MILITARY WAR MUSIC Wolfgang Van Halen

Volume 80 Edition 40B ©SS 2021 CONTINGENCY EDITION SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2021 Free to Deployed Areas

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MILITARY

Border wall fundsshifting to delayedconstruction projectsPage 3

WAR

Afghan Hazaraskilled at school,play, even at birth Page 7

MUSIC

Wolfgang Van Halenreleasing ‘Mammoth’debut album2

Unfamiliar foes set to face off in hockey’s final four ›› NHL playoffs, Page 24

When the last U.S. service member leaves Af-

ghanistan, perhaps by early next month, Amer-

ica’s longest war on foreign soil will end — and

so too a mission initially dubbed Operation En-

during Freedom.

One thing certain to endure from the 20-year

war: advances in battlefield medicine. There,

gains have already taken root.

One-handed tourniquets. Blood transfusions

near the front lines. Faster evacuations to trau-

ma centers. All were implemented in Afghan-

istan, and all saved lives.

This has often been the case during the may-

hem of military combat, which forces doctors to

U.S. Army photo

A flight medic checks to ensure IV fluid is flowing properly to a wounded Afghan National Army soldier during a patient transfer mission at For-ward Operating Base Tagab, Kapisa province, Afghanistan on Nov. 5, 2012.

Enduring lessonsAs war in Afghanistan draws to close, advances in battlefield medicine will carry forward

BY JOHN WILKENS

The San Diego Union-Tribune

SEE LESSONS ON PAGE 6

“There’s hardly a corner oftoday’s health care environmentthat doesn’t trace its roots backto the battlefield.”

Scott McGaugh

San Diego military historian

CARBIS BAY, England —

Leaders of the world’s largest

economies unveiled an infrastruc-

ture plan Saturday for the devel-

oping world to compete with Chi-

na’s global initiatives, but there

was no immediate consensus on

how forcefully to call out Beijing

over human rights abuses.

Citing China

for its forced la-

bor practices is

part of President

Joe Biden’s cam-

paign to per-

suade fellow

democratic lead-

ers to present a

more unified

front to compete economically

with Beijing. But while they

agreed to work toward competing

against China, there was less unity

on how adversarial a public posi-

tion the group should take.

Canada, the United Kingdom

and France largely endorsed Bi-

den’s position, while Germany,

Italy and the European Union

showed more hesitancy during

Saturday’s first session of the

Group of Seven summit, accord-

ing to a senior Biden administra-

tion official. The official who

briefed reporters was not autho-

rized to publicly discuss the pri-

vate meeting and spoke on condi-

tion of anonymity.

Biden held talks with France’s

Emmanuel Macron, who said

cooperation was needed on a

range of issues and told the Amer-

ican president that “it’s great to

have a U.S. president part of the

club and very willing to cooper-

ate.” Relations between the allies

had become strained during the

SEE COMPETE ON PAGE 10

Biden urgesG-7 leadersto competewith China

Associated Press

Biden

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 13, 2021

BUSINESS/WEATHER

Wall Street closed out a mostly

listless week Friday with a wob-

bly day of trading that helped

nudge the S&P 500 to its third

straight weekly gain.

The benchmark index edged

up 0.2% after spending much of

the day in the red. The small up-

tick was enough to lift the S&P

500 to an all-time high for the

second day in a row.

Technology companies and

banks accounted for much of the

upward move. The gains were

offset by a broad slide in health

care, energy and real estate

stocks. Bond yields were mixed.

With the exception of select

“meme” stocks like GameStop

and AMC Entertainment hyped

by individual investors in online

forums, the broader market was

relatively quiet this week. Inves-

tors remain in wait-and-see

mode ahead of the Federal Re-

serve’s upcoming meeting of pol-

icymakers Wednesday.

Wall Street is keen for clues

about how much of a threat the

central bank deems rising infla-

tion as the economy emerges

from its pandemic-induced re-

cession, and whether the Fed has

begun considering beginning to

taper its support for the econo-

my.

The S&P 500 rose 8.26 points to

4,247.44. The Dow Jones Indus-

trial Average added 13.36 points,

or less than 0.1%, to 34,479.60.

The Nasdaq gained 49.09 points,

or 0.4%, to 14,069.42.

The tech-heavy index also

notched a weekly gain.

Stocks notch modest gains to close out weekAssociated Press

Bahrain90/86

Baghdad98/72

Doha100/84

Kuwait City107/83

Riyadh102/76

Kandahar107/64

Kabul84/77

Djibouti101/83

SUNDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

73/50

Ramstein69/53

Stuttgart68/58

Lajes,Azores69/65

Rota74/68

Morón92/66 Sigonella

77/60

Naples79/65

Aviano/Vicenza80/61

Pápa68/60

Souda Bay74/70

Brussels70/50

Zagan58/52

DrawskoPomorskie

61/52

SUNDAY IN EUROPE

Misawa68/60

Guam86/82

Tokyo70/66

Okinawa82/78

Sasebo76/67

Iwakuni73/69

Seoul83/64

Osan84/62

Busan71/67

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

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

MONDAY IN THE PACIFIC

WEATHER OUTLOOK

TODAYIN STRIPES

American Roundup ...... 11Books .......................... 14Comics .........................15Crossword ................... 15Music .......................... 12Opinion ........................ 17Sports .................... 19-24

Military rates

Euro costs (June 14) $1.19Dollar buys (June 14) 0.8018 British pound (June 14) $1.38Japanese yen (June 14) 107.00South Korean won (June 14) 1083.00

Commercial rates

Bahrain(Dinar) 0.3769Britain (Pound) 1.4124 Canada (Dollar) 1.2125 China(Yuan) 6.3970 Denmark (Krone) 6.1347 Egypt (Pound) 15.6410 Euro 0.8249Hong Kong (Dollar) 7.7605Hungary (Forint) 286.41 Israel (Shekel) 3.2498 Japan (Yen) 109.71 Kuwait (Dinar) 0.3008

Norway (Krone) 8.3288

Philippines (Peso) 47.74 Poland (Zloty) 3.69Saudi Arabia (Riyal) 3.7504 Singapore (Dollar) 1.3257

South Korea (Won) 1116.69Switzerland (Franc) 0.8980Thailand (Baht) 31.06Turkey (NewLira) 8.4037

(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 �03month bill 0.0330year bond 2.15

EXCHANGE RATES

Sunday, June 13, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3

The Pentagon is getting back $2

billion of military construction

funds that were diverted in recent

years by former President Donald

Trump to fund his signature bar-

rier wall efforts on the U.S. south-

ern border, President Joe Biden’s

administration announced Fri-

day.

That money will be returned to

its initial purpose — funding more

than 60 military construction pro-

jects around the world approved

by Congress, according to a state-

ment from the Office of Manage-

ment and Budget. The Pentagon,

under Trump, diverted $3.6 bil-

lion in 2019 that had been ear-

marked to fund 127 military con-

struction projects under a seldom-

used authorization for the Penta-

gon to reroute its Congress-appro-

priated funds.

“The Biden Administration is

committed to properly equipping

American military personnel and

caring for their families,” the

OMB statement read. “No more

money will be diverted for the

purposes of building a border

wall, and [the Defense Depart-

ment] has started canceling all

border barrier projects using the

diverted funds.”

The $3.6 billion — a portion of

the $10 billion that the Pentagon

ultimately contributed to border

wall coffers — was meant to build

about 175 miles of fencing in Tex-

as, Arizona and California, Penta-

gon officials said at the time.

Then-Defense Secretary Mark

Esper and other top defense offi-

cials said they were confident

Congress would reinvest new

money into the construction pro-

jects that lost funding in the shift.

However, Congress never re-ap-

propriated funding to those pro-

jects, which spanned 23 states, 3

U.S. territories and bases in 20

other countries and included a

host of projects from upgraded

training ranges and facilities to

new barracks and schools.

When Biden canceled nearly all

border wall construction in an or-

der issued on his first day in office,

the Pentagon had disbursed about

$5.3 billion of the $10 billion it had

authorized for border wall con-

struction, according to a report

last month by the Congressional

Research Service. The Pentagon

in April announced it would no

longer provide funding for border

wall operations.

The $2.2 billion returning to

military construction will pay for

66 of the projects deferred under

the Trump administration. The

Pentagon said it chose which of

the 127 deferred projects would be

re-funded based on “operational

and component priorities.” A

spokesman did not immediately

respond to a request for specifics

about the projects.

OMB listed five of the projects

as top priorities:

■ $10 million to add two new

anti-ballistic missile ground-

based interceptors at Fort Greely

in Alaska.

■ More than $25 million to

build a 2nd Radio Battalion Com-

plex at the Marine Corps’ Camp

Lejeune in North Carolina.

■ $79 million to build a new

Spangdahlem Elementary School

in Germany, for 600 U.S. military

children.

■ More than $25 million for a

fire/crash rescue station at Tyn-

dall Air Force Base in Florida.

■ More than $9 million for an

upgraded small arms training

range in Indiana for Air National

Guard units.

Trump’s controversial move to

divert the funding was met with

castigation from Democratic law-

makers, some of whom described

the reprogramming effort as a

theft of needed military funds.

Biden has long been critical of

Trump’s border wall efforts and

immediately moved to end con-

struction of as much as he legally

could after his inauguration Jan.

20.

America has the right to secure

its borders, Biden said at the time.

However, “building a massive

wall that spans the entire southern

border is not a serious policy solu-

tion. It is a waste of money that di-

verts attention from genuine

threats to our homeland security.”

During Trump’s time in office,

about 450 miles of border wall

were built, although the vast ma-

jority covered upgrades in areas

where border barrier existed, ac-

cording to the Department of

Homeland Security.

OMB said Friday that the

Trump administration built 52

miles of wall where no border bar-

rier existed. The office estimated

some sections of the wall cost

about $46 million per mile.

“The effort diverted critical re-

sources away from military train-

ing facilities and schools, and

caused serious risks to life, safety,

and the environment,” according

to the Biden OMB statement Fri-

day. “It also took attention away

from genuine security challenges,

like drug smuggling and human

trafficking.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has

continued the deployments of ac-

tive-duty and National Guard

troops, authorized by Trump in

2018, to the southern border to

support U.S. Customs and Border

Protection agents. About 3,600

troops are serving on a federal

mission to support border oper-

ations, according to the Pentagon.

Several hundred additional Na-

tional Guard troops are serving

missions authorized by state gov-

ernors at the border.

The federal deployment is au-

thorized through Oct. 1. The

Homeland Security Department

has asked for troops to continue

the federal mission into fiscal year

2022 amid high levels of appre-

hensions along the southwest bor-

der. The Pentagon has yet to re-

veal if it will continue the deploy-

ments.

In May, U.S. Customs and Bor-

der Protection reported more than

180,000 apprehensions of mi-

grants at the border, the largest

monthly total in at least two dec-

ades. The agency reported appre-

hending about 178,000 migrants in

April.

DOD to get back $2.2B diverted to border wallBY COREY DICKSTEIN

Stars and Stripes

Operation Faithful Patriot

Army engineers prepare to place wire on the ArizonaMexico border wall in 2018.

[email protected]: @CDicksteinDC

WASHINGTON — President

Joe Biden will nominate Carlos

Del Toro, a Navy veteran and a

CEO for an engineering and con-

sulting firm, to serve as Navy sec-

retary, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the

chairman of the Senate Armed

Services Committee, said in a

statement Friday.

Del Toro now serves as presi-

dent and CEO of government con-

tractor SBG Technology Solu-

tions, which he founded in 2004,

according to the company’s web-

site. The business, which is based

in Alexandria, Va., specializes in

engineering, cyber security and

information technology modern-

ization and governance.

The nomination comes as the

Navy works to modernize its

force, devoting as much money —

about $22.6 billion — on research

and development efforts as the

service has to

ship procure-

ment in its pro-

posed 2022 bud-

get.

The pick for

the service’s top

civilian leader is

a Naval Acade-

my graduate

who spent 22 years on active duty

in the Navy, according to his biog-

raphy on the academy’s alumni

association website. Del Toro also

spent five years as a civilian em-

ployee for the Navy, including as

senior military assistant to the di-

rector for programs analysis and

evaluation.

During Del Toro’s time in uni-

form, he served as a tactical ac-

tion officer in Operation Desert

Storm and was the first com-

mander of the USS Bulkeley, an

Arleigh Burke-class guided-mis-

sile destroyer, according to his

biography.

In Reed’s statement, he called

Del Toro an “excellent” selection

for Navy secretary.

“He has an impressive resume

and exemplifies so many of the

qualities that make the Navy and

our nation great,” Reed said.

“Carlos rose through the ranks of

the Navy with a distinguished re-

cord of service, leadership and in-

novation.

Del Toro has master’s degrees

in space systems engineering, na-

tional security and strategic stud-

ies and legislative affairs from the

Naval Postgraduate School, the

Naval War College, and The Ge-

orge Washington University, re-

spectively, according to his biog-

raphy on his company’s website.

He has also previously served

as a White House fellow and spe-

cial assistant to the director of the

White House Office of Manage-

ment and Budget, according to his

biography. He also leads the pro-

curement committee in the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce Council

on Small Business.

“As a naval officer, a White

House fellow, entrepreneur, and a

tech CEO, he’s had success at ev-

ery step of his career in both the

military and private sector,” Reed

said in his statement.

If confirmed by Congress, Del

Toro would be the first Navy sec-

retary born in Cuba after immi-

grating to the U.S. with his family

in 1962. He and his wife Betty,

who works as chief financial offi-

cer of his company, live in Mount

Vernon, Va., and have four chil-

dren, according to his biography.

[email protected]: @CaitlinDoornbos

Biden to nominate Navy veteran as naval secretaryBY CAITLIN DOORNBOS

Stars and Stripes

Del Toro

MILITARY


WASHINGTON — The De-

fense Department’s intelligence

agencies are overhauling efforts

to combat foreign influence and

disinformation campaigns in re-

sponse to a request from combat-

ant commanders for help in fight-

ing information attacks from Rus-

sia and China, a Pentagon official

told House lawmakers Friday.

“We need to revamp the train-

ing that we have today to ensure

that people are properly focused

on this issue,” said Ronald Moul-

trie, the Defense Department’s

undersecretary for intelligence

and security.

Moultrie also said the depart-

ment is prioritizing getting infor-

mation out to combatant com-

manders by using open source in-

telligence and declassifying infor-

mation that can be unsealed.

“But, we’re also trying to pro-

tect those sensitive sources and

methods. So, malign influence

and activity in the gray zone …

we’re really focused on it and

within the enterprise — the De-

fense Intelligence Enterprise —

we’re revamping ourselves to be

able to get after this problem,”

Moultrie said during a hearing of

the House Armed Services Com-

mittee subpanel on intelligence

strategies.

The Defense Intelligence En-

terprise are organizations and in-

frastructure related to intelli-

gence, counterintelligence and

security at the Pentagon, the Joint

Staff, the combatant commands

and other parts of the Defense

Department that deal with nation-

al intelligence and security.

In April, POLITICO uncovered

a memo sent from nine of the 11

combatant commanders, plead-

ing for spy agencies to find ways

to declassify and release more in-

formation about bad behavior

from Russia and China.

“We request this help to better

enable the U.S., and by extension

its allies and partners, to win

without fighting, to fight now in

so-called gray zones, and to sup-

ply ammunition in the ongoing

war of narratives,” the command-

ers wrote in January to then-act-

ing Director of National Intelli-

gence Joseph Maguire, according

to POLITICO.

Russia and China have been us-

ing “gray zone” tactics, or nonmil-

itary actions, such as election

meddling to compete against the

United States.

In April, the Office of the Direc-

tor of National Intelligence an-

nounced the establishment of a

new center tasked with tracking

overseas efforts to wage disinfor-

mation and influence campaigns

in the United States.

ODNI said the center “will be

focused on coordinating and inte-

grating intelligence pertaining to

malign influence, drawing togeth-

er relevant and diverse expertise

to better understand and monitor

the challenge,” according to

media reports when the center

was announced.

Intelligence officials have in-

creasingly raised alarm over the

threat of foreign efforts to inter-

fere in the U.S. elections, espe-

cially after Russia in 2016 waged a

campaign to discredit Democrat-

ic presidential candidate Hillary

Clinton. Moscow also targeted the

U.S. midterm elections in 2018

and the 2020 presidential elec-

tion, according to assessments

from the National Intelligence

Council.

The discussion in the House on

Friday came after Rep. Ruben

Gallego, D-Ariz., chairman of the

subcommittee on intelligence and

special operations, raised the is-

sues described in the POLITICO

report. He asked Moultrie to ex-

plain how his office is working

across the defense intelligence

community to ensure coordina-

tion to combat the information

war against China and Russia.

Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of

the National Security Agency,

said a lot of the work at the agency

is “written for release,” however

that’s not the “end all.”

“The end all is, as we take a look

at that, working with a specific

combatant commander, looking

at the private sector, looking at

the tools and the information

available. How do we do this in

the quickest manner possible,”

Nakasone said.

Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director

of the Defense Intelligence Agen-

cy, said the agency is ensuring

analysts write reports with the

mindset that “this product will be

released to the max level of audi-

ence or consumer.”

While it’s a good start, Berrier

said those who are collecting

sources and developing informa-

tion reports are writing at the low-

est classification level possible

when they can.

DOD intelligenceworking to fightforeign influence

BY SARAH CAMMARATA

Stars and Stripes

[email protected]: @sarahjcamm

MILITARY

KABUL, Afghanistan — The

U.S. Embassy here is halting all vi-

sa operations in response to a

spike in coronavirus cases, adding

to growing concerns among Af-

ghans who worked for the U.S.

government that they won’t be

able to emigrate to the U.S. before

foreign forces fully withdraw.

The indefinite suspension starts

Sunday, the embassy said in a

statement Friday.

The move comes amid a deadly

third wave of the coronavirus

throughout Afghanistan that has

claimed the life of one embassy

worker. More than 3,400 people

have died from the virus in the

country since the pandemic began

last year.

“We acknowledge and regret

the inconvenience to applicants as

we seek to protect the health of our

staff and applicants to ensure we

can fully support visa and other

consular services going forward,”

the statement said.

Those who had appointments

scheduled for the coming days

will be able to reschedule as soon

as visa operations resume, the em-

bassy said. No expected resump-

tion date was given.

The withdrawal of American

troops and military equipment

from Afghanistan is more than

halfway finished, U.S. Central

Command said lastweek. In April,

President Joe Biden announced

that all foreign forces would be out

of the country by Sept. 11, but U.S.

and NATO officials have since

said the pullout could be complet-

ed as early as next month.

As the withdrawal progresses,

the State Department has been

working to process a backlog of

some 18,000 Afghan special immi-

grant visa applications that were

held up last year because of the

pandemic.

The SIV program allows Af-

ghans who worked for the U.S.

government, their spouses and

their children, to emigrate to the

U.S. Many of the applicants, which

include military translators, are

said to be at great personal risk for

supporting the international coali-

tion.

“I don’t think it’s a good decision

by the embassy to suspend the vi-

sa process now,” an SIV applicant

in the eastern city of Jalalabad,

who asked to remain anonymous

for security reasons, told Stars

and Stripes.

The applicant said he lost his

finger during a bomb blast while

translating for American forces

several years ago, and that the Ta-

liban have since issued a state-

ment accusing him of being a spy

for Washington and calling for his

arrest.

