Drawdowns to limit future operations

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WASHINGTON — The troop

drawdowns in Afghanistan and

Iraq planned to be completed by

mid-January will restrict the re-

maining forces in both countries

and limit how the United States as-

sists with future operations there,

the top general for U.S. Central

Command said Thursday.

“We’re just going to have to be

very careful and focused when we

do it,” Marine Gen. Frank McKen-

zie said during a virtual event with

DefenseOne, a news organization.

On Nov. 17, acting Defense Sec-

retary Christopher Miller an-

nounced President Donald Trump

had decided to reduce the U.S.

forces in Iraq and Afghanistan by

Jan. 15, just five days before Presi-

dent-elect Joe Biden is sworn into

office.

The force reduction will leave

roughly 2,500 troops in Afghanis-

tan and 2,500 in Iraq as both coun-

tries continue to see violence

against government forces and ci-

vilians by terrorist groups such as

the Islamic State and the Taliban.

With less troops, the work of ad-

vising and assisting Afghan forces

with counter-terrorism oper-

ations will be done “at a higher

level,” McKenzie said.

“We will have to be very careful

and very smart how we pick and

choose where we go and where we

don’t go. And the margins will be

less, but we believe it still will en-

able us to carry out our core objec-

tive” of preventing ISIS and al-

Qaida from attacking the U.S. or

other partner countries from Af-

ghanistan, the general said.

The United States will not have

trouble getting down to less than

3,000 in Afghanistan by January,

McKenzie:Drawdownsto limit futureoperations

BY CAITLIN M. KENNEY

Stars and Stripes

SEE DRAWDOWNS ON PAGE 4

said Dan Goldenberg, the endow-

ment’s executive director.

Competitors include players

from the Army, Navy, Air Force,

Marine Corps and Space Force

and the United Kingdom’s British

Army, Royal Air Force and Royal

Navy.

The C.O.D.E Bowl kicked off at

10 a.m. Friday on the U.S. West

Coast; however, the virtual event

was to stream all day across time

zones on the Call of Duty Twitch

and YouTube channels.

The Call of Duty Endowment

Adaylong video gaming

event raised nearly $1

million to help veterans

find work and careers

before it even went live Friday, ac-

cording to a nonprofit affiliated

with the popular Call of Duty fran-

chise.

The Call of Duty Endowment is

hosting a livestream face-off of

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War,

the most recent version of the

first-person shooter game, to raise

awareness and money to place

veterans in long-term careers,

U.S. Space Force

The U.S. Space Force is one of eight teams participating in this year’s Call of Duty Endowment video gaming event to raise money for veterans.

Heeding the Call to helpMilitary gamers participate in event to assist veterans transitioning to long-term careers

BY ERICA EARL

Stars and Stripes

Activision

Modern warriors are returning to the Cold War for a video gametournament featuring the latest edition of the first-person shooter.SEE GAMERS ON PAGE 5

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •Saturday, December 12, 2020

BUSINESS/WEATHER

Airbnb proved its resilience in a

year that has upended global trav-

el. Now it needs to prove it can live

up to investors’ sky-high expecta-

tions.

The San Francisco-based home

sharing company made a trium-

phant debut on the public market

Thursday. Its shares closed at

$144.71 apiece, more than double

the $68 price that Airbnb had set.

The closing price gave the compa-

ny a valuation of just over $100 bil-

lion. The shares are trading on the

Nasdaq Stock Market under the

symbol “ABNB.”

Instead of the traditional ring-

ing of the bell prior to the trading

day, Airbnb presented a video of

Airbnb hosts from around the

world ringing their doorbells. In a

video message, CEO Brian Ches-

ky also thanked the millions of

guests who have stayed at its list-

ings. In 2019 alone, 54 million

guests stayed at an Airbnb.

“You gave us hope that the idea

of strangers staying together, in

each others’ homes, was not so

crazy after all,” Chesky said.

“Airbnb is rooted in the funda-

mental idea that people are good

and we’re in this together.”

Airbnb raised $3.7 billion in its

offering, making it the biggest

U.S. IPO this year, according to

Renaissance Capital, which tracks

IPOs. The company had initially

set a price range of $44 to $50 for it

shares, but raised that to a range of

$56 to $60 earlier this week indi-

cating rising investor demand.

Airbnb wants to add more hosts

and properties.

Airbnb shares more than doubleAssociated Press

Bahrain79/65

Baghdad66/49

Doha77/65

Kuwait City68/52

Riyadh69/45

Kandahar50/31

Kabul40/29

Djibouti84/76

SATURDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

48/33

Ramstein45/40

Stuttgart44/38

Lajes,Azores64/59

Rota65/60

Morón66/58 Sigonella

57/48

Naples56/49

Aviano/Vicenza43/35

Pápa43/36

Souda Bay64/48

Brussels47/38

Zagan40/31

DrawskoPomorskie 34/30

SATURDAY IN EUROPE

Misawa46/36

Guam86/79

Tokyo61/41

Okinawa73/68

Sasebo59/45

Iwakuni57/43

Seoul49/30

Osan49/29

Busan51/33

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

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

SUNDAY IN THE PACIFIC

WEATHER OUTLOOK

TODAYIN STRIPES

American Roundup ...... 11Comics ........................ 19Crossword ....................19Video Games................ 13Movies ................... 14-15Opinion ........................ 18Sports ................... 20-24

Military rates

Euro costs (Dec. 14) $1.18Dollar buys (Dec. 14) 0.8047British pound (Dec. 14) $1.29Japanese yen (Dec. 14) 102.00South Korean won (Dec. 14) 1060.00

Commercial rates

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So. Korea (Won) 1094.09Switzerland (Franc) .8895Thailand (Baht) 28.18Turkey (NewLira) 7.8262

(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 �0.253month bill 0.0830year bond 1.64

EXCHANGE RATES

Saturday, December 12, 2020 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3

KABUL, Afghanistan — Staff

Sgt. Alaxey Germanovich dozed

off briefly during a break in a har-

rowing two-week fight to oust Is-

lamic State fighters from a re-

mote valley in eastern Afghanis-

tan, but he awoke to the sound of a

belt-fed machine gun.

The Air Force combat controll-

er rushed into the fight, calling in

Hellfire missiles to take out two

suicide bombers, then directed

bombing and strafing runs

against an overwhelming enemy

force that had pinned down an Ar-

my Special Forces team he was

accompanying.

He later used his body to pro-

tect one of the Americans, 7th Spe-

cial Forces Group (Airborne)

member Staff Sgt. Mark De Alen-

car, after he was cut down by a

PKM machine gun as the team of

U.S. troops closed on an enemy

sniper position.

For his bravery, Germanovich

was presented the Air Force

Cross, the service’s highest medal

for combat bravery, in a ceremo-

ny at Cannon Air Force Base in

New Mexico on Thursday. The

award is second only to the Medal

of Honor.

“You risked your life and

weathered blistering enemy fire

to save the lives of others,” Air

Force Secretary Barbara Barrett

said during the event, which was

streamed live on social media.

“This Air Force Cross is a tribute

to your persistence.”

What was supposed to be a

weeklong U.S. and Afghan oper-

ation to clear some 450 ISIS fight-

ers from the rugged terrain in

Nangarhar province turned into

17 days of continuous close com-

bat, Barrett said.

The actions Germanovich was

honored for came about a week

into the mission, on April 8, 2017,

when ambushed coalition forces

fought a grueling 8-hour gun bat-

tle under machine gun and sniper

fire from all sides, the award cita-

tion says.

Germanovich is the 12th mem-

ber of the Air Force’s Special Tac-

tics community to receive the

medal for extraordinary heroism

since the 9/11 attacks. Special

Tactics airmen are ground spe-

cial operations troops that direct

airstrikes, recover personnel and

conduct battlefield surgeries.

ISIS opposition had been heavy

from the get-go, with gunfights

and airstrikes “all day, every

day,” Germanovich said in an Air

Force video released after the

ceremony. It got worse as they

pushed the ISIS fighters toward

the Pakistan border.

“Near the end of the valley … it

became more violent,” said Ger-

manovich, who is assigned to the

26th Special Tactics Squadron, 24th

Special Operations Wing.

He and the Special Forces sol-

diers were pinned down “basical-

ly in the open,” he said in the vid-

eo. He was forced to call in heavy

strikes against a large enemy

force occupying a tree-line, with

some hitting less than a football

field away from him.

“That’s really where dropping

bombs really gets scary,” he said

in the video. “We started with like

some 500-pound bombs. That

wasn’t working, so we started

dropping 2,000-pound bombs.

That worked for a little bit.”

With ordnance falling, he called

for the team to dash for cover. As

they dove behind a rock, one

bomb burst in the air, throwing

deadly fragments across the area

they’d just run from, he said.

At one point, the leader of the

7th Special Forces Group (Air-

borne) A-team identified an ene-

my sniper position in a narrow

cave at the top of a rocky outcrop-

ping. The Americans assaulted

the cave, but De Alencar was shot

in the process and mortally

wounded.

Germanovich, then a senior air-

man on his first deployment, put

himself between nearby enemy

forces to protect his fellow Amer-

icans with his body, the citation

says.

As the battle dragged on, the

American and Afghan forces ex-

pended all of their ammunition

and grenades, but there were still

enemy fighters all around and the

AC-130W Stinger II gunship over-

head was low on fuel.

“As they (the AC-130) were

leaving, I said, ‘If you don’t come

back, we’re dead,” Germanovich

said.

It did return and began “doing

God’s work” firing on the enemy,

he said, giving him and the others

a chance to move De Alencar to

safety. Germanovich helped car-

ry his comrade nearly a half-mile

uphill to a helicopter landing zone

for evacuation.

“This battle was a case study in

toughness and extraordinary

competence,” Col. Matthew Al-

len, the special operations wing

commander, said at Thursday’s

ceremony. “But it was also a case

study in love. The type of love that

demands teammates fight for one

another and give everything they

have.”

Germanovich’s actions protect-

ed over 150 friendly forces, Bar-

rett said. “He was intrepid and re-

lentless,” she said.

But he was only doing the job

he trained for, he said.

“You reflexively just want to

protect your teammates, you

don’t care about anything else,”

he said. “Every single one of those

guys would have done everything

in their power to do anything they

could to help the next guy.”

Following the ceremony, Ger-

manovich led the ceremony’s at-

tendees in pushups, a Special

Tactics tradition, to honor De

Alencar, who he called “D.”

“D paid the ultimate price,” he

said in the video, his eyes tearing

up. “I got to walk away. … I got

lucky.”

[email protected]: @pwwellman

Airman honoredfor protectingfallen soldier

BY PHILLIP WALTER

WELLMAN AND CHAD

GARLAND

Stars and Stripes

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL WASHBURN/U.S. Air Force

The father of Staff Sgt. Alaxey Germanovich, 26th Special Tactics Squadron combat controller, pins theAir Force Cross medal on his son, Thursday at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Opti-

mism among Afghans regarding

the country’s peace process has

decreased significantly in the

past few months amid a spike in

violence, according to a survey

released Friday.

The Institute of War and Peace

Studies found optimism had drop-

ped to 57% when the survey was

conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct.

18. That’s down from 86% of those

surveyed according to the previ-

ous assessment conducted over

the summer and released in Au-

gust.

Ongoing peace talks between

the Afghan government and the

Taliban in Qatar had been at an

impasse until last week, when in a

breakthrough, the two sides

agreed on rules and procedures

for the negotiations.

However, since the Afghan-Ta-

liban talks started in September,

violence has spiked significantly.

The Taliban have staged deadly

attacks on Afghan forces while

keeping their promise not to at-

tack U.S. and NATO troops. The

attacks have drawn a mighty re-

taliation by the Afghan air force,

backed by U.S. warplanes. Inter-

national rights groups have

warned both sides to avoid inflict-

ing civilian casualties.

The Kabul-based think tank

found the 75.9% of survey respon-

dents said a cease-fire should be

the top priority of the intra-Af-

ghan talks.

Additionally, 71% of those

polled did not want to dissolve the

country’s army and security

forces after a peace deal. Afghan

President Mohammad Ashraf

Ghani has denounced the idea.

Another 64% were also against

any fundamental reforms to the

structure of the country’s security

forces, something the Taliban

have insisted on, saying these

forces were created by foreign

powers.

The institute polled 8,627 peo-

ple across Afghanistan’s 34 prov-

inces — 58% men and 42% women

— and received funding to con-

duct the survey from the Europe-

an Union and the Swedish Inter-

national Development Coopera-

tion Agency. The survey had a 5%

margin of error.

A few districts in some prov-

inces were not surveyed due to

high levels of violence and insta-

bility, as well as issues related to

the coronavirus pandemic, the in-

stitute said.

The Taliban now control or

hold sway over half the country,

and are at their most powerful

since the U.S.-led invasion in

2001.

In a report earlier this year,

Washington’s Special Inspector

General for Afghan Reconstruct-

ion, which monitors billions of

dollars in U.S. aid to the country,

said Afghanistan may not be

ready for peace unless it finds a

way to reintegrate Taliban fight-

ers into society and combat “en-

demic corruption.”

Report: Afghans losing hope for peace process amid attacksAssociated Press

WAR ON TERRORISM

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, December 12, 2020

WASHINGTON — A Senate

vote on a wide-ranging defense

policy bill was delayed after Ken-

tucky Republican Rand Paul ob-

jected to the measure, casting the

next steps in doubt and raising

the slim prospect of a government

shutdown if a short-term spend-

ing bill caught up in the dispute is

not approved by Friday.

Paul said on the Senate floor

that he opposes provisions in the

defense bill that would limit Pres-

ident Donald Trump's ability to

draw down U.S. troops from Af-

ghanistan and Germany. His ob-

jections on Thursday threatened

another must-pass bill, a one-

week spending measure that

would keep the government open

through Dec. 18. The House has

passed the stopgap measure, but

a government shutdown would

occur if the Senate does not act on

it by midnight Friday.

Paul said he would drop his ob-

jection if GOP leaders allowed a

final vote on the National Defense

Authorization Act on Monday.

Senators from both parties were

eager to finish work on the bill

this week.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune,

the No. 2 Senate Republican, said

he thought Paul — who has pro-

voked government shutdowns be-

fore — was using the time-crunch

for maximum leverage to remove

the provision on troop withdraw-

als.

“I think he’s just trying to fig-

ure out ways to derail the bill.

And … when you’re in the U.S

Senate that’s your prerogative.

But most of our people would like

to get it done" this week, Thune

said.

“His thing is just to delay this

and use all the time so it pushes

the vote on (the

defense bill) into

next week,

which pushes

the override

vote” on a possi-

ble Trump veto

into the follow-

ing week, Thune

said of his fellow

Republican,

Paul.

A procedural vote

on the defense bill was expected

Friday, setting the stage for final

votes on the defense bill and the

stopgap spending measure later

in the day.

Paul said he is concerned that

the measure on troop deployment

“creates 535 commanders-in-

chief in Congress” and hampers

the president's ability to deploy

troops as he sees fit. Democrats

support the measure because

they oppose Trump, Paul said, but

the amendment would also apply

to future presidents, including

President-elect Joe Biden.

One amendment, co-sponsored

by Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and

Jason Crow, D-Colo., would block

troop withdrawals in Afghanistan

unless the Pentagon submits in-

ter-agency reports certifying that

the drawdowns would not jeopar-

dize national security. A separate

provision pushed by Utah Repub-

lican Sen. Mitt Romney and other

lawmakers would limit planned

troop withdrawals in Germany.

Paul singled out Cheney by

name in a floor speech, saying she

and her father, former Vice Presi-

dent Dick Cheney, share a neo-

conservative belief in “perpetual

war."

“The philosophy of these peo-

ple is about war and substantiat-

ing war and making sure that it

becomes and is perpetual war,''

Paul said.

Cheney hit back on Twitter,

charging that Paul was "currently

holding up passage of the

#NDAA, blaming America, and

delaying hazardous duty pay to

hundreds of thousands of our ser-

vice members and their families.

Inexcusable.''

She added: "Rand and I do have

one thing in common, though.

We’re both 5’2” tall.''

The dispute over the defense

bill came after Senate Majority

Leader Mitch McConnell, in a

rare break with Trump, urged

passage of the measure despite

Trump's threat to veto it.

McConnell, R-Ky., said Thurs-

day that it was important for Con-

gress to continue a nearly 60-year

streak of passing the National De-

fense Authorization Act, which af-

firms 3% pay raises for U.S.

troops and authorizes billions in

military programs and construc-

tion.

“This NDAA will unlock more

than $740 billion for the training,

tools and cutting-edge equipment

that our service members and ci-

vilian employees need to defend

American lives and American in-

terests,'' McConnell said in a Sen-

ate speech ahead of an expected

vote Thursday or Friday. ”It will

give our troops the 3% pay raise

they deserve. It’ll keep our forces

ready to deter China and stand

strong in the Indo-Pacific.''

The Democratic-controlled

House overwhelmingly approved

the defense bill on Tuesday, defy-

ing Trump’s veto threat and set-

ting up a possible showdown with

the Republican president in the

waning days of his administra-

tion.

A total of 140 Republicans

joined 195 Democrats in backing

the bill, which received support

from more than 80% of the House

— well above the two-thirds sup-

port required to override a poten-

tial veto.

Trump has vowed to veto the

bill unless lawmakers clamp

down on social media companies

he claims were biased against

him during the election. Trump

also wants Congress to strip out a

provision of the bill that allows re-

naming of military bases that now

honor Confederate leaders.

McConnell did not address

Trump’s veto threat, but said the

bill “will secure President

Trump’s major progress at mod-

ernizing our capabilities, our

technologies and our strategic nu-

clear deterrent.''

The bill "does not contain every

policy that either side would like

to pass. But a huge number of cru-

cial policies are included and a lot

of bad ideas were kept out,''

McConnell said.

Trump tweeted Tuesday that

he will veto “the very weak" de-

fense bill unless it repeals Section

230, a part of the communications

code that shields Twitter, Face-

book and other tech giants from

content liability.

The dispute over social media

content — a battle cry of conser-

vatives who say the social media

giants treat them unfairly — in-

terjects an unrelated but compli-

cated issue into a bill that Con-

gress takes pride in having

passed unfailingly for nearly 60

years. It follows Trump’s bid over

the summer to sabotage the pack-

age with a veto threat over Con-

federate base names.

If he does veto the defense bill,

Congress could cut short its

Christmas recess to hold override

votes, senior House members

said.

“I think we can override the ve-

to, if in fact he vetoes," House Ma-

jority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-

Md., said Tuesday. “I hope he

does not veto. I hope he reconsid-

ers. And I think he will get sub-

stantial pressure (from Republi-

cans) that, you know, you don’t

want to put the defense bill at risk.

The defense measure guides

Pentagon policy and cements de-

cisions about troop levels, new

weapons systems and military

readiness, military personnel pol-

icy and other military goals.

Many programs can only go into

effect if the bill is approved, in-

cluding military construction.

Rand Paul objection delays defense billAssociated Press

Paul

including the removal of excess

equipment, McKenzie said. Even

with the drawdown, they will still

work with allies and partners to

carry out their mission in Afghan-

istan and Iraq.

“One point I want to make is our

NATO and coalition partners are

going to be with us, even as we go

down. In fact, there will be more

coalition and NATO forces in Af-

ghanistan than U.S. forces when

we arrive at this number,” he said.

McKenzie said the NATO mis-

sion in Iraq is expected to expand

as partner countries bring in more

people to the country to work with

the United States after their draw-

down.

While the Taliban has stopped

attacks on American or coalition

forces since the peace agreement

was signed in February, McKen-

zie said he is still concerned about

their attacks on Afghan forces,

which have also resulted in civil-

ian casualties. There is also still no

process for determining whether

the Taliban is not allowing ISIS or

al-Qaida from operating within its

territory, he said.

McKenzie said he hopes the on-

going peace negotiations between

the government of Afghanistan

and the Taliban will help reduce

the violence, however, the coali-

tion will still be there to help the

Afghan security forces defend

themselves.

“We believe that is a practical

way forward,” he said.

