

initial court appearance Thursday

and were ordered jailed without

bail. Messages seeking comment

were left with their lawyers.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Au-

drey Strauss said in a statement

that the couple’s “plans to wage at-

tacks against the United States

have been thwarted.”

Bradley, of the Bronx, ex-

pressed support for ISIS and

spoke of his desire to join the

group overseas in recorded con-

versations over the course of near-

ly a year with an undercover en-

forcement officer, prosecutors

said. Bradley also spoke to the un-

dercover officer who led him to

the ship about potentially attack-

ing the United States Military A-

cademy at West Point, N.Y. , pros-

ecutors said.

A complaint outlining the

charges against Bradley and

Muthana does not mention the de-

fendants discussing their inten-

tions with ISIS or others beyond

the two undercover law enforce-

ment officers.

Bradley sought transit to the

Middle East by cargo ship be-

cause he feared he might have

been on a terrorist watch list, pros-

ecutors said.

In 2019, Bradley planned to

travel to Afghanistan to join the

Taliban and attack American sol-

diers but changed his mind be-

cause of ideological differences

with the person he was supposed

to travel with, a person who was

subsequently arrested, prosecu-

tors said, citing an FBI interview

at the time.

Muthana, of Alabama, also ex-

pressed support for ISIS and dis-

cussed with Bradley plans to trav-

el together to the Middle East to

fight on behalf of the group, prose-

cutors said. After her arrest, she

waived her right to remain silent

and said she was willing to fight

and kill Americans, prosecutors

said.

Muthana and Bradley were

married in January.

Feds: Newlyweds tried to travel by cargo ship to join Islamic State

Associated Press

NATION


VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

NEW YORK — Add travel to the

activities vaccinated Americans

can safely enjoy again, according

to new U.S. guidance issued Fri-

day.

The Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention updated its guid-

ance to say fully vaccinated peo-

ple can travel within the U.S. with-

out getting tested for the coronavi-

rus or going into quarantine after-

ward.

Still, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle

Walensky urged caution and said

she would “advocate against gen-

eral travel overall” given the ris-

ing number of infections.

“If you are vaccinated, it is low-

er risk,” she said.

According to the CDC, more

than 100 million people in the U.S.

— or about 30% of the population

— have received at least one dose

of a COVID-19 vaccine. A person

is considered fully vaccinated two

weeks after receiving the last re-

quired dose.

The agency has said it would up-

date its guidance on allowed activ-

ities for vaccinated people as

more people get the shots and evi-

dence mounts about the protec-

tion they provide.

CaliforniaSACRAMENTO — Sports, thea-

ter and music fans will be able to

take their seats again in California

as the state’s coronavirus cases

plummet and vaccinations jump.

After a year-long ban on most

indoor seating, the state Friday set

the stage for a literal stage-setting

that could see resumption of NBA

games and live entertainment

performances in most counties

beginning April 15.

Most of the state’s 58 counties

will be permitted to allow at least

some indoor seating because they

fall into the lower three levels of

California’s four-tiered COVID-19

restriction plan. Big population

centers like San Francisco, Santa

Clara County and Los Angeles

County are in the second-least re-

strictive orange tier. Only three

counties — San Joaquin, Merced

and Inyo — remain in the highest

purple tier, indicating “wide-

spread” COVID-19 risk.

The others will be permitted

some indoor seating “with capac-

ity limits and modifications in-

cluding physical distancing, ad-

vance ticket purchases, designat-

ed areas for eating and drinking,

and attendance limited to in-state

visitors,” according to a state pub-

lic health announcement.

In the red tier, venues of up to

1,500 people can operate at 10% ca-

pacity and grow to 25% if all guests

provide evidence of vaccination or

a negative test. Venues of 1,501

people or more can operate at 20%

capacity in the red tier, but guests

must show proof of vaccination or

anegative test. Capacity increases

for tiers where the virus is less

OregonLAKE OSWEGO — Firefight-

ers in Lake Oswego weren’t pre-

pared for the crowds that greeted

them when they returned from a

vaccine clinic in Molalla with doz-

ens of extra COVID-19 vaccine

doses.

Word had gotten out on social

media that 130 extra doses needed

to be used before they expired and

firefighters found a line several

blocks long when they returned to

the station on Wednesday night,

The Oregonian/OregonLive

reported Friday.

Staff administered all the doses

and finished the final shot some-

time around 10:30 p.m. after work-

ing 12-hours shifts.

Officials maintained a formal

wait list of people looking for shots

but officials say the excess doses

easily exceeded the names on the

list, said Gert Zoutendijk, the fire

marshal and department spokes-

woman.

The long line of hopeful vaccine

recipients took the department by

surprise, she said.

The initial news of the extra dos-

es came from a nurse who texted a

friend. At some point, someone

put it on Facebook as the word

spread. In the end, many had to be

turned away and the department

received 300 voicemails asking

about the doses.

ColoradoDENVER — Colorado will no

longer require masks to be worn

in most settings in the 31 counties

that are on the lowest level of the

state’s COVID-19 dial system,

Gov. Jared Polis’ office an-

nounced Friday.

In the counties at Level Green,

masks will only be required in

schools, among congregate care

visitors and in other high-risk set-

tings such as health care facilities

and hair salons, The Denver Post

reported.

“Every community has been

impacted differently by this pan-

demic, and we want to ensure this

order is reflective of that,” Polis

said.

Colorado has 64 counties.

The new 30-day order, which

takes effect Sunday, will still re-

quire masks to be worn indoors in

counties at Level Blue and higher

when there are public gatherings

of at least 10 unvaccinated people

or people with an unknown vacci-

nation status.

The order does not mention re-

quiring proof of vaccination and

puts much of the enforcement on

business owners and operators.

IowaDES MOINES — Iowa corona-

virus-related hospitalizations in-

creased to over 200 again Friday

as the state reported another 616

confirmed cases with much of the

increase due to infections of young

people.

The Iowa Department of Public

Health reported 204 people hospi-

talized with COVID-19 with 40

people admitted in the previous 24

hours, both increases over the day

before. The state listed an addi-

tional eight deaths, bringing the

total to 5,751 deaths.

Data shows young adults are a

significant segment of those test-

ing positive, as 27% of the positive

cases reported in the past seven

days are aged 18 to 29.

The data shows positive case

were trending lower and flattened

but began increasing March 21.

Iowa has the nation’s seventh-

highest COVID-19 case rate with

11,125 cases per 100,000, accord-

ing to U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention data. The

state has the 16th highest CO-

VID-19 death rate in the nation

with 182 deaths per 100,000.

Iowa has 621,545 people fully

vaccinated, or 19.7% of the popula-

tion, which ranks eighth in the na-

tion, the CDC said.

KansasMISSION — Kansas counties

already had started dropping or

weakening mask rules before law-

makers toppled Gov. Laura Kel-

ly’s newly reissued order requir-

ing them — and more are expect-

ed to follow suit even as variants

first detected in South Africa and

the United Kingdom have been

found in the state.

The order, which was similar to

one passed in November, was al-

ways porous, allowing the state’s

105 counties to set their own pos-

sibly less restrictive rules or opt

out of the order entirely.

Kelly, a Democrat, was re-

quired to reissue it Thursday un-

der a new Kansas law, which also

gives eight top legislators the pow-

er to reject her efforts to set rules

to address the pandemic. The law-

makers took just hours to overturn

it on a party-line vote, leaving

counties that hadn’t set their own

rules without mask requirements.

Even before the vote, a growing

number of counties had started

dropping mask requirements,

Kimberly Qualls, a spokeswoman

for the Kansas Association of

Counties, said Friday. The num-

ber opting out rose from 42 in No-

vember to 51 in mid-February,

Qualls said. Several have taken ac-

tion since then, although exact

numbers aren’t available.

KentuckyLOUISVILLE — Kentucky’s

COVID-19 test positivity rate has

risen to almost 3.1% after declin-

ing steadily for several days, Gov.

Andy Beshear reported Friday.

This development comes after

the Democratic governor urged

Kentuckians to continue to follow

public health guidelines that slow

the spread of the virus, even as

vaccines become more widely

available.

“This thing is still dangerous.

It’s still killing people, and it still is

going to continue to kill people un-

til we stop it,” Beshear said Mon-

day at a virtual press briefing. “If

we want to avoid another rise in

cases here in Kentucky, and we

can do that, we’ve just got to keep

it up.”

The test positivity rate is an in-

dicator of the extent of the spread

of the virus. If the rate is less than

5% for two weeks and testing is

widespread, the virus is consid-

ered under control, according to

the World Health Organization.

Kentucky reported 690 con-

firmed coronavirus cases and

three virus-related deaths Friday.

Some 393 Kentuckians are cur-

rently hospitalized with CO-

VID-19.

Starting Monday, residents 16

and older will become eligible for

COVID-19 vaccine.

OklahomaOKLAHOMA CITY — Nearly a

third of Oklahomans have re-

ceived at least one coronavirus

vaccination, data from the federal

Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention showed on Friday.

More than 1.26 million people in

the state have received at least one

dose, according to the CDC data,

about 32% of the state’s nearly 4

million residents. More than

753,000 people have completed

their vaccinations.

The total number of doses given

has topped 2 million, according to

deputy state health Commissioner

Keith Reed.

“This is another significant

milestone for all Oklahomans, and

we thank those who have stepped

up and done their part to protect

the lives and health of our commu-

nities across the state,” Reed said.

The state had the 22nd highest

percentage of the population re-

ceiving at least one dose, accord-

ing to data from Johns Hopkins

University.

The rolling average of new Ok-

lahoma coronavirus cases de-

clined during the past two weeks

from 447.3 per day to 324.7, ac-

cording to the Johns Hopkins da-

ta, a decrease of 27.4%.

Totals of 439,149 cases and

7,932 deaths since the pandemic

began were reported.

CDC: People fullyvaccinated cantravel safely again

DAMIAN DOVARGANES/AP

Fashion designer Josie Vand wears a facemask as she retrieves a bag with organic vegetables from a farmbox from County Line Harvest in Los Angeles on Friday. California has been easing COVID19 restrictionsas it recovers from a deadly winter surge.

Associated Press


WORLD

YANGON, Myanmar — Securi-

ty forces in central Myanmar

opened fire on anti-coup protes-

ters on Saturday, killing at least

two people according to local

media. A human rights group said

mounting violence since the Feb. 1

military takeover has killed at

least 550 civilians.

Of those, 46 were children, ac-

cording to Myanmar’s Assistance

Association for Political Prison-

ers. Some 2,751 people have been

detained or sentenced, the group

said.

Threats of lethal violence and

arrests of protesters have failed to

suppress daily demonstrations

across Myanmar demanding the

military step down and reinstate

the democratically elected gov-

ernment. The coup reversed years

of slow progress toward democra-

cy in the Southeast Asian country.

Government forces fired at

demonstrators in central Myan-

mar on Saturday, killing at least

two people, the Myanmar Now

news service reported. One video

posted on social media showed a

group of protesters carrying away

a young man with what appeared

to be a serious head wound, as

gunfire sounded. His condition

wasn’t immediately known.

At least seven people were in-

jured in the shooting, two of whom

sustained severe wounds and

were taken into custody by sol-

diers, Myanmar Now said, citing a

member of a local rescue team.

Late Friday, armed plainclothes

police took five people into custo-

dy after they spoke with a CNN re-

porter in a market in Yangon, the

country’s largest city, local media

reported citing witnesses. The ar-

rests occurred in three separate

incidents.

Two women reportedly shouted

for help as they were being arrest-

ed, Myanmar Now reported. One

police officer, who was carrying a

gun, asked if “anyone dared to

help them,” a witness told the

news service.

“They pointed their pistols at

everyone — at passersby and at

people in the store,” a witness said

of two police officers, who forcibly

took away two other women in the

market.

After weeks of overnight cutoffs

of internet access, Myanmar’s

military on Friday shut all links

apart from those using fiber optic

cable, which was working at dras-

tically reduced speeds. Access to

mobile networks and all wireless

— the less costly options used by

most people in the developing

country — remained blocked on

Saturday.

Myanmar languished for five

decades under strict military rule,

which led to international isola-

tion and sanctions. As the generals

loosened their grip, culminating in

Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leader-

ship in the 2015 elections, the in-

ternational community responded

by lifting most sanctions and pour-

ing investment into the country.

Myanmar deathtoll mounts amiddaily protests

AP

Anticoup protesters march with homemade air rifles during a protest in Yangon, Myanmar, Saturday.Threats of lethal violence and arrests of protesters have failed to suppress daily demonstrations acrossMyanmar demanding the military step down and reinstate the democratically elected government.

Associated Press

HUALIEN COUNTY, Taiwan

— Prosecutors in Taiwan on Sat-

urday sought an arrest warrant for

the owner of an unmanned truck

that rolled onto a train track and

caused the country’s worst rail di-

saster in decades, killing 50 people

and injuring 178.

The train was carrying 494 peo-

ple at the start of a long holiday

weekend on Friday when it

smashed into the construction

truck, the Taiwan Railways Ad-

ministration said. The truck’s

emergency brake was not proper-

ly engaged, according to the gov-

ernment’s disaster relief center.

The crash occurred just before

the train entered a tunnel, and

many passengers were crushed

inside the mangled train carriag-

es. With much of the train stuck in-

side the tunnel, some survivors

were forced to climb out of win-

dows and walk along the train’s

roof to safety.

Authorities initially reported 51

deaths but revised the count down

by one on Saturday. Among those

killed was a U.S. citizen. Another

U.S. citizen who was on the train

was reported missing, according

to a statement by Taiwan’s For-

eign Ministry.

Yu Hsiu-duan, chief prosecutor

in eastern Hualien County where

the train derailed, said they were

seeking an arrest warrant for the

truck’s owner, who was ques-

tioned along with several others.

She didn’t offer details citing an

ongoing investigation.

The Hualien district court al-

lowed the truck owner to post bail

of $17,516but he must stay in the

county and avoid contact with any

witnesses, Taiwan’s Central News

Agency reported.

President Tsai Ing-wen visited

hospitals near the crash instead of

the site itself so as not to interfere

with rescue work, her spokesper-

son said.

“This heartbreaking accident

caused many injuries and deaths.

Icame to Hualien today to visit the

injured and express my condo-

lences to the deceased passengers’

families,” Tsai said. “We will sure-

ly help them in the aftermath.”

The National Fire Service said

the dead included the train’s

young, newly married driver and

the assistant driver. The govern-

ment’s disaster response center

said it was the worst rail disaster

since a train caught fire in 1948 in

suburban Taipei, killing 64 peo-

ple.