“We’re facing huge threats al-

ready,” the man said in a tele-

phone interview Saturday, refer-

ring to SIV applicants. “And we

think it will be even worse for us

once foreign forces leave. We are

calling on the U.S. to speed up the

[visa] process.”

Similar sentiment has been

echoed in Washington.

Following news of the imminent

suspension of visa operations,

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas,

the ranking member of the House

Foreign Affairs Committee, called

on Biden to consider using hu-

manitarian parole for SIV appli-

cants, who he described as having

“a bullseye on their backs.”

Humanitarian parole allows

temporary entry into the United

States in emergency situations to

those who would otherwise be not

be granted entry.

“The health and safety of our

diplomatic personnel is a high pri-

ority for me,” McCaul said in a

statement Friday. “But suspend-

ing visa operations at the U.S. Em-

bassy in Kabul at this critical junc-

ture only further exacerbates the

situation for those awaiting their

Special Immigrant Visas.”

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group

of senators introduced a bill Fri-

day that would add 20,000 visas to

the SIV program — nearly double

the number Congress has autho-

rized since 2014 — and make ap-

plying for them easier.

“This legislation would make

important updates to the Afghan

Special Immigrant Visa program

to help more vulnerable aides and

their families escape before it is

too late,” Roger Wicker, R-Miss.,

one of the senators who intro-

duced the bill, said in a statement.

“The U.S. owes these courageous

men and women a debt of grati-

tude — we cannot leave them be-

hind.”

Afghanistan’s Health Ministry

said last week that it expected cor-

onavirus cases to hit their peak in

the country within the next four

weeks.

PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN/Stars and Stripes

Workers in Kabul, Afghanistan, spray disinfectant to combat the coronavirus in March 2020. The countryis now suffering from a third wave of the pandemic.

US Embassy in Kabul halts visaservices as COVID cases surge

BY PHILLIP WALTER

WELLMAN

Stars and Stripes

[email protected]: @pwwellman


WASHINGTON — The DefenseDepartment on Friday announceda new $150 million security aidpackage for Ukraine to supportthe country’s border security andterritorial integrity to help thwartRussian expansionism.

The Ukraine Security Assist-ance Initiative package includescounter-artillery radars, counter-unmanned aerial systems, secure

communications gear, electronicwarfare capabilities, militarymedical evacuation equipmentand training and equipment “toimprove the operational safetyand capacity of Ukrainian AirForce bases,” the Pentagon said ina statement. It complements a$125 million package announcedin March that included two MarkIV patrol boats, tactical gear, ra-dars and other equipment to im-prove command and control capa-

bilities, medical treatment andcombat evacuation.

The $150 million package wasawarded after the Pentagon andState Department certified Uk-raine had made “sufficient pro-gress on defense reforms thisyear, as required by the 2020 Na-tional Defense AuthorizationAct,” which sets spending priori-ties for the Defense Department,according to the statement.

“The department continues to

encourage Ukraine to enact re-forms that are in line with NATOprinciples and standards to ad-vance its Euro-Atlantic aspira-tions,” chief Pentagon spokesmanJohn Kirby told reporters on Fri-day.

Since 2014, the U.S. has givenUkraine more than $2.5 billion insecurity assistance, according tothe statement.

“[The U.S.] will continue tostrengthen our strategic defense

partnership, including throughthe provision of defensive lethalassistance,” the Pentagon said.“The United States will also con-tinue to assist Ukraine with theimplementation of these reformsto advance its Euro-Atlantic aspi-rations in support of a secure,prosperous, democratic and freeUkraine.”

US awards $150M in security aid to Ukraine

[email protected] Twitter: @CaitlinDoornbos

BY CAITLIN DOORNBOS

Stars and Stripes

The Pentagon announced Rob-inson’s death Thursday but did notrelease his name until Friday afterhis next-of-kin had been notified.

Robinson was the second Loui-siana Army National Guard sol-dier to die this week in separatenoncombat-related incidents sup-porting Operation Inherent Re-

WASHINGTON — A secondNational Guard soldier from Loui-siana died this week in a noncom-bat incident supporting OperationInherent Resolve, the DefenseDepartment announced Friday.

Spc. Joshua S. Robinson, a 22-

year-old from Baton Rouge, La.,died Thursday at Camp Buehring,Kuwait, as the result of an undis-closed noncombat-related inci-dent that is under investigation,the Pentagon said in a statement.

Robinson was assigned to the3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Re-giment in Lake Charles, La.

solve. First Sgt. Casey J. Hart died

Monday at Walter Reed NationalMilitary Medical Center in Be-thesda, Md., as a result of a non-combat-related incident May 9 atthe al-Tanf garrison in Syria,which is about 155 miles east ofDamascus, according to a Defense

Department statement Thursday. Hart of Baton Rouge, La., was

assigned to the Louisiana NationalGuard’s 256th Infantry BrigadeCombat Team, according to thestatement.

The incident that led to Hart’sdeath is also under investigation,the Pentagon said Thursday.

Second soldier with Louisiana National Guard dies this weekBY CAITLIN DOORNBOS

Stars and Stripes

performance maintenance goals.If the company completed 95% ofroutine maintenance requestswithin three business days on aquarterly basis, it was eligible fora performance incentive fee, ac-cording to court documents.

Cunefare and others conspiredto manipulate and falsify informa-tion in maintenance reports from2013 to 2015 so that the reports fal-sely reflected the company hadmet maintenance goals, when ithad not, according to court docu-ments. The documents did notname the other conspirators butstated that Cunefare gave writtenand oral instructions to communi-ty managers and others.

Cabrera acted on instructionsfrom Cunefare and others to com-mit similar fraud between 2013 to2016, while serving as BalfourBeatty’s community manager atLackland Air Force Base. Shepleaded guilty to conspiracy April

Two former employees of a pri-vate company that manages mili-tary family housing pleaded guiltyto major fraud and conspiracy forlying to the Air Force about main-tenance performed in on-basehousing to receive $3.5 million inunearned financial incentives, theJustice Department announcedWednesday.

Rick Cunefare, 61, of Glendale,Ariz., and Stacy M. Cabrera, 47, ofConverse, Texas, worked as man-agers for Balfour Beatty Commu-nities and pleaded guilty for ac-tions between 2013 and 2016. TheJustice Department did not nameBalfour Beatty in its announce-ment, but the company confirmedit employed the two.

Both were part of a scheme toalter maintenance records to ap-pear as though Balfour Beatty wasmeeting goals required for finan-

cial bonuses from the Air Forcewhen it was not, according to courtrecords.

“The defendants defrauded theU.S. Air Force and put corporateprofits ahead of the well-being ofservice members and their fam-ilies,” said Acting Assistant Attor-ney General Nicholas L. McQuaidof the Justice Department’s Crim-inal Division. “The department iscommitted to protecting our mili-tary families from deceit and mis-treatment and ensuring the integ-rity of Department of Defenseprograms.”

Over the past two years, reportsof dangerous in conditions in mil-itary family housing have madeheadlines and led Congress topass reforms to improve homes.There have also been about a doz-en lawsuits filed against privatehousing companies, includingBalfour Beatty, that allege thecompanies were slow to perform

maintenance, which exacerbatedconditions including water leaks,sewage issues and exposure tolead paint, asbestos and pest infes-tations.

Cunefare, who pleaded guilty tomajor fraud against the UnitedStates on June 9, was a regionalmanager who directly supervisedcommunity managers for militaryfamily housing at Lackland AirForce Base, Texas; Travis andVandenberg Air Force bases inCalifornia; Tinker Air Force Base,Okla.; and Fairchild Air ForceBase, Wash., according to the de-partment. He reviewed and ap-proved quarterly maintenance re-ports and ensured that the data inthe reports were submitted to theAir Force with performance in-centive fee request letters.

As outlined in Balfour Beatty’scontract with the Air Force, reve-nue for management of the hous-ing is based, in part, on meeting

21. She personally, and through

subordinates acting on her in-structions, falsified maintenancerecords to generate quarterlymaintenance reports to reflectthat the company had met mainte-nance-related performance goals,according to court documents.Those false reports moved on toother managers, who then know-ingly used them to substantiateBalfour Beatty’s bonus requests.

Both await sentencing in feder-al district court. Cunefare faces amaximum penalty of 10 years inprison and a $250,000 fine. Cabre-ra faces up to five years in prisonand a $250,000 fine.

Balfour Beatty manages familyhousing at 21 Air Force bases and34 Army and Navy bases through-out the United States.

Two former military family housing employees plead guilty to fraudBY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

[email protected]: @Rose_Lori

MILITARY

LAS VEGAS — A civilian pilotkilled when a Dassault Mirage F-1crashed last month near Nellis AirForce Base reported a flight emer-gency and ejected moments beforethe jet slammed to the ground andburst into flames, federal crash in-vestigators reported Friday.

No one on the ground was in-jured in the May 24 crash in north-east Las Vegas, where a witnesstold the National TransportationSafety Board he saw the jet ap-

proach low toward a runway andthen “falling out of the sky” whilethe pilot ejected.

The preliminary NTSB reportdid not identify pilot NicholasHunter Hamilton, 43, of Las Ve-gas, or provide details about hisdeath. A final report is expected inseveral months.

Hamilton retired after 20 yearsas a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot andwas employed by Draken Interna-tional, a military contractor thatprovides tactical aircraft and pi-

lots for combat training at Nellisand other sites.

The crash occurred while Ha-milton returned to the base follow-ing weapons school support flightsover the vast Nevada Test andTraining Range.

In his final turn toward Nellis, hereported a “flap issue” and thendeclared an emergency, the NTSBreport said.

The aircraft missed homes andcrashed into two backyards about1½ miles from the runway.

NTSB: Military contractor pilothad emergency, ejected in crash

Associated Press

L.E. BASKOW/AP

Military personnel, officers and officials investigate an airplane crashnear Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas on May 24.


improvise, and quickly. The advances they

make then spread to civilian health care.

Anesthesia has ties to the Civil War. World

War I brought the first widespread use of X-

rays. World War II was a proving ground for

blood banks and antibiotics. Medical evac-

uation by helicopter started in the Korean

War.

“These changes happen because there is a

profound need, and because the injuries are

of a scale, unfortunately, where you have

enough cases to pioneer a technique and

enough evidence to show that it works,” said

Scott McGaugh, a San Diego military histo-

rian. “There’s hardly a corner of today’s

health-care environment that doesn’t trace

its roots back to the battlefield,”

McGaugh, author of “Battlefield Angels,”

a 2011 book about combat medics, said Af-

ghanistan, where catastrophic injuries were

caused by roadside bombs and other impro-

vised explosives, necessitated a significant

change.

“In the last century, the whole notion was

to get the wounded off the battlefield as

quickly as possible,” he said. “This century,

there’s a heavy emphasis on taking trauma

care to the battlefield.”

The result is that war has never been more

survivable. During the Revolutionary War,

about 40%of the seriously wounded eventu-

ally died. In World War II, about 30 percent

did.

In Afghanistan, what had been a 20% fa-

tality rate in the early years of the war was

reduced to 8.6% by the later stages.

“The only winner in war,” an old saying

goes, “is medicine.”

A new twistTourniquets to stem blood loss are an-

cient. They date at least to the reign of Alex-

ander the Great and his invasion of Persia in

around 334 B.C.

But they haven’t always been recom-

mended. Dr. Matthew Tadlock, a Navy trau-

ma specialist in San Diego, remembers be-

ing taught in medical school more than 20

years ago that “tourniquets are bad and

shouldn’t be used.”

That’s because studies showed that the

devices could cause nerve damage and

might lead to amputations, according to Jef-

frey Howard, who has studied their use and

is an assistant professor of public health at

the University of Texas at San Antonio.

At the Afghanistan war’s outset, tourni-

quets were not widely used. “But once we

got in there,” Howard said, “we learned

pretty quickly: We need these.”

Many of the injuries were from bomb

blasts, which sometimes injured or severed

more than one limb. People were bleeding to

death.

Old-fashioned tourniquets needed two

people to apply them tightly enough. The

ones designed for Afghanistan could be ap-

plied by one person— applied one-handed

by injured service members to themselves.

“That was a significant improvement, de-

signing a self-applied tourniquet,” Howard

said. “And they’re lightweight, easier to car-

ry.”

Those devices only work on the extremi-

ties, though, and sometimes the IEDs were

so powerful they severed limbs at the hip or

the shoulder. A new kind of “junctional tour-

niquet” had to be created, too, Howard said.

A study he did with several collaborators

showed that the improved effectiveness and

availability of tourniquets prevented an es-

timated 240 deaths in Afghanistan. (About

2,300 U.S. troops were killed in action in the

war, with another 20,000 injured.)

Tadlock, the trauma surgeon, called tour-

niquets — which had played a key role in

World War II, when about 50% of those

killed in action bled to death — “a lesson that

we had to re-learn.” That’s not uncommon in

war. Institutional memory fades sometimes

after the bullets stop flying.

But the success in Afghanistan and Iraq

has already spread to the civilian world,

where a non-profit initiative called “Stop the

Bleed” offers training and equipment to

help first-responders and the public inter-

vene if they come across someone who is se-

verely wounded.

Administered by the American College of

Surgeons, the program has trained 1.5 mil-

lion people since it started in 2017. The goal:

200 million trained.

Timing is everythingIt’s called “The Golden Hour.” Get a se-

verely injured patient into the hands of sur-

geons within 60 minutes and the odds of sur-

vival go up.

Easier said than done in a place like Af-

ghanistan, where troops often fought in ru-

ral areas, down dirt roads. Helicopters usu-

ally had to be called in for evacuations.

Early on, the “Golden Hour” became two

hours or more because of the logistics. That

was about what the lag-time was during the

Vietnam War, and a lot better than it was

during World War II, when the average time

from injury to hospitalization was 12 to 15

hours.

In 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates

ordered troop leaders to improve the re-

sponse time, and they did so by bringing in

more transport helicopters. Less than 20%

of the casualties had gotten to the hospital in

the Golden Hour during the war’s initial

years. After his directive, the number went

up to 76%.

Howard, the University of Texas epide-

miologist, said that intervention likely saved

almost 280 lives in Afghanistan.

He and his collaborators also studied the

role of blood transfusions on mortality. It

used to be that medics would give the

wounded saline or other IV fluids to main-

tain blood pressure while they were trans-

ported to a hospital. Once there, they would

get blood products as needed.

The nature of the wounds in Afghanistan

quickly made it clear that blood was needed

at the point of injury. But blood is tricky to

work with. especially whole blood, which re-

quires refrigeration. New techniques in-

volving blood component therapy, and

equipment for storing and transporting it,

were put into place.

Howard’s study showed that quicker

blood-transfusions probably saved an esti-

mated 431 lives in Afghanistan.

Those results are also spreading into the

civilian world, with more emergency crews

on ambulances carrying blood products

now.

Feeling luckyThe Afghanistan war has gone on so long

it’s had several “signature” wounds. Ampu-

tations. Traumatic brain injuries. Post-trau-

matic stress disorder.

Amputations are the most visible. There

have been about 1,650 of them from injuries

suffered in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

since 2001.

Many service members have lost more

than one limb; some have lost all four. When

one amputee missing her left leg was inter-

viewed by Stars and Stripes four years ago,

she said one of the things motivating her re-

covery was her gratitude.

“I had lost only one limb,” she said. “I felt

lucky.”

In the same article, a Marine bomb tech-

nician who lost his right hand to an IED said

the caregivers at the Walter Reed military

hospital had jokingly given him a nickname:

“Paper Cut.” He was the least injured per-

son there.

The steady stream of patients at military

medical centers has also spurred improve-

ments in prosthetics, which are lighter and

more functional now. And, increasingly,

more gender-sensitive.

The VA has long treated female depend-

ents for artificial limbs needed because of

diabetes and other health conditions, but not

for battlefield trauma.

“That really became a bigger question in

Iraq and Afghanistan, where more women

were deployed in all kinds of roles,” said Lo-

ry Manning, a retired Navy captain and di-

rector of government operations for the Ser-

vice Women’s Action Network, based in

Washington, D.C.

She said more than 100 women are combat

amputees, about 3% of those who have lost

limbs, and the Veterans Health Administra-

tion has become increasingly sensitive to

their needs.

The agency has funded eight studies since

2017, looking, for example, at whether a foot-

ankle system can be developed that would

allow an amputee to wear high heels.

“Many women like to wear high heels at

least some of the time,” Manning said.

They’re also more likely to go bare-armed

and bare-legged in public, she said, and that

has implications for how the prostheses

look.

Women amputees interviewed for a Gov-

ernment Accounting Office report issued

last November told a familiar story: the mil-

itary is ahead of the wider world when it

comes to what is available in prostheses.

If the past is any prologue, that will prob-

ably change.

“Stop for a moment,” said McGaugh, the

military historian, “and think about how

much health care has been pioneered and

validated during the different wars. Who

knows what lessons learned in the Middle

East will become part of standard care for ci-

vilians?”

Lessons: Emphasis turns to taking trauma care to battlefieldFROM PAGE 1

RUSSELL GAMACHE/U.S. Army

Soldiers attending the TC 8800 MEDIC refresher Table VIII skill validation course at the Fort McCoy Medical Simulation TrainingCenter receive training on how to apply a combat application tourniquet and apply a pressure dressing to an open wound.

MILITARY


KABUL, Afghanistan — Just

running errands in the mainly

Hazara neighborhoods of west

Kabul can be dangerous. One day

last week, Adila Khiari and her

two daughters went out to buy new

curtains. Soon after, her son heard

that a minibus had been bombed

— the fourth to be blown up in just

48 hours.

When his mother didn’t answer

her phone, he frantically searched

hospitals in the Afghan capital. He

found his sister Hosnia in critical

condition with burns over 50% of

her body. Then he found his moth-

er and other sister, Mina, both

dead. Three days later, Hosnia

died as well.

In all, 18 people were killed in

the two-day string of bombings

against minivans in Kabul’s

Dasht-e-Barchi district. It was the

latest in a vicious campaign of vio-

lence targeting Afghanistan’s mi-

nority Hazara community — one

that Hazaras fear will only get

worse after the final withdrawal of

American and NATO troops this

summer.

Intentionally targetedHundreds of Afghans are killed

or injured every month in violence

connected to the country’s con-

stant war. But Hazaras, who make

up around 9% of the population of

36 million people, stand alone in

being intentionally targeted be-

cause of their ethnicity — distinct

from the other ethnic groups, such

as Tajik and Uzbek and the Pash-

tun majority — and their religion.

Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims,

despised by Sunni Muslim radi-

cals like Islamic State, and dis-

criminated against by many in the

Sunni majority country.

After the collapse of the Taliban

20 years ago, the Hazaras em-

braced hopes for a new democra-

cy in Afghanistan. Long the coun-

try’s poorest community, they be-

gan to improve their lot, advanc-

ing in various fields, including

education and sports.

Now many Hazaras are moving

to take up arms to protect them-

selves in what they expect will be a

war for control among Afghanis-

tan’s many factions.

Inside the Nabi Rasool Akram

Mosque compound, protected by

sandbags stacked against its or-

nate doors and 10-foot high walls,

Qatradullah Broman was among

the Hazaras attending the funeral

of Adila and Mina this week.

The government doesn’t care

about Hazaras and has failed to

protect them, he said. “Anyone

who can afford to leave, they are

leaving. Those who can’t are stay-

ing here to die,” said Broman. “I

see a very dark future for our peo-

ple.”

Much to fearThere is plenty for Hazaras to

fear.