Drawdowns: NATO andcoalition forces to replaceUS units in AfghanistanFROM PAGE 1

[email protected]

@CAITLINMKENNEY

RODERICK JACQUOTE / U.S. Central Command Public Affa

Army Brig. Gen. Donn H. Hill, front right, the commander of Train Advise Assist Command – East, speakswith Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, middle, the commander of U.S. Central Command, duringMcKenzie’s visit in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Sept. 9, 2019.

MILITARY


had already raised over $900,000

from its sponsors, financial ser-

vices company USAA, Ram

Trucks and Scuf Controllers,

Goldenberg said Thursday by

phone to Stars and Stripes.

Individuals may contribute on-

line on the “donate” tab at callof-

dutyendowment.org. Goldenberg

said the livestream gaming event

is not only about raising money

but also raising awareness about

the endowment as a resource for

veterans while giving service

members a fun event to look for-

ward to.

“There are more than 60,000

nonprofits with the word ‘veter-

an’ in them,” Goldenberg said.

“It can be like finding a needle in

a haystack.”

The coronavirus pandemic

sent unemployment rates soaring

in the U.S. this year, and veterans

were not spared. Their unem-

ployment rate in November reac-

hed 6.3%, nearly double the rate

last year, according to the U.S.

Department of Labor.

The endowment also saw a 31%

rise this year in veterans seeking

employment through its website,

Goldenberg said.

CEO Bobby Kotick of Activ-

ision Blizzard, the Call of Duty

parent company, founded the en-

dowment in 2009.

“The company has an affinity

to the military, especially since

the game Call of Duty was in-

spired by actions of service

members,” said Goldenberg, a

25-year Navy veteran.

Since its launch, the organiza-

tion has placed 77,000 veterans in

jobs and has raised over $44 mil-

lion in employment grants, Gold-

enberg said. Its goal is to place

100,000 veterans in careers by

2024. The average cost of job

placement per person is $499.

The endowment also raises

money each year by featuring an

in-game item available for pur-

chase. Last year’s item was a

gear pack designed by Medal of

Honor recipient Florent Groberg.

This is the second year for the

livestreaming charity event, and

the first year featuring teams

from branches other than the

U.S. Army.

Each of the eight teams partici-

pating will have four players

coached by a professional gamer

from the official Call of Duty

League.Goldenberg said each

service branch selects its players

from thousands of applicants.

Last year, the event was held in

Los Angeles with some participa-

nts joining remotely. This year,

all players will be participating

remotely because of the corona-

virus and because British forces

are taking part, Goldenberg said.

Airman 1st Class Austin Snyd-

er, an aircraft maintenance spe-

cialist with the Air Mobility Com-

mand at Scott Air Force Base

near St. Louis, said he has put in

several hours of online tourna-

ments and analyzing recordings

of matches to prepare to com-

pete.

“I'm honored and thrilled to be

able to enjoy my favorite pastime

with my brothers in other

branches as well as our allies,”

Snyder said in an email to Stars

and Stripes Thursday. “The ener-

gy and hype that comes when you

beat a good team is unmatched. It

really gets the blood going!”

Gamers: Organization hopes to place 100,000 veterans in jobs by 2024FROM PAGE 1

MILITARY

The U.S. Supreme Court has up-

held the rape convictions of three

Air Force airmen, reversing a rul-

ing from the military’s top court

dismissing their cases because

they fell outside the statute of limi-

tations.

Thursday’s 8-0 decision stated

that a five-year statute of limita-

tions does not apply to military

rape cases and that they can be

prosecuted at any time.

One case concerned the 2014

conviction of Lt. Col. Michael

Briggs for the 2005 rape of a sub-

ordinate after the woman report-

ed it in 2013.

The Court of Appeals for the

Armed Forces last year reversed

Briggs’ five-month jail sentence

and dismissal from the service.

The appeals court decided that

a 1977 Supreme Court decision

banning the death penalty for rape

meant that rape was not a military

capital offense — and thus was not

exempt from the five-year statuto-

ry limit for most military crimes.

Although Congress in a 2006

law had specifically said that rape

could be prosecuted “at any time

without limitation,” CAAF ruled

that the law wasn’t retroactive.

That decision led to the rape

convictions of Briggs and at least

three other service members be-

ing vacated and prevented the De-

fense Department from pursuing

new reports of rapes alleged to

have been committed from 1986 to

2006.

The justices found that the mil-

itary code weighed “heavily in fa-

vor of the government’s interpre-

tation” of the law to prosecute

rape claims going back to the

1980s.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett was

not on the bench when the case

was heard.

Harmony Allen, who was raped

and beaten by Master Sgt. Ri-

chard D. Collins in 2000 — a sep-

arate case which was prosecuted

in 2017 and also dismissed by the

CAAF ruling — said that the Su-

preme Court ruling had brought

her “peace.”

“For years, I had to live with the

fact that my rapist was set free

with nothing stopping him from

doing to another innocent woman

what he did to me,” she said in a

statement Thursday. “Today’s de-

cision changes that, and after all

these years, I can finally take a

deep breath knowing that justice

has been served.”

Court uphelds rapeconvictions for 3Air Force airmen BY NANCY MONTGOMERY

Stars and Stripes

[email protected] �Twitter:@montgomerynance

Call of Duty Endowment

The Call of Duty Endowment hosted a livestream faceoff of Call ofDuty: Black Ops Cold War, to raise awareness and money to placeveterans in longterm careers.

STUTTGART, Germany — U.S.

airstrikes killed eight al-Shabab

bomb makers this week in Soma-

lia, marking the first such attack in

the country since the Pentagon di-

rected the military to withdraw its

forces from the country by early

next year.

On Friday, U.S. Africa Com-

mand posted a video of the strike,

which hit an area where a known

expert bomb maker resided, the

command said.

The attack, which occurred in

the vicinity of Jilib in southern So-

malia, showed a billow of smoke

after an initial blast.

“Al-Shabaab’s continuous at-

tacks demonstrate its willingness

to accept high numbers of civilian

casualties while advancing oper-

ations aimed at undermining se-

curity across Somalia,” Lt. Gen.

Kirk Smith, AFRICOM deputy

commander, said in a statement.

AFRICOM said the terrorists

killed were known to play impor-

tant roles in producing explosives

for al-Shabab, including car

bombs.

On Dec. 4, the Pentagon an-

nounced that it would pull its 700

troops out of Somalia in a move ex-

pected to be completed before

President-elect Joe Biden takes

office on Jan. 20. The plan is to re-

position those forces in other parts

of eastern Africa.

AFRICOM, however, has said

the departure of a ground force in

Somalia doesn’t mean an end to

operations in the country or their

efforts aimed at supporting Soma-

lia’s military.

For years, al-Shabab, an al-Qai-

da-aligned group, has been seek-

ing to overthrow the U.S.-backed

government of the country.

This year, AFRICOM conduct-

ed about 50 airstrikes in Somalia.

Even without troops on the

ground, a U.S. drone site in neigh-

boring Djibouti is capable of

launching attacks.

Maj. Gen. Dagvin Anderson ,

who leads Special Operations

Command Africa, said the latest

strike showcases the ability of the

U.S. to “defend both ourselves and

our partners.”

“We will continue to maintain

strong force protection and strike

those who seek to harm us or our

partners,” he said.

[email protected] �Twitter: @john_vandiver

AFRICOM: Somalia strikekills 8 expert bomb makers

BY JOHN VANDIVER

Stars and Stripes

U.S. AFRICA COMMAND

A screen shot from a video shows the impact of the airstrikes conducted Dec. 10 that killed eightalShabab bomb makers in the vicinity of Jilib, Somalia.

[email protected] twitter: @thisearlgirl


WASHINGTON — A U.S. government

advisory panel endorsed widespread use of

Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine Thursday,

putting the country just one step away from

launching an epic vaccination campaign

against the outbreak that has killed close to

300,000 Americans.

On Friday the head of the FDA said his

agency had told Pfizer it “will rapidly work”

to grant emergency use of the vaccine fol-

lowing the positive recommendation. Many

FDA observers predicted action by Satur-

day ahead of a Sunday meeting by the Cen-

ters for Disease Control and Prevention.

Shots could begin within days, depending

on how quickly the Food and Drug Adminis-

tration signs off, as expected, on the expert

committee’s recommendation.

“This is a light at the end of the long tun-

nel of this pandemic,” declared Dr. Sally

Goza, president of the American Academy

of Pediatrics.

In a 17-4 vote with one abstention, the

government advisers concluded that the

vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner

BioNTech appears safe and effective for

emergency use in adults and teenagers 16

and over.

That endorsement came despite ques-

tions about allergic reactions in two people

who received the vaccine earlier this week

when Britain became the first country to

begin dispensing the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

While there are a number of remaining

unknowns about the vaccine, in an emer-

gency, “the question is whether you know

enough” to press ahead, said panel member

Dr. Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Phi-

ladelphia. He concluded that the potential

benefits outweigh the risks.

The decision came as COVID-19 cases

surge to ever-higher levels across the U.S.,

with deaths setting an all-time, one-day re-

cord of more than 3,100 on Wednesday.

Pfizer has said it will have about 25 mil-

lion doses of the two-shot vaccine for the

U.S. by the end of December. But the initial

supplies will be reserved primarily for

health care workers and nursing home resi-

dents, with other vulnerable groups next in

line until ramped-up production enables

shots to become widely available on de-

mand — something that will probably not

happen until the spring.

Next week, the FDA will review a second

vaccine, from Moderna and the National In-

stitutes of Health, that appears about as

protective as Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot. A

third candidate, from Johnson & Johnson,

which would require just one dose, is work-

ing its way through the pipeline. Behind

that is a candidate from AstraZeneca and

Oxford University.

US panel endorses broad use of PfizerAssociated Press

“These are seasoned emergen-

cy and critical care personnel,”

she said. “We do not cry very of-

ten — and especially not a num-

ber of us all at once.”

In Illinois, where authorities re-

corded an additional 196 deaths

Thursday, Dr. Meeta Shah at

Rush University in Chicago said

medical workers are already be-

leaguered and waiting for the

“other shoe to drop” from holiday

gatherings.

“Every day you think, ‘Today is

going to be awful,’” Shah said.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph North-

am, a doctor by training, an-

nounced a midnight curfew and

MISSION, Kan. — Just when

the U.S. appears on the verge of

rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine,

the numbers have become gloo-

mier than ever: Over 3,000 Amer-

ican deaths in a single day. One

million new cases in the span of

five days. More than 106,000 peo-

ple in the hospital.

The crisis across the country is

pushing medical centers to the

breaking point and leaving staff

members and public health offi-

cials burned out and plagued by

tears and nightmares.

All told, the crisis has left more

than 290,000 people dead nation-

wide, with more than 15.5 million

confirmed infections.

The U.S. recorded 3,124 deaths

Wednesday, the highest one-day

total yet, according to Johns Hop-

kins University. Up until last

week, the peak was 2,603 deaths

on April 15, when New York City

was the epicenter of the nation’s

outbreak. The latest number is

subject to revision up or down.

New cases per day are running

at all-time highs of over 209,000

on average. And the number of

people in the hospital with CO-

VID-19 is setting records nearly

every day.

A U.S. government advisory

panel on Thursday endorsed

widespread use of Pfizer’s CO-

VID-19 vaccine to help conquer

the outbreak. Depending on how

fast the FDA signs off on the pan-

el’s recommendation, shots could

begin within days, inaugurating

the biggest vaccination campaign

in U.S. history.

In St. Louis, respiratory ther-

apist Joe Kowalczyk said he has

seen entire floors of his hospital

fill up with COVID-19 patients,

some of them two to a room. He

said the supply of ventilators is

dwindling, and the inventory is so

thin that colleagues on one shift

had to ventilate one patient by us-

ing a BiPAP machine, similar to

the devices used to treat sleep ap-

nea.

When he goes home to sleep

during the day at the end of his

grueling overnight shifts, he

sometimes has nightmares.

“I would be sleeping and I

would be working in a unit and

things would go completely

wrong and I would shock myself

awake. They would be very vis-

ceral and very vivid,” he said. “It

would just really spook me.”

In South Dakota, Dr. Clay

Smith has treated hundreds of

COVID-19 patients while working

at Monument Health Spearfish

Hospital and at Sheridan Memo-

rial Hospital in neighboring

Wyoming.

He said patients are becoming

stranded in the emergency room

for hours while they await beds on

the main floor or transfers to

larger hospitals. And those trans-

fers are becoming more challeng-

ing, with some patients sent as far

away as Denver, 400 miles from

the two hospitals.

“That is a huge burden for fam-

ilies and EMS systems as well

when you take an ambulance and

send it 400 miles one way, that

ambulance is out of the communi-

ty for essentially a whole day,” he

said.

Smith added that some patients

have gone from thinking “I

thought this was a hoax” to “Wow,

this is real and I feel terrible.” But

he also has seen people with CO-

VID-19 who “continue to be dis-

believers. It is hard to see that.”

“At the end of the day the virus

doesn’t care whether you believe

in it or not,” he said.

New Orleans’ health director,

Dr. Jennifer Avegno, described a

recent visit to a hospital where

she watched doctors, nurses, re-

spiratory therapists and others

risk exposure to the disease in a

long, futile attempt to save a dying

COVID-19 patient. Some broke

down in tears afterward, she said.

expanded mask rules to require

face coverings be worn outdoors,

not just inside.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf

temporarily halted school sports

and other extracurricular activ-

ities, ordered gyms, theaters and

casinos to close and banned in-

door dining at restaurants.

In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little

didn’t order a statewide mask

mandate or enact additional re-

strictions despite the public

health agency announcing that

COVID-19 is now the leading

cause of death in the state. But the

Republican governor warned that

if hospitals continue to fill and the

state has to initiate “crisis stan-

dards of care” — when life-saving

treatment would be reserved for

patients most likely to survive —

car crash victims could be treated

in hospital conference rooms and

diabetics with infections could be

denied beds.

Little was among the first gov-

ernors to publicly wear a mask in

the spring and has encouraged

others to do so, but anti-mask sen-

timent is intense in the conserva-

tive state.

In New York City, which was

ravaged by the virus in the spring,

one doctor sounded a note of rela-

tive optimism, saying that at least

physicians are more capable of

managing the virus now.

“Early in the spring we did not

know enough,” said Dr. Jolion

McGreevy, who directs Mount Si-

nai Hospital’s emergency depart-

ment. “We really are operating

from a place of knowledge, now —

which is a big leap from where we

were in the spring.”

US has over 3,000one-day death toll

DAVID GOLDMAN / AP

Vanessa Castaneda, left, gets swabbed for COVID19 as her son, Joshua, 3, waits his turn on the lap of hisstepdad, Mario Araujo, at a drivethru testing site outside McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, R.I, Wednesday.

Associated Press

“At the end of the day the virusdoesn’t care whether you believe init or not.”

Clay Smith

South Dakota doctor

VIRUS OUTBREAK


VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

SEATTLE — The state Depart-

ment of Health has reported 2,550

new cases and reduced the num-

ber of COVID-19 deaths by 166.

The state removes deaths from

the statewide total when the pri-

mary cause of death is determined

not to have been COVID-19.

The Seattle Times reports the

update brings the state’s totals to

192,413 cases and 2,850 deaths,

meaning that 1.5% of people diag-

nosed in Washington have died,

according to the state. The data is

as of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

In Washington’s most populous

King County, 755 new cases were

reported, and the number of

deaths was reduced by 50, to 894.

The DOH also reported 88 new

hospitalizations as of Wednesday

because of the virus and said

12,084 people have been hospital-

ized in the state since the pandem-

ic began.

In Moses Lake, contact tracing

has connected additional CO-

VID-19 cases and possible deaths

to a 300-person wedding near the

Adams County-Grant County line

in November, KXLY-TV reported.

The Grant County Health Dis-

trict said Thursday evening it has

linked 47 cases in its county to

wedding attendees. Of those

cases, two people were staff mem-

bers at Lake Ridge Center, a nurs-

ing home in Moses Lake. Since the

wedding, 65 COVID-19 cases have

been reported at Lake Ridge and

15 residents have died.

The agency also found potential

links to health care workers in-

cluding one person who worked at

Samaritan Hospital and one nurs-

ing student. Contact tracing also

revealed 11 Moses Lake School

District staff members attended

the wedding and tested positive

for COVID-19, the county said.

Grant County found 14 addition-

al cases in people with a family

member who attended the wed-

ding or had a social gathering with

someone who went to the wed-

ding. One of those cases involved a

person employed by Moses Lake

School District, the county said.

ArkansasLITTLE ROCK — Gov. Asa

Hutchinson on Thursday evening

implored Arkansans to take pre-

cautions during the upcoming ho-

lidays as coronavirus cases surge

but declined to implement any ad-

ditional restrictions.

“More restrictions on business-

es would add a whole host of addi-

tional challenges, from increased

unemployment to closed business

and bankruptcies, all right during

the holiday season,” he said.

In the statewide address, he told

residents that the state is seeing a

surge in cases after Thanksgiving,

and reminded them that Christ-

mas is just two weeks away.

“Unless we take the right pre-

cautions, science tells us the cases

will continue to rapidly acceler-

ate,” he said.

He told Arkansans: “We must

do a few things differently this

year.”

Hutchinson suggested Arkan-

sans travel less for the holiday,

and if they do travel out of state to

take rapid tests before and after.

He noted he liked one family’s

idea to do their Christmas gather-

ing outside. He also suggested

businesses forgo a holiday party

this year, and if not have the state

health department approve their

social distancing gathering, as his

office is doing.

KentuckyLOUISVILLE — Kentucky

Gov. Andy Beshear announced

Thursday that the state’s restau-

rants, bars, gyms and other busi-

nesses will be able to return to

their previous capacity limits

starting Monday, Dec. 14.

“When we talk about COVID

being a fast moving train, it

doesn’t just immediately turn; you

have to slow it down, stop it and

turn it around. We still believe

that’s what we’re seeing,” Beshear

said.

The Democratic governor

pointed toward the state’s test pos-

itivity rate as a “leading not a lag-

ging” indicator that community

spread is slowing, and urged busi-

nesses to reopen with a commit-

ment to enforce social distancing

guidelines.

“We’ve got to enforce that mask

mandate, that’s the way we don’t

have to take steps like this again,”

he added.

Bars and restaurants will be

able to open indoor dining at 50%

capacity, and continue curbside

pickup, delivery, and outdoor din-

ing. They must stop serving food

at 11 p.m. and close by midnight.

Gyms, fitness centers, pools and

other indoor recreation facilities

will also be able to resume oper-

ations at 50% capacity.

MarylandMaryland Gov. Larry Hogan on

Thursday announced a series of

measures that he hopes will spur

job creation and help businesses

that have struggled financially as

a result of the coronavirus pan-

demic.

The new efforts include the for-

giveness of $75 million in emer-

gency loans provided to business-

es early in the pandemic and an

executive order to prevent small

businesses from seeing their un-

employment taxes skyrocket. In

addition, the state will spend $37

million for the construction of af-

fordable housing.

“While we continue to wait for

Congress to finally get its act to-

gether, today, we are taking a se-

ries of additional state actions to

help businesses struggling to hang

on to avoid the prospect of more

layoffs and to try to keep some

businesses from going out of busi-

ness,” Hogan said during a news

conference. “During this crisis,

our small businesses have had to

make very difficult decisions to

move ahead with layoffs and fur-

loughs despite their best efforts.”

OhioCOLUMBUS — Ohio’s over-

night curfew will be extended into

the new year, Gov. Mike DeWine

announced Thursday as he urged

residents to do everything possi-

ble to protect themselves and oth-

ers from the coronavirus during

the Christmas season.

The curfew first enacted last

month will continue to run from 10

p.m. until 5 a.m. until Jan. 2, the

governor said. The curfew re-

stricts movement outside homes

but allows multiple exceptions for

work, grocery shopping, medical

emergencies and other trips.

Some epidemiologists have ques-

tioned its effectiveness.

“We simply cannot afford — on

the very eve of a safe and effective

vaccination — to further over-

whelm our hospitals and health-

care providers with a holiday tsu-

nami,” DeWine said, calling these

next few weeks “an inherently

dangerous time.”