Taiwan prosecutors seekarrest in deadly train crash

Associated Press

CHIANG YINGYING/AP

The families of the victims of a Friday train crash react as they mournnear Taroko Gorge in Hualien, Taiwan, on Saturday.

MOGADISHU, Somalia —

Simultaneous large explosions

were heard in and around two

Somali army bases on Satur-

day, with the military con-

firming at least nine of its

people killed but asserting

“heavy losses” among the at-

tackers. The al-Shabab extre-

mist group claimed respon-

sibility.

Residents said the attacks

occurred in Bariirre and

Awdhegleh villages of Lower

Shabelle region, 46 miles

south of the capital, Mogad-

ishu.

Speaking to local media,

Gen. Odawa Yusuf Ragheh,

the commander of the Somali

National Army, confirmed the

twin attacks but said al-Sha-

bab had been repulsed with

“heavy losses” among the ex-

tremists.

“They even left some of the

bodies of their slain com-

manders,” he added, saying

his forces were still chasing

the fleeing fighters.

Gen. Mohamed Tahlil Bihi,

the commander of the infan-

try forces of the government,

told The Associated Press

that “we lost nine of our sol-

diers and 11 others got

wounded from our side.”

He added, “from the Sha-

bab, we killed 60 of their mi-

litias on one spot and 17 oth-

ers near the other base,” he

said.

An al-Shabab spokesman,

Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Musab,

asserted that the group had

killed 47 government fighters.

In a statement read out on the

extremists’ radio Andalus, he

said the simultaneous attacks

began with suicide car

bombs.

There have been fears that

the al-Qaida-linked group

would be emboldened by So-

malia’s current political crisis

as President Mohamed Abdul-

lahi Mohamed is under pres-

sure to step aside. Elections

meant for February have

been delayed.

Mogadishu on Saturday wit-

nessed the opening of a meet-

ing between the federal gov-

ernment leaders, including

the president, and the leaders

of the five federal member

states.

They were expected to dis-

cuss the way forward.

Al-Shabab targets 2Somali army bases

Associated Press


AMERICAN ROUNDUP

Morgue workers stealcredit cards from dead

NY NEW YORK — The FBI

arrested two former city

employees accused of stealing bank

cards from dead bodies taken to

New York City’s mortuary and

racking up thousands of dollars in

charges.

Former mortuary technicians

Willie Garcon and Charles McFad-

gen were charged with access de-

vice fraud after using the cards for a

long list of unauthorized purchases,

prosecutors said.

The FBI said Garcon, 50, of

Brooklyn used credit and debit

cards from four dead people to

make nearly $6,500 in purchases,

including a flight from Newark,

N.J., to Florida. He also bought an

air conditioner and paid a parking

ticket, authorities said.

McFadgen, 66, of the Bronx,

made more than $13,500 in unau-

thorized purchases using bank

cards stolen from five dead people,

authorities said.

City law restricting plasticutensils takes effect

HI HONOLULU — Under a

new law, Honolulu food

vendors won’t be allowed to provide

customers with plastic utensils.

Acity ordinanceprohibits plastic

forks, knives, spoons, straws, stir

sticks, picks and sushi grass, the Ho-

nolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The rules were originally due to

kick in on Jan. 1, but were postponed

for 90 days because of the hardship

they would place on businesses dur-

ing the pandemic and to allow for

more public education.

Honolulu vendors may provide

disposable utensils, but only if they

do not contain plastic derived from

petroleum.

Wildlife officials looking forkiller of bald eagle

TN TIPTONVILLE— Wild-

life officials are offering

a $10,000 reward in their investiga-

tion into the killing of a bald eagle in

West Tennessee.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-

vice and the Tennessee Wildlife Re-

sources Agency are seeking the

public’s help as they work to figure

out who shot and killed a mature

bald eagle in Lake County.

The bird was shot on Club House

Road on March 20.

Patrol car hit in incidentwith 2 drunk drivers

WI RACINE — Authorities

said a suspected drunk

driver crashed into a Wisconsin

State Patrol car as officers were re-

moving two young children from

another vehicle whose driver was

pulled over on suspicion of operat-

ing while intoxicated.

The children were not hurt. The

driver and one law enforcement of-

ficer at the scene suffered minor in-

juries, according to the Racine

County Sheriff’s Office.

The crash was captured on video.

It showed a vehicle driving straight

into the squad car, despite police

blocking off two southbound lanes

of Interstate 41/94 to remove the

children, the Journal Sentinel re-

ported.

The driver who caused the crash,

a Milwaukee man, 25, was arrested

on suspicion of multiple offenses,

including OWI causing injury.

Drugs and paraphernalia were lo-

cated inside his vehicle, authorities

said.

2nd suspect in equipmenttheft ring pleads guilty

RI PROVIDENCE — One of

nine people charged in

connection with the thefts of exca-

vators, boats, personal watercraft,

all-terrain vehicles, and trailers

worth a total of $700,000 from deal-

ers in four New England states

pleaded guilty, federal prosecutors

said.

Jared Santiago, 28, of Providen-

ce, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to

commit interstate transportation of

stolen property and interstate

transportation of stolen property,

according to a statement from the

U.S. attorney’s office in Rhode Is-

land. Sentencing is scheduled for

May 21.

The group stole three Bobcat ex-

cavators, 10 personal watercraft,

four boats, eight all-terrain vehi-

cles, and 10 trailers between No-

vember 2019 and July 2020 from

businesses in South Kingstown and

Tiverton, R.I.; Auburn, Rehoboth,

and Easton, Mass.; Waterford, Ver-

non, and Stafford, Conn.; and

Hampstead, N.H., prosecutors said.

Santiago is the second of nine peo-

ple indicted to plead guilty. The rest,

including the alleged ringleader of

the group, are awaiting trial.

Vandal smashes dozens ofwindows in church

CA ANTIOCH — Dozens of

windows and doors in a

San Francisco Bay Area church

were smashed by a vandal who was

caught on surveillance video.

Police in Antioch in the East Bay

were investigating after the attack

at Cornerstone Christian Center.

Steve Miner, the senior pastor,

told KTVU-TV that 36 windows and

doors were damaged.

However, Miner said an outdoor

Easter service already planned will

go on.

Parents feel for bear tryingto corral her cubs

CT WINCHESTER — A

mother bear caught on

video trying to coax four rambunc-

tious cubs across a busy Connecti-

cut road has parents across the in-

ternet nodding in sympathy.

Hundreds of people responded to

a4-minute video of the bear’s strug-

gles on the Winchester Police De-

partment’s Facebook page. Other

videos of the bears also circulated

online.

The video shows the bear trying

several times to get the cubs safely

across Rowley Street, which has a

posted speed limit of 40 mph, as a

police cruiser blocks traffic.

The mother bear would pick up

one cub with her mouth and carry it

to a grassy area, only to have anoth-

er scamper back into the road.

Police thanked motorists for be-

ing patient and keeping the bears

safe, using the video as a warning to

drivers.

State lawmakers vote tonix pro-Confederacy song

MD ANNAPOLIS — Ma-

ryland lawmakers

gave final passageto repeal the state

song, a Civil War-era call to arms for

the Confederacy against “Northern

scum” that refers to President

Abraham Lincoln as a despot.

The vote by Maryland’s House of

Delegates comes after decades of

debate over the song titled “Mary-

land, My Maryland.” It sends the

measure to Republican Gov. Larry

Hogan.

The song, set to the traditional

seasonal tune of “O, Tannenbaum,”

was written as a poem in 1861 by

James Ryder Randall. It was adopt-

ed as the state song in 1939. Mary-

land lawmakers have tried to re-

place it since 1974.

Previous attempts to change it

have stalled over disagreements

about finding a replacement. This

time, sponsors avoided that debate

by repealing it without a replace-

ment.

Bi-state tolls to increasefor 1st time in 10 years

PA YARDLEY — The bi-

state agency that oper-

ates river crossings connecting

New Jersey and Pennsylvania an-

nounced that it will raise tolls next

month and again in 2024, the first

such increases in 10 years.

The Delaware River Joint Toll

Bridge Commission cited the de-

cline in passenger car traffic and toll

revenue caused by the coronavirus

pandemic, along with the burden of

maintaining 13 toll “free” bridges

with revenue from its toll bridges.

Similar to other toll agencies, the

commission saw traffic and reve-

nue fall off as travel restrictions

were put in place and more resi-

dents worked from home. The com-

mission’s net toll revenue for 2020

was $14.48 million less than had

been projected in a traffic engineer-

ing report, officials said.

DELCIA LOPEZ, THE (MCALLEN, TEXAS) MONITOR/AP

Six mounted patrol agents demonstrate a ceremonial riding pattern as the City of Pharr, Texas, police complete mounted training with U.S.Border Patrol in a first for the Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg, Texas. The agents went through a fourweek mounted training session with thefederal agency’s horse patrol.

Riding in the Rio Grande Valley

THE CENSUS

$337K The approximate amount, in back wages and penal-ties, a tomato grower in Maine must pay after a De-

partment of Labor investigation revealed that the employer failed to complywith federal laws for wages and working conditions. According to the MorningSentinel, federal laws allow agricultural workers to utilize nonimmigrant in-ternational workers when there is an expected shortage of domestic workersbut investigators found that Backyard Farms LLC in Madison instead dismis-sed domestic workers to make room for foreign workers and also paid domesticworkers lower wages than it paid foreign workers.

From The Associated Press


FOOD

With restaurants and bars all

closed due to pandemic

restrictions, a Duesseldorf

brewery found itself with

6,000 liters of its copper-colored “Alt-

bier” unsold and nearing its expiry date.

But with trying times come novel solu-

tions. Fuechschen Brewery paired up

with craft bakers already using leftover

grains from the brewing process to pro-

duce loaves of “Treberbrot,” or “Spent

Grain Bread.”

“It would have been such a shame to

just toss out such a tasty beer,” said Peter

Koenig, whose family has run the brew-

ery since 1908.

“Then we came up with this idea to

bake the bread with the beer, to leave out

the water,” he said Tuesday. “I think it’s

great that these two craft industries have

come together like this.”

About a dozen bakeries have been pro-

ducing the Treberbrot since the start of

last week, giving the added bonus of a

bottle of Fuechschen’s Altbier, a regional

specialty, for free with each loaf.

“It’s a very hearty, tasty bread with a

crispy baked crust and a soft middle,”

said baker Janika Derksen, whose family

runs Coelven bakery.

She said that word of the bread, which

her bakery sells for 3.95 euros ($4.65) a

loaf including the bottle of Altbier, has

spread rapidly.

“We’ve had queries from all across

Germany if we can send it by mail, which

we gladly do,” she said.

Customer Michael Maassen dropped

by last week to pick up a loaf for himself

— and the bottle of Altbier — after hear-

ing about the promotion from social

media.

“It’s a great campaign; solidarity with

one another is more important now than

it ever has been,” said the 48-year-old

soldier.

“I hope it tastes like Fuechschen!”

Beer sales in Germany have been hurt

by lockdown measures that have kept

restaurants and bars shut since the begin-

ning of November, except for takeouts.

That’s a problem particularly for Ger-

many’s many small brewers, like Fuech-

schen, which often rely heavily on selling

draft beer that they can’t shift at the mo-

ment.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL NIEMANN/AP

Bread that was baked with beer from the historic Fuechschen brewery is displayed at the Coelven bakery March 23 in Duesseldorf, Germany. The brewery is now working withabout 12 bakeries producing the grain bread and giving a bottle of Fuechschen’s Altbier free of charge with every loaf.

Beer barrels are stacked in the historic Fuechschen brewery March 23 in Duesseldorf,Germany, with about 6,000 liters of its renowned coppercolored “Altbier” unsold andnearing its expiry date. The brewery now works with craft bakers who use the beer tomake bread, with about 12 bakeries producing the grain bread.

“It would have been such a shame to just toss out such a tasty beer.”

Peter Koenig

Fuechschen Brewery

Waste notGerman brewery pairs with bakers to use surplus beer

BY DANIEL NIEMANN

Associated Press


They’re the first thing in a movie and they’re packed with information, but we

rarely know much about them.

Opening credit sequences can give us a sense of tone, subject and themes.

They can essentially teach us how to watch a film, like the Polaroid photo

that “undevelops” in the backward “Memento,” the spoken credits in the

book-burning drama “Fahrenheit 451” or the stately “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” se-

quence that forces us to scan the shifting screen for minute details. They also can in-

troduce a cast of characters, as in the opening of “Murder by Death.”

If you’re a fan of credits, a dangerous place to visit is the Art of the Title website (art

ofthetitle.com). Its writers collect and analyze credits — for TV as well as movies. If you

have a favorite, you will probably find it there, then spend hours checking out dozens of

others (they also pick an annual top 10).

My favorites simply want to get us vibing with the movie, like Richard Avedon’s styl-

ish credits for the fashion world-set “Funny Face.” The opening titles of “Foxy Brown”

look like somebody made them at home on a rickety computer, but with Pam Grier cool-

ly dancing around goofy design blips, they prepare you for fun — as do the “Superbad”

credits, with Michael Cera and Jonah Hill nerdily popping and locking.

Some opening credits are mini-movies. The clever cartoon credits of “The Adventures

of Tintin” are better than what follows. The first 30 seconds of “Blow Out” label stars

John Travolta and Nancy Allen while flashing through a series of sounds that indicate

there will be an auto accident, someone will die and the clues will be on the soundtrack.

These sequences are a recent phenomenon. Throughout most of Hollywood’s golden

age, credits were just names, projected on a piece of velvet. Designer/ad man Saul Bass

changed all that, making the case that title sequences could be stylish, memorable and

an important part of the storytelling.

Bass could do exciting (“Psycho,” among several Alfred Hitchcock movies), funny

(“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”) or glitzy (the original “Ocean’s 11”). Working in

collaboration with wife Elaine, he created credit sequences that helped guide us into

each movie while also defining a style so recognizable that filmmakers still pay homage

to his work in, for instance, “Catch Me If You Can,” set in Bass’ 1960s heyday.

Since Bass, the biggest star in title design is Kyle Cooper, whose latest credits are out

now in “Godzilla vs. Kong.” Cooper’s Internet Movie Database page is a good place to

find opening credits worth watching. Most of his early efforts, including classics such as

the first “Mission: Impossible” film, didn’t give him credit, but a few years later, “Char-

lie’s Angels” acknowledged his impact.

You’ll find Cooper’s name below, too. It’s first on a list that suggests that maybe it’s

not how movies finish, but how they start.