Since it emerged in 2014 and

2015, a vicious Islamic State affil-

iate has declared war on Afghan-

istan’s Shiites and has claimed re-

sponsibility for many of the recent

attacks on the Hazaras.

But Hazaras are also deeply

suspicious of the government for

not protecting them. Some worry

that government-linked warlords,

who also demonize their commu-

nity, are behind some of the at-

tacks.

Former government adviser

Torek Farhadi told The Associat-

ed Press that within the political

leadership, “from the top down,”

there is a “sorry culture” of dis-

crimination against Hazaras.

“The government, in a cynical cal-

culation, has decided Hazara lives

are cheap,” he said.

Since 2015, attacks have killed

at least 1,200 Hazaras and injured

another 2,300, according to Wa-

dood Pedram, executive director

of the Kabul-based Human Rights

and Eradication of Violence Orga-

nization.

Hazaras have been preyed on at

schools, weddings, mosques,

sports clubs, even at birth.

Last year, gunmen attacked a

maternity hospital in the mainly

Hazara districts of west Kabul.

When the shooting ended, 24 peo-

ple were dead, including new-

borns and their mothers. Last

month, a triple bombing at the

Syed Al-Shahada school in the

same area killed nearly 100 peo-

ple, mostly Hazara schoolgirls.

Last week, when militants at-

tacked a compound of de-mining

workers, shooting and killing at

least 10, witnesses said the attack-

ers tried to pick Hazaras out of the

workers to kill.

Some of these attacks, deliber-

ately targeting civilians, hospitals

and children, could rise to the lev-

el of war crimes, said Patricia

Gossman, associate director for

Asia at Human Rights Watch.

Pedram’s organization has pet-

itioned the U.N. Human Rights

Commission to investigate the

killing of Hazaras as genocide or a

crime against humanity. It and

other rights groups also helped the

International Criminal Court in

2019 compile suspected war

crimes cases in Afghanistan.

“The world doesn’t speak about

our deaths. The world is silent.

Are we not human?” said Mustafa

Waheed, an elderly Hazara weep-

ing at the burial of Mina and her

mother.

A black velvet cloth inscribed in

gold with Quranic verses was

draped over the two bodies. Fam-

ily and friends carried them on

wooden beds, then placed them in-

side the graves. Mina’s father fell

to the ground crying.

“The U.S. can go into space, but

they can’t find out who is doing

this?” Waheed said. “They can see

an ant move from space, but they

can’t see who is killing Hazaras?”

Arming youthIn the face of the killings, talk

has turned to arming Hazara

youth to defend the community,

particularly in the districts that

the community dominates in west-

ern Kabul. Some Hazaras say the

May 8 attack on the Syed al-Sha-

hada school was a turning point.

It is a significant reversal for a

community that showed such

hope in a new Afghanistan. After

the fall of the Taliban, many Haz-

ara militias gave up their weapons

under a government disarmament

program, even as other factions

were reluctant.

“We used to think the pen and

the book were our greatest weap-

on, but now we realize it is the gun

we need,” said Ghulam Reza Ber-

ati, a prominent Hazara religious

leader. Fathers of the girls killed

in the school attack are being told

to invest in weapons, said Berati,

who helped bury many of the girls.

Sitting on the carpets of west

Kabul’s Wali Asar Mosque, Berati

said Hazaras are disappointed in

the democracy brought by the

U.S.-led coalition. Hazaras have

largely been excluded from posi-

tions of prominence, he said.

Hazaras worry about contin-

uing ISIS attacks and about the po-

tential return of the Taliban to

power after the American with-

drawal. But they also worry about

the many heavily armed warlords

who are part of the government.

Some of them carried out violence

against Hazaras in the past, and

Hazaras fear they will do so again

if post-withdrawal Afghanistan

slides into a repeat of the brutal in-

ter-factional civil war of the early

1990s.

One warlord who is still promi-

nent in Kabul, Abdul Rasool Say-

yaf, led a Pashtun militia that mas-

sacred Hazara civilians during a

ferocious 1993 battle with Hazara

militias in Kabul’s mainly Hazara

neighborhood of Afshar.

Rajab Ali Urzgani became a sort

of folk hero in his community as

one of the youngest Hazara com-

manders during the Battle of Af-

shar — only 14 at the time.

Now 41 and still known by his

nom de guerre,

Mangol, he re-

turned to Afshar

earlier this

month with the

AP to visit the

site. He stopped

to give a prayer

for the dead at a

mass grave

where nearly 80 men, women and

children were killed in the blood-

shed are buried. A black Shiite

banner flies at the entrance.

Mangol held out little hope for

peace in Afghanistan following

the U.S. and NATO withdrawal.

“When the foreigners with-

draw, the war will happen

1,000%,” he said.

“The war will happen like in the

past with the different groups, and

we will defend our family and our

dignity.”

Running errandscan be deadly forAfghan Hazaras

BY KATHY GANNON

Associated Press

PHOTOS BY RAHMAT GUL/AP

Afghan Hazaras on June 5 attend the funeral of Mina Khiari, who was killed in a bombing, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“We used tothink the penand the bookwere ourgreatestweapon, butnow we realize itis the gun weneed.”

Ghulam Reza Berati

Hazara religious leader

Mangol

An Afghan school student is treated at a hospital May 8 after a bombexplosion near a school west of Kabul, Afghanistan. The triplebombing of the SyedAlShahada girls school killed more than 100,nearly 80 of them Hazara students.

WAR ON TERRORISM


NATION

WASHINGTON — The Justice

Department’s internal watchdog

launched an investigation Friday

after revelations that former

President Donald Trump’s ad-

ministration secretly seized

phone data from at least two

House Democrats as part of an

aggressive leaks probe. Demo-

crats called the seizures “harrow-

ing” and an abuse of power.

The announcement by Inspec-

tor General Michael Horowitz

came shortly after Deputy Attor-

ney General Lisa Monaco made

the request for an internal investi-

gation. Horowitz said he would

examine whether the data sub-

poenaed by the Justice Depart-

ment and turned over by Apple

followed department policy and

“whether any such uses, or the in-

vestigations, were based upon im-

proper considerations.”

Horowitz said he would also in-

vestigate similar Trump-era sei-

zures of journalists’ phone re-

cords.

House Intelligence Committee

Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,

and another Democratic member

of the panel, California Rep. Eric

Swalwell, said Apple notified

them last month that their meta-

data had been subpoenaed and

turned over to the Justice Depart-

ment in 2018, as their committee

was investigating the former

president’s ties to Russia. Schiff

was then the top Democrat on the

panel, which was led by Repub-

licans.

While the Justice Department

routinely investigates leaked in-

formation, including classified in-

telligence, subpoenaing the pri-

vate information of members of

Congress is extraordinarily rare.

The disclosures, first reported by

The New York Times, raise ques-

tions about what the Justice De-

partment’s justification was for

spying on another branch of gov-

ernment and whether it was done

for political reasons.

In a statement, White House

deputy press secretary Andrew

Bates said the Trump administra-

tion’s conduct is “shocking” and

“clearly fits within an appalling

trend that represents the opposite

of how authority should be used.”

Bates said one of President Joe

Biden’s top reasons for seeking

the presidency was “his prede-

cessor’s unjustifiable abuses of

power, including the repugnant

ways he tried to force his political

interests upon the Department of

Justice.”

The Trump administration’s se-

cretive move to gain access to the

data came as the president was

fuming publicly and privately

over investigations — in Congress

and by then-special counsel Rob-

ert Mueller — into his campaign’s

ties to Russia. Trump called the

probes a “witch hunt,” regularly

criticized Democrats and Mueller

on Twitter and dismissed as “fake

news” leaks he found harmful to

his agenda. As the investigations

swirled around him, he demand-

ed loyalty from a Justice Depart-

ment he often regarded as his per-

sonal law firm.

Swalwell and Schiff were two of

the most visible Democrats on the

committee during the Russia

probe, making frequent appear-

ances on cable news. Trump

watched those channels closely, if

not obsessively, and seethed over

the coverage.

Schiff said the seizures suggest

“the weaponization of law en-

forcement by a corrupt presi-

dent” and urged the Justice De-

partment to do “a full damage as-

sessment of the conduct of the de-

partment over the last four

years.”

Senate Democratic leaders im-

mediately demanded that former

Attorneys General Bill Barr and

Jeff Sessions, who both oversaw

Trump’s leak probes, testify

about the secret subpoenas. Sen-

ate Majority Leader Chuck

Schumer and Senate Judiciary

Committee Chairman Dick Dur-

bin said in a statement that “this

appalling politicization of the De-

partment of Justice by Donald

Trump and his sycophants” must

be investigated. They said Barr

and Sessions are subject to a sub-

poena if they refuse.

Trump seizures of Dems’ data investigatedAssociated Press

WASHINGTON — The Justice

Department will scrutinize a

wave of new laws in Republican-

controlled states that tighten vot-

ing rules, Attorney General Mer-

rick Garland said Friday, vowing

to take action on any violations of

federal law.

He announced plans to double

staffing within the department’s

civil rights division and said the

department would send guidance

to states about election-related ac-

tivity, including mail voting and

post-election audits. He also

pledged to investigate and prose-

cute those who would threaten

election workers, noting a rise in

such cases.

“There are many things open to

debate in America, but the right of

all eligible citizens to vote is not

one of them,” Garland said in his

first direct response to the restric-

tive voting laws being passed in

more than a dozen states where

Republicans control the legisla-

ture and governor’s office.

Speaking to staff of the agency’s

civil rights division, he said the re-

sources of the Justice Department

must be rededicated to “meet the

challenge of the current mo-

ment.”

His message was clear: The de-

partment doesn’t plan to stay on

the sidelines of the voting battles

that have erupted in statehouses

across the country. Along with re-

viewing new state laws, Garland

said the department also will ex-

amine existing ones for their po-

tential to discriminate against mi-

nority voters.

He also reiterated the adminis-

tration’s support for two proposals

pushed by congressional Demo-

crats that would create minimum

federal standards for voting and

would restore the ability of his

agency to review changes to state

election laws in places with a his-

tory of racial discrimination. A

2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision

effectively set aside this “preclea-

rance” requirement, and Demo-

crats say it has resulted in a prolif-

eration of restrictive voting laws

in recent years.

Garland said false claims of vot-

er fraud were being used to justify

the new voting restrictions de-

spite law enforcement and intelli-

gence agencies having refuted

those claims. He expressed con-

cern that disinformation sur-

rounding the 2020 election was

fueling “abnormal post-election

audit methodologies” to conduct

partisan ballot reviews, like the

one underway in Arizona.

Seven months after the election,

former President Donald Trump

continues to falsely insist that he

won and demand that states inves-

tigate his unsubstantiated claims

of voter fraud. Those claims have

been resoundingly rejected by

state officials who certified the re-

sults, judges who dismissed mul-

tiple lawsuits filed by Trump and

his allies, and a coalition of federal

and state officials who called the

2020 election the “most secure” in

U.S. history.

Trump’s own attorney general

said at the time there was no evi-

dence of widespread fraud that

would change the outcome.

Justice Department will review restrictiveRepublican voting laws

Associated Press

In Tennessee and North Carolina,

demand for the COVID-19 vaccine

has slowed down so much that they

have given millions of doses back to

the federal government, even though

less than half of their total popula-

tions are vaccinated.

Oklahoma has not asked for new

doses from the government for more

than a month, spurning its 200,000-a-

week allotment. Around the country,

states are rushing to use up doses be-

fore they expire this summer.

The U.S. is confronted with an ev-

er-growing surplus of coronavirus

vaccine, looming expiration dates

and stubbornly lagging demand at a

time when the developing world is

clamoring for doses to stem a rise in

infections.

Million-dollar prizes, free beer

and marijuana, raffled-off hunting

rifles and countless other giveaways

around the country have failed to sig-

nificantly move the needle on vac-

cine hesitancy, raising the specter of

new outbreaks.

The stockpiles are becoming more

daunting each week. Oklahoma has

more than 700,000 doses on shelves

but is administering only 4,500 a day

and has 27,000 Pfizer and Moderna

doses that are set to expire at the end

of the month.

Millions of Johnson & Johnson

doses nationwide were set to expire

this month before the government

extended their dates by six weeks,

but some leaders acknowledge it will

be difficult to use them up even by

then.

“We really cannot let doses expire.

That would be a real outrage, given

the need to get vaccines to some un-

der-vaccinated communities in the

U.S. and the glaring gap in vaccina-

tions and the inequity of vaccinations

that we have globally,” said Dr. Kir-

sten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of epi-

demiology and biostatistics at the

University of California, San Fran-

cisco.

The U.S. averaged about 870,000

new injections per day at the end of

last week, down sharply from a high

of about 3.3 million a day on average

in mid-April, according to the Cen-

ters for Disease Control and Preven-

tion.

DENISE CATHEY, THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD/ AP

Jose Espronseda looks away as Brownsville Fire Department fire inspector Amanda Ely administers hissecond dose of the Moderna COVID19 vaccine in Brownsville, Texas, on Friday.

US vaccine surplus continues togrow as expiration dates loom

Associated Press


NATION

WASHINGTON — Faced with a

#MeToo reckoning, the FBI says

it is getting serious about sexual

harassment in its ranks, starting a

24/7 tip line, doing more to help

accusers and taking a tougher

stand against agents found to have

committed misconduct.

The changes follow Associated

Press reporting last year that

found a series of sexual assault

and harassment allegations

against senior officials who were

allowed to quietly avoid discipline

and retire or transfer even after

the claims were substantiated.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Ab-

bate told the AP that the bureau is

sending its strongest message ev-

er that employees who are tempt-

ed to engage in sexual misconduct

should be scared because if they

do so, “we’re coming for them.”

“That’s a strong approach, a

forceful shift and we mean it. And

it’s coming from the top,” Abbate

said. “Individuals who engage in

this type of misconduct don’t be-

long in the FBI and they certainly

should not have supervisory over-

sight of others. Period.”

Among the changes FBI offi-

cials detailed to AP in a series of

recent interviews was a round-

the-clock tip line that provides a

centralized mechanism to report

abuse, though they would not say

how many calls it has received.

They also cited a working group of

senior executives to review poli-

cies and procedures on harass-

ment and victim support, and fas-

ter action to investigate allega-

tions and fire or at least demote

employees found to have engaged

in misconduct to ensure they have

no path to management.

To address chronic concerns

that the FBI makes it difficult and

intimidating for victims to come

forward, the bureau is more

broadly spreading the word in on-

line and internal communications

about where victimized employ-

ees can report allegations. And the

FBI’s Victim Services Division,

which until recently had focused

on aiding victims of federal

crimes outside the bureau, has

been extending

the same level of

support to em-

ployees who are

victims of inter-

nal misconduct.

Advocates of

combating sex-

ual abuse greet-

ed the bureau’s

changes with skepticism, calling

them long overdue — coming

years after the advent of the #Me-

Too movement — and unlikely to

affect lasting change.

“Everyone has gone through

this, including the military, and

the bureau has managed to skate,”

said Jane Turner, a former long-

time FBI agent.

“Until the FBI charges these

people and throws them in jail —

or at least out of the FBI — and the

message gets out that you can’t do

this, it won’t stop,” said Turner,

who now works with the National

Whistleblower Center.

FBI Director Christopher Wray

said during a congressional hear-

ing in April that this is a subject

that “makes my blood boil.”

“There is nothing more impor-

tant than our people and how we

treat each other,” Wray said. “I

have tried to make it crystal clear

that we’re going to have zero toler-

ance for that kind of activity at any

level within the organization.”

Tip line among newFBI efforts to fightinternal misconduct

BY JIM MUSTIAN

AND ERIC TUCKER

Associated Press

Wray

The Associated Press won two

Pulitzer Prizes in photography

Friday for its coverage of the racial

injustice protests and the corona-

virus’s terrible toll on the elderly,

while The New York Times re-

ceived the public service award

for its detailed, data-filled report-

ing on the pandemic.

In a year dominated by CO-

VID-19 and furious debate over

race and policing, the Star Tribune

of Minneapolis won the breaking

news reporting prize for its cover-

age of George Floyd’s murder and

its aftermath, while Darnella Fra-

zier — the teenager who recorded

the killing on a cellphone — re-

ceived a special citation.

Frazier’s award was intended to

highlight “the crucial role of citi-

zens in journalists’ quest for truth

and justice,” the Pulitzer Board

said.

The AP and The New York

Times each won two Pulitzers, the

most prestigious prize in journal-

ism, first awarded in 1917.

The feature photography prize

went to AP’s chief photographer in

Spain, Emilio Morenatti, who cap-

tured haunting images of an older

couple embracing through a plas-

tic sheet, mortuary workers in haz-

mat gear removing bodies, and

people enduring the crisis in isola-

tion.

The breaking news photogra-

phy prize was shared by 10 AP pho-

tographers for their coverage of

the protests set off by Floyd’s kill-

ing. One widely published photo-

graph by Julio Cortez on the night

of May 28 in riot-torn Minneapolis

showed a lone, silhouetted protes-

ter running with an upside-down

American flag past a burning li-

quor store.

“Everybody, not just myself, has

given up something to go cover this

stuff,” Cortez said. “To be an ille-

gal immigrant kid who now has a

piece of the AP history is just in-

sane. I’m just super proud of ev-

eryone’s work.”

AP President and CEO Gary

Pruitt said the two prizes are a

“true testament to the talent and

dedication of AP photojournal-

ists.” He added: “These photogra-

phers told the stories of the year

through remarkable and unforget-

table images that resonated

around the world.”

The New York Times received

its public service prize for pan-

demic coverage that the judges

said was “courageous, prescient

and sweeping” and “filled a data

vacuum” that helped better pre-

pare the public. Wesley Morris of

the Times won for criticism, for his

writing on the intersection of race

and culture.

The winner of the public service

Pulitzer is honored with a gold

medal. The awards in the other

categories carry a prize of $15,000

each. The prizes are administered

by Columbia University.

JOHN MINCHILLO/AP

Protesters raise their hands on command from police as they are detained prior to arrest and processingat a gas station on South Washington Street, May 31, 2020, in Minneapolis. The image was part of aseries of Associated Press photographs that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography.

Pulitzer Prizes honor coverage ofCOVID pandemic, racial protests

Associated Press

RENO, Nev. — Nevada has be-

come the latest flashpoint in a na-

tional debate over how to teach

students about racism and its role

in U.S. history, with parents clash-

ing over curriculum proposals.

People wore MAGA hats and

waved signs outside a packed

school board meeting last week in

Reno, while trustees considered

expanding K-5 curriculum to in-

clude more teaching about equity,

diversity and racism.

Opponents say the proposal

would lead to the teaching of “crit-

ical race theory,” which seeks to

reframe the narrative of Ameri-

can history.

Critics say such lesson plans

teach students to hate the United

States.

A conservative group even sug-

gested outfitting teachers with

body cameras to ensure they

aren’t indoctrinating children

with such lessons.

“You guys have a serious prob-

lem with activist teachers pushing

politics in the classroom, and

there’s no place for it, especially

for our fifth graders,” Karen En-

gland, Nevada Family Alliance

executive director, told Washoe

County School District trustees

Tuesday.

Officials there and in Carson

City, where a similar debate is

playing out, say critical race theo-

ry is not part of their plans.

The clashes mirror fights un-

derway throughout the U.S.