Ohio is set to receive its first

supplies of vaccination on Tues-

day.

Holiday religious services such

as Roman Catholic midnight Mass

would not be affected by the cur-

few, the governor said. Upcoming

late games by the Cincinnati Ben-

gals, Cleveland Browns, Colum-

bus Crew and the Cincinnati Bear-

cats football team are also ex-

empted, but DeWine asked fans to

limit watch parties to their own

households.

OregonREDMOND — Some Central

Oregon schools that were offering

in-person instruction this week

canceled those plans for the rest of

the year, as more staffers and stu-

dents quarantined because of ex-

posure to the coronavirus.

Redmond school officials in

Deschutes County halted class-

room learning after 91 students

and staffers were told to isolate,

The Bulletin reported. In neigh-

boring Crook County, School Su-

perintendent Sara Johnson sent a

letter Monday, telling parents the

rural district of about 3,000 stu-

dents would resume comprehen-

sive distance learning next week

through at least Jan. 4.

“The impact of quarantines due

to potential exposures has severe-

ly impacted our staffing levels,”

the letter reads.

Some 22 Crook County staff and

12 students have been told to quar-

antine, with at least three staffers

testing positive so far for the virus,

district spokesman Jason Carr

told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

TexasFORT WORTH — A North Tex-

as medical examiner’s office has

brought in two refrigerated trucks

to store dead bodies in response to

low capacity amid a surge in coro-

navirus cases.

Many of the hospitals and larger

funeral homes in the Fort Worth

area have reached their storage

capacity or will soon, said Nizam

Peerwani, Tarrant County’s chief

medical examiner.

The Tarrant County Medical

Examiner’s Office, which has a

capacity normally of 100 bodies,

said each truck can store 50 bod-

ies.

Officials expect to start using

the trucks in the next few days.

Also Thursday, a South Texas

county that has been hit especially

hard by the pandemic announced

that its county judge, the county’s

highest elected official, tested pos-

itive for COVID-19.

VirginiaRICHMOND — Gov. Ralph

Northam announced new mea-

sures to combat the coronavirus

Thursday that include a stricter

mask mandate and a curfew that

will requires most Virginians to

stay at home between midnight

and 5 a.m.

The executive order is set to

take effect on Monday and will al-

so reduce the state’s cap on public

gatherings from 25 people to 10.

Northam is expanding the state’s

longstanding mask requirements

to include outdoor areas where so-

cial distancing isn’t possible and

all indoor areas shared with oth-

ers, except for households. The

current mask mandate requires

only that masks be worn in indoor

public settings.

The modified stay-at-home or-

der will have some exceptions, in-

cluding for Virginians traveling to

work and seeking medical atten-

tion. The mask mandate does not

apply to children under five. The

executive order will be in place

through the end of January.

Wash. reduces deathtoll as wedding leadsto rise in virus cases

ELLIOT SPAGAT / AP

A pedestrian walks past Pacers Showgirls International in San Diego, on Thursday. While California's newstayathome order has shut down restaurant dining, shuttered salons and kept church services outside,two strip clubs in San Diego are still welcoming patrons nightly, protected by a court order. San DiegoCounty officials on Wednesday, voted 32 to appeal the judge's ruling that has allowed Pacer ShowgirlsInternational and Cheetahs Gentleman's Club to stay open after the establishments sued the county andstate over being ordered to close their doors.

Associated Press


WASHINGTON — President-

elect Joe Biden is getting the old

gang back together.

Increasingly deep into the proc-

ess of selecting Cabinet members

and other senior staff, the incom-

ing Biden administration has a

distinctly Obama feel.

There’s Denis

McDonough,

former Presi-

dent Barack

Obama’s chief of

staff who Biden

announced on

Thursday would

be nominated as

the secretary of

veterans affairs. Susan Rice, Oba-

ma’s former national security ad-

viser, was named the director of

Biden’s White House Domestic

Policy Council.

That’s on top of Biden already

tapping Obama’s agriculture sec-

retary, Tom Vilsack, to head the

department once again, former

Secretary of State John Kerry to

serve as special envoy on climate

and Kerry’s Obama-era deputy

Antony Blinken to lead the State

Department. Jeff Zients, who did

stints as acting Office of Manage-

ment and Budget director and a

top economic adviser in the Oba-

ma White House, will return as Bi-

den’s coronavirus response coor-

dinator.

With the exception of President

Donald Trump, a political out-

sider when he was elected in 2016,

recent new presidents have relied

heavily on pools of talent that had

cut their teeth in their parties’ pre-

vious administrations to fill out

their own government. But Biden,

who is assuming the presidency in

the midst of the worst public

health crisis in a century and a

flagging economy, is putting a

greater premium on past experi-

ence and, as a result, has gone fre-

quently back to the Obama well as

he fills out his government.

“Many of the folks who are re-

turning are returning because

they believe in public service and

know that after four turbulent and

destructive years and a brutal

pandemic, this is a particularly

important time to serve,” said Da-

vid Axelrod, who served as a se-

nior adviser to Obama. “Their ex-

perience is valuable. Their values

and outlooks are consonant with

(Biden’s). The challenge is to look

forward and not back and inno-

vate beyond what’s simply been

broken.”

The swelling ranks of Obama of-

ficials in Biden’s orbit seem to

have some limits.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm

Emanuel, a three-term former

congressman who served as Oba-

ma’s first White House chief of

staff, seems increasingly unlikely

to win a Cabinet post. He had lob-

bied for the yet-to-be-filled trans-

portation secretary slot but has

faced criticism for his handling as

mayor of the 2014 deadly police

shooting of Laquan McDonald, a

Black teen shot 16 times by a white

officer.

Still, the reliance on Obama vet-

erans carries risks. For one, some

of the nominees represent the

Washington establishment that

Trump dubbed the “swamp” dur-

ing his 2016 campaign and are still

distrusted by some Republicans.

Progressive Democrats, mean-

while, view the Obama era with

frustration, believing that those in

power acted too cautiously at a

time that called for bold change.

They’re pressing Biden to focus in

particular on the diversity of his

Cabinet after several early picks

were white men.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

aNew York Democrat, questioned

earlier this week “the overall

message” that Biden is aiming to

send with his Cabinet picks. And

the left-leaning climate group

Sunrise Movement on Thursday

called the pick of Vilsack for agri-

culture secretary over Rep. Mar-

cia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat who

was looking to become the agen-

cy’s first Black secretary, as a

“slap in the face to Black Ameri-

cans.”

Biden did nominate Fudge to

serve as housing and urban devel-

opment secretary and retired

four-star Army general Lloyd

Austin to serve as defense secre-

tary. If confirmed, he would be the

first Black Pentagon chief.

The president-elect’s allies say

he’s making good on his pledge to

fill out a Cabinet that reflects the

diversity of the nation.

Biden filling his Cabinet with an Obama feelAssociated Press

MARK HUMPHREY/AP

Former national security adviser Susan Rice takes part in a discussion on global leadership at VanderbiltUniversity in Nashville, Tenn., in February.

McDonough

HOUSTON — The Texas law-

suit asking the U.S. Supreme

Court to invalidate President-

elect Joe Biden’s victory has

quickly become a conservative lit-

mus test, as 106 members of Con-

gress and multiple state attorneys

general signed onto the case even

as some have predicted it will fail.

The last-gasp bid to subvert the

results of the Nov. 3 election is

demonstrating President Donald

Trump’s enduring political power

even as his term is set to end. And

even though most of the signato-

ries are far-right conservatives

who come from deep red districts,

the filing meant that roughly one-

quarter of the U.S. House believes

the Supreme Court should set

aside election results.

Supreme Court to hear the case

have acknowledged that the effort

is a long shot and are seeking to

distance themselves from

Trump’s baseless allegations of

fraud. North Dakota’s Wayne Ste-

nehjem, among the 17 attorneys

general supporting the case, said

North Dakota is not alleging voter

fraud in the four states at issue.

“We’re careful on that,” said

Stenehjem, who noted that his of-

fice has received thousands of

calls and emails from constituents

asking the state to support the suit.

“But it’s worth it for the Supreme

Court to weigh in and settle it once

and for all,” he said.

Montana Attorney General Tim

Fox called the lawsuit “belated”

and said its chances “are slim at

best.”

millions of people, under the base-

less claim the Republican incum-

bent lost a chance at a second term

due to widespread fraud.

Two days after Paxton sued, 17

states filed a motion supporting

the lawsuit, and on Thursday six of

those states asked to join the case

themselves. Trump has acted to

join the case, tweeting Thursday

that “the Supreme Court has a

chance to save our Country from

the greatest Election abuse in the

history of the United States.”

Hours later, Trump held a meet-

ing at the White House, scheduled

before the suit was filed, with a

dozen Republican attorneys gen-

eral, including Paxton and several

others who are backing the effort.

Still, some of the top state Re-

publican prosecutors urging the

ing to overturn the election in the

Texas case, as the President has

told them to do,” tweeted Rick Ha-

sen, a law professor at the Univer-

sity of California, Irvine. “But we

are in bad shape as a country that

17 states could support this

shameful, anti-American filing”

by Texas and its attorney general,

Ken Paxton, he said.

The lawsuit filed against Michi-

gan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and

Wisconsin repeats false, dispro-

ven, and unsubstantiated accusa-

tions about the voting in four

states that went for Trump’s Dem-

ocratic challenger. The case de-

mands that the high court invali-

date the states’ 62 total Electoral

College votes. That’s an unprece-

dented remedy in American histo-

ry: setting aside the votes of tens of

Seventeen Republican attor-

neys general are backing the un-

precedented case that Trump is

calling “the big one” despite the

fact that the president and his al-

lies have lost dozens of times in

courts across the country and

have no evidence of widespread

fraud. And in a filing Thursday,

the Congressional Republicans

claimed “unconstitutional irregu-

larities” have “cast doubt” on the

2020 outcome and “the integrity of

the American system of elec-

tions.”

To be clear, there has been no

evidence of widespread fraud and

Trump has been seeking to sub-

vert the will of the voters. Election

law experts think the lawsuit will

never last.

“The Supreme Court is not go-

Hundreds of GOP members sign onto Texas-led election lawsuitAssociated Press

NATION

WASHINGTON — Time maga-

zine has named President-elect

Joe Biden and Vice President-

elect Kamala Harris its “Person of

the Year.”

Time’s editor-in-chief Edward

Felsenthal says Biden and Harris

won the honor for “changing the

American story, for showing that

the forces of empathy are greater

than the furies of division, for

sharing a vision of healing in a

grieving world.”

Felsenthal notes, “Every elect-

ed President since FDR has at

some point during his term been a

Person of the Year, nearly a dozen

of those in a presidential election

year. This is the first time we have

included a Vice President.”

Time’s other Person of the Year

candidates were President Do-

nald Trump; frontline health care

workers and Dr. Anthony Fauci;

and the movement for racial jus-

tice.

Also Thursday, Time named the

Korean boy band BTS its Enter-

tainer of the Year and named Los

Angeles Lakers star LeBron

James its Athlete of the Year.

Biden and Harris namedTime’s ‘Person of the Year’

Associated Press


WASHINGTON — Rep. Mark

Takano on Thursday called on

Veterans Affairs Secretary Rob-

ert Wilkie and his senior staff to

resign immediately after a federal

watchdog’s report found they

campaigned to discredit a Navy

officer who said she was sexually

assaulted at a VA hospital.

“As I have said before, VA re-

quires cultural

change to put an

end to sexual ha-

rassment and as-

sault at VA facil-

ities— that

change starts at

the top,” said Ta-

kano, D-Calif.,

chairman of

House Veterans’ Affairs Commit-

tee. “It is clear to me that Secre-

tary Wilkie is not up to that task.

He has lost the trust and confi-

dence of all those he is charged to

serve.”

In September 2019, Andrea

Goldstein, an adviser on female

veterans’ issues for the House VA

committee and a Navy Reserve of-

ficer, said she was assaulted in the

cafeteria of the VA hospital in

Washington, D.C. A male contrac-

tor for the VA slammed his body

against hers and made sexually

suggestive comments, she said.

The contractor is still employed at

the Washington DC VA Medical

Center, according to an IG spokes-

man.

On Thursday, the VA inspector

general released a report that

found Wilkie and his staff ques-

tioned Goldstein’s credibility and

tried to portray her as a serial ac-

cuser of dubious claims and as-

cribing her motives to a Demo-

cratic conspiracy to smear the VA.

The tone of Wilkie and the VA

senior staff set the stage for a fail-

ure to address issues with the

safety of women at VA hospitals,

investigators found. The secreta-

ry and his top officials also re-

fused to fully cooperate with the

investigation, refusing a second

round of interviews.

“In early 2019, VA’s own re-

search found that at least 1 in 4

women veterans experience sex-

ual or gender harassment at VA.

Instead of working with me to ad-

dress an underlying problem at

the DC VAMC from the start, Sec-

retary Wilkie and the senior-most

officials at VA went out of their

way to raise suspicions and cast

speculation and doubt about An-

drea and the legitimacy of the

whole incident,” Takano said in a

prepared statement.

The White House did not re-

spond Thursday to a request for

comment.

At the time, Wilkie had said

Goldstein’s claims were “unsub-

stantiated,” which an initial IG re-

port determined wasn’t true.

Charges were not filed against the

alleged assailant, partly because

there were no working security

cameras. The incident spurred a

public squabble between Wilkie

against House Democrats.

Jim Byrne, the former VA dep-

uty secretary, said Wilkie became

obsessed with the idea that the

sexual assault was a ploy by Dem-

ocrats to make him look bad.

The IG’s report follows the

damning report about Fort Hood

that showed systemic issues of

failed leadership at the base that

contributed to a pattern of vio-

lence, including sexual harass-

ment, assault and death.

“Never before has our nation’s

military or veteran community

shied away from the hard battles

that must be fought to mold our

country into a more perfect

union,” Takano said. “The trage-

dies like the murder of SPC Va-

nessa Guillen and the toxic envi-

ronment created at bases like Fort

Hood are a call to action and proof

that we have much work to do to

dismantle a culture where sexual

harassment and assault are toler-

ated.”

Takano calls on Wilkie,senior VA staff to resign

BY STEVE BEYNON

Stars and Stripes

Wilkie

ing by a bipartisan group of law-

makers to strike compromise.

Other legislative pile-ups

threatened Friday’s related busi-

ness — a must-pass government

funding bill. If it didn't clear Con-

gress, that would trigger a federal

government shutdown on Satur-

day.

McConnell’s staff conveyed to

other negotiators it’s “unlikely”

the trade-off proposed by the bi-

partisan group would be accept-

able, as COVID aid talks continue,

according to a person granted

anonymity to discuss the talks. A

WASHINGTON — An emerg-

ing $900 billion COVID-19 aid

package from a bipartisan group

of lawmakers has all but collapsed

after Senate Majority Leader

Mitch McConnell said Republican

senators won’t support $160 bil-

lion in state and local funds as part

of a potential trade-off in the deal.

McConnell’s staff conveyed to

top negotiators Thursday that the

GOP leader sees no path to an

agreement on a key aspect of the

lawmakers’ existing proposal — a

slimmed-down version of the lia-

bility shield he is seeking for com-

panies and organizations facing

potential COVID-19 lawsuits — in

exchange for the state and local

funds that Democrats want.

The GOP leader criticized “con-

troversial state bailouts” during a

speech in the Senate, as he insists

on a more targeted aid package.

The hardened stance from

McConnell, who does not appear

to have enough votes from his Re-

publican majority for a far-reac-

hing compromise, creates a new

stalemate over the $900-billion-

plus package, despite days of toil-

senior Democrat first shared the

Republican leader’s views after

being granted anonymity to dis-

cuss the private conversations,

which were first reported by Poli-

tico.

Deadlines, real and perceived,

haven’t been sufficient to drive

Washington’s factions to an agree-

ment, despite the U.S. breaking a

record-high 3,000 daily COVID

fatalities, and hospitals straining

at capacity from soaring case-

loads nationwide.

The House recessed for a few

days, with leaders warning mem-

bers to be prepared to return to

Washington to vote on the year-

end deals, while the Senate was

planning a rare Friday session.

The breakdown over the CO-

VID aid package, after days of be-

hind-the-scenes talks by a group

of lawmakers fed up with inaction,

comes as President Donald

Trump has taken the talks in an-

other direction — insisting on a

fresh round of $600 stimulus

checks for Americans.

Sending direct cash payments

to households was not included in

the bipartisan proposal.

Congress snagged on state aid in virus dealAssociated Press

NATION

PORTLAND, Ore. — A gentrifi-

cation protest in Oregon’s largest

city that has blockaded several

city blocks in Portland entered its

third day Thursday as demonstra-

tors dressed in black and wearing

ski masks shored up their ma-

keshift barriers aimed at keeping

police out.

The fencing, lumber and other

roadblocking material first went

up on Tuesday after officers ar-

rested about a dozen people in a

clash over the eviction of a Black

and Indigenous family from a

house.

The street behind the blockade

in the neighborhood of homes,

coffee shops and restaurants was

laced with booby traps aimed at

keeping officers out — including

homemade spike strips, piles of

rocks and thick bands of plastic

wrap stretched at neck-height

across the roadway. It’s unclear

exactly how many people were

camped out at the site, and police

didn’t say.

The standoff recalled more

than four months of confronta-

tions between police and protes-

ters decrying racial injustice and

police brutality that only abated

weeks ago.

Mayor Ted Wheeler said the

city would not tolerate an “auton-

omous zone,” a reference to a

weekslong protest in Seattle

where protesters essentially took

over a several-block area near

downtown during racial injustice

protests.

Supporters of the Kinney fam-

ily, the Black and Indigenous fam-

ily that faced foreclosure, have

said the home was unjustly taken

through predatory lending prac-

tices that target people of color.

The property sold at auction for

$260,000 in 2018, the family said,

while private land next door is

valued at more than $10 million.

The small, maroon-painted prop-

erty is known as the Red House on

Mississippi for its location on

North Mississippi Avenue.

On Thursday, the family’s sup-

porters said in a statement that

Wheeler’s office had reached out

to the Kinney family late Wednes-

day and promised to “keep it Kin-

ney” in an initial conversation.

The statement implored the

mayor to ”call off” the police and

sheriff’s deputies who secured the

home and made arrests on Tues-

day.

“We look forward to continuing

that conversation as we move

more towards our goal of securing

the Red House for the Kinney

family and their generations to

come,” the family’s statement

said.

Wheeler’s office said in a state-

ment that the city was “actively

working across bureaus and with

partners” to resolve the standoff,

but did not confirm having had

contact with the family.

GILLIAN FLACCUS / AP

Protesters stand behind barricades at their encampment outside a home in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday.

Large gentrification protest inPortland stretches into 3rd day

Associated Press


WORLD

NAIROBI, Kenya — Thousands

of refugees fled camps in Ethio-

pia’s Tigray region as war swept

through, food ran out and col-

leagues were reportedly attacked.

But Ethiopia’s government said

Friday it’s returning the “misin-

formed” refugees back to their

camps near Eritrea, the country

they originally fled.

In a statement asserting that

the fighting in Tigray is over, Eth-

iopia’s government said its mili-

tary offensive against the now-fu-

gitive regional government “was

not a direct threat” to the 96,000

refugees — even as international

aid groups said four of their staff-

ers had been killed, at least one in

a refugee camp there.

Ethiopia’s announcement

comes days after the United Na-

tions refugee chief said the re-

ported targeting of Eritrean refu-

gees, if confirmed, “would be ma-

jor violations of international

norms.” Ethiopia has denied the

involvement of Eritrean troops in

the conflict, but Tigray residents

who fled into Sudan have asserted

that gunfire came from the direc-

tion of Eritrea as the conflict be-

gan.

Aid groups say thousands of the

Eritrean refugees have fled to

Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa,

and the Tigray capital, Mekele.

Ethiopia’s government said

their “unregulated movement”

makes it difficult to ensure their

security and provide them with

aid.