‘Seven’ (1995)As a variation on Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” plays, we’re

shown the villain’s fingers as he reads a book about

crime, thumbs through creepy photographs, cuts up a

dollar bill and (I think) slices off the tips of his own fin-

gers. There’s no blood, but Cooper’s jittery editing, omi-

nous images and percussive music suit director David

Fincher’s bleak vision.

‘The Naked Gun’ (1988)No surprise that a movie this fast and funny makes sure

the credits don’t waste a second. A parody of 1970s-style

police shows, the sequence is shot from right behind the

flashing light atop a cop car. The car zooms down a city

street but then veers onto a sidewalk, through a car wash,

onto a roller coaster and toward terrified bystanders.

Everything you need to know about the movie is set up:

It’s deadpan, sharply observed, hilarious and relentless.

‘Casino Royale’ (2006)I’m limiting myself to one James Bond favorite. “Casi-

no Royale” introduced us to a new 007, so it contains lots

of Daniel Craig, as well as the signature gun-barrel bit, a

sly hint at what’s going on with Eva Green’s character

and playful animation that nods to the lethal card game at

the movie’s climax — all to the tune of my controversial

choice for best Bond theme, the late Chris Cornell’s fero-

cious “You Know My Name.”

‘Deadpool’ (2016)The Marvel logo is bound to send audiences in one

direction, so this parody of superhero movies immediate-

ly takes them in another direction by spoofing the idea of

credits. Instead of “A Tim Miller Film,” we get “Some

Douchebag’s Film.” It’s not “Starring Ryan Reynolds” but

“Starring God’s Perfect Idiot,” accompanied by Reynolds’

“Sexiest Man Alive” magazine cover. It continues ske-

wering tropes, through “British Villain” and “Moody

Teen,” accompanied by a camera snaking through a vio-

lent scene and Juice Newton’s soaring “Angel of the

Morning.”

‘Do the Right Thing’ (1989)Rosie Perez doesn’t have an especially big part, but it’s

hard to imagine a splashier debut than the one Spike Lee

gives her. The credits are nothing but her dancing to

Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” and her fierce, angry

movement sets the tone for the bold movie, the combat-

iveness of which is foreshadowed by her busting a move

in a boxer’s outfit.

‘The Pink Panther’ (1963)This series joins the Bond films as one where the audi-

ence knows they need to be there for the inventive cred-

its. All of ’em are dandy, but the first is the best because it

introduces Henry Mancini’s slinky theme and has so

much fun with typography (the Panther deliberately

misspells director Blake Edwards’ name, and when he

leers at Claudia Cardinale’s name, it slaps him).

‘Delicatessen’ (1991)Most of the words in this quirky comedy are in French,

even in the credits, but it doesn’t matter because the vari-

ous jobs are so cleverly visualized as a camera roams

around objects in a dingy basement. The cinematog-

rapher’s name is written on a camera and the screenwrit-

ers’ on a page of a script.

EON PRODUCTIONS/TNS

Daniel Craig poses as James Bond. Craig made his debut as legendary Britishsecret agent James Bond 007 in the 21st Bond film, “Casino Royale.” Thefilm also has an opening title sequence notable for its playful animation and anintense theme song performed by Chris Cornell.

BY CHRIS HEWITT

Star Tribune

7 O F T H E B E S T O P E N I N G C R E D I T S I N M O V I E H I S T O R Y

MOVIES


MUSIC

The vinyl resurgence has been keeping inde-

pendent record stores alive for years, and it

hit a milestone in 2020: Music fans spent more

money on LPs than CDs last year for the first

time since 1986.

But the desire to possess an analog recording that you

can hold in your hands — in a streaming era when ev-

erything seems ephemeral — isn’t limited to records.

It’s now also about cassette tapes, which are making a

comeback.

On Discogs, the online database where fans buy and

sell vinyl and other physical products, U.S. cassette tape

sales were up 33% last year.

Part of the appeal? New tape releases are cheaper

than new releases on vinyl. Phoebe Bridgers’ 2020

album “Punisher” sells for $23 on vinyl, said Pat Fee-

ney, owner of Philadelphia’s Main Street Music, which

this month started to once again devote store space to

cassettes. In a florescent-green limited-edition cassette,

Punisher went for $10.

The rare-cassette market is also robust, particularly

for hip-hop releases from the golden age of the genre,

when cassettes were also at their peak. A mint copy of

“Illmatic,” the 1994 debut album by Nas, was on sale on

Discogs this week for $13,999.98.

Beyond that, there are music labels, like This & That

Tapes, which Joseph Carlough runs out of his Philadel-

phia home, that deal exclusively in cassettes.

For Carlough, 34, who founded the label in 2019, the

appeal of the cassette is its homemade quality. “Cas-

settes are like the zines of the music industry,” he says.

“Anyone can make a cassette.”

The fragility of the medium — and even the tape hiss

— is part of the aesthetic appeal, Carlough says.

“There’s something satisfying about watching the

wheels turn while you listen, and knowing, ‘I made

this.’”

When the medium’s inventor, the Dutch engineer Lou

Ottens, died last month at age 94, he was memorialized

internationally for creating the iconic object, which

gave rise to the cherished mixtape.

While it takes just minutes to put together a playlist

on Spotify or Apple Music, making a cassette mix takes

time and tender loving care. As Rolling Stone writer

Rob Sheffield put it in his 2007 memoir about music

and grief: “Love Is a Mix Tape.”

Last year, This & That released “Word Salad,” a six-

song cassette tape EP of songs written and recorded

during lockdown by Joe Jack Talcum, guitarist for

legendary Philly punk band the Dead Milkmen.

“I love cassettes,” says Talcum, 58, whose given

name is Joe Genaro. “I have a love-hate relationship

with them — they’re in boxes in my house all over the

place. They were the first thing I started recordings on

when I was a teen.” He has an ongoing project digitiz-

ing old Milkmen shows recorded on cassette tapes and

posting them on jacktalcum.com.

The medium still appeals, he says. “A mixtape is

cooler than a mix CD, or a playlist. You can put strange,

funny things and sound effects in there. There’s some-

thing human about them.”

The medium took a turn back into the mainstream

with 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” in which Chris

Pratt’s character listens to a mixtape of ’70s hits on his

Walkman that’s his only connection to his mother. That

soundtrack mix was issued on cassette and became a

hit, as have three recent volumes of soundtrack tapes

from the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”

In a sure sign that cassettes are a cool object of the

moment, Urban Outfitters now sells both cassette tape

releases and cassette tape players.

Hot cassette releases on the Urban website include

Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” and Arcade Fire’s score to

the 2013 sci-fi movie “Her,” which came out in Febru-

ary and is designed to look like a homemade cassette.

Urban carries portable cassette players that start at

$30 and a dual cassette deck “Retro Street Bluetooth

Boombox” for $150.

Demand for vintage tape players is also spiking. “I

bought so many Walkmen for $4,” says Carlough. “Now

they’re going for $30 or $40.”

“There’s a coolness factor,” says Edwin Perez, 33, an

art teacher and cassette collector who works part time

at Main Street Music.

“The kids see ‘Stranger Things’ and then they find a

bag of cassettes in their parents’ basement, and it starts

from there,” Perez says. “A lot of people, millennials,

people in my generation, are really into thrifting, look-

ing for clothing, or anything old. That’s a big part of the

culture.”

The medium has a strong emotional hold on Perez.

His parents emigrated from Bolivia, where his father

had owned a record store. Relatives kept in touch by

sending tapes with a mix of songs and personal mess-

ages. “My grandparents would be like, ‘We miss you;

have you forgotten about us?’ And by the end of Side B,

everyone would be a little tipsy. It was beautiful.”

For me, digging through racks of old tapes and exca-

vating the past has made pandemic lockdowns less

lonely.

Sometimes even the empty case from a long-ago

homemade mixtape send me to Spotify to re-create a

playlist. That happened with a 1990s road trip mix I

made called “Lost Highway” that had included two

versions of the title song, by Hank Williams and Jason

& the Scorchers.

An office cleanup turned up a stellar mix made by a

friend of a friend sometime around 1993. Titled “Char-

lie Parker, Forgive Me for Not Answering Your Eyes,”

it featured Jack Kerouac, Sonic Youth, Katie Webster,

and Thomas Mapfumo. My life flashed before my eyes.

That sent me out on a record shop hunt for more

tapes, and made me dearly miss the 1998 Lexus with a

tape deck that I drove until it broke down two years

ago.

Recently, I came up with a haul of used tapes from

Common Beat Music in West Philly, bringing home

Pete Townshend’s “Empty Glass,” Jimmy Witherspoon

and Ben Webster’s “Roots” (for $1), Kris Kristofferson’s

“The Silver Tongued Devil and I,” and “Burn in Hell”

by the metal band Sinister Purpose.

My favorite acquisition was “Sound Defects,” by

Philly punk stalwarts F.O.D., on the local SRA label. I

bought it mainly because its cover is an homage to

“Sound Affects,” the 1980 album by one of my favorite

bands, The Jam.

When I opened it, I not only found a download code

for the digital album, which was a nice bonus, but also

learned the cover was designed by renowned Philly

album cover artist Perry Shall, which he made exclu-

sively for the cassette release. Score!iStock/Stars and Stripes illustration

Cassette tapes are the new old things to love.

BY DAN DELUCA

The Philadelphia Inquirer

“The kids see ‘StrangerThings’ and then they find a bag of cassettes in theirparents’ basement, and itstarts from there.”

Edwin Perez

art teacher and cassette collector who works

part time at Main Street Music in Philadelphia


CROSSWORD AND COMICSNEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

MORESBY JULIAN KWAN / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

60 Word with holy or heating

61 Grammy-winning singer Cash

63 Certain elite school

64 Appear

65 Back in the U.S.S.?

66 Org. to which Taft was elected president after serving as U.S. president

67 ‘‘Yes, that’s clear’’

69 ‘‘Let everyone else get some steak before taking seconds!’’

74 Mooches

76 Mate

77 Grand Central info

78 Surreptitious bit of communication

81 ‘‘What have we here!’’

82 Like many characters in Alison Bechdel cartoons

84 Nintendo release of 2006

85 Show runner

86 2013 Tony winner for Best Revival of a Musical

88 ‘‘We should stall!’’

91 Long-stemmed mushroom

93 Egyptian god of the afterlife

94 Llama’s head?

95 Button clicked to see the rest of an article

97 Not out, say

101 Target of the heckle ‘‘What game are you watching?!’’

103 Why no one hangs out in actors’ dressing rooms these days?

107 Played obnoxiously loudly

111 At 10 or 11 p.m., say

112 Part of lifeguard training

113 Navigation app

115 Lucky charm

116 American ____ (century plant)

117 Bathroom fixture that one never asked for?

122 Their heads get dirty

123 Dirt

124 Typos for exclamation marks if you fail to hit Shift

125 Opposite of neat

126 ____ strategy

127 Fills to the max

128 Set (on)

129 Bathroom-door sign

DOWN

1 ____ salt (magnesium sulfate)

2 Mixed-martial-arts great Anderson

3 What a hiree should be brought up to

4 Brief summary

5 Gab

6 Knocked in a pocket, in pool

7 Handle a job satisfactorily

8 Additional

9 ____ the line

10 Trinket

11 Less certain

12 Many a maid of honor, informally

13 Create an account?

14 Not included

15 Marvel group led by Hercules

16 ____ monkey

17 Lucky charm

18 Plague

24 ‘‘My treat next time!’’

25 Cheese sometimes paired with fig jam

31 Subject of the Iran-contra affair

33 Requirements for witnesses

35 Jessica of ‘‘L.A.’s Finest’’

36 Believer in Jah

37 Book-fair organizer, maybe, in brief

41 Longtime procedural set in Washington, D.C.

42 Foreshadow

43 Pass up?

45 Declare

46 ‘‘All in the Family’’ mother

47 Tissue that’s prone to tearing, for short

49 Italian car since 1907

51 Enemy in the game Doom

52 Sticks in a box?

53 Style of women’s leather handbags

54 Isaac and Rebekah’s firstborn

56 Piece with a title like ‘‘10 Best Places to . . . ’’

57 First mate?

58 Recolor

62 Comparatively neat

65 Johnson & Johnson skin-care brand

68 Moniker after a lifestyle change

70 Initial problem for a

storied duckling

71 Man’s nickname

that sounds like

consecutive letters

of the alphabet

72 ‘‘Phooey!’’

73 Japanese ‘‘energy

healing’’

74 Bread for dipping

75 Golden ratio symbol

79 Actress Patricia

of ‘‘Breakfast at

Tiffany’s’’

80 Phone, wallet, ____ (traveler’s mental checklist)

83 Gaudy jewelry

84 Word in obituaries

85 Eponymous member of the Ford family

87 Most cheerful

89 Fictional establishment selling Duff Beer

90 Option for an overnight guest

92 Campsite org.

95 Antacid brand

96 Forms of some mythological sea creatures

98 Turn into

99 Bob hopes?

100 Garment worn with a choli

102 Something Pharaoh’s dream foretold in Genesis

103 Make a goat

104 Heavies

105 ‘‘Pearls Before ____’’ (comic strip)

106 Put away

108 Sculptor with a

dedicated museum

in Philadelphia

109 Throw out

110 Showers attention

(on)

114 Lemon-bar

ingredient

118 Food-service-

industry lobby, for

short

119 Command to a dog

120 Male swan

121 Slow (down)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

22120291

62524232

1303928272

736353433323

049383

948474645444342414

857565554535251505

3626160695

8676665646

3727170796

08978777675747

5848382818

0998887868

49392919

2011010019989796959

011901801701601501401301

511411311211111

121021911811711611

521421321221

921821721621

Julian Kwan, of Dumont, N.J., is a software test engineer for a telecommunications company. He started solving crosswords incollege (University of Pennsylvania, class of 1997). Several years ago, he says, after noticing that all the Times puzzles had bylines, ‘‘I figured, Why couldn’t one of them be me, right?’’ This is Julian’s fourth published crossword but his first for The Times. — W.S.

ACROSS

1 SAT section eliminated by the College Board in 2021

6 Firth person?

10 Best-selling book of all time

15 Get the attention of

19 Sister-in-law of Prince William

20 Lead-in to pilot

21 Stick on

22 ‘‘Goodness gracious!’’

23 Nod off at a self-serve restaurant?

26 Jupiter, exempli gratia

27 [Turn the page]

28 Sooner, informally

29 Diamond stat

30 Get down and dirty, in dialect

32 Bovine disease

34 Fancy flooring for an R.V.?

38 Home of Etihad Airways: Abbr.

39 Eyeball creepily

40 Requirement

41 Hoops grp.

44 Like universal blood recipients

48 One layer of a seven-layer dip

50 What the prestigious ice sculptor had?

55 Unable to think clearly

59 Goes nowhere, say

GUNSTON STREET

“Gunston Street” is drawn by Basil Zaviski. Email him at [email protected], and online at gunstonstreet.com.