In GOP-controlled statehouses,

lawmakers have passed measures

prohibiting the teaching of critical

race theory, a reaction to the na-

tion’s racial reckoning after last

year’s police killing of George

Floyd.

Nevada has bucked that trend.

Gov. Steve Sisolak signed legisla-

tion last week to add multicultural

education to social studies curri-

culum standards and teach stu-

dents about the historic contribu-

tions of members of additional ra-

cial and ethnic groups.

Dr. Jonathan Moore, deputy su-

perintendent of Nevada’s educa-

tion agency, said the laws clar-

ified social studies “content

themes,” which already included

concepts like social justice and di-

versity.

The standards do not include

critical race theory, which draws

a line from slavery and segrega-

tion to contemporary inequities

and argues racism remains em-

bedded in laws and institutions.

Elsewhere, the Black mother of

a mixed-race student is suing a

Las Vegas charter school over a

“Sociology of Change” course that

covers the concept of privilege as

it pertains to race, gender and

sexual orientation.

And Washoe County Schools

Superintendent Kristen McNeill

recommended the district form a

task force to review curriculum

instead of implementing the plan.

The board approved the task

force on Wednesday.

Nevada latest flashpoint in debate over teaching critical race theory Associated Press

Report for America


WORLD

BEIJING — China’s famed

wandering elephants are on the

move again, heading southwest

while a male who broke from the

herd is still keeping his distance.

The group left a wildlife reserve

in the southwest of Yunnan prov-

ince more than a year ago and has

trekked 300 miles north to the out-

skirts of the provincial capital of

Kunming.

As of Saturday, they were spot-

ted in Shijie township in the city of

Yuxi, more than 5 miles southwest

of the Kunming suburb they had

arrived at last week, according to

state media reports. The lone male

was 10 miles away, still on the out-

skirts of Kunming.

The direction of their travel

could be a good sign, since author-

ities are hoping to lead them back

to their original home in the Xish-

uangbanna Dai Autonomous Pre-

fecture southwest of Kunming.

Authorities have been attempt-

ing to keep a distance between

them and local residents, while

blocking roads into villages and

seeking to lure them away with

food drops. Despite that, the herd

of 15 have raided farms, strolled

down urban streets and foraged

for snacks in villages and even a

retirement home.

All of the animals are reported

to be healthy and no person has

been injured in encounters with

them. Officials have issued strict

orders not to gawk at them or seek

to drive them off using firecrack-

ers or other means.

China’s roughly 300 wild ele-

phants enjoyed the highest level of

protected status, on a par with the

country’s unofficial mascot, the

panda bear.

However, extra precautions are

being taken amid steady rainfall

in the area and crowds of onlook-

ers expected around the Dragon

Boat festival on Monday.

Additional emergency workers,

vehicles and drones have been de-

ployed to monitor the elephants’

movements and protect local resi-

dents, the reports said. Some 2.5

tons of food were laid out for the

animals on Friday.

It remains unclear why the ele-

phants embarked on their trek, al-

though Evan Sun, wildlife cam-

paign manager with World Ani-

mal Protection, said possible rea-

sons could include lack of food

supply, a rise in the elephant pop-

ulation and, most importantly, loss

of habitat.

“The increase of human-ele-

phant conflicts reflects the urgen-

cy for a more strategic policy and

plan to protect these endangered

wild animals and their natural

habitats,” Sun wrote in an email.

YUNNAN FOREST FIRE BRIGade/AP

A migrating herd of elephants gathers Thursday in southwestern China's Yunnan Province.

China’s wandering pack ofpachyderms on move again

Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

— The outgoing chief of Israel’s

Mossad intelligence service has

offered the closest acknowledg-

ment yet his country was behind

recent attacks targeting Iran’s nu-

clear program and a military sci-

entist.

The comments by Yossi Cohen,

speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 in-

vestigative program “Uvda” in a

segment aired Thursday night, of-

fered an extraordinary debriefing

by the head of the typically secre-

tive agency in what appears to be

the final days of Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule.

It also gave a clear warning to

other scientists in Iran’s nuclear

program that they too could be-

come targets for assassination

even as diplomats in Vienna try to

negotiate terms to try to salvage its

atomic accord with world powers.

“If the scientist is willing to

change careers and will not hurt

us anymore, than yes, sometimes

we offer them” a way out, Cohen

said.

Among the major attacks to tar-

get Iran, none have struck deeper

than two explosions over the last

year at its Natanz nuclear facility.

There, centrifuges enrich urani-

um from an underground hall de-

signed to protect them from air-

strikes.

In July 2020, a mysterious ex-

plosion tore apart Natanz’s ad-

vanced centrifuge assembly,

which Iran later blamed on Israel.

Then in April of this year, another

blast tore apart one of its under-

ground enrichment halls.

Discussing Natanz, the inter-

viewer asked Cohen where he’d

take them if they could travel

there. Cohen said “to the cellar”

where “the centrifuges used to

spin.”

“It doesn’t look like it used to

look,” he added.

Cohen did not directly claim the

attacks, but his specificity offered

the closest acknowlegement yet of

an Israeli hand in the attacks. The

interviewer, journalist Ilana

Dayan, also seemingly offered a

detailed description in a voiceover

of how Israel snuck the explosives

into Natanz’s underground halls.

“The man who was responsible

for these explosions, it becomes

clear, made sure to supply to the

Iranians the marble foundation on

which the centrifuges are placed,”

Dayan said. “As they install this

foundation within the Natanz fa-

cility, they have no idea that it al-

ready includes an enormous

amount of explosives.”

They also discussed the Novem-

ber killing of Mohsen Fakhriza-

deh, an Iranian scientist who be-

gan Tehran’s military nuclear

program decades ago. U.S. intelli-

gence agencies and the Interna-

tional Atomic Energy Agency be-

lieve Iran abandoned that orga-

nized effort at seeking a nuclear

weapon in 2003. Iran long has

maintained its program is peace-

ful.

While Cohen on camera doesn’t

claim the killing, Dayan in the seg-

ment described Cohen as having

“personally signed off on the en-

tire campaign.” Dayan also de-

scribed how a remotely operated

machine gun fixed to a pickup

truck killed Fakhrizadeh and later

self-destructed.

Ex-Mossad chiefsignals Israelattacked Iran

BY JON GAMBRELL

Associated Press

four years of Donald Trump’s

presidency and his “America

first” foreign policy.

Biden also met with German

Chancellor Angela Merkel in be-

tween Saturday’s G-7 sessions, ac-

cording to photographs her spo-

kesperson tweeted. Merkel is

scheduled to meet with Biden at

the White House next month.

White House officials have said

Biden wants the leaders of the G-7

nations — the U.S., Britain, Cana-

da, France, Germany, Japan and

Italy — to speak in a single voice

against forced labor practices tar-

geting China’s Uyghur Muslims

and other ethnic minorities. Biden

hopes the denunciation will be

part of a joint statement to be re-

leased Sunday when the summit

ends, but some European allies

are reluctant to split so forcefully

with Beijing.

China had become one of the

more compelling sublots of the

wealthy nations’ summit, their

first since 2019. Last year’s gath-

ering was canceled because of

COVID-19, and recovery from the

pandemic is dominating this

year’s discussions, with leaders

expected to commit to sharing at

least 1 billion vaccine shots with

struggling countries.

The allies also took the first

steps in presenting an infrastruc-

ture proposal called “Build Back

Better for the World,” a name

echoing Biden’s campaign slogan.

The plan calls for spending hun-

dreds of billions of dollars in col-

laboration with the private sector

while adhering to climate stan-

dards and labor practices.

It’s designed to compete with

China’s trillion-dollar “Belt and

Road Initiative,” which has

launched a network of projects

and maritime lanes that snake

around large portions of the

world, primarily Asia and Africa.

Critics say China’s projects often

create massive debt and expose

nations to undue influence by

Beijing.

Britain also wants the world’s

democracies to become less re-

liant on the Asian economic giant.

The U.K. government said Satur-

day’s discussions would tackle

“how we can shape the global sys-

tem to deliver for our people in

support of our values,” including

by diversifying supply chains that

currently heavily depend on Chi-

na.

Not every European power has

viewed China in as harsh a light as

Biden, who has painted the rivalry

with China as the defining compe-

tition for the 21st century. But

there are some signs that Europe

is willing to impose greater scruti-

ny.

Before Biden took office in Ja-

nuary, the European Commission

announced it had come to terms

with Beijing on a deal meant to

provide Europe and China with

greater access to each other’s

markets.

But the deal has been put on

hold, and the European Union in

March announced sanctions tar-

geting four Chinese officials in-

volved with human rights abuses

in Xinjiang.

Compete: European leaders balk at taking adversarial stance on ChinaFROM PAGE 1


AMERICAN ROUNDUP

Dog ejected after crashfound herding sheep

WA SPOKANE — A pet

dog who vanished for

two days after being ejected from

a vehicle during a car accident

was found apparently doing the

job it was bred to do — herding

sheep.

Linda Oswald’s family and their

dog, Tilly, were driving along Ida-

ho State Highway 41 when they

crashed into another car, launch-

ing the dog through the rear win-

dow, The Spokesman-Review re-

ported.

The unharmed but stunned dog

then ran away, Oswald said.

Oswald said the family then

wrote a Facebook post that includ-

ed a picture of the 2-year-old bor-

der collie and red heeler mix.

That’s when Tyler, Travis and

Zane Potter recognized the dog in

the photo as the same dog they saw

on their family farm south of Rath-

drum.

“I think that dog was trying to

herd,” Travis Potter said.

Man stuck for days insidegiant fan at vineyard

CA SANTA ROSA — Au-

thorities rescued a man

who said he had been trapped for

two days inside a large fan at a

Northern California vineyard.

The man was discovered by a

deputy responding to a call about a

suspicious vehicle parked near

the winery in Santa Rosa, the So-

noma County Sheriff’s Office said

in a statement.

The deputy saw a hat on a piece

of farming equipment and then

found the man stuck inside the

shaft of a vineyard fan.

“The man indicated he liked to

take pictures of the engines of old

farm equipment,” the statement

said. “After a thorough investiga-

tion, which revealed the farm

equipment wasn’t antique and the

man had far more methampheta-

mine than camera equipment, the

motivation to climb into the fan

shaft remains a total mystery.”

Motorists report hackedtraffic sign; sign removed

CO DENVER — Denver

authorities said a por-

table traffic sign was hacked to

flash the phrases, “Burn It Down,”

“Abolish Cops” and “Support

Trans Kids.”

The city’s Department of Trans-

portation and Infrastructure told

KDVR-TV that the sign was re-

moved after motorists spotted the

phrases.

It wasn’t immediately known

how the sign was hacked.

Bear found stuck afterclimbing power pole

AZ WILLCOX — A bear in

Arizona emerged un-

scathed from quite the power trip

when it became stuck on a utility

pole.

Sulphur Springs Valley Electric

Cooperative, a utility company

based in the southern Arizona city

of Willcox, was notified that a bear

was tangled in power pole wires

on the outskirts of town.

Werner Neubauer, a company

lineman, said they immediately

disabled the power so the animal

would not get electrocuted.

The bear eventually climbed

down and ran off into the desert.

Firefighters battle fivedumpster fires in an hour

ND FARGO — Fargo fire-

fighters found them-

selves battling a string of dump-

ster fires on the city’s southern

edge.

The fire department said in a

news release the first call came in

at 10:50 p.m. A half-hour later fire-

fighters responded to another

dumpster fire at a different loca-

tion. Three minutes later they re-

sponded to three dumpster fires at

the same location.

The department said the fires

are considered suspicious given

the timing and proximity to one

another.

Woman accidentallyshoots sister in car

FL MIAMI BEACH — A

Georgia woman visiting

South Florida accidentally shot

her teenage sister in the face while

handing her a gun inside a car, po-

lice said.

The shooting occurred on a Mia-

mi Beach road, the Miami Herald

reported. Taniyria Holt, 24, of At-

lanta, was arrested and charged

with culpable negligence that in-

flicts personal injury and improp-

er exhibition of firearms.

The victim, identified by an ar-

rest report as Dre’Naya Ponder,

18, remained on life support.

According to the arrest report,

Holt told detectives she, her sister

and two other women were re-

cording video of themselves with

cellphones while Holt handled a

9mm handgun owned by one of

the other women. Believing the

gun was not loaded, she said she

handed it to her sister, but the gun

fired and hit Ponder.

Coach charged afterplayer took gun out of car

SC LANCASTER — A

South Carolina youth

basketball coach was arrested af-

ter a 10-year-old player took a

loaded gun from his car to his ele-

mentary school, investigators

said.

Isaac Lamon Adams, 36, was

barred from legally owning a gun

because of a previous criminal

conviction, Lancaster County

Sheriff Barry Faile said.

Adams sent the boy to his car

during basketball practice to get

something and the boy stole the

unsecured weapon, Faile said in a

statement.

Adams noticed his gun was mis-

sing the next day and called the

boy’s mother, investigators said.

She went to Erwin Elementary

School where the principal took

the boy to the office and found the

loaded Glock model 42 .380 semi-

automatic pistol in the child’s

waistband, the sheriff said.

Mom posed as student topush for better security

TX EL PASO — A Texas

mom arrested for pos-

ing as her daughter at a middle

school said she did it to push for

better security on campus.

Casey Garcia, 30, was arrested

on one count each of criminal tres-

pass and tampering with govern-

ment records, El Paso County

Sheriff’s Office officials said.

Deputies were notified by San

Elizario Independent School Dis-

trict officials of Garcia trespass-

ing on school grounds and posing

as a student, the sheriff’s depart-

ment said.

In a YouTube video titled, “Why

I posed as my 13 year old daugh-

ter. A raw but real answer,” she

said she dyed her hair and used

skin tanner. Garcia said she did it

“for a social experiment.”

Hit-and-run driver fakedcarjacking report

NJ LYNDHURST — A driv-

er who struck and seri-

ously injured a pedestrian later

reported his car had been stolen

during a carjacking in an attempt

to cover up his involvement, au-

thorities said.

Samuel Torres, 38, of Nutley,

faces several charges stemming

from the accident in Lyndhurst.

The 56-year-old woman injured

in the accident remains hospital-

ized in critical but stable condi-

tion.

Shortly after the woman was

found, Torres called police and

said he had been assaulted and

knocked unconscious during a

carjacking. He also said his car

was missing, but authorities said

Torres was driving the vehicle

when the accident occurred and

the carjacking report was fabri-

cated.

JOE BURBANK, ORLANDO SENTINEL/AP

Florida Power & Light President and CEO Eric Silagy, far right, congratulates students of The Pink Team during the ribbon cutting for the FPLDiscovery Solar Center at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The publicprivate partnership with NASA at KSC started operation with more than250,000 solar panels on nearly 500 acres, located across from the KSC Visitor Complex. The Pink Team is a high school robotics competitionteam based in Rockledge, Fla., that reengineered their 2020 robot to cut the ribbon at the ceremony, marking the official opening of themassive solar energy facility.

Think pink

THE CENSUS

15M The amount in dollars awarded to five people who lost eggsor embryos when a cryogenic storage tank failed at a San

Francisco fertility clinic. A federal jury made the award in a lawsuit filed overthe 2018 tank failure at the Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco that de-stroyed about 3,500 frozen eggs and embryos. The award will go to three wom-en who lost eggs and a married couple who lost embryos.

From The Associated Press


The master plan, as Wolfgang Van Halen told hisdad late in 2019, would please everyone.

One last Van Halen tour. Eddie, the guitar hero, and brother Alex, the

drummer, would bring back both original sing-er David Lee Roth and his replacement, Sam-my Hagar. They would also recruit MichaelAnthony, the bassist replaced by a teenageWolfgang in 2007.

To top it all off, the opening act would benone other than Wolfgang Van Halen.

Fans would go crazy, getting to relive the iconic band’s past with boththe “Unchained” and “Why Can’t This Be Love” editions sharing a sin-gle stage. Wolfgang, who had been sitting on his debut solo record, adriving hard pop album on which he played every instrument, wouldfinally get a proper career launch of his own.

Looking back, Wolfgang wonders whether it was just wishful thinking.In late 2017, doctors had diagnosed Eddie Van Halen with Stage 4

lung cancer and told him he might not make it through the year. ButEddie didn’t listen. He flew to Germany for treatments and seemed tostabilize, which allowed him to drop by the studio as his son recordedhis first album. Eventually, when the cancer spread to the guitarist’sspine and brain, the trips to St. John’s Hospital became more frequent.

Then, in spring of 2020, COVID hit, bringing what remained of nor-mal life to a halt. Touring, like everything else, shut down. It was just afew months later, on Oct. 6, that the great Eddie Van Halen died of can-cer at 65.

Now 30, Wolfgang Van Halen strug-

gles with his father’s death even as he is

about to release his debut, “Mammoth

WVH,” and spend the summer opening

stadiums for Guns N’ Roses. It’s an excit-

ing time for Wolfie, as he is known to

family and friends. But he remains sad

and more than a little angry as he consid-

ers how the pandemic altered what

should have been his dad’s final encore.

Without COVID-19, he reasons, maybe

Pop flies to Germany for more radiation.

Maybe in the summer of 2020, instead of

standing outside the window of his fa-

ther’s house to say hello, and instead of

surrounding a hospital bed as he slips

away, they are on the road together, one

last time.

“The way we figured it, if I were to

open for Van Halen, he would come out

and play a solo for a song,” Wolfgang

says. “That would have been the end-all

dream.

“I will forever loathe COVID and how

it was handled,” he adds in an unusually

sharp political rebuke, “because they

stole that moment from me.”

Son before solo artistOn a Monday night in April, Wolfgang

Van Halen is wearing his standard uni-

form, a black hoodie and matching jeans.

He sits behind a mixing board under a

wall lined with guitars. This is 5150, the

Studio City, Calif., headquarters for Van

Halen for more than three decades and

now home base for Wolfgang.

He clicks through his phone to share

demos of songs that landed on his first

record. The jangly “Resolve” emerged

during a 2015 stop in Buffalo, N.Y.; “Hor-

ribly Right” in a hotel room in New York

City during that same tour. He also plays

an early version of “Distance,” a song

released in December with a heart-

wrenching video that rose to No. 1.

Stitching together home footage, the clip

opens with Eddie, circa 1991, cradling a

swathed Wolfie and ends with him eating

an ice cream next to his grown-up only

child in a darkened cinema. That 2017

screening of “It” would be one of their

last carefree outings.

“Mammoth WVH” could have come

out three years ago. It was done. Except

that in late 2017, at that showing of “It,”

Eddie couldn’t stop coughing. He went to

the doctor soon after and received his

dire diagnosis. That’s when Wolfgang’s

career went on hold.

“Ed was encouraging him to put (the

record) out,” says Valerie Bertinelli, his

Wolfgang Van Halen plays the last guitar his father,Eddie, went out on tour with, at the recording studiohis dad built.

DAMON CASAREZ/For The Washington Post

nowWolfgang Van Halen, the son of the late, great guitar hero Eddie Van Halen, is finally releasing his debut album, ‘Mammoth WVH.’ He doesn’t care whether you like it.

Right

BY GEOFF EDGERS

The Washington Post

SEE NOW ON PAGE 13

MUSIC


MUSIC

mother and Van Halen’s wife

from 1981 until their divorce in

2007. “But he just shut down

everything when Ed got diag-

nosed. He said, ‘I am not going

anywhere. I’m going to be here

for my dad.’”