Their camps are now stable and

under Ethiopia’s “full control,”

the statement said, adding that

“transportation of food to the

camps is under way.”

But communications and trans-

port links to the Tigray region re-

main so challenging that the In-

ternational Rescue Committee

said Friday it was still trying to

confirm the details around the

killing of an employee in the Hit-

sats refugee camp in Shire town,

the base of humanitarian oper-

ations for the refugee camps.

Separately, the Danish Refugee

Council said three staffers who

worked as guards at a project site

were killed last month.

“Sadly, due to the lack of com-

munications and ongoing insecu-

rity in the region, it has not yet

been possible to reach their fam-

ilies,” it said. It was not clear

where they were killed, but the

aid group also supports the Eri-

trean refugees.

The refugee camps “have had

no access to services and supplies

for more than a month,” the U.N.

refugee agency told reporters on

Friday.

“Now, more than ever, it is a

matter of urgency to cease all hos-

tilities,” the European Union’s

commissioner for crisis manage-

ment, Janez Lenarcic, said while

condemning the killings.

Frustration remains among the

United Nations and other human-

itarian organizations as the Ti-

gray region remains largely

sealed off from the outside world

five weeks after fighting erupted

between Ethiopia’s government

and the Tigray one following a

monthslong power struggle.

Ethiopia’s government has

made clear it intends to manage

the process of delivering aid to Ti-

gray, and it has rejected “interfe-

rence” as fighting is reported to

be continuing despite its declara-

tion of victory. On Friday, Ethio-

pia it said it had begun delivering

aid to areas in Tigray under its

control, including Shire and the

Tigray capital, a city of a half-mil-

lion people.

“Suggestions that humanitarian

assistance is impeded due to ac-

tive military combat in several ci-

ties and surrounding areas within

the Tigray region is untrue and

undermines the critical work un-

dertaken by the National Defense

Forces to stabilize the region,”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy

Ahmed’s office said, adding that

sporadic gunfire should “not be

misconstrued as active conflict.”

Ethiopia to return refugees to Eritrean campsBY CARA ANNA

Associated Press

BRUSSELS — European Union

leaders reached a hard-fought

deal Friday to cut the bloc’s net

greenhouse gas emissions by at

least 55% by the end of the decade

compared with 1990 levels, avoid-

ing a hugely embarrassing dead-

lock ahead of a U.N. climate meet-

ing this weekend.

Following night-long discus-

sions at their two-day summit in

Brussels, the 27 member states

approved the EU executive com-

mission’s proposal to toughen the

bloc’s intermediate target on the

way to climate neutrality by mid-

century, after a group of reluctant,

coal-reliant countries finally

agreed to support the improved

goal.

“Europe is the leader in the

fight against climate change,”

tweeted EU Council president

Charles Michel as daylight broke

over the EU capital city. “We de-

cided to cut our greenhouse gas

emissions of at least 55% by 2030.”

German Chancellor Angela

Merkel said the 21-hour summit

during which the climate debate

was a constant worry, had much to

show for it.

“It was worth having a sleepless

night," she said.

Five years after the Paris agree-

ment, the EU wants to be a leader

in the fight against global warm-

ing. Yet the bloc’s leaders were

unable to agree on the new target

the last time they met in October,

mainly because of financial con-

cerns by eastern nations seeking

more clarity about how to fund

and handle the green transition.

But the long-awaited deal on a

massive long-term budget and

coronavirus recovery clinched

Thursday by EU leaders swung

the momentum.

Large swaths of the record-high

1.82 trillion-euro package are set

to pour into programs and invest-

ments designed to help the mem-

ber states, regions and sectors

particularly affected by the green

transition, which are in need of a

deep economic and social trans-

formation.

EU leaders have agreed that

30% of the package — some 550

billion euros — should be used to

support the transition.

Still, agreeing on common lan-

guage was not an easy task. Nego-

tiations were punctuated through-

out the night by intense discus-

sions in the plenary session and

multiple chats in smaller groups

on the sidelines.

Another delay in revising the

EU’s current 40% emission cuts

objective for 2030 would have

been particularly embarrassing

before the virtual Climate Ambi-

tion Summit marking five years

since the Paris deal, and leaders

worked to the wire to seal a deal.

Greenpeace and other environ-

mental groups have said the im-

proved EU target is insufficient to

properly tackle climate change.

“To increase the chances of lim-

iting global heating to 1.5°C and

avoid the worst effects of climate

breakdown, Greenpeace is calling

for at least a 65% cut in EU emis-

sions from polluting sectors by

2030,” the NGO said.

OLIVIER MATTHYS/AP

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen greetsDenmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a round tablemeeting at an EU summit at the European Council building inBrussels, Thursday.

EU agreesto raiseemissioncuts goal

BY SAMUEL PETREQUIN

Associated Press

HONG KONG — Hong Kong

pro-democracy activist and media

tycoon Jimmy Lai has been

charged under the city’s national

security law, amid a widening

crackdown on dissent, according

to local media reports.

Lai, who founded the Apple Dai-

ly tabloid, was charged on suspi-

cion of colluding with foreign

forces and endangering national

security, local broadcaster TVB

reported Friday. He is the most

high-profile person out of more

than two dozen charged under the

law since it was implemented in

June.

He is scheduled to appear in

court on Dec. 12, and could face a

maximum punishment of life im-

prisonment.

Police said in a statement that

they arrested a 73-year-old man

under the national security law,

but did not name him.

Lai was arrested under the na-

tional security law in August. He

and two executives of Next Digi-

tal, the company that operates the

Apple Daily newspaper, were lat-

er charged with fraud over accu-

sations that they violated lease

terms on office space for compa-

ny. He was denied bail earlier this

month.

Beijing imposed the national se-

curity law in response to protests

in Hong Kong that began in June

2019 over a proposed extradition

law and expanded to include de-

mands for greater democracy in

the former British colony.

The legislation outlaws seces-

sion, subversion, terrorism, and

collusion with foreign forces to in-

tervene in Hong Kong’s internal

affairs. In certain cases, those

charged under the national secu-

rity law could also face trial in

mainland China, where the legal

system is highly opaque.

The sweeping legislation

prompted more public protests

and led to complaints that Beijing

is violating the autonomy prom-

ised to Hong Kong when it was

handed over to China from Britain

in 1997. Critics have said the law is

also damaging Hong Kong’s status

as a business center.

Apple Daily criticized the law

on its front page on July 1, calling it

the “final nail in the coffin” of the

territory’s autonomy.

Lai has advocated for other

countries to take a harsher stance

on China, and last year he traveled

to the U.S. to meet with Vice Presi-

dent Mike Pence and Secretary of

State Mike Pompeo to discuss the

proposed extradition bill.

Hong Kong media tycoon,pro-democracy activistcharged under security law

KIN CHEUNG/AP

Prodemocracy media tycoonJimmy Lai arrives at a policestation in Hong Kong Sept. 1.

Associated Press


AMERICAN ROUNDUP

Ex-teacher sentenced forkicking kindergartener

KS BELLE PLAINE — A

former Kansas teacher

who was caught on security cam-

era kicking a kindergarten stu-

dent in the school library has been

sentenced to 30 days in jail and a

year of probation.

Crystal Smith, 55, was also or-

dered to attend anger manage-

ment classes after pleading guilty

in Johnson County District Court,

online court records show.

A security camera at the Blue-

jacket-Flint Elementary School in

Shawnee, Kan., captured footage

of the incident. The girl had craw-

led into a bookshelf opening.

Smith yanked her out, then kicked

the girl as she lay huddled.

When the mother confronted

the teacher, Smith denied harm-

ing the girl and told her the girl

was not being truthful. The moth-

er demanded school officials to in-

vestigate.

Flower Show to be heldoutdoors for first time

PA PHILADELPHIA —

The Philadelphia Flow-

er Show, which bills itself as “the

nation’s largest and longest-run-

ning horticultural event,” will

move outside next year for the

first time in its nearly 200-year

history because of the coronavirus

pandemic.

The 2021 event will take place in

FDR Park in south Philadelphia,

the Pennsylvania Horticultural

Society announced.

“We are working closely with

our colleagues at Philadelphia

Parks and Recreation and a host of

planning experts including the

Department of Public Health in

Philadelphia to develop the Flow-

er Show into a safe, beautiful, and

extraordinary outdoor experience

for everyone,” the society said.

Holiday messages beingsent to care facilities

KY FRANKFORT — Em-

ployees of the Legisla-

tive Research Commission have

launched a campaign to send

hand-written holiday cards to ev-

ery long-term care facility around

the state.

The goal was to send at least one

card to each facility, but some

have asked for cards for each resi-

dent. There are around 250 facil-

ities in the state.

“If your family is anything like

mine, curtailing holiday traditions

because of social distancing has

been hard on the soul,” Commis-

sion Director Jay Hartz said. “My

hope is this card-writing initiative

fosters some of that human con-

nection lost with the restrictions.”

Police find cocaine stashin trailer hauling garlic

IN VALPARAISO — A stash

of cocaine worth up to $2

million was discovered inside a

trailer hauling garlic from Califor-

nia after staff at a northwest Indi-

ana highway weigh station grew

suspicious, police said.

State troopers were called to the

weigh station along Interstate 94

in Porter County by staff who had

been inspecting a commercial

truck's trailer loaded with 18,000

pounds of minced garlic.

State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield

said a staff member became sus-

picious after spotting a black case

in the trailer that seemed inconsis-

tent with the rest of its load, The

(Northwest Indiana) Times re-

ported.

Fifield said that case contained

packages of a white substance,

which later tested positive as co-

caine.

2 kids jump from 3rdfloor to escape fire

WA SPOKANE — Two

children had to jump

from a third-floor window of a

Spokane apartment building to es-

cape a fire that was caused after

the family's Christmas tree burst

into flames.

A 9-year-old boy who jumped as

people gathered below had to be

taken to the hospital to be checked

out but fire officials said his inju-

ries were not life threatening.

The boy's 5-year-old sister, who

also jumped, was not injured.

The third-story window was

about 25 feet above the ground,

said Julie O’Berg of the Spokane

Fire Department.

The father, Kevin Hulme, was

not in the apartment when the tree

caught fire.

His wife ran to get help but

could not re-enter the apartment

because of smoke.

Deputies confront, arrestman pointing AK-47

NC EDEN — A North Car-

olina man dressed in

body armor pointed an assault ri-

fle at deputies after they went to a

home to serve him with a warrant,

a sheriff’s office said.

The Rockingham County Sher-

iff’s Office said in a news release

that deputies went to a home in

Pelham to arrest Patrick James

Donovan, 46, on an misdemeanor

simple assault charge stemming

from an incident earlier in the day

in Caswell County.

Deputies said Donovan

emerged from a carport carrying

an AK-47 rifle, wearing body ar-

mor and demanding that the depu-

ties leave the property. The depu-

ties then took cover behind their

patrol cars and told Donovan they

had a warrant for his arrest, au-

thorities said.

According to the news release,

Donovan fled into nearby woods

before he negotiated with depu-

ties, put down his rifle and surren-

dered.

Man pleads guilty tofraud at ABC stores

VA NEWPORT NEWS — A

Virginia man has plead-

ed guilty to participating in a

scheme to buy alcohol for resale

from state-run liquor stores by us-

ing stolen debit and credit card

numbers, according to the U.S. At-

torney’s Office.

Tyrell Jackson, 44, of Norfolk

pleaded guilty to conspiracy to

commit wire fraud and aggravat-

ed identity theft, a news release

from Virginia U.S. Attorney G. Za-

chary Terwilliger said.

Prosecutors said Jackson and

three other men defrauded Vir-

ginia Alcoholic Beverage Control

stores by using debit and credit

cards re-encoded with the stolen

information. The news release

said investigators identified 20 di-

rect victims of identity theft from

Jackson’s role in the conspiracy,

and at least 82 victims of the big-

ger conspiracy.

Woman arrested atairport with hidden knife

AZ PHOENIX — A woman

was arrested at Phoe-

nix Sky Harbor Airport after al-

legedly trying to pass through se-

curity and board a flight to San

Francisco recently with a folding

knife concealed in her bra., au-

thorities said.

FBI officials in Phoenix said

Erine Aisha Robertson, 36, was

charged with the federal crime of

attempting to carry a weapon on

an aircraft.

Court documents show an

alarm went off as Robertson

passed through the sensor at the

Transportation Security Adminis-

tration checkpoint.

Authorities said Robertson was

taken to a private screening room

where she reached into her bra

and pulled out a small knife.

JIM SLOSIAREK, THE (CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA) GAZETTE/AP

Keith Snoop of Marion, Iowa, takes a curve as he pedals down the 4,000foot Trashmore Trail during an outofseason twoday access specialat the Mount Trashmore Trails and Overlook in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday. Favorable weather made it possible for the Linn CountySolid Waste Agency to open two trails at the site for walking and mountain biking. At least 360 people walked or biked on the first day.

A spoketacular day

THE CENSUS

22 The number of black bears killed on the first day of New Jer-sey's annual black bear hunt. The second segment of the hunt

resumed with hunters in parts of eight counties using firearms. However, theseason will be extended by four days if the bear harvest “does not meet a mini-mum of 20% of bears tagged.” Hunters used archery to bag 62 bruins on thefirst day of the hunt's first segment in October. They killed 336 bears witharchery and muzzleloaders during the first segment between Oct. 12 and Oct.17. Most of the bruins were bagged in Sussex County.

From The Associated Press


TRAVEL

It’s not often that Phil Paoletta receives disgruntled

emails about his and Ali Nialy’s project, but when he

does, it’s because someone thinks their West Africa-

based company is a scam.

The duo started Postcards From Timbuktu in 2016 with

a mission to help unemployed tour guides gain an income

by sending cards from a city that’s become shorthand for a

far-flung, if not imaginary, place.

“They think Timbuktu isn’t a real place and we’re print-

ing fake postcards and stamps to make it seem like some-

thing’s coming from a place in a joke,” Paoletta said.

It then falls to Paoletta to explain that Timbuktu is, in

fact, a real city, that the person who wrote the message is

not a grifter a la a fictitious “Nigerian prince,” and that one

of their friends or family members ordered a postcard for

them thinking they would enjoy receiving correspondence

from Mali.

More often than not, though, the recipients of the post-

cards are delighted, especially this year, when internation-

al tourism has largely come to a halt. In fact, the armchair-

travel nature of the postcards has led to the project’s most

successful year yet.

“We had a lot of postcards for people that were stuck in

quarantine and wished they could be traveling,” Paoletta

said. “This way, at least, they have a postcard that traveled

all the way from Timbuktu.”

The idea for the project came the same day Paoletta, an

American hotel and restaurant owner in Bamako, the

capital city, received mail from a friend in the United

States — his first parcel in six years. He was thinking

about how delightful it was to receive the letter when Nialy

came to visit him.

The latter had been a guide in the UNESCO World Heri-

tage city since elementary school and had previously made

a comfortable living walking tourists through his home-

town, bringing the fabled city to life with visits to mud

brick, earthen mosques and museums that show the histo-

ry of the once-important trading post. But after Islamist

militant occupation and attacks in 2012, tourism went into

a free fall. The next year, the French military intervened

and conditions improved, but numbers dwindled further

after a series of suicide bombings in 2015 and lingering

insecurity. Now the top half of Mali is all but divorced from

the southernmost half, at least for foreigners. Even if Pao-

letta, who has lived in Mali for a decade, wanted to go visit

Nialy, he’d be turned around by officials before he got to

Timbuktu.

As Nialy explained how dire the guide industry in Tim-

buktu had become, the idea for their venture clicked for

Paoletta.

After a successful test run to determine whether a post-

card from Timbuktu would get to its destination in other

countries, they assembled a team of ghostwriters and set

up a website. The process for ordering a card written and

postmarked in Timbuktu is fairly simple: pay $10, dictate

the verbiage and choose a design.

Some of the images on the cards Paoletta shot himself,

others were gifted by professional photographers, and

some are public-domain historical pictures of Timbuktu.

Alternatively, the sender can opt to have a design colored

by kids at the elementary school. There’s no telling what

will be drawn on the card, but the proceeds will help the

students get new school supplies (which more recently

have included hand sanitizer).

From there, one of the unemployed guides hand-writes

the message (usually in English, German or French, but

they’ll try their best with any language or alphabet sub-

mitted), and off it’s sent.

While the concept is straightforward, Paoletta said the

execution in Mali often follows a more meandering path.

On average, the cards take two or three weeks to arrive,

but there have been exceptions. The biggest problems

Paoletta and Nialy have encountered is an inability to

track the postcards. Once they’ve been dropped off at the

post office, they have no way of knowing where in the

world they are. Still, they’ve had very few complaints,

which Paoletta finds refreshing.

“We’ve become so accustomed to ordering something

and being able to track it down to the meter,” Paoletta said.

“But these cards go on long, unpredictable journeys. It’s

surprising and nice that people seem to accept this time-

line.”

The wording for the myriad dispatches have spanned

the substance spectrum. Some people write love letters,

some try to fool others into thinking they’re actually trav-

eling, and some send cryptic messages anonymously.

Paoletta said they have even witnessed family mediations

via the team’s handwritten letters. Passive-aggressive

notes, presumably, hit differently when they’ve come from

a city on the edge of the Sahara desert.

Of the $10 fee for the card, the guides usually make a

little more than $3 on average, though it varies depending

on how much it costs to ship the card. Some of the funds

also go toward printing and website fees.

“We have grown up in [tourism], so this alternative

income is very important for us in such a way that we can

fulfill our daily needs and help our families,” Nialy ex-

plained.

When there are big orders, the guides do fairly well — at

least compared with other workers in Timbuktu. The aver-

age salary in Mali is just under $80 a month, a sum they

can reach penning roughly two dozen postcards. While it’s

not as much as they were making as guides (when it was

safer for tourists to visit Timbuktu, they earned about $40

a day during peak season), it is consistent. Without this

project, the guides probably wouldn’t have any income at

all — jobs are scarce, and many have been guides since

they were 7 or 8 years old, so they lack formal education.

“I don’t want to say it’s a long-term solution, but it is

critical for them, especially since 2015,” Paoletta said.

Writing the cards also allows them to continue sharing

their city with others.

“I have the feeling that I’m doing what I like the most,

which is tourism, even though the context is different,”

Nialy said.

Paoletta echoed that sentiment, saying the guides know

there’s a whiff of the mystical around their city, and “they

enjoy showing people that it’s a real place, with real peo-

ple, with interesting things happening there.”

Postcards from the edgeA love letter from Timbuktu? A project in Mali deliversdelight — and a lifeline for tour guides in the ancient city

BY BAILEY BERG

Special to The Washington Post

PHIL PAOLETTA/The Washington Post

Calligrapher Boubacar Sadeck works on a PostcardsFrom Timbuktu order in July 2018. Customers pick theimage and dictate what they want the postcards to say.

PHIL PAOLETTA/The Washington Post

Above and top: collection of postcards dispatched by Postcards From Timbuktu. The West African business began as a way to employ outofwork tour guides in the ancient city.


VIDEO GAMES

The Valley of Defile-

ment. The Tower of

Latria. Every time I

revisit a Souls game,

trepidation bubbles in my gut

before I realize I’m only worry-

ing about Demon’s Souls. Every

pang of fear I get when playing a

Souls game stems from my first

steps through this game in 2009.

Yes, Dark Souls is the game

that popularized the Souls-like

genre. But it was Demon’s Souls,

with its level design and atmo-

sphere, that embedded itself into

my memory. The PlayStation 3

cult hit was nothing like I’d ever

played before. Fellow games

critic Brad Gallaway, who rec-

ommended it to me, then called it

“the fruition of a dream three

generations old.”

I was, and still am, inclined to

agree. This PlayStation 5 remake

is a blessing for those of us who

traveled through Boletaria 11

years ago. And what nasty sur-

prises await everyone who

skipped ahead and cut their teeth

on Dark Souls and its ilk. This is

where the real Souls genre be-

gins.

To reduce this launch title as a

mere remake of a PlayStation 3

game is to sell short this astound-

ing achievement by Bluepoint

Games. This is easily the best-

looking game on any console

today. More importantly, it clar-

ifies that virgin voyage into this

genre in ways I never thought

we’d experience.