RESULTS FOR ABOVE PUZZLE

ESSAYSCOTBIBLEGRAB

PIPPAAUTOAFFIXOHME

SLEEPINTHEBUFFETDEUS

OVEROKIERBIRASSLE

MADCOWTRAILERPARQUET

UAELEERATMUST

NBATYPEABSALSA

COLDHARDCACHETADDLED

IDLESOILROSANNEIVY

SEEMAFTABAICANSEE

YOUVEHADYOURFILET

SPONGESBROETAWINK

OHOLESBIANWIIEMCEE

PIPPINLETSMAKEADELAY

ENOKIOSIRISELS

MOREONBASEREF

BACKSTAGEPASSEBLARED

LATISHCPRWAZEMOJO

ALOEUNSOLICITEDBIDET

MOPSGRIMEONESONICE

EXITSATESBENTGENTS


GADGETS & TECHNOLOGY

It tastes like rose petals. It smells like a camp-

fire. It glistens with a burnt-orange hue. What

is it? A 5,000-euro bottle of Chateau Petrus

Pomerol wine that spent a year in space.

Researchers in Bordeaux, France, are analyzing

a dozen bottles of the precious liquid — along with

320 snippets of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon

grapevines — that returned to Earth in January

after a sojourn aboard the International Space Sta-

tion.

They announced their preliminary impressions

March 24 — mainly, that weightlessness didn’t ruin

the wine and it seemed to energize the vines.

Organizers say it’s part of a longer-term effort to

make plants on Earth more resilient to climate

change and disease by exposing them to new stress-

es, and to better understand the aging process,

fermentation and bubbles in wine.

At a one-of-a-kind tasting last month, 12 connois-

seurs sampled one of the space-traveled wines,

blindly tasting it alongside a bottle from the same

vintage that had stayed in a cellar.

A special pressurized device delicately uncorked

the bottles at the Institute for Wine and Vine Re-

search in Bordeaux. The tasters solemnly sniffed,

stared and eventually sipped.

“I have tears in my eyes,” Nicolas Gaume, CEO

and co-founder of the company that arranged the

experiment, Space Cargo Unlimited, told The Asso-

ciated Press.

Getting various space agencies on board was a

challenge. Alcohol and glass are normally prohib-

ited on the International Space Station, so each

bottle was packed inside a special steel cylinder

during the journey.

At a news conference March 24, Gaume said the

experiment focused on studying the lack of gravity

— which “creates tremendous stress on any living

species” — on the wine and vines.

“We are only at the beginning,” he said, calling

the preliminary results “encouraging.”

Jane Anson, a wine expert and writer with The

Decanter, said the wine that remained on Earth

tasted “a little younger than the one that had been

to space.”

Chemical and biological analysis of the wine’s

aging process could allow scientists to find a way to

artificially age fine vintages, said Dr. Michael Leb-

ert, a biologist at Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander-

University.

The vine snippets — known as canes in the

grape-growing world — not only all survived the

journey but also grew faster than vines on Earth,

despite limited light and water.

Once the researchers determine why, Lebert said

that could help scientists develop sturdier vines on

Earth — and pave the way for grape-growing and

wine-making in space. Plus, he said, “Grapes ... are

very healthy for the astronauts.”

Private investors helped fund the project, which

the researchers hope to continue on further space

missions. The overall cost so far wasn’t disclosed.

For the average earthling, the main question is:

What does cosmic wine taste like?

Researchers said each of the 12 panelists had an

individual reaction. Some observed “burnt-orange

reflections.” Others evoked aromas of cured leather

or a campfire.

“The one that had remained on Earth, for me,

was still a bit more closed, a bit more tannic, a bit

younger. And the one that had been up into space,

the tannins had softened, the side of more floral

aromatics came out,” Anson said.

But whether the vintage was space-flying or

earthbound, she said, “They were both beautiful.”

PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHE ENA/AP

Philippe Darriet, president of the Institute for Vine and Wine Science and chief oenologist, holds a bottle ofPetrus red wine that spent a year orbiting the world in the International Space Station after a tastingsession March 1 at the ISVV in Villenaved’Ornon, southwestern France.

Cosmic mouthfulTasters savor fine wine

that has orbited the worldBY MASHA MACPHERSON

AND ANGELA CHARLTON

Associated Press

Stephanie Cluzet, Head of Vine ResearcherInstitute for Vine and Wine Science, holds up asnippet of grapevines, left, that spent a year in theInternational Space Station, and one of the sameage and grape variety grown on Earth.

Smart tech glasses have been

around for a few years. Many of

us know they exist, but don’t

know a lot about them. So before

agreeing to test Italian-made

Fauna audio glasses, I did some-

thing I rarely do before receiving

a product: I read about them.

I know what glasses are, and I

know what smart glasses are. But

there are different

kinds that

produce

different

results.

Fauna focus-

es on eyewear

and audio.

I figured

that would

be a win-

ner in my

book, and

it turned out it was.

Fauna describes the eyewear

as designer audio glasses with

speakers. They look just like

glasses, but can also play your

music with crystal clear and

vivid audio.

When you first see the Fauna,

they appear to be just glasses,

which is a good thing. With what

they have built-in, you’d think

they are big, bulky and flat-out

ugly, but they are far from that.

The frames are built with

Bluetooth 5.0 for easy pairing to

an Android or iOS wireless de-

vice. The arms have water-resist-

ant USound Mems micro-speak-

ers and electrodynamic woofers

on both sides, a touchpad for

controls, and a pair of micro-

phones on the right for hands-

and ears-free calls.

With the speakers not being

earbuds in your ears, they are

safer for hearing ambient noises

while exercising or walking busy

streets.

The sound produced is excel-

lent for what these are. If you’re

expecting a full surround sound

system to be blaring in your ears,

this is not for you. The Fauna

audio wear is built on conve-

nience, and that's what they de-

liver. The audio is crystal clear,

and when I was sitting in my

yard, they were even better.

The lenses are available in four

attractive

styles. Each

has a different

frame design,

lens color

(blue light

filter lenses, sunglasses or cat-

eye sunglasses), and built-in

speaker system. The glass is

interchangeable, enabling an

optician to change the lenses to

your prescription.

A hard storage/powered charg-

ing case is included. A USB-C

cable is included for charging the

case along with a cleaning cloth.

The glasses have a built-in

rechargeable battery; the case’s

battery takes about 2 hours to

charge the glasses to full power.

Online: wearfauna.com; $298

Satechi has

introduced new

slim Bluetooth

backlit key-

boards designed

for Macs. The

Slim X3 ($89.99)

full-sized key-

board features

an extended

layout with a numeric keypad.

Measuring 16.65-by-4.5 inches

and just 0.4 inches thick, the X3

features everything you need for

a wireless home computing key-

board. The USB-C port on the

backside can be used for re-

charging the keyboard, or it can

work directly plugged into any

compatible USB-C device.

It will connect with up to four

Bluetooth devices. Keys to assign

specific devices are on the top

right, which makes alternating

between the paired devices sim-

ple and instant. With just the

press of a button, assuming pair-

ing has been done, the keyboard

instantly toggles between a desk-

top, laptop, iPad or iPhone.

The keys are illuminated and

backlit, but most importantly it’s

a comfortable keyboard for typ-

ing.

The body is built with an Ap-

ple-looking space gray aluminum

finish, and rubber feet on the

back keep it in place. Another

added Apple touch is the built-in

function hotkeys for working

with Mac and iOS devices.

The Slim X1 ($69.99) is smaller

without the extended layout and

numeric keypad. It is built with

three assigned keys for Bluetooth

devices and macOS function keys

built into an 11.14-by-4.5-by-0.39-

inch body.

Online: satechi.net

Smart tech sunglassessound good, look great

BY GREGG ELLMAN

Tribune News Service

FAUNA/TNS

The frames of Fabula Crystal Brownwith Bluetooth 5.0 pair easily toany Android or iOS wireless device.

Satechi X3BluetoothKeyboard

SATECHI/TNS

GADGETS


Max D. Lederer Jr., Publisher

Lt. Col. Marci Hoffman, Europe commander

Lt. Col. Richard McClintic, Pacific commander

EDITORIAL

Terry Leonard, [email protected]

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BUREAU STAFF

Europe/MideastErik Slavin, Europe & Mideast Bureau [email protected] +49(0)631.3615.9350; DSN (314)583.9350

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WashingtonJoseph Cacchioli, Washington Bureau [email protected] (+1)(202)886-0033Brian Bowers, Assistant Managing Editor, [email protected]

CIRCULATION

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Ernie Gates

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Stars and Stripes (USPS 0417900) is published week-days (except Dec. 25 and Jan. 1) for 50 cents Mondaythrough Thursday and for $1 on Friday by Pacific Stars andStripes, Unit 45002, APO AP 96301-5002. Periodicalspostage paid at San Francisco, CA, Postmaster: Sendaddress changes to Pacific Stars and Stripes, Unit 45002,APO AP 96301-5002. This newspaper is authorized by theDepartment of Defense for members of the military servicesoverseas. However, the contents of Stars and Stripes areunofficial, and are not to be considered as the official viewsof, or endorsed by, the U.S. government. As a DOD newspa-per, Stars and Stripes may be distributed through officialchannels and use appropriated funds for distribution toremote locations where overseas DOD personnel are located.

The appearance of advertising in this publication doesnot constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense orStars and Stripes of the products or services advertised.Products or services advertised shall be made available forpurchase, use or patronage without regard to race, color,religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, physicalhandicap, political affiliation or any other nonmerit factor ofthe purchaser, user or patron.

© Stars and Stripes 2021

stripes.com

OPINION

It’s OK for fully vaccinated people

to travel domestically again with-

out quarantining, so long as they

wear a mask and maintain social

distancing guidelines, the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention an-

nounced April 2, 2021 in its updated gui-

delines for travel.

The agency advises that people still

wash or sanitize their hands frequently

when traveling. The guidelines also pro-

vide guidance for other modes of trans-

portation other than air travel, and are

for domestic travel. The CDC recom-

mends delaying international travel for

fully vaccinated people.

The agency also advises delaying do-

mestic travel for those who are not fully

vaccinated. And, the updated travel

guidance comes only days after CDC Di-

rector Rochelle Walensky reminded

people that mask-wearing is still essen-

tial and that the U.S. is not out of danger.

Fully vaccinated means that two

weeks have passed since people have re-

ceived the full dose of vaccine. That is

two shots for those who have been vacci-

nated with the Pfizer or Moderna vac-

cines. For those who have been vaccinat-

ed with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,

that is one shot. Studies have shown that

it takes the body two weeks to develop

the full immune response to the vaccine,

regardless of which vaccine they re-

ceive.

More than 50 million people have been

fully vaccinated, and more than 100 mil-

lion people in the U.S. have had at least

one dose of one of the three COVID-19

vaccines as of April 2, 2021. Evidence

continues to show that vaccination with

the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson &

Johnson vaccines offers very high levels

of protection against the coronavirus.

And, research is showing that the risk of

vaccinated people spreading the disease

to others is low. However, there is still a

small risk that vaccinated people could

transmit the disease to others.

While this is good news to those who

want to travel — as well as the airline

industry and tourist destinations — peo-

ple are still confused about what they

can and cannot safely do. As an infec-

tious disease doctor, I’ve been fielding a

lot of questions from my patients as well

as my friends and family about what

someone is allowed to do once vaccinat-

ed. Do vaccinated people need to wear

masks, socially distance and avoid trav-

el?

If you are fully vaccinated — that is, if

you are more than two weeks out from

receiving both doses of the Pfizer or

Moderna vaccines or one dose of the

Johnson & Johnson — you can visit other

fully vaccinated people without socially

distancing or wearing masks, according

to the CDC guidelines. You can even visit

indoors with unvaccinated people from a

single household who are at low risk for

severe COVID-19 disease without wear-

ing masks or physically distancing.

The CDC does suggest you be tested if

you develop symptoms that could be CO-

VID-19. You should then stay isolated

until you are shown to be uninfected. If

you are fully vaccinated, you should still

avoid social settings that include multi-

ple unvaccinated households. And, you

should avoid medium to large crowds be-

cause of the increased risk.

You also should continue to wear a

well-fitted mask, wash your hands fre-

quently and maintain physical distance

when outside the home. Worshiping in-

doors at a synagogue, mosque or church

is still not advisable unless all attending

are vaccinated.

With regard to the new guidelines, the

CDC says that vaccinated people should

still monitor themselves before and after

travel and wash or sanitize their hands

frequently.

So in the face of continued pandemic

transmission and new viral variants, we

all need to remain vigilant and observe

good health practices even after being

vaccinated. However, it is very good

news that we can prudently lift some of

the restrictions that have so limited our

ability to be with loved ones. This is espe-

cially good news for seniors who are par-

ticularly vulnerable to the downside of

isolation — and the loved ones who are

keen to visit them.

Vaccinated and ready to party? Not so fastWILLIAM PETRI

University of Virginia

Good Friday’s jobs report was

good for the country. But it may

be bad news for President Bi-

den’s agenda.

The unemployment report showed that

the economy is springing back as more

Americans get their covid-19 vaccinations.

It had long been obvious to anyone paying

attention that pandemic restrictions, more

than financial distress, have been keeping

the economy down. Most of the missing

jobs were in sectors such as education or

restaurants, which were wholly or partial-

ly shut down by efforts to keep the virus in

check. It stands to reason that as those re-

strictions are relaxed, jobs would return.

That’s exactly what happened last month,

as more than half of the 916,000 new jobs

were added in the hard-hit entertainment

and leisure and education sectors.

These increases occurred before a sin-

gle dollar of Biden’s stimulus package

found its way into Americans’ bank ac-

counts. It follows that increased employ-

ment will naturally occur as more pan-

demic-based capacity controls end, and as

more Americans are vaccinated and feel

comfortable resuming their pre-pandemic

lives. Biden’s $1,400 per-person checks

may make those people likelier to spend

more, but they won’t change the under-

lying employment dynamic. That was al-

ways being driven by government regu-

lation and social fear. Instead, the new

money will likely make Americans more

willing to pay more for things they would

have bought anyway. There’s a word for

that: inflation.

This shines a new light on Biden’s pro-

posed multi-trillion-dollar spending plan.

If Congress passes the proposal without

changes, it would add hundreds of billions

of dollars in government spending per

year for the foreseeable future. It would

also direct much of that money to partic-

ular sectors, such as home care or projects

associated with clean energy. That would

surely increase demand for jobs in those

sectors at a time when employment else-

where will already likely approach pre-

pandemic record highs as the crisis re-

cedes. Where will the new workers come

from?