Wolfgang Van Halen was

about 8 when his father put a

stack of magazines on the kitchen

table and had him hammer out

something that would approxi-

mate snare drum hits.

“If you can do this in time,” he

told the boy, “this is what playing

drums is.”

He got a kit for his 10th birth-

day and would sit at it, playing

along to Van Halen’s 1996 compi-

lation album, “Best of: Volume

1,” and Blink 182’s “Enema of the

State.” He got a guitar some-

where around his 12th birthday.

“In the beginning, when Ed

and I were still together and

Wolfie showed an aptitude for

music, Ed would beam,” Berti-

nelli says. “That’s all he ever

wanted. He wanted somebody to

play with.”

Music was always part of the

Van Halen family. Jan, the patri-

arch, started on clarinet and

saxophone in his native Nether-

lands. Eddie played drums and

piano, winning competitions

throughout his teens. He heard

Cream and Jimmy Page and

shifted his focus to guitar. Alex,

the older brother by two years,

played drums. In the early ’70s,

they formed Mammoth, later

renamed Van Halen.

“The brothers Van Halen, how

do you compete against the

brothers Van Halen?” says Matt

Bruck, who started with Eddie in

the early 1990s as a guitar tech

before rising to help co-manage

EVH Gear, the line of guitars

designed by Van Halen. “It’s just

not a fair fight. They’re so gifted.

And Wolf is equally that gifted,

but he is his own person.”

Which seems to bother some

Van Halen fans.

“Wolf,” wrote a Twitter user

named FoodieAcademy after the

Van Halen scion played “Dis-

tance” on “Jimmy Kimmel

Live!” in February. “Don’t know

your music well. What I’ve heard

was a guitar solo that was one

note. Boring & uninspired and in

a tribute to your legendary dad. I

know he taught you better than

that.”

Wolfgang, who is not one to

ignore his trollers, fired back.

“The solo for distance is ALL

emotion,” he responded, “and at

the emotional height of the song.

It’s why Pop loved it.”

And then a follow that ends

with a red heart emoji: “(So go

f—- yourself).”

Finding his own soundOn “Mammoth WVH,” Van

Halen wasn’t looking to flaunt his

finger work. Sometimes, as on

“Distance,” that meant a solo

built off a single, furiously picked

note on the 22nd fret. On “Mam-

moth,” the title track, a melodic,

three-note solo surges against a

thick wall of sound. It feels full

and wide-open, reminiscent of

1980s U2.

There’s also the guitar work on

the album’s opener, “Mr. Ed,”

where he offers enough searing

licks and finger tapping to power

a ’79 Camaro.

But one of rock’s greatest gui-

tarists didn’t play a note on his

son’s debut. Neither did anyone

else. Wolfgang played every

instrument and sang every vocal.

He wrote all of the songs. This

was by design. After years of

working for the family business,

he wanted to establish his own

voice. And if “Mammoth WVH”

contains shades of his many

influences, from AC/DC to Foo

Fighters to Jimmy Eat World,

there is one band it doesn’t sound

much like: Van Halen.

“When I first started hearing

it, the first thing I did was send

little love notes saying, ‘Hey, I’m

so proud of you,’” says Sammy

Hagar, Van Halen’s singer from

1986’s “5150” through 1995’s

“Balance.” “Some of the fans

were giving him s— because they

wanted it to sound like Van Ha-

len. I told him, f— these people.

You have the right to be your

own man, your own musician.”

Insecurity strugglesWolfgang has never been good

about taking compliments.

“I think he’s had those (musi-

cal) skills and that talent for so

long, he doesn’t realize that,

dude, that’s not normal,” says

Andraia Allsop, his girlfriend.

“The first thing I did when I

heard the album is, I texted him

and said, ‘You have no idea how

this has moved me,’” Bertinelli

says.

How did her son respond?

“He didn’t,” she says. “He’s

just like, ‘Oh, thanks, mom.’”

“Compliments go right through

my ear,” Van Halen says.

“There’s something wrong with

me, I guess.”

Insecurity runs in the family. If

David Lee Roth was the sexy

clown in leather chaps, Eddie

was the silent, musical superhero

with a lit cigarette in his head-

stock. He revolutionized the

instrument with his creativity,

dexterity and finger-tapping

technique, posing with his duct-

taped “Frankenstein” guitar in

seemingly every issue of Circus,

Creem or Rolling Stone.

But backstage was different.

Bertinelli recalls her husband

crying, inconsolable, after receiv-

ing an award in the early 1980s

and worrying how it would affect

his relationship with Roth. She

watched as his drinking —

shrugged off in the days when a

Jack Daniels bottle next to a

Marshall stack was as standard

to the rock star costume as a

mane of feathered hair — began

to change his behavior. The shy

artist grew temperamental; the

perfectionist began to forget

solos. There are clips all over the

internet of Eddie Van Halen,

glassy eyed and rambling at

instrument conventions or back-

yard jams. The drinking eventu-

ally ruined his marriage. It is

unclear how much of his career it

cost, but his son had a front-row

seat to the worst of it.

The tipping point, for Wolf-

gang, came in Florida during the

2007 reunion tour with Roth. He

was disgusted to see his father so

out of his mind onstage and re-

fused to grab his hand for the

final bow.

“The only person who could

actually get through Ed’s head

was Wolf,” says Pat Bertinelli,

Valerie’s brother, who traveled

on that tour.

After that Florida show, weeks

of concerts were canceled so

Eddie could go to rehab.

Support systemIn person, Wolfgang Van Ha-

len speaks softly and is polite. He

does not drink or smoke and

admits that the pandemic shut-

down, in some ways, hasn’t been

as hard on him as others. He’s

always been an introvert. He

shies away from parties, prefer-

ring virtual, video game hangs

with buddies he’s had since kin-

dergarten.

Van Halen is not alone. He and

Allsop, a software engineer from

Utah, have been together for six

years. He talks to or texts his

mom and Uncle Alex virtually

every day. He knows he can

always call up former Van Halen

manager Irving Azoff for advice.

He depends on the trio he calls

“The Trusted Humans,” made up

of Bruck, Uncle Pat (Bertinelli)

and manager Tim Tournier.

That can involve deciding how

to handle a request from the

Grammys that Wolfgang perform

his father’s signature instru-

mental, “Eruption,” as a tribute.

(A terrible idea, they all agreed.)

It can be processing why a guitar

magazine promises to write a

story about him, then puts his

father’s photo on the cover. And

it can also be making the difficult

decision to put off his debut al-

bum release and tour.

And plans can shift. Even be-

fore the terrible 2020, Van Halen

struggled with anxiety and de-

pression. Since his father’s death,

there are still days when he

struggles to get out of bed.

During this stretch, some of

the least supportive people have

been Van Halen fans. Toughen

up, they write. You wouldn’t be

anything without your dad.

They continue to blame him

for replacing Anthony, which

prevented a full reunion of the

glorious “Jump”-era Van Halen.

Those who insist that the band’s

original bassist should have been

in the room in 2012 working on

their final studio album don’t

realize what might have hap-

pened had Wolfgang Van Halen

not been there, Bertinelli says.

“Van Halen does not make a

final record without Wolfie,” she

says. “(Fans) got three extra

tours out of Van Halen because

of Wolf.”

Forging aheadThis should be a triumphant

time. There are already signs

that “Mammoth WVH” is des-

tined to be a hit. “Distance”

topped the Billboard charts in

December, and nearly 5 million

people clicked on the video on

YouTube. Terrie Carr, the pro-

gram director at the influential

WDHA-FM in New Jersey, said

that as a potential radio artist,

“Wolfgang checks all the boxes.”

“When you see a musician that

is able to do the things he does,

playing all the instruments but

playing them so professionally,

that’s sort of a rock ’n’ roll

Prince,” says Carr. “He can ap-

peal to a younger audience. Ev-

eryone knows Eddie, and now

you’ve got this next generation of

this wunderkind making music

and people saying, ‘Wow, that

apple doesn’t fall far from the

tree.’”

For Van Halen, the battle re-

mains how to move forward in

his own career while protecting

and promoting his father’s. Mon-

ey won’t be an issue. Eddie Van

Halen left a quarter of his estate

to the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foun-

dation, which donates instru-

ments to students who need

them. Most of the rest went to his

son. Van Halen also owns his

father’s likeness and decision-

making rights. Alex controls the

Van Halen recordings, but Wolf-

gang says the two will work to-

gether to preserve the band’s

legacy.

That won’t be easy. Wolfgang

doesn’t feel emotionally ready to

start going through the walls of

tapes Eddie left behind at 5150.

There may be tributes to Eddie

Van Halen down the road, but

don’t expect Wolfgang and the

other band members to tour

together. He and Uncle Alex are

close, but his relationship with

the others, he says, is little more

than cordial. And this summer,

you won’t hear Wolfgang Van

Halen in an arena throwing

“Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love” or

“Poundcake” into the set list.

It is the same reason he turned

down the Grammy request for

“Eruption” in March.

“My whole life, I’ve worked so

hard to be my own musician, and

even my dad would be like,

‘What are you doing?’” says Van

Halen. “‘Do your own s—. Stop

pretending to be me.’ That’s why

I said no. Because I’m not my

dad.”

Now: Wolfgang’s independence bothers some Van Halen fansFROM PAGE 12

CHRIS PIZZELLO, INVISION/AP

Wolfgang and Eddie Van Halen perform during a 2012 concert in Los Angeles. “That’s all (Eddie) everwanted. He wanted somebody to play with,” said his exwife and Wolfgang’s mother, Valerie Bertinelli.


BOOKS

Norman Maclean’s book novella

“A River Runs Through It,”

about fly-fishing and Montana,

is more poetry than narrative.

It’s also a triumph of American literature.

His son, John N. Maclean, is also an

author, and his latest book, “Home Wa-

ters,” is a lyrical companion to his father’s

classic, chronicling their family’s history

and bond with Montana’s Blackfoot River.

His storytelling — from the fishing with

his dad to the life and death of his uncle

Paul — is reliable, elegant and charming.

After a 30-year career as a journalist,

mostly as a correspondent for the Chicago

Tribune in Washington, D.C., the younger

Maclean took to writing well-received

nonfiction about wildfires in the American

West. He hadn’t

considered a family

memoir.

Then, he caught a

big trout — a really

big trout — while

fishing a stretch of

the Blackfoot that

his father memorial-

ized in “A River

Runs Through It,”

published in 1976.

He wrote about that

fish, “the fish of a

lifetime,” he called it, for a local club of

anglers, and then, with some prodding,

expanded the tale for a regional magazine.

That was the end of it, he thought, until a

couple years later when an editor un-

earthed the magazine article while on

vacation in Montana.

Did Maclean want to write a book?

“I thought this was going to be a big fish

story, but then it turned into something

very different,” says Maclean, now 78. “I

don’t call it a memoir. I call it a chronicle.

A memoir is about you, and this isn’t all

about me.”

Indeed, “Home Waters” is about geol-

ogy and glaciers and the forming of a

river. It’s about history and Meriwether

Lewis and how larch trees grew to be

giants. It’s about nostalgia and cross-coun-

try car rides to a family cabin by Seeley

Lake in Montana and how generations of

Macleans became tied to a place. There’s

also a fair bit about trout and his famous

father’s book.

“I do not fish alone on the Blackfoot

River, ever,” Maclean writes, “even

though now I mostly fish by myself. When

I’m on the water, and especially when no

one else is around, I feel the presence of

generations of my family whose stories

run through it.”

Maclean’s writing is often intimate.

Family lore, told and retold, can be a fuzzy

thing, but some memories about his fa-

ther, like their first time fishing together,

remained spectacularly vivid and person-

al.

“I could not write it,” Maclean says of

that childhood outing. “It was just too

much. Too overpowering. But when I got

to a place in ‘Home Waters’ where it was

appropriate, I knew I had to do it.”

“Home Waters” was not meant as a

“conscious parallel” to his father’s literary

achievement, Maclean says, but we do

learn more about the characters and sto-

ries that made “A River Runs Through It”

so splendid. After reading an early version

of “Home Waters,” a friend told Maclean,

“You’ve written the backstory to ‘A River

Runs Through It.’”

“I said, ‘I’ve done what?’ I almost fell off

my chair.”

“Home Waters,” though, stands nicely

on its own.

Fans of “A River Runs Through It,” and

particularly those of the movie adaptation,

will find intrigue in Maclean’s investiga-

tion into the death of his uncle. In the film,

Paul — played by a young Brad Pitt — is

beaten to death in Montana. In reality, he

was murdered in a Chicago alley, and,

although conspiracy theories abound, the

circumstances remain a mystery.

“I wanted to straighten people out,”

Maclean says.

Maclean concedes that his father’s book

is “more consistently poetic” than his own,

but he makes no apologies, noting that the

older Maclean was a renowned English

professor at the University of Chicago.

“I didn’t spend my career teaching

Shakespeare and Wordsworth,” he says. “I

spent my career writing hard news. That’s

me.”

While Maclean’s journalistic prose is

sharp and concise, it can also be beautiful.

In one instance, he describes coming upon

his father as daylight faded on the Black-

foot.

“He stood there next to the river,

framed by bluffs and mountains to either

side and the river running through them,”

he writes, “and with his arms outstretched

he gazed upward at the sunset with that

open, ecstatic expression on his face that

arose only in moments of greatest joy. He

stood like that for minutes.”

When “A River Runs Through It” was

published 45 years ago, the Blackfoot

River was a polluted mess and a lousy spot

to fish. The book — and certainly the film

in 1992 — brought celebrity status to the

river, and conservation efforts brought its

restoration.

“It’s better now than anything I remem-

ber from when I was a kid,” Maclean says.

The river’s prominence and renewal,

though, have created contemporary chal-

lenges. “Fisherfolk,” Maclean writes,

“dressed in fresh-from-the-box Stetson

hats and vests” crowded onto Montana

rivers, and “the Blackfoot River became a

heavily trafficked ‘must’ stop.”

The pandemic has hastened that specta-

cle. Celebrity, even for a river, has its

price.

“There is trouble on the river now be-

cause it is overused and nothing is being

done to sensibly restrict its use,” Maclean

says. “But I’m hoping that ‘Home Waters’

contributes toward the general movement

to try to do something. Otherwise, we will

love it to death.”

Peter Hubbard

Author John N. Maclean fishes in Montana. Maclean wrote “Home Waters,” which became a sort of backstory to “A River RunsThrough It,” the book novella written by his father, Norman. He says it was not meant as a “conscious parallel” to his father’s work.

‘I do not fish alone’‘Home Waters,’ John N. Maclean’s new book, chronicles how

his family is connected to the Blackfoot River in Montana

BY NICK EHLI

Special to The Washington Post


CROSSWORD AND COMICSNEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

GAME OVERBY ADAM WAGNER / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

46 Smaller alternative to a Quarter Pounder

48 Chicago team, in old ‘‘S.N.L.’’ sketches

50 Ski-lodge mugful

54 Fraternity letter

55 King of ancient Israel

56 Comic actress Gasteyer

57 Left, cutely

60 Great Lakes nation

64 Pickup line?

65 Like the columns of the Lincoln Memorial

66 Cures

68 ‘‘____ we good?’’

69 King of ancient Egypt

71 Tattoo artist, so to speak

73 Org. with a complex code

74 ‘‘Happy Days’’ network

75 Beach Boys song set to the tune of Chuck Berry’s ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen’’

78 King of myth

80 4G letters

81 ____ pace

82 Not doing so hot

86 F-, e.g.

87 Discourage

89 Waze way: Abbr.

90 Piece of plastic with a gladiator pictured on it

92 Physics demonstration often done from the roof of a school

95 ____-Briggs Type Indicator (popular personality test)

97 ‘‘I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure,’’ e.g.

98 King of Shakespeare

99 ‘‘Keep Austin ____’’ (city slogan)

101 Annual presidential address, for short

103 Partner

107 ‘‘No worries’’

109 ‘‘Bon appétit!’’

111 Christ, to Bach

113 Place

114 Chimney channels

116 Warning on presents stashed in the closet

118 King of Skull Island

119 ‘‘Huddle up!’’

121 Actress Elisabeth

122 When: Sp.

124 Early adolescent years, so to speak

125 Engage

126 Opposite of wind up

127 Infinitesimal

128 Toys with much assembly required

129 Travel-brochure listings

130 Named

DOWN

1 Some hip-hop collectibles

2 On dry land

3 Join a conference call, say

4 Quick to fall asleep, in a way

5 Sense of self

6 Día de San Valentín gifts

7 Tearfully complain

8 Tabloid nickname for mother Nadya Suleman

9 Powder in the powder room

10 Course with greens

11 Machiavellian sort

12 Omits

13 Objective

14 Gateway city to Utah’s Arches National Park

15 Some after-Christmas announcements

16 Home to about one in five Californians

17 Long-running sitcom set in Seattle

18 Them’s the breaks!

22 Spent some time on YouTube, say

28 Nobel Peace Prize recipient who wrote ‘‘No Future Without Forgiveness’’

29 Sought-after position

34 Pop

36 G.P.s, e.g.

39 City about 25 miles S.E. of Chicago, IL.

41 ____-faire (social adeptness)

44 Level the playing field?

45 Put one past

47 One ending for a classic board game — another of which (when a player resigns) is represented visually six times in this puzzle

49 Tough spots

50 Bother incessantly

51 Scoring win after win

52 Mowry who starred alongside her twin Tia in the ’90s sitcom ‘‘Sister, Sister’’

53 ____ Z

55 Cubs’ place to play home games

58 Wilson who wrote the lyrics to 75-Across

59 Play areas

61 The ‘‘Bel Paese,’’ to locals

62 Borrower

63 Scale

67 Quintessentially cowardly

69 Mosaic maker

70 Remove from under the seat in front of you, say

72 Ducks known for their soft down feathers

76 Tinker (with)

77 Yes or no follower

79 ‘‘I’ve got it!’’

83 Rob ____, British comedian and TV personality

84 Samosa tidbit

85 Part of an office phone no.

88 Tool for a duel

91 Sidewalk drawings

92 One of the Manning brothers

93 Disentangle oneself

94 Main source of energy?

95 Breakout 1993 single for Counting Crows

96 Stay awhile

100 Only color of the rainbow not seen on the L.G.B.T. pride flag

102 Portable dwellings

104 Richie with the No. 1 hit ‘‘All Night Long’’

105 Borrower

106 Potato cultivar that was developed in Ontario, despite its name

108 Pelvic exercise

110 Nintendo dino

112 Like diamonds from a mine

115 Father

117 Weak, as a case

119 ‘‘Oh, and another thing . . . ,’’ for short

120 Graffiti signature

123 College, to a Brit

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

22120291

524232

0392827262

635343332313

241404938373

94847464544434

554535251505

3626160695857565

76665646

47372717079686

089787776757

685848382818

1909988878

796959493929

6015014013012011010019989

311211111011901801701

811711611511411

321221121021911

621521421

031921821721

Adam Wagner, of Oakland, Calif., is a senior copywriter for an ad agency in San Francisco. He says his real No. 1 job, though, as of about two months ago, is being a first-time dad. Adam solves the Times crossword aloud every night with his son cuddled next to him — “so I imagine he’s one of the few people alive who can claim that he literally has a lifelong New York Times crossword solving streak.” — W.S.