In 2009, the ambition of the

level design here was hampered

by technology. Old-school video

game “fog” and darkness would

obscure the darkest regions of

the game, most notably the afore-

mentioned Valley of Defilement,

which set the bog standard for

similar levels, like the infamous

Blighttown of Dark Souls. Here, I

can actually see what the entire

valley looks like, far more vast

and cavernous than even my

imagination allowed.

On social media, there are

flashes of disagreement with

Bluepoint’s design decisions,

particularly with certain enemies

like the Fat Minister and the

Maneater boss; the increase in

graphical fidelity has led to them

losing that chimerical quality

which came from the haunting

simplicity of the PS3 polygons.

But there are really only a few

examples that might seem dis-

agreeable, all dwarfed by how

each of the five worlds have been

lovingly reimagined. And after

all, Demon’s Souls is FromSoft-

ware’s take on Western fantasy.

It’s not a huge leap to see these

creatures reconceived by a West-

ern developer.

Bluepoint Games has created

what I believe is the ideal Play-

Station 5 launch game. First of

all, it was Sony’s Japan studio

that suggested to FromSoftware

to conceive this game in the first

place. The Souls-like genre is

essentially a Sony first-party

creation, before FromSoftware

decided to branch out with Dark

Souls two years later.

PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan

says that the PS5 is all about

sensory engagement. And De-

mon’s Souls is a game that de-

mands attention to its details, its

movements, how every weapon

feels, as well as its sights and

sounds. It was one of the first

games that asked players to be-

have as if they were actually

creeping through the dark halls

of the Tower of Latria, hearing

bells jingle down the hallway as

some Eldritch horror awaits.

Running through strange, unlit

hallways would be ill advice in

real life, and it’s a quick way to

die in Demon’s Souls. Every level

must be approached with caution

and keen situational awareness.

The “game feel” is enhanced

with 3D audio and the DualSense

haptic feedback. The controller

now mimics what your charac-

ter’s hands might be feeling. If

your sword hits a wooden shield,

your controller will vibrate softer

than against brassy, grinding

steel shields and walls. When the

sword in your right hand trem-

bles with magical energy, so too

will the right side of your con-

troller. Every squish of flesh

when you turn your blade will be

heard from the controller’s

speakers, all timed perfectly to

your on-screen action. With

headphones on, it’s true that you

can almost feel arrows whiz by

ware created in 2009 have the

complexity of real places, which

is why the game played so vividly

to fans of role-playing games.

And now Bluepoint has given

Demon’s Souls all the details and

polish needed to fully realize this

game’s idealized concept of

“role-playing immersion.” It was

a game of boundless creativity,

and to have it reimagined so

vividly by Bluepoint Games is

nothing short of a minor miracle.

Platforms: PlayStation 5

Online: playstation.com/en-us/

games/demons-souls

up among five different regions,

instead of one universal map.

This gave the game a classic

structure, like World 1-1 in Super

Mario Bros. But loading between

the hub and between each region

in five seconds or less ties the

game together in ways older

hardware simply couldn’t. Lev-

eling up, grinding, dying and

trying again are all the more

pleasurable and easier to do with

this friction largely removed

from the process.

The game itself is an all-time

classic. The settings FromSoft-

your left ear, while a torch crack-

les to the right of your head. It’s a

Souls experience like we’ve nev-

er felt, heard or seen.

Demon’s Souls now looks like

what I imagined console games

might look like late in the PS5’s

generational cycle, yet here it is

for the PS5’s launch. The new

engine adds clarity to the context

of each world. The castle walls of

Boletaria look more like a place

of recent unrest and chaos, while

the Tower of Latria’s upper and

lower levels now make geograph-

ical sense. Latria is split between

two planes, one above the fog in

the highest floors of the tower,

and another way below the fog,

knee deep in mud and blood. My

2009 brain never was able to

make sense of the architecture

until now, when I’m finally able

to see the pillars and foundations

that hold the whole region togeth-

er.

The facial animations are an-

other controversial addition, but

in my eyes, they only add to the

game’s otherworldly ghastliness.

PlayStation-exclusive titles like

Uncharted and The Last of Us

have pioneered facial animation

technology to express convincing

emotion. Bluepoint Games seems

to flip that convention on its

head. The faces convey emotion,

but not in any subtle way like

we’d see in Ellie or Joel, but

mimicking Kabuki-style exagger-

ations that belie a deeper, un-

spoken pain. And the new or-

chestral remixes now take cues

from your action, adding rare

moments of cinematic flair to

boss battles in an otherwise

deadly quiet journey.

The biggest game-changing

feature of this console generation

is also this game’s biggest reason

for celebration: fast loading

times. Unlike later Souls-like

titles, Demon’s Souls is divided

Demon’s Souls:The ideal PS5launch gameCutting-edge technology transforms 2009title into a stunningly immersive experience

BY GENE PARK

The Washington Post

Bluepoint Games photos

The new, revitalized version of Demon’s Souls for PlayStation 5, a revelation 11 years ago on the PlayStation 3, is now easily the bestlooking game on any console, anywhere.

The “game feel” of Demon’s Souls is enhanced on the PlayStation 5with 3D audio and the DualSense haptic feedback.

The settings in Demon’s Souls have the complexity of real locations.


MOVIES

As a documentary film-

maker, Hao Wu has

focused throughout his

career on smaller,

character-driven stories that

bridge the divide between his

native China, where he grew up,

and his adoptive home in Amer-

ica. In 2013’s “People’s Republic

of Desire,” for example, Wu

followed three young Chinese

people as they pursued internet

fame through live-streaming,

while his 2019 Netflix film “All in

My Family” chronicled his tradi-

tion-minded parents’ road to

accepting his homosexuality.

When he was first approached

in February about making a film

about the growing COVID-19

pandemic, Wu wasn’t sure how to

approach such an enormous,

headline-dominating subject.

“Normally I tend to shy away

from newsy topics,” he says. “As

a filmmaker, I don’t know what

more I could add to a topic that’s

being well covered by the news

media already.”

Based in New York, where he

lives with his partner and their

two children, Wu began reaching

out to reporters and filmmakers

on the ground in Wuhan to find

out what they’d been seeing.

Poring through footage from

overrun hospitals where health

care workers heroically strug-

gled to save as many lives as they

could, and reflecting on his own

family back in China — including

a dying grandfather he was un-

able to visit due to travel re-

strictions — Wu quickly realized

that even this massive, globe-

shaking story ultimately boiled

down to the sort of intimate hu-

man drama that had always fas-

cinated him.

The resulting film, “76 Days,”

offers an alternately harrowing

and inspiring look inside four

hospitals in Wuhan during the

country’s 2 1/2-month lockdown

as it became the world’s first

COVID-19 epicenter. Co-directed

by Wu and two Chinese film-

makers — Weixi Chen and a

state-run-media reporter who is

remaining anonymous so as not

to run afoul of the government —

the film premiered in September

at the Toronto International Film

Festival and is now playing in

virtual cinemas in the U.S.

Dispensing with interviews

with experts and commentators,

“76 Days” instead zeroes in on a

handful of individuals as they

navigate the crisis, including a

health care worker comforting an

old woman who is dying alone, a

young couple who have been

separated from their newborn

baby and a weary nurse return-

ing the cellphones of deceased

patients to their grieving fam-

ilies.

The LA Times spoke with Wu

about how the film came togeth-

er, what it reveals about China’s

handling of the pandemic and the

messages he hopes viewers take

away from it.

Los Angeles Times: Through

out the making of this film you

were in the U.S. while your co

directors were shooting footage

in Wuhan. To this day, you’ve

never met them in person. How

did that collaboration work?

Wu: I’d been following the

news, but by mid-February, very

little video footage had come out

of Wuhan. So when I started

talking to reporters and film-

makers to see whether they

would share what they’d been

filming, my co-directors’ footage

really jumped out at me. It was

so striking to me that they were

able to be so close to the action,

to the human drama, the fear, the

panic, as well as the patience of

the medical workers and their

efforts to comfort the sick. I talk-

ed to them and they were very

gracious and started uploading

their rushes.

Every day after their shoot,

they would back up their footage

onto the cloud and I was able to

download it in New York. But

because of the Great Firewall

(regulating internet access in

China), there was always a few

days’ delay. Once I watched the

rushes, I would try to talk to

them at least every other day to

discuss where they were at with

certain characters. I tried to give

them some advice about charac-

ter focus and about coverage, but

in general they made most of the

decisions on the ground them-

selves because the situation was

changing really fast. Whatever

character we think is interesting

might be transferred the next

day to a different hospital or

might refuse to participate. It

was very chaotic.

This movie is entirely free of

politics. There are no talking

heads commenting on the Chi

nese government’s handling of

the crisis, just footage from the

front lines. Was that a conscious

decision early on?

As I started editing, my view

about the politics shifted. At the

beginning, I think the entire

country of China was angry at

the government. There were a lot

of questions about how much did

the government know, how much

did it try to cover up, why was

the situation so bad in Wuhan?

But as soon as the virus traveled

to other countries, especially the

U.S., and as the U.S. fumbled its

response to the pandemic, every-

one in China was shocked.

Once China decided to take

this super seriously, it quickly

got it under control. Right now in

China, their lives have gone back

to normal. Movie theaters, res-

taurants, bars — everything has

reopened. But here, we just

struggle with no ending in sight.

‘76 Days’ of COVID

AP

Hao Wu is a codirector of the documentary “76 Days.” The film wasshot in four Wuhan hospitals. Wu said at first he was reluctant to takeon a newsy topic such as COVID, but he realized that the event boileddown to the sorts of intimate human dramas that interested him.

Director Hao Wu manages to get an insidelook at the start of the outbreak in Wuhan

MTV DOCUMENTARY FILMS/AP

A man holds his newborn baby in a hospital during the peak of the COVID19 outbreak in Wuhan, China, in a scene from “76 Days.” Given theconstraints at the time on footage and information from Wuhan, it’s a rare window into the infancy of the pandemic.

BY JOSH ROTTENBERG

Los Angeles Times

SEE WU ON PAGE 15


The first minutes of the experiential COVID-19

documentary “76 Days” are claustrophobic and

disorienting — a feeling not unlike your first trip to

the grocery store while wearing a mask. But it gets

better.

In the controlled chaos of a hospital’s corridors,

everyone is sheathed head to toe in PPE. We see a

woman screaming to say goodbye to her father and

having to be restrained. A crowd bangs on a door

pleading to be let in as the hospital staff reassures

them that they will all be admitted if they only

remain patient.

The date is Jan. 23, 2020, and it’s the first day of

Wuhan, China’s lockdown, which will stretch the

length of the film’s title. Wuhan has a population of

11 million — think New York City plus Chicago —

and as the epicenter of the virus that rapidly spread

around the world, officials acted quickly and deci-

sively to try to contain it.

The documentary, however, is largely concerned

with the patients and frontline medical workers in

the four hospitals where it was shot. If Alex Gib-

ney’s “Totally Under Control” (now on Hulu) is a

macro-report of what went wrong with the U.S.

response to the outbreak, “76 Days” is an apolitical,

microbial view of what happens to the people at its

point of impact.

About 30 minutes in, the initial daze begins to lift

and individual stories emerge — though it’s not

always clear who is who due to the PPE or even

that we are actually in different hospitals. But the

connection between caregivers and their patients is

powerful, even when regional dialects makes com-

munication challenging. There is a universal tone of

tough love that initially seems brusque but becomes

more endearing the more we hear it.

Older patients are respectfully addressed as

“Grandma,” “Grandpa,” “Auntie” and “Uncle,” told

to stay strong and encouraged to keep in touch with

their families via their omnipresent mobile phones.

One hospital worker tells a grandma that she can’t

be with her family but “we are your family now.”

Memorable personalities surface even though we

don’t always know their names — patients are usu-

ally referred to as No. 40 or No. 98. A cranky grand-

pa who spends the nights wandering the halls com-

plaining and the days in bed crying is revealed to

be suffering from dementia, a discovery that allows

the staff to better care for him. An infant nick-

named “Little Penguin,” whose mother tested posi-

tive for the virus, charms the nurses with her appe-

tite and sleep habits as her parents wait to be re-

united with her. A head nurse named Yang Li is

determined to return phones and death certificates

to the families of patients who did not survive.

For a film that opens in a rather grim environ-

ment, “76 Days” is ultimately (and surprisingly)

uplifting as it moves through February and March

to Wuhan’s reopening in April, thanks to the emo-

tionally-driven verite approach taken by directors

Hao Wu, Weixi Chen and a third credited as “Anon-

ymous” (the latter two are video reporters who shot

the footage while Wu edited in the U.S.). Consid-

ering China’s lack of artistic freedom, it’s some-

thing of a miracle the film exists.

Like Gibney’s “Totally Under Control,” this is not

the ultimate COVID-19 documentary, simply one of

the first. We are likely to be watching films on this

subject for years to come, but for it’s sheer in-the-

moment rawness, “76 Days” is one that will stick in

your consciousness for some time.

MTV Documentary Films photos

In Wuhan, China, a doctor comforts a COVID19 patient in a scene from the documentary “76 Days.”

‘76 Days’ an inside look atthe first outbreak of COVID

BY KEVIN CRUST

Los Angeles Times

An elderly woman with COVID19, center, isescorted by two nurses after being admitted to ahospital in Wuhan, China, in “76 Days.”

“76 Days” is unrated. Running time: 99 minutes. Available on streamingservices.

That made me think more about

my earlier intentions.

We did interview some whis-

tleblower doctors who told the

public about the early cases of

the coronavirus. But by the time

we approached them, their sto-

ries were not that fresh anymore

and on camera, they were not

compelling. When we put them

next to the other footage, it was

jarring. So in the end, I removed

all these other characters. I

found that less is more; the less I

tell about what is happening and

just let people observe, the more

emotional power the film has.

As someone who grew up in

China and has lived in the U.S.

for many years now, do you see

cultural differences between the

two countries that help explain

how differently the pandemic

has played out in each place?

First of all, the reason I made

the film this way is I saw more

similarities than differences in

many places. At least during the

Wuhan lockdown, everyone

treated the virus as a common

enemy almost like in a war, and

people rise to the occasion in a

time of war. I think that’s some-

thing we’ve seen everywhere:

how health care workers have

had so much courage to stay on

the job, how volunteers are help-

ing each other out, how we all

cheer our medical workers like

we did every day in New York

back in March and April.

In terms of differences, I don’t

like to try to generalize, but I’ve

been thinking about this issue a

lot. I’m not a historian or a politi-

cal commentator, but I feel like

the relationship in China be-

tween the people and the state

has always been different. In

Chinese Confucian history, the

state has always been acting sort

of as a patriarch, so in times of

crisis when the state asks you to

do certain things people follow

orders. That’s not limited to Chi-

na; if you look at all the East

Asian countries which have been

under Confucian influence —

Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong,

Singapore, Taiwan — they’re all

like that. Here in America, there

is a strong belief in individual-

ism.

In World War I and World War

II, the American government

was able to mobilize the entire

population to combat a common

enemy. But this time, I feel like

it’s both the culture and a failure

of leadership at the very top. I do

feel like if we had a different

administration and that adminis-

tration was using consistent

messaging and reminding the

population we’re at war with the

virus, maybe we would have had

a completely different outcome.

From early on, we’ve seen

President Trump and many of

his supporters blame China for

this pandemic and call it the

“China virus.” Is part of your aim

with the film to push back on

that and get viewers to see the

Chinese people in a different

light?

Any message like that is sec-

ondary because as a storyteller,

as I was putting the film together,

the motivation was emotional. It’s

really about highlighting the

common humanities. If anything,

I feel like especially in the last

couple of years with the increas-

ingly toxic China-U.S. relation-

ship, both sides tend to view the

other side as just a monolith. We

take away the individuality and

agency of the individuals.

When we’re talking about

“China virus” and “they started

this,” we put that on the entire

population of China as a whole.

But on the ground there are so

many individuals making deci-

sions on a day-to-day basis

whether they want to be part of

the effort to combat the virus,

whether they can be nice to each

other — those are tiny, tiny deci-

sions. So with this film I wanted

to restore the human agency for

these Chinese people who were

trying to survive this. Otherwise

they become like statistics and

news headlines.

Secondly, I just want people to

watch this and see that COVID is

still really bad. I cannot believe

there is still discussion going on

even after the election about

whether COVID is a hoax or not.

... People’s willingness to dis-

regard science baffles me.

There are a number of scenes

in “76 Days,” like sick people

banging on the door to be ad

mitted to a hospital that is being

strained to its limits, that play

like something from a horror

movie. With the pandemic now

entering its most dangerous

phase, do you think this film may

feel too raw for some viewers?

The reactions so far overall

have been the same: Most people

would say, “I have no interest in

watching a film about COVID.”

But after they watched it, they

were either shocked or incred-

ibly moved.

For me, to be able to finish this

film given all the hiccups and

obstacles in making it, whatever

comes I’m happy. I feel like I

want to save this for posterity.

This is such a great front-line,

firsthand document about what

it’s like leading to a pandemic. So

maybe more people will watch it

after the pandemic is over. ... I’ll

be very pleased if a year or two

years or 10 years from now, peo-

ple seek this film out to try to

understand COVID-19.

Wu: Happy just to beable to finish the filmFROM PAGE 14

MOVIES


It took a global pandemic and a badly

timed breakup for Manny Argueta to

realize just how far he had grown

apart from his guy friends.

In the spring, after the 35-year-old had

left the home he shared with his former

girl-friend and moved into a studio in sub-

urban Falls Church, Va., on his own, he

would go an entire week without saying a

word. There were no more game days with

the guys, no more Friday nights in down-

town bars, and Argueta was starved for

social interaction. He returned to his Play-

Station 4, jumping on the microphone with

a stranger while playing “Overwatch” just

to hear someone’s voice. He discovered the

messaging app Discord and started chat-

ting with his old gamer friends and watch-

ing them play “Mortal Kombat 11” — even

when he didn’t have the game set up him-

self.

He started recognizing how dependent

his friendships had become on those Sun-

day football games and nights at 14th

Street lounges, on venting about Repub-

licans or why the Washington Capitals

didn’t make the playoffs. They hardly ever

talked about relationships or family, or just

how they were doing. He had never met

many of their family members.

For more than a decade, psychologists

have written about the “friendship crisis”

facing many men. A 2006 analysis publish-

ed in the American Sociological Review

found that while Americans in general

have fewer friends outside the family than

they used to, young, white, educated men

have lost more friends than other groups.

Male friendships are often rooted in

“shoulder-to-shoulder” interactions, such

as watching a football game or playing

video games, while women’s interactions

are more face-to-face, such as grabbing a

coffee or getting together for a glass of

wine, said Geoffrey Greif, a professor at

the University of Maryland School of So-

cial Work who wrote a book about male

friendship. When Greif surveyed hundreds

of men about how they most often social-

ized with friends, 80% of men said “sports”

— either watching or participating in them

together.

Because of this, many men have prob-

ably had a harder time than women figur-

ing out how to adapt their friendships in a

pandemic that is keeping them apart.

“The rules for guys pursuing other guys

for friendships are not clear,” Greif said.

“Guys don’t want to seem too needy.”

But the pandemic might be forcing this

dynamic to change.

In emails and interviews with The Wash-

ington Post, dozens of men shared stories

about Zoom poker games, backyard cigar

nights, neighborhood-dad WhatsApp

chains, Dungeons & Dragons groups and

Fantasy Football leagues where casual

chats about sports and politics have sud-

denly led to deep conversations — about

the struggles of virtual schooling, family

illness, breakups, births, wedding post-

ponements and job losses.

The moment feels heavier and so do the

conversations. Some men said their friend-

ships have begun to look more like those of

their wives and girl-friends. For the first

time in their lives, they’re going on walks

with male friends just to catch up. They’re

FaceTiming old college friends and check-

ing in on neighbors — not only to talk about

the NBA draft picks or their children’s

soccer schedule, but to ask how they’re

doing.

serious topics. The group of four men, who

met on their freshman floor at the Uni-

versity of Virginia and are now in their 30s,

have been groomsmen in each other’s

weddings. They have gone on international

trips together. They consider the other

men in the group their closest friends.