Look south, my friend. If the U.S. econo-

my is on turbochargers and wages are ris-

ing — whether as a result of inflationary

pressures or government-mandated mini-

mum wage hikes — taking the risk to move

north will look even better for the impov-

erished millions in Central America. That

coupled with Biden’s clear intent to relax

or repeal most Trump-era immigration

controls could produce a tidal wave of ille-

gal immigration that makes this month’s

record levels look like mere ripples in the

water.

Every president wants to run on a re-

cord of peace and prosperity. No president

wants to run on a record of rapidly rising

prices and a humanitarian crisis of his own

creation. Yet, in pursuit of the former, Bi-

den may be stoking the latter.

Moderate and border-state Democrats

should ring the alarm. Communities along

the border will be the first to experience a

spike in migration, and moderate Demo-

crats will likely feel the brunt of any politi-

cal backlash. If Biden is going to try to dial

the economy up to 11, the least Democrats

could do is try to ensure that the benefits

mainly go to people already legally in the

United States.

Republicans could also be getting hand-

ed a political gift. Americans want to be

compassionate to people who come here in

need, but they also want to provide for

Americans first. The GOP should point out

the inevitable consequence of Biden’s im-

migration policies and offer workable re-

medies. Mandating that employers use E-

Verify, the federal government database

that contains information for all people le-

gally able to work in the country, is a bare

minimum they can propose. Republican

governors and legislators can also propose

mandating this for employers in their

states and harnessing state income tax

agencies to monitor compliance. American

jobs for American workers should become

the GOP’s mantra.

Democrats openly yearning for Biden to

be this generation’s Franklin Roosevelt

should look before they leap. FDR inher-

ited an economy in collapse due to a lack of

money as banks failed and the Federal Re-

serve was shackled by the gold standard. It

took nearly a decade of constant pump

priming and intervention, including the

military buildup preceding World War II,

before the economy recovered. Today, the

economy is flush with cash and recovering

on its own. The historic stimulus and level

of activity Democrats desire won’t go to

refloat a sinking ship, and is likely to cause

more problems than it solves.

For today, let us rejoice and be glad. For

tomorrow, better to be cautious and pru-

dent.

Jobs report could be bad news for BidenHENRY OLSEN

Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public PolicyCenter.


SCOREBOARD/SPORTS BRIEFS

COLLEGE HOCKEY

Frozen FourAt Pittsburgh

National SemifinalsThursday, April 8

Minn. Duluth vs. UMassSt. Cloud St. vs. Minnesota St.

National ChampionshipSaturday, April 10

Semifinal winners

TENNIS

Miami OpenFriday

At Tennis Center at Crandon ParkMiami

Purse: $3,343,785Surface: Hardcourt outdoor

Men’s SinglesSemifinals

Jannik Sinner (21), Italy, def. RobertoBautista Agut (7), Spain, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

Hubert Hurkacz (26), Poland, def. An-drey Rublev (4), Russia, 6-3, 6-4.

Women’s DoublesSemifinals

Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara (5),Japan, def. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, UnitedStates, and Iga Swiatek, Poland, 3-6, 7-6(4), 10-2.

Hayley Carter, United States, and LuisaStefani (8), Brazil, def. Gabriela Dabrow-ski, Canada, and Giuliana Olmos, Mexico,2-6, 6-3, 10-8.

DEALS

Friday's transactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

BOSTON RED SOX — Sent RHP JohnSchreiber outright to alternate trainingsite.

MINNESOTA TWINS — Selected the con-tract of C Kole McKinnon from High Point(ALPB).

BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association

NBA — Fined F Kevin Durant $50,000 forusing offensive and dereogatory lan-guage on social media.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

NFL — Named LeCharles Bentley senioradvisor of player performance and devel-opment.

BUFFALO BILLS — Signed OL Jamil Dou-glas to a one-year contract.

GREEN BAY PACKERS — Re-signed S WillRedmond.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS — Signed LBDamien Wilson to a contract.

MIAMI DOLPHINS — Signed DT John Jen-kins as an unrestricted free agent.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

NEW JERSEY DEVILS — Reassigned DMatt Tennyson to Binghamton (AHL). Re-called D Josh Jacobs from Binghamton totaxi squad.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — Reassigned CMitchell Stephens to Syracuse (AHL).

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

PHILADELPHIA UNION — Re-signed D Au-relien Collin to a new contract. Signed GGreg Ranjitsingh to a one-year contract.

PORTLAND TIMBERS — Signed D IsmailaJome to a one-year contract with a cluboption for an additional year.

GOLF

Valero Texas OpenPGA Tour

FridayAt TPC San Antonio �— Oaks Course

San Antonio, TexasPurse: $7.7 million

Yardage: 7,494; Par: 72Second Round

Cameron Tringale 66-69—135 -9Matt Wallace 69-68—137 -7Jordan Spieth 67-70—137 -7Kevin Stadler 69-70—139 -5Kyle Stanley 71-68—139 -5Erik van Rooyen 71-68—139 -5Brandt Snedeker 72-67—139 -5Matt Kuchar 70-70—140 -4Camilo Villegas 64-76—140 -4Lucas Glover 73-67—140 -4Brandon Hagy 70-70—140 -4Anirban Lahiri 71-69—140 -4Doc Redman 72-68—140 -4 Rafa Cabrera Bello 70-71—141 -3Rory Sabbatini 71-70—141 -3Hideki Matsuyama 67-74—141 -3Keith Mitchell 72-69—141 -3Charley Hoffman 75-66—141 -3Sung Kang 66-76—142 -2 Sebastián Muñoz 68-74—142 -2Chase Seiffert 72-70—142 -2Cameron Davis 71-71—142 -2Seung-Yul Noh 67-76—143 -1Nick Taylor 73-70—143 -1Pat Perez 70-73—143 -1 Adam Hadwin 70-73—143 -1Sepp Straka 71-72—143 -1Kyoung-Hoon Lee 70-73—143 -1Ryan Moore 71-72—143 -1 Gary Woodland 71-72—143 -1Ryan Palmer 72-71—143 -1Luke List 73-71—144 EPadraig Harrington 70-74—144 EMartin Trainer 70-74—144 ESi Woo Kim 72-72—144 EMatthew NeSmith 73-71—144 ECharl Schwartzel 71-73—144 ERickie Fowler 76-68—144 EKeegan Bradley 71-73—144 EJimmy Walker 72-72—144 ETyler Duncan 73-71—144 EChris Kirk 72-72—144 ETom Hoge 68-76—144 E

ANA InspirationLPGA Tour

FridayAt Mission Hills Country Club

Rancho Mirage, Calif.Purse: $3.1 million

Yardage: 6,865; Par: 72Second Round

Patty Tavatanakit 66-69—135 -9Shanshan Feng 67-69—136 -8Moriya Jutanugarn 68-69—137 -7Charley Hull 69-69—138 -6Anna Nordqvist 68-70—138 -6Lydia Ko 70-69—139 -5Sophia Popov 70-69—139 -5Inbee Park 70-69—139 -5Mirim Lee 69-70—139 -5Jin Young Ko 69-70—139 -5Georgia Hall 69-70—139 -5Gaby Lopez 73-67—140 -4Nanna Koerstz Madsen 72-68—140 -4Pajaree Anannarukarn 71-69—140 -4Yui Kawamoto 71-69—140 -4Christina Kim 70-70—140 -4Dani Holmqvist 70-70—140 -4Yuka Saso 69-71—140 -4Leona Maguire 67-73—140 -4Austin Ernst 73-68—141 -3Jeongeun Lee6 71-70—141 -3Nelly Korda 71-70—141 -3Ally Ewing 71-70—141 -3Jennifer Kupcho 69-72—141 -3Megan Khang 68-73—141 -3Amy Olson 73-69—142 -2Minjee Lee 72-70—142 -2Gabriela Ruffels 72-70—142 -2Danielle Kang 72-70—142 -2Mi Jung Hur 71-71—142 -2Yu Liu 71-71—142 -2Hannah Green 71-71—142 -2Jaye Marie Green 71-71—142 -2Ryann O'Toole 71-71—142 -2Azahara Munoz 70-72—142 -2Lexi Thompson 70-72—142 -2Gerina Piller 70-72—142 -2Brittany Lincicome 73-70—143 -1Sei Young Kim 72-71—143 -1Lauren Stephenson 71-72—143 -1Amy Yang 70-73—143 -1Bronte Law 69-74—143 -1Ariya Jutanugarn 68-75—143 -1Brooke M. Henderson 75-69—144 ELinnea Strom 75-69—144 ECeline Boutier 75-69—144 ENasa Hataoka 75-69—144 ECydney Clanton 74-70—144 EMi Hyang Lee 73-71—144 ECaroline Masson 73-71—144 ESo Yeon Ryu 72-72—144 EJennifer Song 72-72—144 EEun-Hee Ji 72-72—144 EXiyu Lin 72-72—144 EPernilla Lindberg 72-72—144 EMel Reid 71-73—144 EStephanie Meadow 71-73—144 EKelly Tan 71-73—144 E

AP SPORTLIGHT

April 4

1938 — Henry Picard beats Ralph Gul-dahl and Harry Cooper by two strokes tocapture the Masters.

1983 — Lorenzo Charles scores on adunk after Derek Whittenburg’s 35-footdesperation shot falls short to give NorthCarolina State a 54-52 triumph over Hous-ton in the NCAA championship.

1986 — Edmonton’s Wayne Gretzkybreaks his own NHL single-season pointsrecord with three assists to increase histotal to 214. He scored 212 points in 1981-82.

1987 — New York’s Denis Potvin, thehighest-scoring defenseman in NHL histo-ry, scores his 1,000th point.

1988 — Danny Manning scores 31 pointsand grabs 18 rebounds as Kansas wins itssecond NCAA championship with an 83-79victory over Oklahoma.

1993 — Sheryl Swoopes shatters thewomen’s championship game record byscoring 47 points to lead Texas Tech to an84-82 victory over Ohio State.

1993 — Mario Andretti, at 53, wins theValvoline 200 in Phoenix to become the ol-dest driver to win an Indy car race and thefirst driver to win a race in four differentdecades.

1994 — Arkansas wins its first men’s na-tional championship with a 76-72 victoryover Duke, depriving the Blue Devils of athird title in four years.

2001 — Hideo Nomo becomes the fourthpitcher in major league history to throw ano-hitter in both leagues in Boston’s 3-0victory over Baltimore. Nomo joins CyYoung, Jim Bunning and Nolan Ryan as theonly pitchers to accomplish the feat.

2003 — Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubsbecomes the 18th player to hit 500 careerhomers, connecting for a solo shot in a10-9 loss to Cincinnati.

2005 — North Carolina defeats Illinois towin the NCAA Division I men’s basketballchampionship. Sean May has 26 pointsand the Tar Heels don’t allow a basketover the final 2 ½ minutes to defeat Illinois75-70.

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA

has not tested players for per-

formance-enhancing drugs at

March Madness and other recent

college championships, the Asso-

ciated Press has learned. Three

people with direct knowledge of

NCAA testing protocols said full-

scale testing has not resumed

since the coronavirus pandemic

shut down college sports a year

ago.

Although athletes may have

been tested on campus, either

through the NCAA program or

those run by schools, the NCAA

has not ramped up its usual testing

program at national champion-

ships such as the men’s and wom-

en’s basketball tournaments. The

tournaments wrap up this week-

end with Final Four games.

The NCAA has tested for drugs

since 1986, and has changed and

enhanced its policy over the years.

Unlike some leagues and anti-

doping organizations, it does not

reveal the number of tests it con-

ducts. Players who test positive

can be kicked out of champion-

ships, and can lose a year or more

of eligibility.

But the three people familiar

with testing protocols told AP that

the number of tests received from

NCAA events went to zero after

the COVID-19 pandemic shut

down sports last spring. They said

testing has recently resumed spo-

radically, but only via on-campus

collections.

The people, who did not want

their names used because of the

sensitivity of the subject, all con-

firmed the same thing: No tests

from the organization’s signature

events — the men’s and women’s

basketball tournaments and, ear-

lier this year, the college football

playoffs — have been received by

the labs that analyze the NCAA

tests.

Oklahoma hires Loyola

Chicago’s Poser as coach Oklahoma hired Loyola Chica-

go coach Porter Moser as its bas-

ketball coach Saturday following

Lon Kruger’s retirement.

Moser embraces the challenge

of coaching at a Big 12 program

that reached the Final Four in

2016 and has featured NBA talents

Buddy Hield and Trae Young.

“I’ve always said there are rea-

sons why you win,” Moser said in a

statement. “If you look at the stan-

dards that the programs at Okla-

homa have set, there are reasons

why they’ve won. The coaches, in-

frastructure and community are

all championship caliber. You just

want to be a part of that. To play in

a premier league like the Big 12

and be a part of this championship

culture excites me.”

Kruger led the Sooners to a 195-

128 record in 10 years and reached

seven of the past eight NCAA

Tournaments. In Kruger’s final

season at Oklahoma, the Sooners

went 16-11 and finished with a loss

to top-seeded Gonzaga in the sec-

ond round.

Moser led Loyola to the Final

Four in 2018 and the Sweet 16 this

year. He went 188-141 in 10 years

at Loyola and has a 293-242 record

in 17 seasons as a college head

coach, with stops at Arkansas-Lit-

tle Rock (2000-03) and Illinois

State (2003-07).

Wie West tumbles out of

ANA; Tavatanakit leadsRANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. —

Michelle Wie West tumbled out of

the ANA Inspiration on a hot,

breezy Friday afternoon in the

desert. Patty Tavatanakit stayed

up top with eight major cham-

pions close behind.

Playing for the second straight

week after a 21-month break, Wie

West followed an opening 2-under

70 with a birdie-less 79 to miss the

cut at Mission Hills in the first ma-

jor championship of the year.

The long-hitting Tavatanakit

took the lead Thursday with an

opening 66 and shot a 69 on Friday

in 97-degree afternoon heat to re-

ach 9 under, a stroke ahead of

Shanshan Feng. International

players held the first 19 positions

on the leaderboard.

The 21-year-old former UCLA

player from Thailand missed the

cut last week in Carlsbad in the

Kia Classic with rounds of 71 and

79. She tied for fifth in February in

the Gainbridge LPGA for her best

LPGA Tour finish.

French sports figures

accused of sexual abusePARIS — A year-long, nation-

wide French effort to uncover and

combat sexual violence in sports

has identified more than 400

coaches, teachers and others sus-

pected of abuse or covering it up.