ACROSS

1 Gilda of the original ‘‘S.N.L.’’ cast

7 They may need to be cut off

11 Ways of making ends meet?

16 Degree in design, for short

19 Cow’s-milk cheese that’s often grated

20 Sweet-16 org.

21 Honor named for a Greek goddess

23 Site of a lighthouse that was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

24 ‘‘____ pass’’

25 Where snow leopards and blue sheep roam

26 King of a nursery rhyme

27 Went to bat (for)

30 Test versions

31 Good fashion sense, in modern slang

32 Appear

33 Features of some indoor arenas

35 Theater-curtain material

37 Fired off, say

38 Grind

40 Money of the Philippines

42 Follow

43 One giving a khutbah sermon

GUNSTON STREET

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

RESULTS FOR ABOVE PUZZLE

RADNERSOTSSEAMSBFA

ASIAGONCAACLIOAWARD

PHAROSITLLHIMALAYAS

COLEADVOCATEDBETAS

DRIPSEEMDOMESSCRIM

SENTSLOGPESOSHEED

IMAMMACJRDABEARS

HOTCOCOARHODAVID

ANAWENTBYEBYEONEIDA

RAMDORICANTIDOTES

ARETUTINKERIRSABC

SURFINUSAMIDASLTE

SNAILSINBADSHAPEION

DETERRTEAMEXCARD

EGGDROPMYERSOATH

LEARWEIRDSOTUALLY

ITSOKENJOYJESULIEU

FLUESDONOTOPENKONG

BRINGITINSHUECUANDO

TENDERAGEHIREUNREEL

WEELEGOSINNSTITLED


GADGETS & TECHNOLOGY

“Joerns Motor Mfg. Co. St. Paul,

Minn.” on its gas tank.

It’s a tribute to a famous board

track racing motorcycle made by a

short-lived St. Paul company in the

early part of the 20th century. One of

Joerns’ 1915 Cyclone motorcycles

that had been part of actor Steve

McQueen’s collection was sold at

auction in 2015 for a record $775,000.

Clark said he actually got a taste of

the board track experience of a cen-

tury ago by riding one of his motori-

zed bicycles on the wooden National

Sports Center velodrome in Blaine

before it was torn down last year.

Clark has an art school back-

ground, experience as a furniture

designer and a day job as a senior

designer at Target Corp. But he’s also

been a longtime bike, motorcycle,

moped and scooter enthusiast.

Some of his other motorized bicy-

cles include ones modeled after vin-

tage Harley-Davidson and Indian

motorcycles. He made a yellow and

green John Deere-themed motorized

bicycle as a 70th birthday gift for his

father, a former farmer and a fan of

John Deere lawn mowers.

Clark and Murphy also worked on

a 1970s-influenced lowrider bike with

an electric engine, a leather battery

case and a fake raccoon tail dangling

from the handlebars. And they mod-

ified an old pedal-powered Schwinn

with a rack to carry an electric-pow-

ered longboard skateboard.

Functional, environmental Some of their bikes have been

purchased by businesses that use

them as cool display objects. But

they’re all ridable.

“We want to make sure they’re

functional,” Clark said. “It is an expe-

rience you can have with the art.”

Their piston-engine models will

feel familiar to anyone who rode a

moped from the 1970s, with response,

vibration and buzz of a little gas two-

stroke engine that’s peppy for its size

but maxes out at about 25 mph. Their

electric-drive models have the sur-

prising, “Oh-it’s-on!” silent acceler-

ation similar to that of an electric

scooter.

Clark wants to make his models

with piston engines more environ-

mentally friendly by running them on

biofuels. He’s growing algae in his

basement with the hopes of creating

a fuel that will burn cleaner than

fossil fuels in his two-stroke engines

and can be produced in enough vol-

ume to support microcommuting.

“An algae turbine bike is our next

build,” he said.

That’s an admittedly “crazy” idea

that Clark and Murphy have to re-

purpose an automobile turbocharger

unit and turn it into a bicycle turbine

engine powered by biofuel.

Clark said their motorized bicycles

are an answer to what he sees as a

“toxic masculinity” that is sometimes

seen in mainstream motorcycle cul-

ture. In other words, less speed, less

noise, more environmentally friend-

ly, more accessible. But still cool.

He compares what he and Murphy

are doing to a California company

called Super73 that makes pedal-

equipped two wheelers that resemble

1970s era mopeds, except they have

electric engines.

Clark and Murphy recently

showed off a batch of their bikes at a

pop-up exhibit in Murphy’s shop in

the Midway area of St. Paul. Their

hand-built machines range in price

from $2,500 to $5,500.

It’s not surprising that sales of

e-bikes are taking off.

The bikes, which are

equipped with electric motors

that make pedaling easier or even

unnecessary, have become a conve-

nient, easy-to-use, environmentally

friendly transportation alternative to

cars or even conventional bikes.

But are they cool? Would you ever

think of an e-bike as a ridable work of

art? Would Steve McQueen have ever

been seen pedaling one?

He might have if it had been cre-

ated by a couple of Twin Cities mak-

er types who are building what they

call “bespoke motovelos.” They’re

mounting electric or piston engines

on bicycle frames and adding vintage

parts and design elements to produce

pedalable homages to famous motor-

bikes of the past.

The bikes are designed by Minnea-

polis resident Jeremy Clark, in col-

laboration with his friend, Johnny

Murphy, a Roseville, Minn., inventor

and entrepreneur.

The two are serial tinkerer artists

who have exhibited offbeat projects

at places like Northern Spark, Art-A-

Whirl and the Mini Maker Faire.

Their MotoVolta line of bicycles is

a way for them to celebrate their love

of historical motorcycles as mechani-

cal works of art while using the bicy-

cle as a platform that’s more envi-

ronmentally friendly and more ac-

cessible.

Designed as tributes A bright yellow bike designed by

Clark with a one-cylinder engine has

a red logo labeled “Cyclone” and

ANTHONY SOUFFLE/TNS

Detail of the Cyclone tribute bike designed by Minneapolis designers Jeremy Clark and Johnny Murphy. Riders canpedal the bike or engage the small gaspowered engine to reach speeds up to 25 mph.

Not your average bikeTwo Minneapolis makers create cool engine-, pedal-powered two-wheelers

BY RICHARD CHIN

Star Tribune

The first thing you’ll notice about the Tula Mic is it’s a

cool-looking device, a look that can be considered retro.

But once you use it, there’s nothing retro about it.

The pocket-sized microphone is packed with features

beyond just being a recording device. It connects to a

computer with a USB-C connection but also works as a

stand-alone portable audio recorder with 8GB of internal

memory. An internal 700 mAh lithium ion battery will

last for up to 14 hours of portable recording with the noise

reduction off and 10 to 12 hours with it on.

The Tula works great. Audio is recorded with superb

clarity and removes unwanted background sound with

built-in noise reduction. The specifications list the fre-

quency range as 50-20k, with a bit depth/sample rate of

24-bit 48kHz.

Recording is done in two manners. The cardioid uni-

directional polar pattern is highly sensitive to sound di-

rectly in front of the microphone. With the omnidirection-

al recording, audio is gathered equally from all direc-

tions. Changing between recording choices is done with a

mic select button on the side.

The Tula is about the size of a deck of playing cards and

on the side is a 3.5mm input for your headphones or a

lavalier clip-on microphone. A flip stand is great for rotat-

ing it to the angle needed.

A pair of LED lights on the front indicate when record-

ing is taking place, the memory is full, battery level, and

act as a gain meter. Controls are on the side for gain up

and down, forward, back, mute, volume, recording on and

off, play, power and noise reduction.

Getting recorded files off the Tula is simple. Just con-

nect it to a PC as a drive, which allows the recorded .wav

files to be copied in the same way files would be copied

from an external drive.

Online: tulamics.com; $229, in cream, black and red

The Monos Kiyo purifying water bottle is a simple way

to ensure you have clean drinking water at home, work or

travel. It’s also a good way to eliminate many plastic wa-

ter bottles from your life.

It’s built and looks like many of today’s portable water

bottles, holding 500 mL and measuring 2.8-by-3.6-by-9.1

inches with an 11-ounce weight. A screw-on top and a

carrying handle make it look just like a water bottle.

But what makes the Kiyo different is that it’s built with

400 mAh of internal power and UVC technology to purify

the water content. Monos states it purifies water in as

little as 60 seconds, and neutralizes up to 99.99% of bacte-

ria in deep clean mode.

A USB-C charging port is built into the top cap and is

covered by a water-resistant tab. Assuming it’s charged,

to get the water clean just swipe across the cap, which

activates the Kiyo’s UVC purification system.

To get pure drinking water, there are two cleaning

modes, both activated from a sensor in the top of the cap

and show progress with a glowing light. The first is with

one swipe for a quick clean (blue

light), which takes 60 seconds,

the second is two swipes for

a three-minute deep clean

(green light).

A USB-C charging

cable is included. A full

charge of the battery

takes three hours,

which should last for a

month. With its dou-

ble-wall vacuum

insulation, beverag-

es will stay hot for

12 hours or cold

for 24 hours.

Online: mono-

s.com; $70, available in

six colors

GADGETS

Pocket-sized Tula Micpacked with features

BY GREGG ELLMAN

Tribune News Service

TULA/TNS


Max D. Lederer Jr., Publisher

Lt. Col. Marci Hoffman, Europe commander

Lt. Col. Michael Kerschbaum, Pacific commander

Michael Ryan, Pacific chief of staff

EDITORIAL

Terry Leonard, [email protected]

Robert H. Reid, Senior Managing [email protected]

Tina Croley, Managing Editor for [email protected]

Sean Moores, Managing Editor for [email protected]

Joe Gromelski, Managing Editor for [email protected]

BUREAU STAFF

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

PacificAaron Kidd, Pacific Bureau [email protected]+81.42.552.2511 ext. 88380; DSN (315)227.7380

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

CIRCULATION

MideastRobert Reismann, Mideast Circulation [email protected]@stripes.comDSN (314)583-9111

EuropeKaren Lewis, Community Engagement [email protected]@stripes.com+49(0)631.3615.9090; DSN (314)583.9090

PacificMari Mori, [email protected] +81-3 6385.3171; DSN (315)227.7333

CONTACT US

Washingtontel: (+1)202.886.0003633 3rd St. NW, Suite 116, Washington, DC 20001-3050

Reader [email protected]

Additional contactsstripes.com/contactus

OMBUDSMAN

Ernie GatesThe Stars and Stripes ombudsman protects the free flowof news and information, reporting any attempts by the

military or other authorities to undermine the newspaper’sindependence. The ombudsman also responds to concerns

and questions from readers, and monitors coverage forfairness, accuracy, timeliness and balance. The ombudsmanwelcomes comments from readers, and can be contacted by

email at [email protected], or by phone at202.886.0003.

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© Stars and Stripes 2021

stripes.com

OPINION

WASHINGTON

Construction of the San Francisco-

Oakland Bay Bridge took four

years in the 1930s, but after a

1989 earthquake, when one-third

of the Bay Bridge had to be replaced, this

took two decades. A nation planning to

quickly spend hundreds of billions on in-

frastructure should wonder why the repair

proceeded so sluggishly — and why the in-

flation-adjusted cost of building a mile of

the interstate highway system tripled be-

tween the 1960s and 1980s.

The Claremont Institute’s William Voe-

geli considers this evidence of “activist

government’s dysfunction” — govern-

ment’s inability, or unwillingness, to do one

thing at a time. Government cannot simply

repair a bridge; it must do so while com-

plying with an ever-thickening, sometimes

immobilizing web of ever-multiplying envi-

ronmental, labor, safety and other man-

dates. They also now include, as part of

what Voegeli calls the Biden administra-

tion’s “shock-and-awe statism,” Washing-

ton’s obsession with “equity” — racial dis-

tributions of government goods and servic-

es.

Remember Barack Obama’s 2010 epi-

phany about the nonexistence of his prom-

ised “shovel-ready” projects? According to

Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge in

“Capitalism in America: A History” (2018),

“Today bigger highway projects take a dec-

ade just to clear the various bureaucratic

hurdles before workers can actually get to

work.”

They note that nature, heedless of gov-

ernment, provided the nation’s first and

most consequential infrastructure: The

United States has more miles of navigable

rivers than the rest of the world combined.

Five rivers — the Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas,

Tennessee, Colorado — “flow diagonally

rather than perpendicularly, drawing the

country together into a natural geograph-

ical unit.”

In the 1820s, the nation’s first ambitious

human-made infrastructure project, the

363-mile Erie Canal, established that New

York, not New Orleans or Boston, would be

the premier U.S. port, with enormous polit-

ical and cultural consequences. Govern-

ment disbursement of land powered the de-

velopment of the 19th century’s greatest

non-natural infrastructure, railroads,

which knitted the nation’s regions into the

world’s largest single market. By 1905,

write Greenspan and Wooldridge, 14% of

the world’s railway mileage was connected

to Chicago. “By river,” write Greenspan

and Wooldridge, “the distance from Pitts-

burgh to St. Louis was 1,164 miles. By rail it

was 612 miles.”

“The railroads,” they write, “were the

first great crony capitalists. They bought

politicians, bribed judges, and, in Henry

Adams’s phrase, turned themselves into

‘local despotisms’ in one state after anoth-

er.” In the 1860s, when railroads helped the

North subdue the South, “Congress repeat-

edly gave away parcels of land the size of

northeastern states.” Gifts to the Union Pa-

cific were, cumulatively, equivalent to New

Hampshire and New Jersey combined. By

one scholar’s estimate, if all the land given

to railroads in that decade were cobbled in-

to one state, it would be the third largest,

smaller than Alaska and Texas but larger

than California.

In 1861, when Western Union connected

the coasts at Fort Laramie, Wyo., the tele-

graph quickly became a communications

infrastructure as important as broadband

is today. It instantly distributed financial

information, enabling Chicago to open its

commodities exchange in 1848.

The 20th century’s principal infrastruc-

ture involved pouring an ocean of concrete.

Greenspan and Wooldridge: “All America’s

hard-surfaced roads in 1900, laid end to

end, would not have stretched from New

York to Boston, or 215 miles.” In 1986,

workers completed I-80, the first transcon-

tinental interstate, from New York’s Ge-

orge Washington Bridge to the Bay Bridge.

Can today’s nation — divided by the politics

of envy and race-mongering; with “lead-

ers” too timid to ask 98.2% of Americans

(those earning less than $400,000) to pay

for the gusher of new government benefac-

tions — perform great feats?

Last month was the 60th anniversary of

President John F. Kennedy’s speech sum-

moning the nation to send astronauts to the

moon in the 1960s. Ben Domenech, publish-

er of The Federalist, says of the speech: “It

seems like it comes not just from a different

time but from a different country.” Kenne-

dy’s challenge required accomplishing 2

million tasks, a million of which involved

then-uninvented technologies. He did not

stoke racial or class divisions; he spoke of a

national identity receptive to great and un-

certain exertions. He did not pander to par-

ticular constituencies, promising union

jobs and racial “equity” throughout the

space program. Instead, he asked the na-

tion to take gigantic risks for the nation’s,

and humanity’s, benefit.

Whereas “Kennedy called the nation to

dare,” today, Domenech writes, America is

where “schools can’t fail kids for giving the

wrong answers, where teachers refuse to

teach even with precautions and vaccina-

tions, and where local authorities won’t put

down riots.” A different country.

What is the America of today capable of building?BY GEORGE F. WILL

Washington Post Writers Group

Ever since President Joe Biden an-

nounced that U.S. troops would be

leaving Afghanistan by Sept. 11,

there has been a troubling trend on

my social media platforms. Afghans with

whom I served during my deployment have

been reaching out more frequently. At first, it

is the familiar conversations that we have

shared in the three years since I left: how our

families are, current events, who has been

killed in action. Lately, the messages have

been direct and urgent. They are calls for help.

As U.S. and coalition troops leave Afghanis-

tan, thousands of translators will be without

not only their source of livelihood, but their

protectors. They are marked men, as the Tali-

ban retake sections of the country and have be-

gun assassinating them.

In 2009, Congress passed the Afghan Allies

Protection Act making Afghan translators eli-

gible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV).

There are currently some 18,000 deserving

Afghans who have applied under the SIV pro-

gram and are awaiting a decision. But the pro-

gram needs to be reformed, and time is run-

ning out.

I have participated in the SIV process. As I

was leaving Afghanistan in 2018, I wrote a let-

ter of recommendation for one of my inter-

preters, Hazrat, to the chief of mission at the

U.S. Embassy in Kabul. In addition to my let-

ter, he had to provide a human resources letter

from his company that stated that he had

worked there for at least two years, and that he

was under my charge during employment.

There are many problems with the current

process.

Ihad two interpreters but could only recom-

mend Hazrat because the other switched em-

ployers during my tour, resetting his two-year

employment clock. My other translator, Noo-

rullah, had to apply under a letter of recom-

mendation from another U.S. Army officer.

As for the human resources letter, it can be a

year or more until the company that employs

an interpreter is contacted by someone from

the embassy. As is the case with many contrac-

tors, the company could be closed or reorga-

nized, which leads to a denial.

The two-year requirement needs to be elim-

inated. Due to the current and previous coali-

tion withdrawals, many interpreters were re-

leased of their employment before they could

complete 24 months of service. Regardless,

how long you served coalition troops does not

make you any less of a target.

Finally, the process takes too long. Under

the Afghan Allies Protection Act the U.S. gov-

ernment has nine months to process a SIV ap-

plication. It took 36 in the case of Hazrat, and

that was just for his approval. He still is not in

the U.S., and it is unlikely that he will be before

the September withdrawal date. After which,

he and his family could be killed.

What is needed is an immediate evacuation

of Afghan interpreters to a third country.

There, they can safely conduct the SIV appli-

cation process. In 1996 the U.S. did just that for

Iraqi Kurds in what was known as Operation

Pacific Haven. In danger of reprisal from Sad-

dam Hussein due to their work with U.S. aid

groups, Kurds were airlifted to Guam. There

they were housed and processed through im-

migration before eventually settling in the

United States and other countries.

Verifying those who served as interpreters

for U.S. troops is a relatively straightforward

process. They have already gone through ex-

tensive background checks and undergo

counterintelligence screening every six

months. Unlike the thousands of refugees who

seek to enter our country each year, we have

records for those who have supported our

forces in Afghanistan.

It should be noted that the United States

does not and should not have to undertake this

evacuation alone. The NATO-led Resolute

Support mission in Afghanistan is a coalition

of 29 countries, all of which have had local na-

tional interpreter support.

We have a moral obligation to protect those

who put their lives on the line to support our

troops in America’s longest war. If we do not,

who would ever help our forces in a future con-

flict? We must not allow the date of Sept. 11 to

have yet another tragic meaning.

US can’t reciprocate translators’ help with just wordsBY WESLEY SATTERWHITE

Special to Stars and Stripes

Wesley Satterwhite is a master’s student at GeorgetownUniversity’s School of Foreign Service. A captain in the U.S.Army Reserve, he served as a mentor to Afghan National Armycommandos from 2017-2018.