So why don’t they ever actually talk

about their feelings?

“I’ve always thought it’s funny that we

talk about things that are completely in-

consequential 80 to 90% of the time,” said

his friend, Alex Hyde, 32, over a recent

joint Zoom call.

When the friends get together in person,

for a beer or dinner, the deeper details

“sneak in by accident,” Hyde said. Now

that they can’t, the more serious topics

don’t come as naturally over text.

It feels more raw, Hyde said. “In general

with other guys, there’s a certain amount of

harassment that goes with anything you

say... you got to be ready for that.”

It feels impossible not to revert to mak-

ing fun of one another, Gordon said. “We

have no self restraint ...I can’t not crack up.

We set each other off,” he said. “In an ideal

world, we wouldn’t do that.”

These are the kinds of conversations

Argueta, in Falls Church, had come to

expect from his friendships with men.

When a couple of friends came over to

help him set up his PC, Argueta expected

them to roast him for looking like a “broke

college student” in his new studio, where

he has barely put anything on the walls and

he has cords all over his desk. Instead, the

two friends asked him to talk about what

led up to his breakup, and how he was

handling the past few months. Argueta

opened up to them — about his past rela-

tionship, the move, the pandemic, every-

thing. He was more personal with them

than he had ever been before.

One of his friends reminded him he

could call the group on Discord anytime.

“Just talk, just say anything,” the friend

said. “Somebody’s going to answer.”

Argueta planned to send them a group

text message soon, thanking his friends for

coming over and for “bailing me out in

more ways than you think.” He wanted to

keep being honest about what he was going

through.

“I’m going to be real,” he said. He won-

dered if they would do the same.

iStock photos

BONDINGBEYOND THE BAR The pandemic is forcing some men to realize they need deeper friendships

BY SAMANTHA SCHMIDT

The Washington Post

Argueta was used to avoiding talking

about personal details in his conversations

with male friends. But after struggling

with his mental health and going through

therapy this year, he said, he wants to start

finding ways to tell his friends what’s ac-

tually going on.

Niobe Way, a professor of developmental

psychology who interviewed hundreds of

boys for her 2013 book “Deep Secrets:

Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Con-

nection,” argues the lack of vulnerability in

male friendships is rooted in a misogy-

nistic, homophobic culture that discourag-

es emotional intimacy between men. But

it’s also part of a culture that does not value

adult friendship in general.

“The goal of adulthood is to find a part-

ner, not to find a best friend,” Way said.

“There’s nothing in our definition of suc-

cess or maturity ... that includes friend-

ships.”

But research shows that close friend-

ships and social networks are essential. A

Brigham Young University study found

that social connections — with friends,

family, neighbors or colleagues — improve

a person’s odds of survival by 50%.

In 2018, the suicide rate among men was

3.7 times higher than among women, ac-

cording to statistics from the National

Institute of Mental Health. But some sur-

veys show men are less likely than women

to admit they are lonely, while other re-

search suggests men derive more of their

emotional intimacy from the women in

their lives. In one study, married men were

more likely than married women to list

their spouse as their best friend.

In this time of unprecedented isolation,

Way said, many men may be forced to

change the way they think about their

friendships and to connect in new, deeper

ways: “I think they’re being forced to for

survival.”

A few years ago, Stephen Davis, 33, a tax

manager in suburban Alexandria, Va.,

joined a group text with one of his best

friends and some other guys he vaguely

knew from college. The conversation was,

at first, solely focused on the world of pro-

fessional wrestling. They called it “Five

MB,” short for Five Man Band.

But recently, the group has evolved into

a space to vent about so much more. It’s

gotten them through multiple job changes,

home moves and the births of four of their

children — including two during the pan-

demic. When Davis was struggling with

ideas for how to keep his son occupied

when playgrounds were closed, one of the

other dads in the group suggested an obsta-

cle course of pillows for his son to run

through. When Davis’ wife’s water broke,

he texted the Five Man Band before any-

one else — even before his parents.

The group has become closer than ever

during the pandemic. They now send near-

ly 100 text messages a day, a constant

stream of consciousness about what’s

going on in their lives. The conversations

feel more vulnerable, more honest than

others Davis has ever had with friends in

the past. They’re the kind of conversations

he would have never been able to have

while sitting at a bar and watching a game.

“There’s always too much noise to get to

that next level,” he said.

Jonathan Gordon sometimes wishes his

college buddies would talk about more

HEALTH & FITNESS


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stripes.com

OPINION

Lloyd Austin knows the military top

to bottom, and that’s good. After

graduating West Point in 1975, the

retired general served the Army

and his nation for four decades, rising to

lead the 10th Mountain Division in Afghan-

istan, then to command troops in Iraq, then

to run U.S. Central Command.

Even as the prospect of his becoming the

first Black defense secretary inspires a di-

verse nation and military, Austin’s success-

es and failures on these many tours of duty

warrant serious scrutiny from the Senate,

as does his consulting work and service on

various corporate boards since retiring.

What need not reflexively trip up his

nomination as Joe Biden’s choice to oversee

the Defense Department is that he hung up

the uniform in 2016, which means he’ll need

a waiver from Congress to run the Penta-

gon.

Federal law requires a military officer

wait an arbitrary seven years, down from

10, before taking over the DOD. The sound

reason: Ever since George Washington

went from politician to general to politician

again, America has prided itself on ironclad

civilian control of the armed forces. Here,

in stark contrast to lesser nations, men with

chests full of medals take orders from offi-

cials elected by the people, and the latter

never reflexively defer to the former.

It is well and good to test Austin on his in-

dependence from what Gen.-President

Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 dubbed the mil-

itary-industrial complex, but there’s no

magic to the particular seven-year cooling-

off period.

If most senators thought retired Gen. Jim

Mattis — who’d been in civilian clothes four

years when Donald Trump tapped him —

deserved a chance, they should also extend

one to Austin.

After voting no on a waiver, New York’s

Kirsten Gillibrand was the sole senator op-

posing Mattis’ confirmation. Will she stand

on principle now against Austin?

Grant Austin waiver to lead DODNew York Daily News

Israelis learned this week that a mem-

ber of the Dubai royal family had pur-

chased a 50% share of the Beitar Je-

rusalem Football Club. At first glance

it looked like fake news. No Arab billionaire

has ever bought a business in Israel, much

less a high-profile, National League football

club. And no team was a less likely candi-

date for Arab ownership. Beitar Jerusalem

is a Likud-linked club with an infamously

nationalistic fan base and a longstanding

policy of barring Arab players from its ros-

ter.

But the deal turned out to be real. The

club, which Israeli owner Moshe Hogeg

bought for about $7 million in 2018, has a

history of financial trouble and chronic

debt. But it’s more than just a sports invest-

ment. It’s a harbinger of major cultural and

economic change for Israel.

Hogeg declared it “the first real fruit” of

the Israel-United Arab Emirates relation-

ship. It’s also a startling social experiment.

Hogeg’s new partner, Sheikh Hamed bin

Khalifa Al Nahyan, has made clear he’s

coming to Israel not just for profit but to

change minds and hearts. The Sheikh is un-

daunted by the threats of La Familia — the

openly racist soccer thugs who’ve vowed to

wreck the deal. Instead, he has openly chal-

lenged them, telling journalists that he will

reach out to their “misled and brain-

washed” hooligans.

La Familia is a small but vocal part of the

Beitar fan base (the majority of which is

comprised of mainstream Likudniks who

seem happy that their team will be getting a

$92 million injection of cash over 10 years).

But the group is active in extremist politics

and has taken part in the harassment of an-

ti-Netanyahu protestors. So far, Israel’s

prime minister has avoided condemning

them by name. But this week he sent them a

signal. “It is instructive,” he explained to a

visiting foreign minister, “that an Emeriti

has bought Beitar Jerusalem. It tells you

how fast things are changing.”

Change is indeed everywhere. On the day

the football deal was announced, Israel’s

ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dormer, sent a

similar signal to congressional Democrats,

some of whom are expressing concern for

Israel’s safety over the Trump administra-

tion’s sale of F-35 war planes to the UAE.

Dormer took the air out of that argument

by telling an MSNBC interviewer that Is-

rael is “very comfortable” with the sale.

“We strongly believe that this agreement,

this arms package, will not violate the U.S.

commitment to maintain Israel’s Qualita-

tive Military Edge,” he said, adding that Je-

rusalem regards the UAE “as an ally in con-

fronting Iran.” The American Israel Public

Affairs Committee and other major pro-Is-

rael U.S. advocacy groups are echoing that

position. Essentially the government of Is-

rael is now lobbying on behalf of the UAE

air force.

That same day, in Dubai, hundreds of Is-

rael’s top business leaders gathered for the

first UAE-Israel Future Digital Technology

Summit. Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chair-

man of DP World, told them his company is

in talks with an Israeli firm, DoverTower, to

jointly run the port of Haifa — in its own

way, an institution as historic and iconic as

Beitar Jerusalem. “The port facilities will

allow us to link our ports in Europe to the

Middle East,” he said.

The two companies are also exploring a

direct shipping link between Israel’s Red

Sea port of Eilat and Jebel Ali, Dubai’s main

seaport in the Persian Gulf. Sultan bin Su-

layem estimated initial bilateral trade be-

tween Israel and the UAE at $5 billion.

Israel has signed peace treaties with

Arab governments before: Egypt in 1979

and Jordan in 1994. But trade, tourism and

joint economic projects have been negligi-

ble, largely because Cairo and Amman, for

domestic reasons, have discouraged such

contacts. Israel now has concluded multi-

billion-dollar sales of natural gas to both

countries, but these are essentially govern-

ment-to-government transactions.

The warm Emerati embrace is a new ex-

perience for Israelis. Several weeks ago, a

group of Arabs from a town near Tel Aviv

disguised themselves as tourists from Du-

bai and were mobbed by citizens offering

handshakes and seeking selfies.

When the pandemic allows, Israel is ex-

pecting a bonanza of bona fide Gulf Arab

tourists. Tel Aviv is promoting itself as the

new Beirut with all the open hospitality that

implies. Jerusalem is preparing for Muslim

pilgrims. Traffic will be reciprocal. Dubai

will be both a major destination for Israeli

visitors and a hub for business people short-

ening flights to the Far East.

Not everyone is happy with the new rela-

tionship. There has been an uptick of cyber-

attacks on UAE sites, presumably by Iran.

And the soccer thugs of La Familia will fight

to keep Arab players off the field. But from

now on, nobody will assume that even the

most improbable news about progress in

the Israel-UAE relationship is too good to

be true.

Israeli club’s Arab owner signals game onZEV CHAFETS

Bloomberg Opinion

Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senioraide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

MAYA ALLERUZZO/AP

Beitar Jerusalem FC soccer supporters watch the team practice Tuesday, a day after theclub announced that Emirati Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, a member of the AbuDhabi ruling family, had purchased a 50% stake in the team.


ACROSS

1 Boom times

4 Recedes

8 “Downton

Abbey” countess

12 Menlo Park

monogram

13 Talk up

14 Some deer

15 In the style of

16 Celestial bear

17 Actor Omar

18 Late November

through January,

in general

21 Dog doc

22 That fellow

23 Roman robes

26 Lair

27 Passing craze

30 Golf bag item

31 Math ratios

32 Kid’s plea

33 “Blue Bloods”

extra

34 Predetermine

35 Peculiar

36 Chest muscle

37 Male swan

38 Customizable

recipe direction

45 General

assembly?

46 Teeny

47 Joke

48 Computer

debut of 1998

49 Arrive

50 — -la-la

51 Wood strip

52 Espy

53 Melancholy

DOWN

1 Six-sided state

2 — Alto, Calif.

3 Barking mammal

4 Chopin pieces

5 Sacha Baron

Cohen role

6 Booked solid

7 Squirrels (away)

8 Coffee add-in

9 “I’m a klutz!”

10 Seized vehicle

11 Org.

19 Tennis great

Lendl

20 Aachen article

23 Spasm

24 Spanish gold

25 Republicans

26 Use a shovel

27 Corpulent

28 Picnic crasher

29 Hobbyist’s abbr.

31 Park outings

32 Castro’s land

34 Classic car

35 Answer to “Are

we there?”

36 Intimidate,

with “out”

37 Vodka cocktail

38 Go yachting

39 Witty Bombeck

40 Latin 101 word

41 Sporty car roof

42 Pvt.’s superiors

43 Skater Lipinski

44 “Zounds!”

Answer to Previous Puzzle

Eugene Sheffer CrosswordFra

zz

Dilbert

Pearls B

efo

re S

win

eN

on S

equitur

Candorv

ille

Beetle B

ailey

Biz

arr

oCarp

e D

iem


SCOREBOARD

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Thursday’s scores

SOUTH

Pittsburgh 34, Georgia Tech 20 Southern Miss. 45, FAU 31

Schedule

Saturday’s games

Rutgers (25) at Maryland (22) Louisville (37) at Boston College (65)

, �ppd. Akron (14) at Buffalo (40). Navy (36) at Army (72)Michigan St. (24) at Penn St. (25)

SOUTH

Wake Forest (43) at Louisville (37) Texas A&M (71) at Tennessee (26)

, �ppd. Troy (55) at South Alabama (47), �ppd. Coastal Carolina (100) at Troy (55) Houston (33) at Memphis (63)North Carolina (73) at Miami (81)Duke (28) at Florida St. (26) Tennessee (26) at Vanderbilt (08)Appalachian St. (73) at Georgia South

ern (74)LSU (35) at Florida (81)Auburn (54) at Mississippi St. (26)Virginia (54) at Virginia Tech (46)

MIDWEST

�Georgia (62) at Missouri (53) N. Illinois (05) at E. Michigan (14) Minnesota (23) at Nebraska (24) Illinois (24) at Northwestern (51) W. Michigan (41) at Ball St. (41) Vanderbilt (08) at Missouri (53), �ppd. Cent. Michigan (32) at Toledo (32). Wisconsin (22) at Iowa (52) Texas (63) at Kansas (09)

SOUTHWEST

Alabama (90) at Arkansas (36) UAB (43) at Rice (22) LouisianaMonroe (010) at Arkansas St.

(47), �ppd. Oklahoma St. (63) at Baylor (26)Louisiana Tech (53) at TCU (54)Mississippi (44) at Texas A&M (71)

, �ppd.

FAR WEST

Utah (12) at Colorado (40) Washington (31) at Oregon (32)Boise St. (41) at Wyoming (23)Southern Cal (40) at UCLA (32)Utah St. (15) at Colorado St. (13) San Diego St. (43) at BYU (91)California (13) at Washington St. (12)Fresno St. (32) at New Mexico (15)Stanford (22) at Oregon St. (23)UNLV (05) at Hawaii (34)

NFL injury reportNEW YORK — The National Football

League injury report, as provided by theleague (DNP: did not practice; LIMITED:limited participation; FULL: Full participa

tion):

SUNDAYARIZONA CARDINALS at NEW YORK GI-

ANTS — CARDINALS: DNP: B De'VondreCampbell (ankle), WR DeAndre Hopkins(not injury related, neck, back), CB Johnathan Joseph (neck), LB Isaiah Simmons(neck, back), S Jalen Thompson (ankle).LIMITED: RB Kenyan Drake (hip), DT Rashard Lawrence (calf), S Charles Washington (groin). FULL: DT Leki Fotu (hip, ankle),DT Domata Peko (knee). GIANTS: DNP: CBMadre Harper (knee). LIMITED: CB DarnayHolmes (knee), QB Daniel Jones (hamstring), LB Blake Martinez (back), T MattPeart (ankle).

ATLANTA FALCONS at LOS ANGELESCHARGERS — FALCONS: DNP: CB RicardoAllen (concussion), G James Carpenter(groin), WR Julio Jones (hamstring), T Kaleb McGary (not injury related). LIMITED:DE Dante Fowler (hamstring), RB ToddGurley (knee), P Sterling Hofrichter (righthamstring), TE Hayden Hurst (ankle), DTGrady Jarrett (groin), S Keanu Neal (ankle), LB Foyesade Oluokun (neck), RB ItoSmith (neck), DE Jacob TuiotiMariner(neck). FULL: RB Keith Smith (neck). CHAR-GERS: No Data Reported.

DALLAS COWBOYS at CINCINNATI BEN-GALS — COWBOYS: DNP: T Cameron Erving(knee), S Donovan Wilson (groin). LIMITED: CB Anthony Brown (ribs), RB Ezekiel Elliott (calf), DE Aldon Smith (foot). BEN-GALS: DNP: TE Drew Sample (not injury related), S Brandon Wilson (hamstring).LIMITED: CB Mackensie Alexander (knee),LS Clark Harris (groin), WR Tee Higgins(hamstring), DT Xavier Williams (back).FULL: QB Brandon Allen (chest), DT GenoAtkins (not injury related), DT Mike Daniels (not injury related), WR A.J. Green(not injury related), G Alex Redmond (concussion).

DENVER BRONCOS at CAROLINA PAN-THERS — BRONCOS: No Data Reported.PANTHERS: No Data Reported.

GREEN BAY PACKERS at DETROIT LIONS— PACKERS: DNP: TE Marcedes Lewis(knee), TE Jace Sternberger (concussion).LIMITED: CB Kevin King (achilles, groin),WR Allen Lazard (core), G Lucas Patrick(toe), P J.K. Scott (right quadricep), S Vernon Scott (quadricep), WR EquanimeousSt. Brown (knee, concussion), G SimonStepaniak (knee), WR Malik Taylor(hamstring), T Rick Wagner (knee). FULL:CB Jaire Alexander (knee, hand), LB KrysBarnes (calf), LB Za'Darius Smith (ankle).LIONS: DNP: T Tyrell Crosby (ankle), WRKenny Golladay (hip), CB Jeff Okudah(groin). LIMITED: DE Austin Bryant (thigh),DE Da'Shawn Hand (groin), S C.J. Moore(ankle), QB Matthew Stafford (rightthumb), RB D'Andre Swift (illness). FULL:RB Kerryon Johnson (knee).

HOUSTON TEXANS at CHICAGO BEARS —TEXANS: No Data Reported. BEARS: No Data Reported.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS at LAS VEGASRAIDERS — COLTS: DNP: TE Jack Doyle (notinjury related), P Rigoberto Sanchez (illness). LIMITED: T Anthony Castonzo(knee), DT Tyquan Lewis (hip), LB BobbyOkereke (ankle), DE Kemoko Turay (ankle), S Khari Willis (back, quadricep). FULL:DT Denico Autry (not injury related), TETrey Burton (not injury related), DE JustinHouston (not injury related), QB Philip Rivers (toe), T Braden Smith (groin), LB Anthony Walker (ribs). RAIDERS: No Data Reported.

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS at MIAMI DOL-PHINS — CHIEFS: DNP: LB Damien Wilson(knee). FULL: CB Bashaud Breeland (shoulder), T Yasir Durant (illness), RB Clyde EdwardsHelaire (illness), LB Willie Gay(groin), CB Antonio Hamilton (ankle), WRTyreek Hill (illness), DE Tanoh Kpassagnon (hip), DT Derrick Nnadi (ankle), T Martinas Rankin (knee), C Austin Reiter(knee), T Mike Remmers (neck, rib). DOL-

PHINS: DNP: RB Salvon Ahmed (shoulder),G Ereck Flowers (ankle), LB Elandon Roberts (chest), LB Kyle Van Noy (hip). LIMITED: S Kavon Frazier (shoulder, ankle), RBMyles Gaskin (knee), WR Jakeem Grant(back), CB Xavien Howard (shoulder), GSolomon Kindley (foot), RB Malcolm Perry(chest), TE Adam Shaheen (foot), QB TuaTagovailoa (left thumb), LB Andrew VanGinkel (wrist, ankle), RB DeAndre Washington (hamstring). FULL: DE Shaq Lawson(shoulder).