Most of the victims were under

15, according to data released Fri-

day by the sports ministry. The al-

leged abuse included sexual as-

sault, harassment or other vio-

lence.

Sixty people have faced crimi-

nal proceedings, more than 100

have been temporarily or perma-

nently removed from their posts,

and local investigations are under

way into other cases, the ministry

said.

The abuse reached across the

country and across the whole sec-

tor, with accusations targeting a

total of 48 sports federations.

Of those accused, 96% are men.

Of the victims, 83% were women

or girls, and 63% were under 15,

the ministry said.

The fact-finding probe was

launched in February 2020 after

10-time French skating champion

Sarah Abitbol said in a book that

she was raped by coach Gilles

Beyer from 1990-92, when she was

a teen.

BRIEFLY

Sources: NCAA hasn’t testedfor drugs at championships

Associated Press

MARK HUMPHREY/AP

Oklahoma has hired Loyola Chicago head coach Porter Moser as itsnew basketball coach. Oklahoma’s head coaching position came openwhen Lon Kruger retired.


NHL

East Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

Washington 37 24 9 4 52 127 113

N.Y. Islan-ders

37 23 10 4 50 114 88

Pittsburgh 37 24 11 2 50 121 95

Boston 33 18 10 5 41 89 81

Philadelphia 35 17 14 4 38 107 129

N.Y. Rangers 36 17 15 4 38 115 96

New Jersey 35 13 16 6 32 84 108

Buffalo 36 7 23 6 20 79 126

Central Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

Tampa Bay 36 25 9 2 52 127 87

Florida 37 24 9 4 52 122 101

Carolina 35 24 8 3 51 117 89

Nashville 38 19 18 1 39 96 113

Chicago 38 17 16 5 39 109 119

Columbus 38 14 16 8 36 96 121

Dallas 34 12 12 10 34 95 92

Detroit 38 12 21 5 29 82 122

West Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

Colorado 36 24 8 4 52 130 82

Vegas 35 24 9 2 50 112 82

Minnesota 35 22 11 2 46 102 88

Arizona 37 17 15 5 39 99 114

St. Louis 36 16 14 6 38 102 116

San Jose 36 16 16 4 36 102 120

Los Angeles 35 14 15 6 34 96 99

Anaheim 38 11 21 6 28 85 127

North Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

Toronto 37 24 10 3 51 121 93

Edmonton 38 23 14 1 47 125 109

Winnipeg 38 22 13 3 47 121 104

Montreal 33 16 8 9 41 108 88

Vancouver 37 16 18 3 35 100 120

Calgary 38 16 19 3 35 98 115

Ottawa 37 12 21 4 28 95 139

Thursday’s games

Montreal 4, Ottawa 1 Tampa Bay 3, Columbus 2 Pittsburgh 4, Boston 1 Florida 3, Detroit 2, OT Dallas 4, Nashville 1 Minnesota 3, Vegas 2, SO N.Y. Rangers 3, Buffalo 2, OT N.Y. Islanders 8, Washington 4 Carolina 4, Chicago 3

Friday’s games

Washington 2, New Jersey 1, OT Toronto 2, Winnipeg 1, SO Edmonton 3, Calgary 2 Colorado 3, St. Louis 2 San Jose 3, Los Angeles 0 Arizona 4, Anaheim 2

Saturday’s games

Detroit at Tampa Bay Pittsburgh at Boston Chicago at Nashville Columbus at Florida Dallas at Carolina N.Y. Rangers at Buffalo Ottawa at Montreal Philadelphia at N.Y. Islanders Minnesota at Vegas St. Louis at Colorado San Jose at Los Angeles Vancouver at Edmonton, ppd

Sunday’s games

Detroit at Tampa Bay Washington at New Jersey Columbus at Florida Dallas at Carolina Arizona at Anaheim Toronto at Calgary Vancouver at Winnipeg, ppd

Monday’s games

Edmonton at Montreal Ottawa at Winnipeg Philadelphia at Boston Colorado at Minnesota Vegas at St. Louis Toronto at Calgary Arizona at Los Angeles

Scoring leaders

Through Friday

GP G APTS

Connor McDavid, EDM 37 21 42 63

Leon Draisaitl, EDM 37 19 35 54

Patrick Kane, CHI 38 13 36 49

Mitchell Marner, TOR 36 13 33 46

Mark Scheifele, WPG 37 15 29 44

Mikko Rantanen, COL 35 21 22 43

Jonathan Huberdeau, FLA 37 14 28 42

Auston Matthews, TOR 33 24 18 42

Nathan MacKinnon, COL 31 10 30 40

Mark Stone, LV 34 12 28 40

Sidney Crosby, PIT 36 14 26 40

Anze Kopitar, LA 34 8 30 38

Nicklas Backstrom, WSH 36 13 25 38

Aleksander Barkov, FLA 31 13 24 37

Scoreboard

NEWARK, N.J. — Dmitry Orlov

scored on a length-of-the-ice rush

with 21 seconds left in overtime

and the Washington Capitals beat

New Jersey 2-1 Friday night for

their seventh straight win over the

Devils this season.

Vitek Vanecek made three out-

standing saves in the extra period,

including a close-in redirection at-

tempt by Travis Zajac seconds be-

fore Orlov skated up ice and

ripped a shot over Mackenzie

Blackwood.

John Carlson scored for the

third time in two days as the Cap-

itals bounced back from an em-

barrassing 8-4 loss to the New

York Islanders on Thursday night.

Vanecek finished with 22 saves in

helping Washington move back

into first place in the East Divi-

sion, two points ahead of the Islan-

ders and Penguins with 19 games

left in the regular season.

Michael McLeod scored for

New Jersey and Blackwood made

38 saves.

Maple Leafs 2, Jets 1 (SO): Ja-

son Spezza scored the only goal of

the shootout to lift visiting Toronto

past Winnipeg.

The veteran forward corralled a

rolling puck before deking Connor

Hellebuyck and tucking it in the

small gap between the goalten-

der’s outstretched pad and the

post.

Kyle Connor, Pierre-Luc Du-

bois and Mark Scheifele were un-

able to beat Toronto goaltender

Jack Campbell in the tiebreaker

as he improved to 8-0-0 on the sea-

son.

Travis Dermott scored in regu-

lation for the North Division-lead-

ing Maple Leafs. Campbell fin-

ished with 31 saves.

Andrew Copp had the lone goal

for the Jets. Hellebuyck had 37

saves.

Coyotes 4, Ducks 2: Phil Kes-

sel got the tiebreaking goal 12 min-

utes into the third period, Lane Pe-

derson scored in his NHL debut

and visiting Arizona beat Ana-

heim.

Johan Larsson and Nick

Schmaltz also scored for the

Coyotes, who have won four of

their last five games to move back

into the final playoff spot in the

West Division. Adin Hill made 27

saves.

Alexander Volkov, who was

playing his first game for Ana-

heim, and Jakob Silfverberg tal-

lied Anaheim’s goals. Anthony

Stolarz stopped 27 shots.

Sharks 3, Kings 0: Tomas

Hertl had a goal and an assist,

Martin Jones made 30 saves for

his first shutout of the season and

visiting San Jose beat Los An-

geles.

Timo Meier and Rudolfs Bal-

cers also scored for the Sharks,

who have won three straight and

five of seven. Jones got his 25th ca-

reer shutout and first since Feb.

29, 2020 against Pittsburgh.

Cal Petersen made 33 saves for

the Kings, who have lost four of

five.

Oilers 3, Flames 2: Connor

McDavid scored the tiebreaking

goal in the third period to lead host

Edmonton.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Do-

minik Kahun also scored for the

Oilers, and Leon Draisaitl had two

assists. Mike Smith stopped 24

shots.

Michael Stone and Matthew

Tkachuk scored for Calgary, and

Jacob Markstrom had 22 saves

while losing his fifth straight start.

Edmonton beat Calgary for the

fifth time in seven meetings this

season with three more remain-

ing.

ROUNDUP

Orlov’s OT goal lifts Caps over DevilsAssociated Press

MARY ALTAFFER/AP

Washington Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov (center rear)celebrates his overtime goal Friday against the Devils in Newark, N.J.

DENVER — Nathan MacKinnon

scored two goals and Brandon Saad

added another to lead the surging

Colorado Avalanche to a 3-2 win over

the St. Louis Blues on Friday night.

Jonas Johansson had 25 saves for

his first win for Colorado in his sec-

ond start since coming over from

Buffalo in a trade on March 20. Ga-

briel Landeskog assisted on both of

MacKinnon’s goals for the Ava-

lanche, who have gone 11-0-2 in their

last 13 games to take over first place

in the West Division.

“Great feeling, big points for us

and, personally, it was really fun to

get the first one in the Avs jersey,”

Johansson said.

The Blues got goals from Mike

Hoffman and David Perron and 36

saves from Jordan Binnington, but

lost their fifth straight game (0-4-1).

“It’s a pretty good game, it’s a close

game, we hit three posts tonight, I

think,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube

said. “We did a lot of good things but

in the end what matters is the out-

come and we’re on the wrong side of

it.”

Saad and Hoffman traded goals 26

seconds apart in the first before

MacKinnon put Colorado ahead. He

had a power-play goal at 14:43 of the

first and got his 12th of the season

with a burst of speed down the right

side that he finished with a shot be-

tween Binnington’s legs at 13:11 of

the second.

Perron pulled St. Louis to 3-2 with

a power-play goal at 17:16 of the sec-

ond.

MacKinnon leads Avs past BluesBY MICHAEL KELLY

Associated Press

JOE MAHONEY/AP

Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, top, scores against St. Louis Blues goaltender JordanBinnington, left, as Blues defenseman Justin Faulk trails during Friday's game in Denver.


NBA

Eastern Conference

Atlantic Division

W L Pct GB

Brooklyn 34 15 .694 —

Philadelphia 33 15 .688 ½

New York 24 25 .490 10

Boston 24 25 .490 10

Toronto 19 30 .388 15

Southeast Division

W L Pct GB

Charlotte 25 23 .521 —

Atlanta 25 24 .510 ½

Miami 25 24 .510 ½

Washington 17 30 .362 7½

Orlando 17 31 .354 8

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Milwaukee 31 17 .646 —

Indiana 21 26 .447 9½

Chicago 19 28 .404 11½

Cleveland 17 31 .354 14

Detroit 14 34 .292 17

Western Conference

Southwest Division

W L Pct GB

Dallas 26 21 .553 —

San Antonio 24 22 .522 1½

Memphis 23 23 .500 2½

New Orleans 21 27 .438 5½

Houston 13 35 .271 13½

Northwest Division

W L Pct GB

Utah 37 11 .771 —

Denver 30 18 .625 7

Portland 29 19 .604 8

Oklahoma City 20 28 .417 17

Minnesota 12 37 .245 25½

Pacific Division

W L Pct GB

Phoenix 34 14 .708 —

L.A. Clippers 32 18 .640 3

L.A. Lakers 31 18 .633 3½

Golden State 23 26 .469 11½

Sacramento 22 27 .449 12½

Friday’s games

Toronto 130, Golden State 77 Dallas 99, New York 86 Boston 118, Houston 102 Memphis 120, Minnesota 108 Charlotte 114, Indiana 97 Atlanta 126, New Orleans 103 Utah 113, Chicago 106 Phoenix 140, Oklahoma City 103 L.A. Lakers 115, Sacramento 94 Milwaukee 127, Portland 109

Saturday’s games

Dallas at Washington Cleveland at Miami Minnesota at Philadelphia New York at Detroit Indiana at San Antonio Orlando at Utah Milwaukee at Sacramento Oklahoma City at Portland

Sunday’s games

Brooklyn at Chicago L.A. Lakers at L.A. Clippers Charlotte at Boston Memphis at Philadelphia Golden State at Atlanta New Orleans at Houston Orlando at Denver

Monday’s games

Cleveland at San Antonio Detroit at Oklahoma City New York at Brooklyn Sacramento at Minnesota Utah at Dallas Washington at Toronto Phoenix at Houston

Tuesday’s games

Chicago at Indiana L.A. Lakers at Toronto New Orleans at Atlanta Philadelphia at Boston Memphis at Miami Detroit at Denver Milwaukee at Golden State Portland at L.A. Clippers

LeadersScoring

G FG FT PTS AVG

Beal, WAS 41 449 296 1284 31.3

Lillard, POR 46 423 336 1375 29.9

Curry, GS 41 395 215 1198 29.2

Rebounds

G OFF DEF TOT AVG

Capela, ATL 43 206 401 607 14.1

Gobert, UTA 48 163 477 640 13.3

Assists

G AST AVG

Harden, BKN 41 454 11.1

Westbrook, WAS 40 426 10.7

Scoreboard

Giannis Antetokounmpo had 47 points and

12 rebounds, and the Milwaukee Bucks

snapped the Portland Trail Blazers’ four-game

winning streak with a 127-109 victory Friday

night.

Jrue Holiday added 22 points and 10 assists

for the Bucks, who led by 24 points during the

third quarter.

“At the end of the day I just tried to be ag-

gressive,” Antetokounmpo said. “Tonight was

one of those nights I was able to be good in the

paint.”

The game featured two of the league’s best

scorers: Damian Lillard was averaging 29.8

points, second in the NBA, while Anteto-

kounmpo entered fifth with 28.3.

Lillard finished with 32 points for the Blaz-

ers, who have dropped six straight against the

Bucks.

Antetokounmpo’s 47 points matched his sea-

son high but fell short of his career high of 52.

He was 18-for-21 (85.7%) from the field and

made all of his shots in the paint.

“He was really good. He got some great fin-

ishes, he’s making kind of the elbow jumpers,

the free-throw line jumpers. So this is a really

special game for him,” Bucks coach Mike Bu-

denholzer said.

Lillard said Antetolounmpo is tough to stop.

“He’s just more naturally gifted than anyone

else,” Lillard said.

Jeff Teague, signed by the Bucks on

Wednesday after he was waived by the Orlan-

do Magic, made his debut and played 10 min-

utes. Bobby Portis, who missed the previous

four games because of health and safety proto-

cols, also returned for Milwaukee.

An early 11-0 run helped the Bucks jump to a

19-7 lead. Milwaukee led by 14 points during

the opening half, but the Blazers closed the gap

to 60-53 before heading into the break.

Antetokounmpo led all scorers at the half

with 24 points, while Lillard had 18 for the

Blazers.

Lillard’s three-pointer got Portland within

60-58 early in the fourth quarter, but the Bucks

wouldn’t let the Blazers get any closer. Holi-

day’s basket extended Milwaukee’s lead to 86-

70, and the Bucks capped the quarter with an

11-1 run.