SCOREBOARD/SPORTS BRIEFS

PRO SOCCER

MLS

EASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GA

New England 5 1 2 17 11 7

Philadelphia 4 2 2 14 9 5

Orlando City 3 1 3 12 8 4

NYCFC 3 2 2 11 13 7

CF Montréal 3 3 2 11 10 9

Columbus 3 2 2 11 7 6

Nashville 2 0 5 11 9 6

Atlanta 2 1 4 10 9 7

New York 3 4 0 9 10 10

D.C. United 3 5 0 9 8 11

Inter Miami CF 2 4 2 8 8 13

Toronto FC 1 4 2 5 8 12

Chicago 1 5 1 4 4 11

Cincinnati 1 4 1 4 6 15

Western Conference

W L T Pts GF GA

Seattle 5 0 3 18 14 3

Sporting KC 5 2 1 16 15 10

LA Galaxy 5 2 0 15 11 11

Colorado 4 2 1 13 12 8

Houston 3 3 2 11 11 12

San Jose 3 5 0 9 11 12

Portland 3 4 0 9 9 11

Real Salt Lake 2 1 3 9 9 7

LAFC 2 3 2 8 8 9

Vancouver 2 4 1 7 6 9

Austin FC 2 4 1 7 5 8

Minnesota 2 4 1 7 6 11

FC Dallas 1 3 3 6 8 11

Note: Three points for victory, one pointfor tie.

Saturday’s game

Austin FC at Sporting Kansas City

Friday, June 18

Nashville at New York Vancouver at Real Salt Lake

Saturday, June 19

Chicago at Columbus Colorado at Cincinnati Orlando City at Toronto FC New England at New York City FC Miami at D.C. United Minnesota at FC Dallas San Jose at Austin FC Seattle at LA Galaxy Sporting Kansas City at Portland Houston at Los Angeles FC

Sunday, June 20

Philadelphia at Atlanta

NWSL

W L T Pts GF GA

Orlando 3 0 2 11 7 4

Portland 3 2 0 9 11 4

Washington 2 1 2 8 5 5

Gotham FC 2 1 1 7 2 1

Houston 2 2 1 7 6 6

Chicago 2 2 1 7 4 7

North Carolina 1 2 1 4 6 3

Reign FC 1 2 1 4 2 3

Louisville 1 2 1 4 2 8

Kansas City 0 3 2 2 2 6

Note: Three points for victory, one pointfor tie.

Saturday, June 19

Reign FC at North Carolina Washington at Chicago

Sunday, June 20

Houston at Louisville Kansas City at Portland Gotham FC at Orlando

Tuesday, June 22

Chicago at Reign FC

Wednesday, June 23

Orlando at Kansas CityNorth Carolina at Louisville

PRO BASKETBALL

WNBA

EASTERN CONFERENCE

W L Pct GB

Connecticut 8 2 .800 —

New York 5 4 .556 2½

Washington 4 5 .444 3½

Atlanta 4 6 .400 4

Chicago 3 7 .300 5

Indiana 1 10 .091 7½

WESTERN CONFERENCE

W L Pct GB

Seattle 9 2 .818 —

Las Vegas 7 3 .700 1½

Phoenix 5 5 .500 3½

Dallas 5 5 .500 3½

Los Angeles 4 4 .500 3½

Minnesota 3 5 .375 4½

Thursday’s games

Washington 89, Los Angeles 71

Friday’s games

Seattle 86, Atlanta 75Dallas 77, Phoenix 59

Saturday’s games

Chicago at IndianaLos Angeles at Minnesota

Sunday’s games

Seattle at ConnecticutWashington at AtlantaDallas at Las VegasNew York at Phoenix

Monday’s games

No games scheduled

COLLEGE BASEBALL

NCAA Division I Super RegionalsBest-of-three; x-if necessary

At Fayetteville, Ark.Friday: No. 1 Arkansas 21, N.C. State 2Saturday: N.C. State vs. No. 1 Arkansasx-Sunday: N.C. State vs. No. 1 Arkansas

At Austin, TexasSaturday: South Florida at No. 2 TexasSunday: South Florida vs. No. 2 Texasx-Sunday: South Florida vs. No. 2 Texas

At Knoxville, Tenn.Saturday: LSU at No. 3 TennesseeSunday: LSU vs. No. 3 Tennesseex-Monday: LSU vs. No. 3 Tennessee

At Nashville, Tenn.Friday: No. 4 Vanderbilt 2, No. 13 East

Carolina 0Saturday: No. 13 East Carolina vs. No. 4

Vanderbilt, Noonx-Sunday: No. 13 East Carolina vs. No. 4

VanderbiltAt Tucson, Ariz.

Friday: No. 5 Arizona 9, No. 12 Mississippi3

Saturday: No. 12 Mississippi vs. No. 5 Arizona

x-Sunday: No. 12 Mississippi vs. No. 5Arizona

At Columbia, S.C.Saturday: �Dallas Baptist �at VirginiaSunday: �Dallas Baptist �vs. Virginiax-Monday: �Dallas Baptist �vs. Virginia

At Starkville, Miss.Saturday: No. 10 Notre Dame at No. 7

Mississippi St.Sunday: No. 10 Notre Dame vs. No. 7 Mis

sissippi St.x-Monday: No. 10 Notre Dame vs. No. 7

Mississippi St.At Lubbock, Texas

Friday: No. 9 Stanford 15, No. 8 TexasTech 3

Saturday: No. 9 Stanford vs. No. 8 TexasTech

x-Sunday: No. 9 Stanford vs. No. 8 TexasTech

French OpenFriday

At Stade Roland GarrosParis

Purse: Euro 16,404,509Surface: Red clay

Men’s SinglesSemifinals

Stefanos Tsitsipas (5), Greece, def. Alexander Zverev (6), Germany, 63, 63, 46,46, 63.

Novak Djokovic (1), Serbia, def. RafaelNadal (3), Spain, 36, 63, 76 (4), 62.

Women’s DoublesSemifinals

Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova (2), Czech Republic, def. Magda Linette, Poland, and Bernarda Pera, UnitedStates, 61, 62.

Bethanie MattekSands, United States,and Iga Swiatek (14), Poland, def. IrinaCamelia Begu, Romania, and Nadia Podoroska, Argentina, 63, 64.

Mercedes CupFriday

At Tennis Club WeissenhofStuttgart, GermanyPurse: Euro 543,210

Surface: GrassMen’s SinglesQuarterfinals

Sam Querrey, United States, def. Dominic Stephan Stricker, Switzerland, 67 (4),76 (4), 63.

Felix AugerAliassime (3), Canada, def.Ugo Humbert (6), France, 76 (5), 76 (8).

Marin Cilic, Croatia, def. Denis Shapovalov (1), Canada, 75, 76 (3).

Jurij Rodionov, Austria, def. Alex de Minaur (4), Australia, 36, 63, 76 (4).

Men’s DoublesQuarterfinals

Santiago Gonzalez, Mexico, and Marcelo Demoliner, Brazil, def. Lukasz Kubot andHubert Hurkacz, Poland, 64, 64.

Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni,Argentina, def. Dustin Brown and AndreBegemann, Germany, 67 (5), 64, 106.

Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig, Croatia, def.Yannick Hanfmann and Dominik Koepfer,Germany, walkover.

Gonzalo Escobar, Ecuador, and Ariel Be

har, Uruguay, def. Philipp Oswald, Austria,and Marcus Daniell (4), New Zealand, 76(8), 76 (5).

Nottingham OpenFriday

At Nottingham Tennis CentreNottingham, Great Britain

Purse: $235,238Surface: Grass

Women’s SinglesQuarterfinals

Johanna Konta (1), Britain, def. Alisonvan Uytvanck (8), Belgium, 63, 76 (6).

Nina Stojanovic (15), Serbia, def. TerezaMartincova, Czech Republic, 62, 64.

Zhang Shuai (4), China, def. Kristina Mladenovic (7), France, 36, 62, 76 (4).

Lauren Davis (14), United States, def. Katie Boulter, Britain, 67 (6), 20, ret.

Women’s DoublesQuarterfinals

Ankita Raina, India, and Julia Wachaczyk, Germany, def. Kaitlyn Christian, United States, and Nao Hibino (4), Japan, walkover.

SemifinalsLyudmyla Kichenok, Ukraine, and Mako

to Ninomiya (3), Japan, def. Johanna Konta, Britain, and Donna Vekic, Croatia, walkover.

Croatia OpenFriday

Bol, CroatiaPurse: Euro 92,742Surface: Red clayWomen’s Singles

SemifinalsJasmine Paolini (3), Italy, def. Anna Blin

kova (1), Russia, 62, 62. Arantxa Rus (2), Netherlands, def. Irina

Bara, Romania, 62, 61. Women’s Doubles

SemifinalsKatarzyna Kawa, Poland, and Aliona Bol

sova Zadoinov, Spain, def. Sara Errani, Italy, and Lara Arruabarrena, Spain, 64, 67(3), 108.

Ekaterine Gorgodze, Georgia, and Tereza Mihalikova, Slovakia, def. Arantxa Rus,Netherlands, and Viktoria Kuzmova (1),Slovakia, 57, 63, 107.

PRO TENNIS

DEALS

Friday’s transactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

BALTIMORE ORIOLES — Reinstated OFAustin Hays from the 10day IL. ClearedRHP Shawn Armstrong off waivers thensent outright to Norfolk (TripleA East).

CLEVELAND INDIANS — Optioned OF Jordan Luplow to Columbus (TripleA East)on a rehab assignment.

HOUSTON ASTROS — Sent C Jason Castro to Sugar Land (TripleA West) on a rehab assignment. Placed RHP Enoli Paredes on the 10day IL. Recalled RHP RalphGarza from Sugar Land.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS — Sent RHP JakeNewberry outright to Omaha (TripleAEast).

MINNESOTA TWINS — Optioned 2B LuisArraez to St. Paul (TripleA East) on a rehab assignment.

SEATTLE MARINERS — Reinstated RHPJustin Dunn and RHP Kendall Gravemanfom the 10day IL. Optioned RHP KenyanMiddleton to Tacoma (TripleA West).Designated RHP Yacksel Rios for assignment.

TAMPA BAY RAYS — Designated C DeivyGrullon for assignment.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS — Reinstated INFCavan Biggio from the 10day IL. OptionedINF Santiago Expinal to Buffalo (TripleAEast).

National LeagueCHICAGO CUBS — Selected the contract

of C Jose Lobaton from Iowa (TripleAEast). Designated RHP Dakota Chalmersfor assignment. Placed C P.J. Higgins onthe 10day IL.

CINCINNATI REDS — Placed RHP TejayAntone on the 10day IL, retroactive toJune 8. Signed 1B Logan Morrison to a minor league contract.

MIAMI MARLINS — Signed LHP MasonMelatokis to a minor league contract.

NEW YORK METS — Claimed RHP NickTropeano off waivers from San Franciscothen optioned to Syracuse (TripleA East).Transferred RHP Tommy Hunter from the10day IL to the 60day IL. Reinstated INFLuis Guillorme from the 10day IL. Optioned INF Travis Blankenhorn to Syracuse(TripleA East).

ST. LOUIS CARDINALS — Reinstated SSPaul DeJong from the 10day IL. OptionedOF Justin Williams to Memphis (TripleAEast) on a rehab assignment.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — Acquired LHPMichael Plassmeyer from Tampa Bay inexchange for RHP Matt Wisler and cashconsiderations then optioned him to Richmond (DoubleA Northeast). Purchasedthe contract of RHP Akeel Morris fromLong Island (Atlantic League). ReinstatedLHP Caleb Baragar from the 10day IL andrehab assignment. Optioned INF ThairoEstrada to Sacramento (TripleA West).Ourighted LHP Scott Kazmir after clearingwaivers to Sacramento.

BASKETBALLWomen’s Basketball Association

MINNESOTA LYNX �— Waived G LayshiaClarendon.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

BALTIMORE RAVENS — Signed LB OdafeOweh to a fouryear contract. AnnouncedNick Matteo promoted to vice president offootball administration, Andrew Raphaelpromoted to national scout, Joey Clearypromoted to southeast area scout, CoreyFrazier promoted to west coast area scoutand Chas Stallard promoted to southwestarea scout.

CHICAGO BEARS — Signed QB JustinFields.

DALLAS COWBOYS — Signed WR ReggieDavis to a contract. Signed DT Osa Odighizuwa to a rookie contract. Waived OL Justin Skule.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS — Signed SAndre Cisco.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS — Placed QBDrew Brees on the reserve/retired list.

NEW YORK JETS — Signed S SharrodNeasman. Placed OL Parker Ferguson oninjured reserve.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES — Resigned TERichard Rodgers. Agreed to terms with WRMichael Walker.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Signed G SenioKelemente. Waived OL Justin Skule withan injury designation.

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS — Waived DB LaDarius Wiley.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

BUFFALO SABRES — Signed F JohnJasonPeterka to a threeyear contract.

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

LOS ANGELES FC — Loaned G TomasRomero, Ds Mohamed Traore and Tony Leone, Fs Mamadou Fall, Bryce Duke, AlvaroQuezada, Christian Torres and Cal Jennings to Las Vegas (USL Championship).

MINNESOTA UNITED FC — Signed F Hassani Dotson to a threeyear contract witha oneyear option.

Palmetto ChampionshipPGA Tour

FridayAt Congaree Golf Club

Ridgeland, S.C.Yardage: 7,655; Par: 71

Purse: $7.3 MillionSecond Round

Chesson Hadley 65-66—131 -11 Dustin Johnson 65-68—133 -9Tain Lee 67-68—135 -7 Harris English 67-69—136 -6Chez Reavie 67-69—136 -6Erik van Rooyen 65-71—136 -6Pat Perez 70-66—136 -6 Seamus Power 70-66—136 -6Wilco Nienaber 68-68—136 -6Garrick Higgo 68-69—137 -5Rob Oppenheim 69-68—137 -5Doc Redman 65-72—137 -5 Patrick Rodgers 67-70—137 -5Henrik Norlander 70-68—138 -4Hudson Swafford 68-70—138 -4Jhonattan Vegas 66-72—138 -4Tyrrell Hatton 71-68—139 -3

Mediheal ChampionshipLPGA Tour

FridayAt Lake Merced Golf Club

Daly City, Calif.Purse: $1.5 million

Yardage: 6,589; Par: 72Second Round

Danielle Kang 71-66—137 -7Lauren Kim 69-69—138 -6Leona Maguire 65-73—138 -6Min Lee 70-69—139 -5Matilda Castren 71-69—140 -4Jenny Coleman 71-69—140 -4Jane Park 69-71—140 -4Alison Lee 68-72—140 -4Charley Hull 73-68—141 -3Yu Liu 72-69—141 -3Jenny Shin 72-69—141 -3Yealimi Noh 72-69—141 -3A Lim Kim 72-69—141 -3Angel Yin 72-69—141 -3Su Oh 71-70—141 -3Lauren Stephenson 70-71—141 -3Patty Tavatanakit 70-71—141 -3

American Family InsuranceChampionshipChampions Tour

FridayAt University Ridge Golf Course

Madison, Wis.Purse: $2.4 million

Yardage: 7,083; Par: 72First Round

Miguel Angel Jiménez 31-34—65 -7Jerry Kelly 34-33—67 -5Jim Furyk 34-34—68 -4Fred Couples 33-35—68 -4Retief Goosen 34-34—68 -4Ken Tanigawa 33-35—68 -4Colin Montgomerie 33-35—68 -4Wes Short, Jr. 32-36—68 -4Ken Duke 33-36—69 -3Rod Pampling 33-36—69 -3Robert Karlsson 34-35—69 -3Brandt Jobe 36-33—69 -3Scott Dunlap 36-33—69 -3Esteban Toledo 34-35—69 -3Steve Stricker 35-35—70 -2Bernhard Langer 34-36—70 -2

GOLF

AP SPORTLIGHT

June 13

1913 — James Rowe, who had won backtoback Belmont Stake races in 187273 asa jockey, sets the record for the most number of Belmont Stakes wins by a trainer,eight, when he sends Prince Eugene to victory.

1935 — Jim Braddock scores a 15roundunanimous decision over Max Baer in NewYork to win the world heavyweight title.

1953 — Ben Hogan wins the U.S. Open forthe fourth time, with a sixstroke victoryover Sam Snead.

1993 — Patty Sheehan wins the LPGAChampionship for a third time, with a 2under 69 for a onestroke victory over LauriMerten.

Euro 2020 game stopped

after player collapses COPENHAGEN — The Eu-

ropean Championship game be-

tween Denmark and Finland was

suspended Saturday after Chris-

tian Eriksen needed urgent med-

ical attention on the field near the

end of the first half.

Eriksen was given treatment for

about 10 minutes after collapsing

on the field before being carried

off on a stretcher. UEFA then an-

nounced the game had been sus-

pended “due to a medical emer-

gency.”

A stadium announcer asked

fans to stay in their seats until fur-

ther information could be provid-

ed.

Eriksen had just played a short

pass when he fell face-forward on-

to the ground. His teammates im-

mediately gestured for help and

medics rushed onto the field. Erik-

sen was given chest compressions

as his teammates stood around

him in a shielding wall for privacy.

The Finland players huddled by

their bench and eventually walk-

ed off the field while Eriksen was

still getting treatment, as did the

referees.

Eriksen was eventually carried

off to a loud ovation, with his team-

mates walking next to the stretch-

er.

Hadley up two strokes

in PGA Tour eventRIDGELAND, S.C. — Chesson

Hadley is off to his best start on the

PGA Tour since 2016, shooting a 5-

under 66 on Friday for a two-

stroke lead over Dustin Johnson in

the Palmetto Championship at

Congaree.

Hadley was at 11-under 131 at

Congaree Golf Club, his lowest to-

tal through 36 holes since the The

RSM Classic in 2016.

The top-ranked Johnson, who

opened his afternoon round five

shots behind early starter Hadley,

was tied for the lead through 17

holes.

But Johnson drove the ball left

on No. 18 and into a thick, deeply

rooted patch of tall grass. He took

an unplayable lie, hit his third shot

over the green and made a double-

bogey 6 for a 68. Still, at 9-under

133, he had his best 36-hole start

since winning the Travelers al-

most a year ago.

American Tain Lee, in just his

third career PGA Tour event, was

third at 7 under after a 68. A group

of six that included Harris English

and South Africa’s Erik van

Rooyen were five shots behind at 6

under.

Hadley followed an opening 65

with seven birdies and two bogeys

to top the leaderboard. Coming in,

he had missed the cut in 10 of his

past 12 events.

“I definitely didn’t see this com-

ing,” he said.

Associated Press

BRIEFLY


COLLEGE BASEBALL/FRENCH OPEN

Vanderbilt’s Kumar Rocker and Stan

ford’s Brendan Beck turned in dominant

pitching performances in NCAA super re

gionals Friday to put their teams on the cusp

of berths in the College World Series.

Rocker led the reigning national cham

pion Commodores to a 20 victory over East

Carolina in Nashville, and Beck held down

one of the nation’s top offensive teams in a

153 win over Texas Tech in Lubbock, Tex

as.

No. 1 national seed Arkansas made fast

work of North Carolina State in the opener

of its bestofthree series, getting a grand

slam from Cullen Smith and two homers

from Robert Moore in a 212 win in Fayette

ville, Ark. It was the largest margin of victo

ry in super regionals since the tournament

went to its current format in 1999.

Tony Bullard continued his threeweek

offensive surge, homering twice and tripli

ng to lead Arizona past Mississippi 93 in

Tucson, Ariz.

Rocker, who could be the first player tak

en in the Major League Baseball draft next

month, allowed three hits and struck out 11

in 72⁄�3 innings in what was probably his final

appearance at Hawkins Field. In the region

al opener against Presbyterian last week, he

threw seven innings of twohit shutout ball

for No. 4 national seed Vandy (4415).