MINNESOTA VIKINGS at TAMPA BAYBUCCANEERS — VIKINGS: DNP: LB Eric Kendricks (calf), RB Alexander Mattison (illness), TE Kyle Rudolph (foot). LIMITED: CGarrett Bradbury (abdomen), G Ezra Cleveland (ankle), CB Jeff Gladney (calf), T Riley Reiff (ankle), TE Irv Smith (back), DED.J. Wonnum (ankle, back). FULL: C BrettJones (neck). BUCCANEERS: DNP: CB JamelDean (groin), WR Mike Evans (hamstring),TE Rob Gronkowski (not injury related).LIMITED: DT Steve McLendon (elbow), LBJason PierrePaul (knee), T Donovan Smith(ankle). FULL: LB Lavonte David (not injuryrelated), WR Chris Godwin (finger).

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS at PHILADELPHIAEAGLES — SAINTS: DNP: DT David Onyemata (illness), CB Patrick Robinson (hamstring). LIMITED: DT Malcom Brown (shoulder), WR Deonte Harris (neck), CB JanorisJenkins (knee), RB Latavius Murray(knee), T Ryan Ramczyk (elbow), WR Michael Thomas (ankle), DT Shy Tuttle(wrist). FULL: DE Marcus Davenport (concussion), RB Ty Montgomery (hamstring).EAGLES: DNP: LB T.J. Edwards (hamstring),S Rudy Ford (hamstring), CB Michael Jacquet (hamstring), T Jason Peters (toe).LIMITED: DE Derek Barnett (pelvis), CB Darius Slay (knee). FULL: DT Fletcher Cox(neck), WR Alshon Jeffery (calf).

NEW YORK JETS at SEATTLE SEAHAWKS— JETS: DNP: S Ashtyn Davis (foot), RBFrank Gore (concussion, not injury related), S Bennett Jackson (hamstring), LBJordan Jenkins (shoulder), WR DenzelMims (not injury related), G Greg Van Roten (toe). LIMITED: WR Jamison Crowder(calf), G Pat Elflein (shoulder, ankle), WRBreshad Perriman (shoulder). FULL: RBJosh Adams (calf), T George Fant (knee), PBraden Mann (left foot), S Marcus Maye(rib), C Connor McGovern (back, hamstring). SEAHAWKS: No Data Reported.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS at BUFFALOBILLS — STEELERS: DNP: WR Chase Claypool (illness), CB Joe Haden (concussion),LB Robert Spillane (knee). FULL: K ChrisBoswell (right hip), G David DeCastro (notinjury related), CB Steven Nelson (knee),QB Ben Roethlisberger (not injury related), T Alejandro Villanueva (not injury related), DE Chris Wormley (illness). BILLS:DNP: S Jaquan Johnson (ankle). LIMITED: GJon Feliciano (knee, foot), QB Jake Fromm(not injury related), DT Quinton Jefferson(hip), WR Andre Roberts (Achilles). FULL:QB Josh Allen (knee, ankle).

TENNESSEE TITANS at JACKSONVILLEJAGUARS — TITANS: DNP: CB Breon Borders (hip), WR A.J. Brown (ankle), T DennisKelly (knee). LIMITED: CB Adoree' Jackson(knee), LB Derick Roberson (hip). FULL: RBDarrynton Evans (hamstring), C Ben Jones(knee), G Rodger Saffold (ankle), TE JonnuSmith (knee). JAGUARS: DNP: C BrandonLinder (ankle). LIMITED: LB Dakota Allen(hamstring), LB Kamalei Correa (hamstring), RB Nathan Cottrell (knee), TE TylerEifert (not injury related, shoulder), CBSidney Jones (Achilles), CB Greg Mabin(hamstring), RB James Robinson (knee),WR Laviska Shenault (thumb).

WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM at SANFRANCISCO 49ERS — WASHINGTON: DNP:RB Antonio Gibson (toe), T David Sharpe(knee). LIMITED: T Morgan Moses (groin),G Brandon Scherff (calf). FULL: DE RyanAnderson (knee), WR Terry McLaurin (ankle). 49ERS: No Data Reported.

MONDAYBALTIMORE RAVENS at CLEVELAND

BROWNS — RAVENS: No Data Reporte.BROWNS: DNP: WR Khadarel Hodge(hamstring), CB Denzel Ward (calf). LIMITED: T Jack Conklin (knee), C J.C. Tretter(knee). FULL: WR Jarvis Landry (hip).

PRO FOOTBALL COLLEGE HOCKEY

Thursday's scoresMIDWEST

Denver 5, Miami 1North Dakota 2, MinnesotaDuluth 2, OT

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Thursday’s men’s scores

EAST

Buffalo 81, Mercyhurst 64 Coppin St. 85, UNCGreensboro 80

SOUTH

Campbell 122, Florida National 92 East Carolina 73, North Florida 67 Jacksonville 77, New Orleans 70 Mississippi 80, Jackson St. 45 Morehead St. 81, Transylvania 55 Troy 62, North Alabama 57 W. Kentucky 86, GardnerWebb 84

MIDWEST

Minnesota 90, UMKC 61 North Dakota 75, South Dakota 71 Ohio 92, PurdueNorthwest 72 S. Dakota St. 77, N. Dakota St. 75 W. Illinois 80, Mount St. Joseph 55

SOUTHWEST

Sam Houston St. 107, LeTourneau 65 Texas Rio Grande Valley 68, Texas A&M

CC 64

FAR WEST

Portland 87, Oregon St. 86, OT San Diego St. 80, Arizona St. 68 San Francisco 107, Long Beach St. 62 UC Riverside 74, N. Arizona 50

Thursday’s women’s scores

EAST

Baylor 65, West Virginia 45 Delaware 93, St. John’s 88 Maine 62, Providence 48 UMass 74, New Hampshire 55

SOUTH

Belmont 83, Tennessee St. 35 Clemson 71, Virginia 55 Coastal Carolina 67, UNCPembroke 59 Grambling St. 66, LouisianaMonroe 42 Syracuse 69, Miami 58 Tennessee 90, Furman 53 Virginia Tech 88, Pittsburgh 71 Wake Forest 57, North Carolina 54

MIDWEST

Drake 82, Northwest Missouri State 30 Kansas 74, Oklahoma 64 Kansas St. 62, S. Dakota St. 53 Marquette 86, Cincinnati 75 Nebraska 78, Illinois 72 Northwestern 93, E. Illinois 57 Ohio St. 104, Miami (Ohio) 65 South Dakota 62, Wichita St. 54 Toledo 82, N. Illinois 79

SOUTHWEST

Abilene Christian 95, Mary HardinBaylor 49

Oral Roberts 66, Tarleton State 56 Texas A&M 79, UALR 56

FAR WEST

Arizona 65, Arizona St. 37 BYU 72, Montana St. 58 Boise St. 84, E. Washington 64 Cal Poly 70, New Mexico St. 60 Colorado St. 84, San Diego St. 77, 2OT San Francisco 67, California 62 Seattle 105, Northwest University 39

DEALS

Thursday's transactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

CHICAGO WHITE SOX — Signed RF AdamEaton.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS — Traded SS Leonardo Rivas to Cincinnati as player to benamed later when they acquired RHP NoeRamirez on Monday.

TAMPA BAY RAYS — Acquired minorleague C/OF Heriberto Hernandez, INF Osleivis Basabe and OF Alexander Ovallesfrom Texas Rangers in exchange for 1B/3BNate Lowe, minor league 1B Jake Guentherand a player to be named.

National LeagueARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS — An

nounced the trade of RHP Zach Pop to Miami for a player to be named later.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS — Announcedthe promotion of Janet Marie Smith to executive vice president of planning and development.

NEW YORK METS — Announced thetrade of RHP Luis Oviedo, received in Rule5 draft, to Pittsburgh in exchange for cashconsiderations.

SAN DIEGO PADRES — Named RafaelFreitas head athletic trainer, TerenceBrannic head strength & conditioningcoach, Adam Vish a strength & conditioning coach, Seth Steinhauer physical therapist, Josh Hopper coordinator of pitchingdevelopment, A.J. Patrick director ofsports performance, Ted Tomczyk director of sports medicine and Bryan Stroh senior vice president of baseball development.

BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association

NBA — Announced that the BrooklynNets organization and G Kyrie Irving haveeach been fined $25,000 for violatingleague rules governing media interviewaccess.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

BALTIMORE RAVENS — Activated WRWillie Snead from reserve/COVID19 list.Place WR Dez Bryant on the reserve/COVID19 list. Activated TE Eli Wolf from thepractice squad injured reserve.

BUFFALO BILLS — Signed general manager Brandon Beane to a multiyear contract extension.

CAROLINA PANTHERS — Activated DEYetur GrossMatos from the reserve/COVID19 list.

CHICAGO BEARS — Placed WR DeAndreCarter on the reserve/COVID19 list.

CINCINNATI BENGALS — Placed S ShawnWilliams on the reserve/suspended list.

DALLAS COWBOYS — Placed DB ChidobeAwuzin on the reserve/COVID19 list. Designated C Tyler Biadasz to return from injured reserve. Activated WR Aaron Parkerfrom the practice squad injured reservelist.

DENVER BRONCOS — Designated TE JakeButt to return from injured reserve. Activated WR Diontae Spencer for the reserve/COVID19 list.

GREEN BAY PACKERS — Activated RB A.J.Dillon from the reserve/COVID19 list.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS — Signed T WillHolden to the active roster from the Baltimore practice squad.

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS — Signed DT Lee Autry to the practice squad. Released WRMarcell Ateman.

LOS ANGELES RAMS — Promoted K Austin MacGinnis to the active roster.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS — Signed TE HaleHentges to the active roster from Indianapolis practice squad.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS — ActivatedWR Julian Edelman from the reserve/COVID19 list. Activated TE Devin Asiasi frominjured reserve. Placed TE Ryan Izzo on injured reserve.

NEW YORK GIANTS — Signed LB TrentHarris to the practice squad.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS — Placed LBVince Williams on reserve/COVID19 list.

TENNESSEE TITANS — Activated DBChris Jackson from the reserve/COVID19list.

WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM — Designated WR Antonio GandyGolden to return from injured reserve.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

NASHVILLE PREDATORS — Announcedsending F Tommy Novak to ECHL's FloridaEverblades until the start of the 202021training camps for Nashville or Milwaukee.

ORLANDO CITY SC — Signed eSports athlete Douglas Bendeck to represent theclub in eMLS and the FIFA 21 Global Series.Resigned former eMLS representativeAbe Valbuena as a content creator andconsultant.

WASHINGTON CAPITALS — Announcedthe loan of G Zach Fucale to South CarolinaSting Rays (ECHL).

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

NEW YORK RED BULLS — ResignedeMLS cup champion, George Adamou, to acontract extension to represent the clubin the 2021 eMLS season and other FIFAGlobal Series events in 2021. Announcedthe loan of F Mathias Jorgensen to Denmark's (Aartus Gymnastikforening) forsixmonths with an option to purchase.

National Women's Soccer LeagueSKY BLUE FC — Signed MF Nicole Baxter

to a oneyear 2021 contract with a 2022 option.

COLLEGEARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY — An

nounced Blake Anderson resigned ashead football coach.

PRO SOCCER

MLS playoffsPlay-in

Eastern ConferenceFriday, Nov. 20

New England 2, Montreal 1Nashville 3, Inter Miami 0

First RoundEastern Conference

Saturday, Nov. 21Orlando City 1, New York City FC 1, Orlan

do advanced 65 on penalty kicksColumbus 3, New York 2

Tuesday, Nov. 24Nashville 1, Toronto 0, OTNew England 2, Philadelphia 0

Western ConferenceSunday, Nov. 22

Sporting Kansas City 3, San Jose 3,Sporting KC advanced 30 on penalty kicks

Minnesota United 3, Colorado 0Portland 3, Dallas 3, Dallas advanced 87

on penalty kicks

Tuesday, Nov. 24Seattle 3, Los Angeles FC 1

Conference SemifinalsEastern Conference

Sunday, Nov. 29New England 3, Orlando City 1Columbus 2, Nashville 0

Western ConferenceTuesday, Dec. 1

Seattle 1, Dallas 0

Thursday, Dec. 3Minnesota United 3 Sporting Kansas

City 0

Conference ChampionshipsSunday, Dec. 6

Eastern ConferenceColumbus 1, New England 0

Monday, Dec. 7Western Conference

Seattle 3, Minnesota 2

MLS CupSaturday, Dec. 12

Seattle at Columbus

GOLF

Women's Open ChampionshipLPGA TourThursday

At Champions Golf CourseHouston, TexasCypress Creek

Yardage: 6,731; Par: 71Jackrabbit

Yardage: 6,558; Par 71Purse: $1.3 million

(a) amateurFirst Round

Amy Olson 34-33—67 -4Hinako Shibuno 33-35—68 -3Moriya Jutanugarn 34-34—68 -3A Lim Kim 34-34—68 -3Linnea Strom 34-35—69 -2Linn Grant (a) 33-36—69 -2Patty Tavatanakit 34-35—69 -2Gerina Piller 33-36—69 -2Charley Hull 35-34—69 -2Sophia Popov 35-34—69 -2Yuka Saso 32-37—69 -2Jodi Ewart Shadoff 35-35—70 -1P. Roussin-Bouchard (a) 35-35—70 -1Lindsey Weaver 36-34—70 -1Mina Harigae 35-35—70 -1Amelia Garvey (a) 37-33—70 -1Megan Khang 32-38—70 -1Maja Stark (a) 35-35—70 -1Brittany Lincicome 33-37—70 -1Hyejin Choi 36-34—70 -1Sung Hyun Park 37-33—70 -1Jennifer Kupcho 36-34—70 -1Ariya Jutanugarn 35-35—70 -1Kaitlyn Papp (a) 34-37—71 ECaroline Masson 35-36—71 EAzahara Munoz 37-34—71 ESarah Schmelzel 37-34—71 EAshleigh Buhai 38-33—71 ECristie Kerr 36-35—71 ENasa Hataoka 36-35—71 EGabriela Ruffels (a) 35-36—71 ECarlota Ciganda 39-32—71 ELydia Ko 36-35—71 EBrittany Altomare 34-37—71 EInbee Park 35-36—71 ENuria Iturrioz 36-35—71 EPerrine Delacour 38-34—72 +1Lauren Stephenson 37-35—72 +1Mi Hyang Lee 38-34—72 +1Mi-Jeong Jeon 39-33—72 +1Yealimi Noh 38-34—72 +1Jenny Shin 37-35—72 +1Danielle Kang 36-36—72 +1Hae Ran Ryu 35-37—72 +1Brooke Henderson 37-35—72 +1Lizette Salas 36-36—72 +1Stacy Lewis 37-35—72 +1Hannah Green 37-35—72 +1

Dec. 12

1937 — Rookie Sammy Baugh throwssecondhalf touchdown passes of 55, 78and 33 yards to overcome a 147 Chicagolead and give the Washington Redskins a2821 victory over the Chicago Bears forthe NFL championship.

1953 — Maurice Richard of the MontrealCanadiens becomes the NHL’s alltimeleading scorer with a goal and two assistsin a 72 victory against the New York Rangers at Montreal’s Forum. Richard finishesthe game with 611 points, one more thaninjured linemate Elmer Lach, who has heldthe record since February 1952.

1965 — Chicago’s Gale Sayers scores sixtouchdowns with 336 combined yards tolead the Bears to a 6120 rout of the SanFrancisco 49ers. The six TDs give Sayersan NFLrecord 21 for the season. Sayers’first touchdown is a reception, the nextfour rushing and the final, an 85yard puntreturn.

1971 — Bobby Hull of the Chicago BlackHawks scores his 1,000th point with an assist in the first period of a 53 victory overthe Minnesota North Stars.

1977 — NBA Commissioner Larry O’Brienfines Kermit Washington $10,000 and suspends the Los Angeles Lakers forward forat least 60 days (26 games) for punchingHouston’s Rudy Tomjanovich during agame on Dec. 9. The suspension is thelongest ever in NBA history and the fine isthe maximum permissible under leaguerules. Tomjanovich suffered Tomjanovich

fractures to face, upper jaw and nose.1982 — New England beats Miami 30

with the help of a snowplow. Heavy rainsthe night before soaks the AstroTurf surface at Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough,Massachusetts. A snowstorm hits duringthe game and an emergency ground ruleallows the ground crew to use a snowplowto clear the yard markers. With 4:45 left togo in the game, Patriots coach Ron Meyermotions to snowplow operator Mark Henderson to clear a spot on the field specifically for placekicker John Smith. Insteadof going straight across along the yardmarker, Henderson veers left, directly infront of the goal post, giving Smith a cleanspot from which to kick. Smith hits 33yardgamewinning fieldgoal.

1986 — James “Bonecrusher” Smithknocks out Tim Witherspoon in the firstround to win the WBA heavyweight title inNew York.

1987 — Guard Mookie Blaylock leads Oklahoma to an NCAArecord 33 steals with13 in a 15284 victory over Centenary.

1990 — Connecticut uses a stifling pressand quickness to jump to a 320 lead enroute to an 8532 victory over New Hampshire. New Hampshire plays 11 minutesand 48 seconds before scoring its firstpoint.

1992 — Miami quarterback Gino Torretta, 261 as a starter for the topranked Hurricanes, wins the Heisman Trophy. Torretta, with 1,400 points, edges San DiegoState running back Marshall Faulk, whoreceives 1,080 points.

AP SPORTLIGHT


COLLEGE BASKETBALL/SPORTS BRIEFS

TEMPE, Ariz. — San Diego

State was so worried about Arizo-

na State's fast break, it sent three

players back on defense after ev-

ery miss, leaving its two big men to

work the offensive glass.

Two against five turned out to

be pretty good odds for the hard-

working Aztecs.

Jordan Schakel scored 25

points, Nathan Mensah had 17

points and 15 rebounds, and No. 24

San Diego State dominated inside

to beat No. 23 Arizona State 80-68

Thursday night.

“We sent the center and the

power forward to the offensive

glass and those guys did a great

job on their own,” Aztecs coach

Brian Dutcher said. “It was a real

key to the game.”

The Sun Devils (3-2) got vol-

ume-scoring guard Alonzo Verge

Jr. back after he missed two

games due to COVID-19 contact

tracing but were without forward

Marcus Bagley due to a lower left

leg injury suffered Saturday

against Cal.

San Diego State (5-0) already

had a size advantage inside, and

Bagley's absence turned it into an

even bigger strength.

The Aztecs outscored Arizona

State 36-9 in the paint and had 17

second-chance points on 11 offen-

sive rebounds against the smaller

Sun Devils. San Diego State pulled

away with an 18-2 run in the sec-

ond half to stretch the nation's

longest road winning streak to 13

straight games.

“It was probably our closest to a

complete game,” said Schakel,

who shot 5-for-9 from three-point

range. “We still have a long way to

go, but it was nice to put that kind

of game together this early in the

season.”

The Sun Devils were pushed to

the perimeter most of the night by

the bigger Aztecs and, despite a

couple of nice runs, didn't make

enough outside shots. Arizona

State shot 34% and missed 11

straight shots during a key stretch

in the second half.

Verge led the Sun Devils with 25

points.

“Do we really care about how

hard we’ve got to play? Do we

know how hard we’ve got to play to

beat a team like that?” Arizona

State coach Bobby Hurley said.

“There were a lot of examples of

that tonight.”

The Aztecs were without three

players due to contact tracing,

though only Keshad Johnson was

expected to be part of the rotation.

Bagley's loss was a bigger one

for the Sun Devils, leaving them

without their top rebounder.

San Diego State took advantage,

scoring 12 points off six offensive

rebounds midway through the

first half. The 6-10 Mensah had his

way inside with 10 points and 10

rebounds in the first half to give

the Aztecs a 35-33 lead.

Arizona State missed 11 of its

first 15 shots before finding a bet-

ter offensive rhythm and cleaned

up the defensive glass better to

rally from an early 12-point defi-

cit.

The Sun Devils struggled

against San Diego State's defen-

sive pressure early in the second

half and began turning the ball

over, leading to a series of transi-

tion baskets during a 13-0 Aztecs

run.