The Blazers bench went 0-for-16 from the

field through the first three quarters. Anfernee

Simons hit a three-pointer early in the fourth to

end the drought.

“He put us in positions that are difficult to

double team, and at the same time you don’t

want to give up three-pointers, so it’s kind of

pick your poison,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts

said about Antetokounmpo.

Milwaukee was coming off a 112-97 victory

at the Lakers on Wednesday, which snapped a

three-game losing streak.

Always more Giannis:The NBA said Anteto-

kounmpo was just the third NBA player to

score 45-plus points on 85% or better shooting.

The only other two to do it were Wilt Chamber-

lain (December 1967) and Mike Woodson

(February 1983). He’s also the second player to

go 18-for-18 on two-point attempts in a game,

joining Chamberlain, also in ’67.

Defending from deep: Despite those 21

threes, Budenholzer thought the Bucks de-

fended the perimeter enough to keep the Blaz-

ers from catching up.

“I thought we made them work, especially

Lillard and McCollum, they’re so good. We put

a lot of emphasis on those two guys like the

whole league does,” he said.

CRAIG MITCHELLDYER/AP

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo shoots over Trail Blazers forward RobertCovington on Friday in Portland, Ore. Antetokounmpo scored 47 in the Bucks’ 127109 win.

Antetokounmpo, Bucks beat Blazers BY ANNE M. PETERSON

Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. — Pascal Siakam

scored 36 points in three quarters

and the Toronto Raptors routed

the Golden State Warriors 130-77

Friday with the largest margin of

victory in the NBA this season.

Toronto shot 53.4% in the game

and won for just the second time in

15 games. The Raptors pushed

their lead to 61 points when Mala-

chi Flynn hit a short jump shot

with 6:29 remaining.

Gary Trent Jr. finished with 24

points and OG Anunoby added 21.

The 53-point win was the big-

gest in the NBA this season, two

points wider than the final margin

of Dallas’ 124-73 win over the Los

Angeles Clippers on Dec. 27. The

last time an NBA game was decid-

ed by more: Dec. 8, 2018, when

Boston beat Chicago 133-57.

It was the seventh loss in eight

games for the Warriors, who

played without Steph Curry and

Draymond Green, a late scratch

with a left finger injury.

Suns 140, Thunder 103: Devin

Booker scored 32 points, Chris

Paul had 17 points and 12 assists,

and Phoenix built a 30-point lead

by the end of the first quarter en

route to a rout of visiting Oklaho-

ma City.

The Suns won their fifth

straight game, and this one was

decided in a hurry. Booker shot 11-

for-20 from the field, made three

three-pointers and added five as-

sists.

Celtics 118, Rockets 102: Jay-

son Tatum scored 26 points, Rob-

ert Williams had a career-high 20

points, nine rebounds and eight

assists, and host Boston defeated

Houston.

Trade deadline acquisition

Evan Fournier hit a career-best

seven three-pointers to finish with

23 points, and Jaylen Brown

scored 22 to help the Celtics snap a

two-game skid.

Mavericks 99, Knicks 86: Lu-

ka Doncic scored 26 points and

visiting Dallas beat New York.

Doncic was one of five players

to finish in double-figure scoring

for Dallas, which has won three

straight.

Hornets 114, Pacers 97: Re-

serve guard Miles Bridges scored

a season-high 23 points and short-

handed Charlotte overcame an-

other injury and beat host Indiana.

Grizzlies 120, Timberwolves

108: Jonas Valanciunas had 19

points and 11 rebounds, eight Griz-

zlies scored in double-figures and

Memphis used a second-half burst

for a victory over visiting Minne-

sota.

Hawks 126, Pelicans 103:

Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 26

points, Kevin Huerter added 24

and five other Atlanta players

scored in double figures to beat in-

jury-slowed host New Orleans.

Jazz 113, Bulls 106: Donovan

Mitchell scored 26 points and

Utah beat Chicago for its 21st

straight home victory, a franchise

record.

Lakers 115, Kings 94: Kyle

Kuzma scored 10 of his season-

high 30 points in the fourth quar-

ter and short-handed Los Angeles

thumped host Sacramento.

Raptors rout short-handed Warriors

CHRIS O'MEARA/AP

Toronto forward OG Anunobydunks the ball against the GoldenState Warriors during the firsthalf of Friday's game in Tampa,Fla. The Raptors won 13077.

Associated Press

ROUNDUP


MLB

American League

East Division

W L Pct GB

Tampa Bay 2 01.000 _

Baltimore 1 01.000 ½

Toronto 1 01.000 ½

Boston 0 1 .000 1½

New York 0 1 .000 1½

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Detroit 1 01.000 _

Kansas City 1 01.000 _

Chicago 1 1 .500 ½

Cleveland 0 1 .000 1

Minnesota 0 1 .000 1

West Division

W L Pct GB

Houston 2 01.000 _

Los Angeles 1 1 .500 1

Seattle 1 1 .500 1

Texas 0 1 .000 1½

Oakland 0 2 .000 2

National League

East Division

W L Pct GB

Philadelphia 1 01.000 _

New York 0 0 .000 ½

Washington 0 0 .000 ½

Atlanta 0 1 .000 1

Miami 0 2 .000 1½

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Milwaukee 1 01.000 _

Pittsburgh 1 01.000 _

St. Louis 1 01.000 _

Chicago 0 1 .000 1

Cincinnati 0 1 .000 1

West Division

W L Pct GB

San Diego 2 01.000 _

Colorado 1 1 .500 1

Los Angeles 1 1 .500 1

San Francisco 1 1 .500 1

Arizona 0 2 .000 2

Friday’s games

Baltimore 3, Boston 0 Houston 9, Oakland 5 Chicago White Sox 12, L.A. Angels 8Tampa Bay 6, Miami 4 L.A. Dodgers 11, Colorado 6 San Francisco 6, Seattle 3 San Diego 4, Arizona 2

Saturday’s games

Toronto at N.Y. YankeesBaltimore at BostonCleveland at DetroitTexas at Kansas CityHouston at OaklandChicago White Sox at L.A. AngelsPittsburgh at Chicago CubsAtlanta at PhiladelphiaN.Y. Mets at Washington, ppd. St. Louis at CincinnatiTampa Bay at MiamiMinnesota at MilwaukeeL.A. Dodgers at Colorado Arizona at San Diego San Francisco at Seattle

Sunday’s games

Toronto (TBD) at N.Y. Yankees (Germán0-0)

Baltimore (Zimmermann 0-0) at Boston(Richards 0-0)

Cleveland (Civale 0-0) at Detroit (Skubal0-0)

Minnesota (Pineda 0-0) at Milwaukee(Houser 0-0)

Texas (Lyles 0-0) at Kansas City (Singer0-0)

Houston (Urquidy 0-0) at Oakland (Ma-naea 0-0)

Atlanta (Anderson 0-0) at Philadelphia(Eflin 0-0)

N.Y. Mets at Washington, ppd.St. Louis (Martínez 0-0) at Cincinnati

(Hoffman 0-0)Minnesota (Pineda 0-0) at Milwaukee

(Houser 0-0)Pittsburgh (Keller 0-0) at Chicago Cubs

(Davies 0-0)L.A. Dodgers (Urías 0-0) at Colorado

(Gomber 0-0)Arizona (Widener 0-0) at San Diego (Pad-

dack 0-0)

Monday’s games

Minnesota at DetroitToronto at TexasKansas City at ClevelandBaltimore at N.Y. YankeesTampa Bay at BostonHouston at L.A. AngelsChicago White Sox at SeattleAtlanta at WashingtonPittsburgh at CincinnatiSt. Louis at MiamiN.Y. Mets at PhiladelphiaMilwaukee at Chicago CubsL.A. Dodgers at OaklandSan Francisco at San Diego

Scoreboard

NEW YORK — Atlanta lost

Major League Baseball’s sum

mer AllStar Game on Friday

over the league’s objections to

sweeping changes to Georgia

voting laws that critics — includ

ing the CEOs of Atlantabased

Delta Air Lines and CocaCola —

have condemned as being too re

strictive.

The decision to pull the July 13

game from Atlanta’s Truist Park

amounts to the first economic

backlash against Georgia for the

voting law that Republican Gov.

Brian Kemp quickly signed into

law March 25.

Kemp has insisted the law’s

critics have mischaracterized

what it does, yet GOP lawmakers

adopted the changes largely in

response to false claims of fraud

in the 2020 elections by former

President Donald Trump and his

supporters. The law includes

new restrictions on voting by

mail and greater legislative con

trol over how elections are run.

MLB Commissioner Rob

Manfred made the decision to

move the AllStar events and the

amateur draft from Atlanta after

discussions with individual play

ers and the Players Alliance, an

organization of Black players

formed after the death of George

Floyd last year, the commission

er said in a statement. A new

ballpark for the events wasn’t

immediately revealed.

Manfred said he also spoke

with the Major League Baseball

Players Association, which at the

time of the commissioner's deci

sion said it had still not taken a

stance.

“I have decided that the best

way to demonstrate our values as

a sport is by relocating this

year’s AllStar Game and MLB

draft,” Manfred said. “Major

League Baseball fundamentally

supports voting rights for all

Americans and opposes restric

tions to the ballot box.”

The White House said Presi

dent Joe Biden supports the de

cision.

“The President has made his

concerns about the bill passed in

Georgia clear, given its extreme

provisions that impact the ability

of so many citizens to cast their

votes," the White House said. "He

said earlier this week that if the

decision was made by Major

League Baseball to move the All

Star game, he would certainly

support that decision – and now

that MLB has made that choice,

he certainly does.”

In a statement, Trump blasted

the move and urged his support

ers to “boycott baseball and all of

the woke companies that are in

terfering with Free and Fair

Elections.”

Kemp called MLB's action a

“kneejerk decision” that means

“cancel culture and woke politi

cal activists are coming for every

aspect of your life, sports includ

ed. If the left doesn’t agree with

you, facts and the truth do not

matter.”

“This attack on our state is the

direct result of repeated lies

from (President) Joe Biden and

Stacey Abrams about a bill that

expands access to the ballot box

and ensures the integrity of our

elections," Kemp said in a state

ment, referring to the Democrat

ic candidate whom he narrowly

defeated in the 2018 election. "I

will not back down. Georgians

will not be bullied.”

All-Star Game yanked from GeorgiaBY RONALD BLUM

Associated Press

Associated Press writers Jeff Amy, Ben Nadler andPaul Newberry in Atlanta; Pat Graham in Denver;Janie McCauley in Houston; Darlene Superville inWashington; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga.,contributed to this report.

DENVER — Trevor Bauer took

a nohit bid into the seventh in

ning of his Los Angeles debut be

fore allowing a pair of tworun

homers, and the Dodgers held on

after building a big lead to beat

the Colorado Rockies 116 on Fri

day night.

The game had a little bit of ev

erything, including a gray cat

making a surprise appearance in

center field before being ushered

out by stadium personnel.

Bauer (10), the reigning NL Cy

Young Award winner, purred

along through six innings until

Trevor Story broke up the nohit

bid with a single and Charlie

Blackmon ended the shutout with

a tworun homer.

Ryan McMahon later followed

with another tworun homer. Da

vid Price eventually replaced

Bauer and gave up backtoback

homers to Dom Nuñez and Sam

Hilliard, suddenly turning a 100

rout into a 106 game.

It was the second time in Rock

ies history they homered four

times in an inning.

Bauer went 6 1⁄�3 innings and al

lowed four runs while striking out

10. The righthander signed a

$102 million, threeyear deal as a

free agent in February after going

54 with a 1.73 ERA last season for

Cincinnati.

Rockies starter Antonio Senza

tela (01) uncharacteristically

scuffled at home, lasting 3 1⁄�3 in

nings and allowing seven runs.

Padres 4, Diamondbacks 2:

Blake Snell struck out eight be

fore being pulled after 4 2⁄�3 score

Bregman hit a threerun shot for

his second homer in two games,

and Yuli Gurriel also connected

in visiting Houston's second con

secutive victory over rival Oak

land.

Giants 6, Mariners 3: Evan

Longoria and Buster Posey both

homered for the second straight

game, and visiting San Francisco

took advantage of Seattle’s sus

pect bullpen.

Means pitched seven innings of

onehit ball, allowing a single to

lead off the game and retiring his

last 18 batters as visiting Balti

more blanked Boston in their

raindelayed opener.

Rays 6, Marlins 4: Joey Wen

dle hit a threerun homer, high

lighting a fourrun rally in the

ninth inning that sent visiting

Tampa Bay over Miami.

Astros 9, Athletics 5: Alex

less innings in his debut with his

new team, and Eric Hosmer

homered for the second straight

game and drove in three runs as

host San Diego beat Arizona.

White Sox 12, Angels 8: Yer

mín Mercedes got his first five

major league hits and drove in

four runs, and José Abreu hit a

grand slam to power visiting Chi

cago past Los Angeles.

Orioles 3, Red Sox 0: John

ROUNDUP

Bauer wins debut with DodgersAssociated Press

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/AP

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Trevor Bauer works against the Colorado Rockies during the sixthinning of Friday's game in Denver. Bauer pitched a nohitter into the seventh inning.


NFL

HOUSTON — Houston Texans

quarterback Deshaun Watson,

who is accused of sexual assault

and harassment in lawsuits filed

by 21 women, is being investigated

by police after a report was filed

regarding the NFL player, offi-

cials said Friday.

In a tweet Friday, the Houston

Police Department said a com-

plainant had filed a report with the

agency about Watson.

“As with any allegation, the

Houston Police Department is

now conducting an investigation

and will not comment further dur-

ing the investigative process,” the

law enforcement agency said.

Watson’s attorney, Rusty Har-

din, has called the allegations

“meritless” and has questioned

the claims made against the NFL

player, alleging they were made

following a failed attempt to black-

mail his client for $30,000.

“We welcome this long overdue

development. Now we will learn

the identity of at least one accuser.

We will fully cooperate with the

Houston Police Department,”

Hardin said Friday in a statement.

It was not immediately known if

the person who filed the report

with Houston police is one of the

women who has filed suit against

Watson.

Tony Buzbee, who represents

the 21 women, did not immediate-

ly return an email seeking com-

ment Friday.

The women, in lawsuits filed in

state court in Houston, accuse

Watson of exposing himself,

touching them with his penis or

kissing them against their will

while he got a massage. At least

one woman has alleged Watson

forced her to perform oral sex

during a massage in December.

All of the women who have sued

Watson are either licensed mas-

sage therapists or worked in a spa

or similar business.

Earlier this week, Hardin of-

fered statements from 18 different

women who said they had worked

with Watson and he had “never

made them feel uncomfortable or

demanded anything outside the

scope of a professional massage.”