Arizona State had a stretch of

eight minutes without a field goal

as San Diego State extended the

lead to 59-45.

“It was a combination of poor

shot selection, careless turnovers,

bad transition defense after mis-

takes,” Hurley said. “We were still

up two, 43-41, with 15 minutes left

with all the things that I witnessed

and we found a way to do worse

than that, which is scary.”

ROSS D. FRANKLIN / AP

San Diego State forward Joshua Tomaic, left, tips away a shot attempt by Arizona State guard RemyMartin, but is called for a foul during the second half of Thursday's game in Tempe, Ariz.

Aztecs use sizeto upend DevilsBig men power San Diego State

Associated Press

For generations, the IOC knew exactly

where to look for key support of its ban

against protests at the Olympics.

In 1968, it was the U.S. Olympic Commit-

tee that sent home its own athletes, Tommie

Smith and John Carlos, when they raised

their fists while on the medals stand at the

Mexico City Games.

In 2019, it was the same organization that

placed its own athlete, Gwen Berry, on pro-

bation for doing the same after her win at the

Pan-Am Games.

This week, the American federation put

the IOC on notice: It is no longer the IOC’s

partner when it comes to enforcing the con-

tentious Rule 50. The USOPC is now heeding

the calls from many of its own athletes and

will no longer punish them for kneeling or

raising fists or any other kind of acceptable

demonstration at the Olympics.

“When you sit in my seat, you have to make

decisions that you think are on the right side

of history,” said CEO Sarah Hirshland. “And

I believe we’re on the right side of history.”

But there are details to iron out, and they

strike to the heart of how much change is tru-

ly possible between now and next July, when

the Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to take

place.

High on the list: What can athletes demon-

strate about, and what will an acceptable

demonstration look like?

Phillies hire Dombrowski PHILADELPHIA — Whether rebuilding

or reloading, small market or large, Dave

Dombrowski has been a big success at every

major league stop.

His next challenging project: a Philadel-

phia Phillies team that’s gone nine years

without a winning record.

Dombrowski joined the Phillies as presi-

dent of baseball operations on Friday.

Andy MacPhail is the Phillies’ current

president and has planned to retire after the

2021 season. He said in October he would be

willing to step aside sooner to make way for a

new baseball operations boss.

The 64-year-old Dombrowski has led

baseball operations for four teams over

more than three decades in the majors, tak-

ing a trio of franchises to the World Series.

His clubs have won four pennants and two

Series titles.

Clippers’ George signs extensionLOS ANGELES — Paul George wants to

retire with the Los Angeles Clippers, and he

took a step in that direction by signing a mul-

tiyear contract extension Thursday.

The six-time All-Star could have become a

free agent after the upcoming season. In-

stead, the team locked down his services, en-

suring George will remain not far from

where he grew up in Palmdale.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but

ESPN reported George’s contract was ex-

tended for an additional four years at $190

million, in addition to the $35.4 million guar-

anteed him for the 2020-21 season.

Garrett wins Payton Award One regrettable, violent moment nearly

changed everything for Myles Garrett.

He wouldn’t let it.

Suspended, disgraced and branded a vil-

lain for his helmet-swinging attack on Steel-

ers quarterback Mason Rudolph in the clos-

ing seconds of a nationally televised game

last year, Garrett found his playing career at

a crossroads. He considered quitting.

However, he pushed on and persevered.

Garrett turned his story around.

The Browns’ star defensive end on Thurs-

day was named the team’s Walter Payton

Man of the Year, which annually recognizes

the NFL’s best players for their excellence

on the field and dedication to community

service.

In addition to being one of the game’s best

defenders, Garrett is also a high-profile am-

bassador for several charitable causes,

serving as the active player captain for Wa-

terboys, an organization focused on bring-

ing clean water to communities in East Afri-

ca.

BC opts out of bowl gameBOSTON — Boston College, which man-

aged to escape the worst of the coronavirus

outbreak and the schedule and roster shuf-

fling that has affected so many other college

football teams, is passing on the opportunity

to play in a bowl so players can spend Christ-

mas with their families.

BC is the first school to forego the postsea-

son because of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, four more major college foot-

ball games scheduled for Saturday — in-

cluding two with ranked Big 12 teams —

were canceled, bringing the total to 10 for

this week. No. 13 Oklahoma will not play at

West Virginia because of COVID-19 issues

with the Mountaineers. No. 23 Texas paused

its football activities, calling off the season fi-

nale at Kansas.

And the 10th-ranked Duke men's basket-

ball team said it will not play any more non-

conference games this season.

BRIEFLY

USOPC will no longer punish athletes for protestsAssociated Press


gade of Midshipmen and Corps of

Cadets (about 9,000 total) will be

there, and President Trump is

scheduled to fly in.

Navy (3-6) leads Army (7-2) 61-

52-7 in the series, which started in

1890 when West Point cadet Den-

nis Michie ac-

cepted a chal-

lenge from Navy

to play a football

game. The Mid-

shipmen arrived

at West Point by

ferry, and with

one year of foot-

ball experience

to none for Army

they easily prevailed 24-0 on The

Plain before about 2,000 specta-

tors.

The Black Knights returned the

favor the next year at Annapolis,

winning 32-16 and a football rival-

ry like no other was beginning to

blossom.

According to Gene Schorr’s,

“The Army-Navy Game,” players

on both teams personally congrat-

ulated one another during an eve-

ning celebration in the Navy

boathouse after that initial Army

victory and cadet Michie and Na-

vy quarterback Worth Bagley, the

stars of those teams, shook hands,

looking forward to the next meet-

ing. Seven years later both men

were killed in the Spanish-Amer-

ican War.

“There’s so much history in

both of these schools, so we’re

playing for so much more than just

football,” Army senior offensive

lineman J.B. Hunter said. “We’re

stoked for this opportunity. For us,

it’s very important. We don’t want

anyone coming in our back yard

(and winning). We’re just going to

hope that what we do is going to

work.”

Navy is unbeaten in three

games at West Point and won the

previous encounter 13-0 in 1943,

when the great Glenn Davis was a

plebe at West Point. The Midship-

men won last year’s game 31-7 be-

hind the stellar play of senior

quarterback Malcolm Perry, who

rushed for 304 yards and two

touchdowns.

QB questionsBoth teams have had quarter-

back issues. Injuries have forced

Monken to use six players at the

position. Niumatalolo started

freshman Xavier Arline in last

week’s 19-6 loss to Tulsa, the

team’s fourth straight setback,

and he could get the nod.

“He did some good things last

week, but he was also a freshman

last week,” Niumatalolo said. “But

what better stage to prepare you

for the biggest game of the year

than playing the 22nd-ranked

team in the country?”

Junior Christian Anderson was

the starter for Army when the sea-

son began. Monken is keeping his

choice a secret. Army’s triple op-

tion is averaging just under 300

yards rushing per game to 185.3

for the Midshipmen.

No. 68Navy senior tri-captain Billy

Honaker will wear No. 68 in honor

of former offensive lineman Da-

vid Forney, who died on campus at

age 22 in February 2019. The num-

ber was not issued this season, but

the team honored Forney by wear-

ing a sticker on the backs of their

helmets that pictures him running

out of the tunnel at the 2019 Army-

Navy game carrying the Ameri-

can flag with the word “Brother-

hood” underneath.

Tough roadIf Navy wins and Army defeats

Air Force next week, the Midship-

men will retain the Commander-

in-Chief’s Trophy, emblematic of

supremacy among the academies.

Navy is the first team in service a-

cademy football history to play

both of its rivals on the road in a

season. The Midshipmen lost 40-7

at Air Force in early October.

Michie: Navy unbeatenin 3 games at West PointFROM PAGE 24

Monken

A weekend devoid of drama appears to be setting

up in college football unless you're Colorado.

Southern California (4-0, 4-0) can lock up a spot in

the Pac-12 championship game if it beats crosstown

rival UCLA on Saturday even if Colorado beats Utah

to remain undefeated in the Pac-12 South.

Colorado (4-0, 3-0) has had two games canceled by

COVID-19; the Trojans lost one game to the virus, the

one against the Buffaloes.

If CU and USC win this weekend, the Trojans

would go to the title game based on the tiebreaker

that gives the nod to the team with the higher College

Football Playoff ranking. The Trojans are No. 15 and

the Buffs are No. 21.

So if you're a Colorado fan, you're cheering hard for

the Buffs in the morning and, if they win, for the

Bruins at night.

Top-ranked Alabama is the only team among the

top four in the CFP rankings playing this week, and

the Crimson Tide are 31-point favorites at Arkansas.

Notre Dame and Clemson are idle until they meet

next Saturday in the Atlantic Coast Championship

game.

Ohio State had its game against Michigan canceled

because of COVID-19 issues in the Wolverines pro-

gram. The No. 5 team in the CFP rankings, Texas

A&M, also will be off after having its game against

Mississippi called off.

Best game No. 25 Wisconsin at No. 19 Iowa: The Hawkeyes

(5-2, 5-2 Big Ten) are averaging better than 37 points

during their five-game winning streak, their longest

since the magical 2015 season that saw them go 12-0

in the regular season.

Wisconsin (2-2, 2-2) has had a bumpy ride. Graham

Mertz had one of the best starting debuts in FBS his-

tory against Illinois but hasn't come close to duplicat-

ing that 20-for-21 performance.

The Badgers, ranked as high as No. 9 before having

three games in five weeks canceled due to COVID-19,

have scored a combined 13 points in losing their last

two.

Heisman watchAlabama's Mac Jones overtook Florida's Kyle

Trask as the favorite with a stellar performance

against LSU. That's according to oddsmakers.

Jones closes the regular season at Arkansas after

throwing for 385 yards and four touchdowns in the

Crimson Tide's 55-17 win.

Trask gets his turn against LSU on Saturday. Don't

discount the possibility Trask totals over 400 yards

passing for the fourth time this season against defen-

sive coordinator Bo Pelini’s unit.

Two other Heisman contenders, Clemson's Trevor

Lawrence and Notre Dame's Ian Book, are idle until

they square off in the ACC championship game next

week.

Numbers to know0 — Second-half points allowed by Colorado in

back-to-back games against San Diego State and Ari-

zona, the first time in 18 years the Buffaloes have

blanked opponents after the half in consecutive

games.

7 — Consecutive weeks Indiana has been ranked

in the Top 25, matching the school regular-season re-

cord set by the 1945 team.

10 — Miami scoring drives of 80 yards or longer

the last four games. The Hurricanes had two such

drives in their first five games.

Under the radarSan Jose State vs. Nevada, at Las Vegas:The win-

ner clinches a spot in the Mountain West champion-

ship game, with the loser advancing depending on the

outcome of the Wyoming-Boise State game.

The Spartans (5-0) can become the first San Jose

State team to go 6-0 since the 13-0 campaign in 1939.

Nevada (6-1) is led by sophomore Carson Strong, who

has thrown for 330 yards per game with 21 touch-

downs against four interceptions.

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/AP

Colorado running back Jarek Broussard picks up yardage during the second half against San Diego Stateon Nov. 28 in Boulder, Colo. Colorado won 2010.

Week 15: Buffs need win, USCloss to reach Pac-12 title game

BY GREG OLSON

Associated Press

WEEKEND PREVIEW

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

NICK WASS/AP

Navy defensive tackle Jackson Perkins carries an American flagbefore last Saturday's game against Tulsa in Annapolis, Md. Navy willface Army on Sunday at West Point’s venerable Michie Stadium.


NFL

American Conference

East

W L T Pct PF PA

Buffalo 9 3 0 .750 333 306

Miami 8 4 0 .667 303 212

New England 6 7 0 .462 277 279

N.Y. Jets 0 12 0 .000 180 353

South

W L T Pct PF PA

Indianapolis 8 4 0 .667 328 273

Tennessee 8 4 0 .667 359 326

Houston 4 8 0 .333 288 323

Jacksonville 1 11 0 .083 251 352

North

W L T Pct PF PA

Pittsburgh 11 1 0 .917 334 211

Cleveland 9 3 0 .750 306 321

Baltimore 7 5 0 .583 316 231

Cincinnati 2 9 1 .208 237 308

West

W L T Pct PF PA

x-Kansas City 11 1 0 .917 370 254

Las Vegas 7 5 0 .583 323 347

Denver 4 8 0 .333 225 320

L.A. Chargers 3 9 0 .250 277 345

National Conference

East

W L T Pct PF PA

N.Y. Giants 5 7 0 .417 231 265

Washington 5 7 0 .417 264 260

Philadelphia 3 8 1 .292 253 307

Dallas 3 9 0 .250 268 393

South

W L T Pct PF PA

x-New Orleans 10 2 0 .833 347 241

Tampa Bay 7 5 0 .583 344 280

Atlanta 4 8 0 .333 311 302

Carolina 4 8 0 .333 280 300

North

W L T Pct PF PA

Green Bay 9 3 0 .750 379 299

Minnesota 6 6 0 .500 319 329

Chicago 5 7 0 .417 246 284

Detroit 5 7 0 .417 286 358

West

W L T Pct PF PA

L.A. Rams 9 4 0 .692 325 246

Seattle 8 4 0 .667 353 321

Arizona 6 6 0 .500 332 296

San Francisco 5 7 0 .417 285 288

x-clinched playoff spot

Thursday’s game

L.A. Rams 24, New England 3

Sunday’s games

Arizona at N.Y. GiantsDallas at CincinnatiDenver at CarolinaHouston at ChicagoKansas City at MiamiMinnesota at Tampa BayTennessee at JacksonvilleIndianapolis at Las VegasN.Y. Jets at SeattleAtlanta at L.A. ChargersGreen Bay at DetroitNew Orleans at PhiladelphiaWashington at San FranciscoPittsburgh at Buffalo

Monday’s game

Baltimore at Cleveland

Scoreboard

ASHLEY LANDIS / AP

Rams rookie running back CamAkers rushed for 171 yards.

Rams 24, Patriots 3

New England 0 3 0 0 — 3

L.A. Rams 10 7 7 0 — 24

First quarter

LAR—Goff 1 run (Gay kick), 11:21.LAR—FG Gay 35, 5:16.

Second quarter

LAR—Young 79 interception return (Gaykick), 14:46.

NE—FG Folk 29, 1:04.

Third quarter

LAR—Kupp 2 pass from Goff (Gay kick),1:33.

A—0.

NE LAR

First downs 10 17

Total Net Yards 220 318

Rushes-yards 29-107 36-186

Passing 113 132

Punt Returns 5-47 1-8

Kickoff Returns 0-0 1-13

Interceptions Ret. 1-0 1-79

Comp-Att-Int 14-23-1 16-25-1

Sacked-Yards Lost 6-33 1-5

Punts 6-51.7 6-41.3

Fumbles-Lost 1-0 0-0

Penalties-Yards 5-27 5-35

Time of Possession 28:14 31:46

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—New England, Harris 11-50,Michel 7-22, White 3-16, Newton 7-16, Stid-ham 1-3. L.A. Rams, Akers 29-171, Goff 4-11,Henderson 2-5, Woods 1-(minus 1).

PASSING—New England, Newton 9-16-1-119, Stidham 5-7-0-27. L.A. Rams, Goff 16-25-1-137.

RECEIVING—New England, Byrd 5-48,Meyers 4-47, Harry 3-49, White 1-2, Harris1-0. L.A. Rams, Kupp 5-33, Woods 5-32, Hig-bee 2-34, Akers 2-23, Everett 1-9, Reynolds1-6.

MISSED FIELD GOALS—None.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — With rookie Cam Akers

running wild for the Rams and his defensive team-

mates thoroughly stifling the Patriots, Los Angeles got

a tiny measure of payback for its Super Bowl embar-

rassment two years ago.

These Rams even looked good enough to contend

for a chance at some actual Super Bowl redemption

later this season.

Akers rushed for 171 yards in a breakout perform-

ance, Kenny Young returned an interception 79 yards

for a touchdown and the Rams clinched their fourth

straight winning season with a 24-3 victory over the

New England Patriots on Thursday night.

Jared Goff rushed for a touchdown and threw a TD

pass to Cooper Kupp as the NFC West-leading Rams

(9-4) rolled to a one-sided victory in a rematch of their

13-3 Super Bowl loss in February 2019.

“We’ve got a lot of respect for them, but it’s a totally

different year,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “It

doesn’t have anything to do with what occurred a cou-

ple of years ago.”

While the Rams’ offense looked sharp, their defense

pushed the Patriots (6-7) perilously close to disarray.

New England managed only 220 total yards — just 62

in the second half with a series of misbegotten drives.

Cam Newton went 9-for-16 for 119 yards and got

sacked four times before the 2015 NFL MVP was re-

placed by Jarrett Stidham for the final three series in

the fourth quarter.

“We knew exactly what they were going to do,”

Newton said. “We have to be better, and it starts with

me personally. I have to make more plays.”

Five days after the Patriots scored 45 points at SoFi

Stadium against the Chargers, New England endan-

gered its push for a 12th straight playoff berth with on-

ly its second loss in six games.

When asked if he expected to start next week, New-

ton replied: “That’s not my call.”

Bill Belichick doused the understandable specula-

tion moments later: “Cam is our quarterback.”

The Rams got a superb game from Akers, the sec-

ond-round draft pick out of Florida State who has

seized a major role in their offense over the last three

weeks. Akers’ yards mostly came in big chunks during

the biggest rushing game by an NFL rookie this season

and just the ninth 150-yard game against a Belichick-

coached defense since 2000.

“It’s just (great) watching that guy really assert

himself as a big-time player for us,” McVay said. “You

can just see this guy is going to be a really special play-

er for us, and this was a great night for him.”

Aaron Donald had 1 ½ sacks to move into the overall

NFL lead with 12 ½ this season while leading another

strong game from Los Angeles’ elite defense, which

recorded six sacks and also scored a touchdown in its

third consecutive game.

JAE C. HONG / AP

New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton, left, is sacked by Los Angeles Rams defensive end Aaron Donald during the second half ofThursday's game in Inglewood, Calif. Newton was sacked four times before being replaced by Jarrett Stidham for the final three series.

Akers, Rams run over PatsLA clinches 4th straight winning season

BY GREG BEACHAM

Associated Press


SPORTSPac-12 drama

Colorado needs win, USC lossto reach title game ›› Page 22

Rams rout Pats, secure 4th straight winning season ›› NFL, Page 23

Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo never

tires of the feeling that permeates

the locker room in the moments

before the opening kickoff of the

annual matchup against Army.

“There’s a chill that goes through you

unlike any other game,” Niumatalolo

said. “It’s the craziest thing because

you’re in the locker room and it’s quiet, a

little bit serene, and then you step out-

side and there’s this rush and you know

it’s different.”

The 121st meeting between the

service academy rivals is Saturday,

and this one will be very different.

Because of the COVID-19 pandem-

ic, for the first time in 77 years the

game will be played at West Point’s

venerable Michie Stadium. Both

schools agreed to move it from its

customary site in Philadelphia af-

ter attendance limits were placed

on outdoor events in Pennsylva-

nia because of concerns over the

new coronavirus and it was Ar-

my’s turn to be the home team.

This show must go on just as it did

for two years during World War II at

the urging of President Franklin D. Roo-

sevelt, with games played at both academies.

“We are excited we are able to play this

game here for only the fourth time in history,”

Army coach Jeff Monken said. “The state of

our world right now has forced the game away

from Philadelphia. It will be special to play it

here. It will be very nostalgic and really a great

piece in the history of this rivalry.”

No fans will be allowed at Michie Stadium —

capacity 38,000 instead of nearly 70,000 at Lin-

coln Financial Field. But at least the entire Bri-

Returning totheir roots

Navy linebacker Ian Blake carries an American flagbefore a game against Tulsa last Saturday in Annapolis,Md. The Midshipmen will face off with Army on Sunday,and because of the COVID19 pandemic the game willbe played at West Point’s Michie Stadium for the firsttime in 77 years.

NICK WASS/AP

Army, Navy set to face off atWest Point’s Michie Stadiumfor first time in 77 years

BY JOHN KEKIS

Associated Press

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

SEE MICHIE ON PAGE 22

Drawdowns to limit future operations

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