The complaint filed with Hous-

ton police comes after Buzbee ear-

lier this week had said he would

not provide evidence to Houston

police but would “go elsewhere to

provide our evidence to investiga-

tive authorities” because of con-

cerns about the agency. Buzbee

had alleged Houston police would

not fairly investigate the cases be-

cause of criticism he had made of

the recently departed police chief

and because Hardin’s son works

for the agency.

Hardin called Buzbee’s con-

cerns about Houston police “ludi-

crous.”

The NFL said it’s investigating

the allegations against Watson.

Watson is one of the league’s top

quarterbacks and led the NFL in

yards passing last season. He

signed a four-year, $156 million

contract extension with the Tex-

ans last offseason, but he became

unhappy with the direction of the

team as Houston sunk to 4-12.

Watson requested a trade in Janu-

ary.

Houston police openinginvestigation of Watson

BY JUAN A. LOZANO

Associated Press

KELVIN KUO/AP

Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson is accused of sexualassault and harassment in lawsuits filed by 21 women.

DID YOU KNOW?

Houston quarterback DeShaun

Watson led the NFL in passing

yards last season after signing a

four-year, $156 million contract

extension in the offseason. The

Texans struggled to a 4-12 finish,

however, leading Watson to request

a trade in January.

SOURCE: Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. — When Jason

Licht declared he was going to do

everything possible to keep the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers together,

no one envisioned the process go-

ing as smoothly as it has for the

Super Bowl champions.

Even the team’s ever-optimistic

general manager, who not only

has followed through on a bold

promise but also defied the odds

of being able to retain all 22 start-

ers from a star-studded roster as-

sembled around Tom Brady.

Coach Bruce Arians cites a win-

ning culture — fostered with help

from Brady and a highly regarded

coaching staff that also remains

intact — as maybe the biggest fac-

tor contributing to the Bucs hold-

ing on to seven key players who

could have departed in free agen-

cy this spring.

A pandemic-driven, league-

wide reduction in the NFL salary

cap for 2021 limited the amount of

money potential suitors could of-

fer on the open market helped,

too.

So did veterans such as Brady

and offensive lineman Donovan

Smith accepting cap-friendly con-

tract extensions to aid Licht’s mis-

sion.

“I can’t really point to a single

factor ... but I think everybody

wanted to be back,” Licht said.

“Everybody’s getting paid fairly,

but everybody’s very excited to

try to (win) it again.’’

The first major move in a busy

offseason was placing the fran-

chise tag on wide receiver Chris

Godwin.

From there, Licht proceeded to

negotiate multi-year contracts for

linebackers Lavonte David and

Shaquil Barrett and kicker Ryan

Succop, as well as one-year deals

to keep tight end Rob Gronkow-

ski, defensive lineman Ndamu-

kong Suh, and running back Leo-

nard Fournette.

“I could have gone somewhere

and got more money, but I think

this is just the place for me right

now,” said Fournette, who could

earn up to $4 million next season.

“I’m glad to be back. They’re glad

to have me back.”

Somehow, there was still mon-

ey left along the way to sign less

heralded holdovers such as guard

Aaron Stinnie, who started in the

Super Bowl, and defensive re-

serves Kevin Minter and Rakeem

Nunez-Roches, who also contrib-

uted to last season’s success.

And then there’s receiver Anto-

nio Brown, a mid-season pickup

who caught a touchdown pass in

the Super Bowl. There’s a chance

he could return, too.

“We’re going to take our time.

There’s offers out there, and we’ll

see how it goes,” Arians said.

“We’re still seeing what we can

do on a couple of fronts,” Licht

said of what’s left to add. “I don’t

think it’s ever done.”

Three days after the Super

Bowl, Arians grabbed a micro-

phone several times during a

downtown waterfront rally to per-

sonally declare Godwin, David,

Barrett and Suh weren’t “going

anywhere” in free agency.

The 68-year-old coach isn’t sur-

prised Licht was able to “keep the

band together.”

“We obviously have a team that

should be in the hunt again,” Ar-

ians said. “But I think the camara-

derie of that football team, what

they went through together with

the pandemic and everything

else, there’s a bond ... and it’s hard

to break that bond.”

In some cases, including Brady,

Smith and David, the Bucs includ-

ed voidable years in contracts to

make them more salary-cap

friendly for 2021.

Licht isn’t concerned about the

strategy causing problems with

the salary cap in the future.

“There are some corrections

that are going to have to take

place at some point down the

road, but we’re not putting our-

selves in a position where next

year we have to release a lot of

good players,” the GM said.

“We’re going to be in good shape

if we continue to make sure we

make smart decisions and do

things right.”

PHELAN M. EBENHACK/AP

Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht, left, address the audience with linebacker LavonteDavid during a celebration of their Super Bowl 55 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Tampa, Fla.

Bucs GM: Winning culturehelped keep roster intact

BY FRED GOODALL

Associated Press “I can’t really point to a single factor ...but I think everybody wanted to be back.”

Jason Licht

Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager


NCAA WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT

SAN ANTONIO — Aari McDonald and

Adia Barnes have marched Arizona out of the

basketball desert to the doorstep of a national

championship.

McDonald scored 26 points and led a

smothering defensive effort as the Wildcats

beat UConn 69-59 Friday night to advance to

the women’s NCAA Tournament champion-

ship game for the first time in school history.

The Wildcats never trailed against the fa-

vored and fabled Huskies, who have made the

Final Four 13 consecutive times, but haven’t

made the championship game since 2016

when UConn won its 11th title.

And Barnes, who led Arizona to the NCAA

Tournament as a player two decades ago, is

now just the third coach to lead her alma ma-

ter to the championship. It comes five years

after she took the job to rebuild one of the

worst programs in the Pac-12.

Arizona will face Stanford on Sunday in the

first all Pac-12 final. Barnes got there by beat-

ing UConn and Geno Auriemma, who

coached all of UConn’s 11 championships.

“No one thought we’d win. No one thought

we’d be here,” Barnes said. “We don’t care.

We believed in each other. We believed. Our

team believed.”

McDonald, who stands just 5-foot-6, has led

the way on the court since transferring from

Washington and sitting out her first season

when Arizona won just six games.

She did it all for the Wildcats against UConn

with slashing drives, pinpoint shooting from

long range, and a defensive intensity that held

UConn’s star freshman Paige Bueckers in

check for long stretches.

Arizona held UConn to a season-low in

points and led by 14 late in the third quarter be-

fore holding off a late push. At the final buzzer,

McDonald threw the ball high in the air and

was mobbed by her teammates near center

court. Then she shared a long hug with

Barnes.

The small, but mostly pro-Arizona crowd at

the Alamodome — the NCAA put limits on at-

tendance because of the pandemic — chanted

“U of A!” Arizona players came over to the

loud rooting section, pointing to jerseys and

waving hands up to get them to get louder.

“It was that grit,” McDonald said of the

Wildcats’ defensive lockdown. “We didn’t

want to go home once again, and we’re prov-

ing it. We’re locking down and we’re playing

team defense. This is our identity, and we’re

best at defense. Defense wins games and we

did that tonight.”

Bueckers, The Associated Press player of

the year, finished with 18 points and her three-

pointer got UConn within 60-55 in the final two

minutes before Arizona closed out the win

with free throws. Christyn Williams led

UConn (28-2) with 20 points before fouling

out.

UConn has no seniors in the lineup and

started slow as the Huskies looked tentative in

the role of favorite. McDonald and the Wild-

cats looked primed for their moment after be-

ing left out of the NCAA’s Final Four promo-

tional video on Twitter that had featured the

three other teams but not them.

UConn had four early turnovers and mis-

sed its first five shots before Bueckers made a

three-pointer to settle the offense, but only

temporarily. McDonald, opened the game

with a three-pointer, made another two min-

utes later, and scored eight as the Wildcats led

16-10 after the first quarter.

“I think we came out with the wrong men-

tality. I thought we thought it was going to be

easy, I guess, and we got flustered,” Williams

said. “They had great ball pressure. It wasn’t

like anything we’ve seen before this season.

And we just couldn’t get in a flow offensively.”

McDonald pumped in two more from long

range in the second quarter and the Wildcats

led 32-22 at halftime. Bueckers was struggling

to get any looks at the basket and finished the

half with just four shots and three points.

McDonald cooled off in the third with just

two points on two free throws. But she deliver-

ed big points late, and her three-point play in

the final four minutes of the fourth put Arizona

up by 10.

Auriemma, who has coached the national

player of the year 12 times at UConn, gushed

over McDonald’s performance.

“Aari McDonald, I said going into the game

that I don’t think we’ve had to play against a

guard as good as she is, and she proved it to-

night. She just dominated the entire game,

start to finish,” he said.

McDonald, Arizona stun UConnBY JIM VERTUNO

Associated Press

MORRY GASH/AP

Arizona guard Aari McDonald saves the ball from going out of bounds during the secondhalf of Friday's semifinal game against Connecticut in San Antonio.

“No one thoughtwe’d win. No onethought we’d behere. We don’t care.We believed in eachother. We believed.Our team believed.”

Adia Barnes

Arizona head coach

SAN ANTONIO — Haley Jones came up

with a big shot, and Stanford got a little bit of

luck to get back to the national champion-

ship game for the first time in 11 years.

Jones scored 24 points, including the go-

ahead jumper with 32 seconds left, to help

Stanford beat South Carolina 66-65 on Fri-

day night and advance to the women’s

NCAA Tournament title game.

“It was a battle. It was a really tough game

where we had to work really hard,” Stanford

coach Tara VanDerveer said.

It’s Stanford’s first trip to the title game

since 2010, which was also in San Antonio.

The Cardinal lost to UConn in that contest,

53-47. Now they’ll face Pac-12 rival Arizona

on Sunday night. The fourth-seeded Wild-

cats knocked off top-seed UConn 69-59.

Leading by one, the Cardinal turned it

over with 6.2 seconds left at midcourt and

Brea Beal missed a contested layup as Lexie

Hull hustled back to get in her way. Aliyah

Boston grabbed the rebound, but her put-

back attempt also bounced off the rim set-

ting off a wild celebration by the Cardinal.

“It is nice to have a little karma go your

way,” VanDerveer said.

VanDerveer, who earlier this season

topped Pat Summitt’s all-time win mark of

1,098 victories, will be looking for her third

national championship at the school and

first since 1992.

Trailing 65-64 with 32 seconds left, Jones

hit a jumper from the corner off a rebound

that gave the Cardinal their one-point lead.

“I just saw the ball bouncing around and

most of my teammates were hitting some

bodies to open it up. I just let it fly and I said,

‘Please, Jesus, go in,’ and it did,” said Jones,

who was 11-for-14 from the field. “And then

we just had to go on to the next play. There’s

no time to get hyped about. We had to get

back on defense.”

MORRY GASH/AP

Stanford guard Lexie Hull, top, fights for arebound with South Carolina guardDestanni Henderson during their semifinalgame Friday in San Antonio.

Cardinal

hold off

GamecocksBY DOUG FEINBERG

Associated Press

scored 26 points and the team played sti-

fling defense on UConn, holding them to 22

points in the first half and leading by 10.

UConn got within five with a minute left, but

could get no closer.

“No one thought we’d win, no one thought

we’d be here,” Barnes said. “We don’t care.

We believed in each other. We believed, our

team believed.”

The win made Barnes the third coach to

lead her alma mater to the championship

game, joining Sonja Hogg, who guided

Louisiana Tech to the first NCAA title in

1982 and was the runner up in 1983, as well

as Wendy Larry at Old Dominion.

Arizona saved its best basketball for the

NCAA Tournament.

“I’m just happy we got hot at the right

time during the tournament and if you look

back at two or three weeks ago we weren’t

playing our best basketball,” Barnes said.

“So we started to change some things and

got better. we just became more united

right before the tournament and just found

ways.”

It’s been quite a year for VanDerveer and

the Cardinal. The team was forced on the

road for nearly 10 weeks because of the cor-

onavirus and spent 86 days in hotels, ac-

cording to ESPN.

The Cardinal didn’t complain and went

about their business. Along the way the Hall

of Fame coach earned her 1,099th career

victory to pass Pat Summitt for the most all-

time in women’s basketball history.

These two Pac-12 teams met twice this

season with the Cardinal winning both

meetings. Stanford won 81-54 on New

Year’s Day and 62-48 on Feb. 22.

Final Four

At San AntonioNational Semifinals

Friday, April 2Stanford 66, South Carolina 65Arizona 69, UConn 59

National ChampionshipSunday, April 4

Stanford vs. Arizona AFN-Sports, Midnight Sun-day CET; 7 a.m. Monday JKT

Scoreboard

Final: Barnes leads alma mater to title gameFROM PAGE 24


SPORTSAtlanta loses All-Star Game

Manfred, MLB pull annual classicover Georgia voting law ›› Page 21

Cy Young winner Bauer victorious in debut with Dodgers ›› Page 21

SAN ANTONIO — It’s been nearly three decades

since Tara VanDerveer last won a national cham-

pionship at Stanford.

She’ll have a chance to win her third title Sunday

night when the Cardinal face Pac-12 rival Arizona.

The Wildcats are playing in their first championship

game ever after knocking off top-ranked Connecticut

in the Final Four.

“It’s just, I think, a credit to how competitive the

Pac-12 is,” VanDerveer said.

It’s the first meeting of conference rivals in the

championship game since South Carolina beat Mis-

sissippi State in 2017.

Now the Pac-12, which has had six different teams

reach the Final Four since 2013 will be guaranteed its

first champion since Stanford won in 1992.

“I’ve been saying all along, the Pac-12 is the best

conference in the country,” Arizona coach Adia

Barnes said. “Hands down.”

To get to Sunday night’s game the Cardinal got a

little bit of luck edging South Carolina 66-65 on a bas-

ket by Haley Jones with 32 seconds left Friday night.

The Cardinal survived two last-second misses by the

Gamecocks.

Arizona didn’t need any last-second karma to beat

the Huskies. Wildcats All-American Aari McDonald

ERIC GAY, ABOVE, AND MORRY GASH, BELOW/AP

Above: Arizona players celebrate after Friday's 6959 victory over Connecticut on Friday in San Antonio. Below: Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer directs her team during thesecond half of her team's 6665 victory over South Carolina. Vanderveer will be going for her second national championship Sunday when Stanford faces Arizona in the final.

NCAA WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT

All-Pac-12 finalArizona, Stanford win semifinals

BY DOUG FEINBERG

Associated Press

SEE FINAL ON PAGE 23

CONTINGENCY EDITION S ,A In the shadow of conflict

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