Stanford’s Beck (91) went to the mound

in the bottom of the first inning with a four

run lead. He had 02 counts on 18 of the 30

batters he faced and struck out a career

high 13 in 71⁄�3 innings. He gave up two runs

and was never stressed after the No. 9 Car

dinal (3715) scored four times in the first on

a homer by Tim Tawa and three straight

RBI singles.

The Razorbacks’ 21 runs were their most

in 162 alltime NCAA Tournament games

and the most allowed by the Wolfpack in

123.

MARK HUMPHREY/AP

Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker deliversagainst East Carolina during Friday’s superregional in Nashville, Tenn.

NCAA SUPER REGIONALS

Vanderbilt,Stanforddominate

BY ERIC OLSON

Associated Press

PARIS — Thinking of her late coach the

whole time, Barbora Krejcikova went from

unseeded to Grand Slam champion at the

French Open.

Krejcikova beat 31stseeded Anastasia

Pavlyuchenkova 61, 26, 64 in the final at

Roland Garros on Saturday to win the title in

just her fifth major tournament as a singles

player.

When it ended with Pavlyuchenkova’s

backhand landing long on the fourth match

point for Krejcikova, a 25yearold from the

Czech Republic, they met at the net for a hug.

Then Krejcikova blew kisses, her eyes

squeezed shut, in tribute to her former

coach, Jana Novotna, the 1998 Wimbledon

champion who died of cancer in 2017.

“Pretty much her last words were just en

joy and just try to win a Grand Slam. And, I

mean, I know that, from somewhere, she’s

looking after me,” Krejcikova told the crowd

at Court Philippe Chatrier, limited to 5,000

because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“All of this that just happened, these two

weeks, is pretty much because she is just

looking after me from up there,” Krejcikova

said, lifting her left hand toward the sky. “It

was amazing that I had a chance to meet her

and that she was such an inspiration for me. I

just really miss her. But I hope she’s happy

right now. I’m extremely happy.”

Krejcikova is the third unseeded women’s

champion since 2017 at Roland Garros.

There were zero from 1968 through 2016.

She now will try to become the first wom

an since Mary Pierce in 2000 to win the

French Open singles and doubles titles in the

same year. Krejcikova and partner Katerina

Siniakova already own two Grand Slam dou

bles titles and reached Sunday’s final of that

event.

Pavlyuchenkova, a 29yearold Russian,

was playing in her first Grand Slam final in

the 52nd major tournament of her career —

the most appearances by a woman before re

aching a title match.

“Since (I was) a little girl, I was thinking if

one day I will be standing here, I was prepar

ing a speech all the time when I was little.

What I could have said. What I would say.

Right now, I have no words, actually. I forgot

everything that I was preparing,” said Pav

lyuchenkova, who was treated for a left leg

problem late in the second set.

“In the last point, I think I was dead,” she

said. “I don’t have any more fuel.”

This was only the second WTA singles title

for Krejcikova — and they’ve come in her

past two tournaments.

She is the sixth consecutive firsttime

Grand Slam champion to collect the wom

en’s championship at Roland Garros, where

the red clay can frustrate players by dimin

ishing the effectiveness of speedy serves

and by creating odd bounces.

THIBAULT CAMUS/AP

The Czech Republic’s Barbora Krejcikova reacts Saturday after defeating Russia’sAnastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the women’s singles final of the French Open at RolandGarros Stadium in Paris. Krejcikova won 61, 26, 64.

Krejcikova wins 1stSlam title in Paris

AP tennis writer Howard Fendrich in Washington contributed tothis report.

Czech player pays tribute to late former coachBY SAMUEL PETREQUIN

Associated Press

As big a deal, as significant an accom

plishment, as it was for Novak Djokovic to

eliminate Rafael Nadal in the French Open

semifinals, there is still another match to

play in Paris.

And that fourset, fourhourplus victory

over 13time Roland Garros champion Na

dal really won’t mean much to Djokovic in

the scheme of things if he can’t finish the job

Sunday by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas, too.

“It’s not the first time that I play an epic

semifinal in a Grand Slam and then I have to

come back in less than 48 hours and play a

final. My recovery abilities are pretty good,

I must say, throughout my career,” Djokov

ic said. “I know what I need to do. Obvious

ly, Tsitsipas, first time in the finals of a

Grand Slam, if I’m not mistaken — for him,

it’s a great achievement, but I’m sure he

doesn’t want to stop there.”

Neither, of course, does Djokovic.

He doesn’t enter Grand Slam tourna

ments to get to finals (this will be his 29th, 28

more than his much younger opponent).

He has made perfectly clear that all he re

ally cares about at this stage of his career is

winning them, and a victory over Tsitsipas

would give the 34yearold from Serbia a

second French Open championship and,

more importantly, a 19th major overall.

That would be Djokovic’s seventh title in

a span of 11 Slams and move him within just

one of the men’srecord 20 accumulated by

his two great rivals, Roger Federer and Na

dal.

There’s also this milestone within reach

for Djokovic, something Federer and Nadal

haven’t done: He can join Rod Laver and

Roy Emerson as the only men in tennis his

tory to win each of the four major tourna

ments at least twice.

Djokovic has won five of their previous

seven encounters, although Tsitsipas did

push him to five sets before losing in the

semifinals of the 2020 French Open.

MICHEL EULER/AP

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic puts his hand onhis heart after defeating Spain’s RafaelNadal in the semifinals on Friday in Paris.

Djokovicgoes after19th major

BY HOWARD FENDRICH

Associated Press


NBA PLAYOFFS

PlayoffsCONFERENCE SEMIFINALS

(Best-of-seven)x-if necessary

Eastern ConferenceBrooklyn 2, Milwaukee 1

Brooklyn 115, Milwaukee 107Brooklyn 125, Milwaukee 86Milwaukee 86, Brooklyn 83Sunday: at MilwaukeeTuesday: at Brooklynx-Thursday: at Milwaukeex-Saturday, June 19: at Brooklyn

Philadelphia 2, Atlanta 1Atlanta 128, Philadelphia, 124Philadelphia 118, Atlanta 102Friday: Philadelphia 127, Atlanta 111Monday: at AtlantaWednesday: at Philadelphiax-Friday, June 18: at Atlantax-Sunday, June 20: at Philadelphia

Western ConferencePhoenix 3, Denver 0

Phoenix 122, Denver 105Phoenix 123, Denver 98Friday: Phoenix 116, Denver 102Sunday: at Denverx-Tuesday: at Phoenixx-Thursday: at Denverx-Sunday, June 20: at Phoenix

Utah 2, L.A. Clippers 0Utah 112, L.A. Clippers 109Utah 117, L.A. Clippers 111Saturday: at L.A. ClippersMonday: at L.A. Clippersx-Wednesday: at Utahx-Friday, June 18: at L.A. Clippersx-Sunday, June 20: at Utah

Scoreboard

ATLANTA — Joel Embiid kept taking

falls. He also kept rising to his feet.

Nothing was going to take Philadelphia’s

big center off the court with the playoff se-

ries lead on the line.

Embiid scored 27 points and the 76ers

rode a dominant third quarter to a 127-111

victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday

night and a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Confer-

ence semifinal series.

Embiid, playing with a cartilage tear in

his right knee, added nine rebounds, eight

assists and three blocked shots. He played

34 minutes despite turning his ankle on one

fall and landing hard on his back on anoth-

er.

“I’m OK,” Embiid said. “I’m standing up.

I’m walking. I finished the game. So I’m

gonna keep getting back up. I’m going to

keep fighting. That’s been me since I’ve

been playing basketball. ... Whatever hap-

pens, get back up and keep it going.”

Tobias Harris had 22 points and Ben

Simmons added 18 to help the 76ers end At-

lanta’s streak of 13 home wins. The 76ers

have taken the series lead with back-to-

back wins.

Simmons has had primary defensive re-

sponsibility against Trae Young, who led

Atlanta with 28 points, in each of the 76ers’

two wins in the series. On Friday night, he

was challenged to take a bigger offensive

role, especially with Embiid facing con-

stant double-teams.

“I was just trying to push the pace and get

in the lane, stay aggressive and get to the

rim, get into a rhythm,” Simmons said. “I

think I did a good job of that in the second

half.”

The 76ers played up to their No. 1 seed,

taking a lead of 22 points and keeping the

advantage in double figures most of the

second half. The Hawks played from be-

hind after their last lead at 11-10.

Trae Young led Atlanta with 28 points.

John Collins had 23 and Bogdan Bogdanov-

ic 19.

Game 4 is Monday night in Atlanta.

The Hawks have difficulty matching up

with Embiid (7-0, 280) but also have size

disadvantages at other spots, including

with the 6-foot-9 Simmons guarding the 6-

foot-1 Young.

“It’s not anything we can’t adjust to,”

Young said.

But when asked what the Hawks can do,

Young added “Obviously, if I had the an-

swers, we wouldn’t be talking about it right

now.”

The 76ers outscored the Hawks 66-58 in

the paint and 15-6 on fast breaks.

“I think their size has had an impact on

this series,” Hawks coach Nate McMillan

said. “They just pretty much pounded us in

the paint tonight.”

After leading 65-60 early in the third pe-

riod, Philadelphia took command with an

11-0 run. The 76ers outscored the Hawks

34-19 in the third period.

Simmons had two baskets during the run,

including a jam for a 76-60 lead.

Atlanta couldn’t regain the momentum

as the 76ers stretched the lead to 20 points,

93-73, late in the period.

Embiid, who faced constant double-

teams from Atlanta’s defense, made 12 of 16

free throws.

Embiid had a scare in the third quarter

when he limped and appeared to be in pain

after grabbing a rebound. Embiid ap-

peared to step awkwardly on Clint Capela’s

foot, turning his ankle.

“He’s playing hard,” said 76ers coach

Doc Rivers. “He’s giving us everything. ...

He is going through a lot, I’ll tell you that.”

Korkmaz emergesAfter Shake Milton energized the 76ers

by scoring 14 points off the bench in Game

2, Philadelphia found bench production

from a different source.

Furkan Korkmaz, who scored a com-

bined seven points in the first two games of

the series, scored 11 points in the opening

period while making two threes. He added

another three in the fourth for 14 points.

“It was huge,” Embiid said. “We got that

early lead because of him.”

Embiid, 76ers take 2-1 lead against Hawks

JOHN BAZEMORE/AP

Hawks forward John Collins, front, and Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) vie for the ball as teammates look on during thesecond half of Game 3 of their secondround playoff series Friday in Atlanta. Embiid scored 27 points in the 76ers’ 127111 victory.

BY CHARLES ODUM

Associated Press

DENVER — Deandre Ayton

scrutinized the box score and

couldn’t believe his eyes as he

read Nikola Jokic’s stat line: 32

points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists.

“That’s insane. That’s the

MVP,” Ayton said after the Phoe-

nix Suns overcame the Joker’s

historic triple-double to thump

Denver 116-102 Friday, putting

the Nuggets on the brink of elim-

ination.

Following a raucous pregame

ceremony celebrating his MVP

award, Jokic joined Wilt Cham-

berlain and Kareem Abdul-Jab-

bar as the only players with 30

points, 20 boards and 10 assists in

an NBA playoff game. Jokic,

though, was apologetic afterward,

telling his teammates this loss

was on him because of his 13-

for-29 shooting performance.

Nonsense, said Denver guard

Monte Morris, who called Jokic’s

performance phenomenal.

“He’s carrying us,” Morris said.

“We’ve got to help him.”

Morris scored 21 off the bench

but Denver’s four other starters

scored just 30 points, half by Mi-

chael Porter Jr., who was 5-for-13

from the floor.

Devin Booker scored 28 points

and teamed with Chris Paul to

lead a steady offensive onslaught

that countered Jokic’s big night.

“We knew this was going to be

an emotional game for them with

Joker being presented with the

trophy before the game,” Paul

said. “We just talked about with-

standing their runs.”

Jokic seemed to consider his

big game more horrific than his-

toric.

“I’m frustrated with myself be-

cause I missed shots,” said Jokic,

who also missed four of nine free

throws. “I didn’t play on top of my

game, especially shooting-wise. It

would be much easier for us if I

started making shots. Of course,

they’re making it tough for me to

make shots.”

With their sixth straight victo-

ry, the second-seeded Suns took a

3-0 lead in the best-of-seven se-

ries. Game 4 is Sunday at Ball

Arena.

Paul had 27 points, eight assists

and three steals for the Suns, who

pulled away after halftime for the

third straight time. All five of

Phoenix’s starters scored in dou-

ble figures.

They are a one win away from

their first trip to the Western Con-

ference Finals since 2009-10 —

which was the last time Phoenix

made the playoffs.

Suns spoil Jokic’s MVP party, beat Nuggets

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/AP

Denver’s Nikola Jokic accepts theMost Valuable Player awardbefore Game 3 of the Nuggets’secondround series againstPhoenix on Friday in Denver.

Associated Press


NHL PLAYOFFS

Semfinals

(Best-of-seven; x-if necessary)

Vegas vs. Montreal

Monday: at VegasWednesday: at VegasFriday: at MontrealSunday, June 20: at Montrealx-Tuesday, June 22: at Vegasx-Thursday, June 24: at Montrealx-Saturday, June 26: at Vegas

Tampa Bay vs. N.Y. Islanders

Sunday: at Tampa BayTuesday: at Tampa BayThursday: at N.Y. IslandersSaturday: at N.Y. Islandersx-Monday, June 21: at Tampa Bayx-Wednesday, June 23: at N.Y. Islandersx-Friday, June 25: at Tampa Bay

Scoreboard

scout or prepare for them.

“Different season for every-

one,” Canadiens coach Domin-

ique Ducharme said. “Different

style of play or different teams

that you play often, but that’s part

of the challenge for everyone right

now.”

If Montreal-Vegas, which be-

gins Monday night, goes the dis-

tance, the teams will face off more

times during one playoff series

than they have all-time in the reg-

ular season, because the Golden

Knights began playing in 2017.

The Lightning and Islanders

grinded out a six-game series nine

months ago in the postseason bub-

ble in Edmonton, Alberta, so there

will be some familiarity when the

puck drops Sunday afternoon in

Tampa.

“It helps a little bit,” Islanders

coach Barry Trotz said. “Most of

our players played in that series,

so they understand when we’re

talking about certain trends or the

way they play.”

Tampa Bay won that series last

fall before beating Dallas and

hoisting the Stanley Cup. With the

Lightning, Islanders and Golden

Knights in the semifinals again,

the NHL has three of the same

teams in the final four for the first

time since 1991 and 1992.

Vegas center Mattias Janmark

and Montreal winger Corey Perry

are back in the third round after

going on a run to the final with

Dallas.

Perry said watching games in

other divisions helps get past the

uncertainty.

“I think you look at our two

teams and there’s four lines on

both sides, six D, and two great

world-class goalies are going to go

battle head-to-head,” Perry said.

“It’s going to be fun.”

The Lightning are having fun

with 2019 MVP Nikita Kucherov

back after missing the regular

season recovering from hip sur-

gery. Kucherov leads all scorers

with 18 points through two rounds

of the playoffs.

“He’s a tremendous hockey

player,” Islanders GM Lou Lamo-

riello said.

The Islanders remember how

tremendous Kucherov can be, and

Tampa Bay now has captain Ste-

ven Stamkos playing, too. But

each team also knows there are

some differences masked by not

being on the ice together since

September.

“Maybe you wish you had

played them a little more recently,

but at the end of the day, this is the

situation we’ve been dealt,” Light-

ning defenseman Ryan McDo-

nagh said. “We knew if we got to

this point we were going to have to

face a team that we hadn’t played

in the regular season.”

Vegas goes into the semis as the

favorite. The Golden Knights are

the No. 1 seed by virtue of finishing

with the most points and are bat-

tle-tested after needing seven

games to knock off Minnesota and

gutting through a tough second-

round series against Presidents’

Trophy-winning Colorado.

Now to see if the franchise in its

fourth year of existence can hold

off a challenge from an organiza-

tion with 24 Stanley Cup titles to

get to the final.

“I’ve always believed that to win

in the playoffs as you go along, you

have to keep getting better,”

McCrimmon said. “It’s hard to

win. Nothing has been easy for us

in either series that we’ve played.

It’s only going to get tougher as we

move on here to the semifinals.”

FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP

The New York Islanders’ Kyle Palmieri scores past Boston Bruinsgoaltender Tuukka Rask during the second period of Game 6 of theirsecondround playoff series.

AP hockey writer John Wawrow contributed tothis report.

Foes: Lightning-Islesis a repeat of last yearFROM PAGE 24

When the Montreal Canadiens

were one goal away from being

eliminated in the first round, and

then again when they were one

goal away from reaching the Stan-

ley Cup semifinals, Cole Caufield

set up the overtime winner each

time.

Caufield was dominating col-

lege hockey just two months earli-

er and suddenly at age 20 had be-

come a key player for the NHL’s

most storied franchise. Along

with Colorado forwards Alex Ne-

whook and Sampo Ranta, and

Florida goaltender Spencer

Knight, Caufield’s success jump-

ing right into the playoffs fresh off

playing a full college season could

inspire more teams to infuse fresh

blood into their lineups at the

most intense time of year.

“Any team that’s gone through

a year is looking for some sort of

spark, some sort of hope,” said

Tony Granato, who coached Cau-

field at Wisconsin. “There is noth-

ing better for a lineup than young

energy entering the locker room

and being able to add some speed

and young legs into the lineup.

Every team needs it.”

There’s no doubt the Canadiens

needed Caufield. They are 7-1

since he joined their lineup. Mon-

treal’s transformation was so re-

markable even NFL All-Pro J.J.

Watt noticed.

“Caufield has been an absolute

playmaker since being added to

the lineup,” Watt tweeted. “Great

call by whoever suggested that.”

That would be coach Domin-

ique Ducharme, whose trust of

Caufield developed gradually.

While Caufield’s 52 points in 31

games at Wisconsin propelled

him to win the Hobey Baker

Award as the NCAA’s top player,

those didn’t matter much when

transitioning through a quick stint

in the American Hockey League

and joining the Canadiens in

April.

Caufield put up five points in

his first 10 NHL games and has

four important assists in the play-

offs, but the 5-foot-7 dynamo

showing he could hang in the pros

was about more than producing

offensively. Former NHL scout

Dave Starman said Caufield is

more confident than ever hand-

ling the puck in his own zone, and

the commitment to becoming an

all-around player hasn’t gone un-

noticed by his coaching staff.

There’s no choice but to adjust

quickly. Entering a playoff series

midway through can resemble

jumping onto a moving train and

be difficult for even seasoned vet-

erans.

Newhook and Ranta got that

treatment for Colorado after

coach Jared Bednar felt they de-

served a spot in the lineup. Bed-

nar said, “You never know until

you try, and I don’t think you can

be scared to try in a lot of situa-

tions.”

Montreal and Colorado aren’t

the first to try this. The recent his-

tory of players jumping from col-

lege into the NHL playoffs in-

cludes Chris Kreider for the

Rangers in 2012, Charlie McAvoy

for the Bruins in 2017 and Cale

Makar for the Avalanche in 2019.

“Cale and myself, I think we

were put in the lineup for a reason

to help the team win,” said Ne-

whook, who credited Makar for

easing his transition. “(Being)

given the opportunity is obviously

a huge part of it, and then what

you do with it is another.”

GRAHAM HUGHES, THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP

The Canadiens’ Cole Caufield scores against Ottawa Senators’ goaltender Filip Gustavsson during overtimeon May 1 in Montreal. Caufield was dominating college hockey in late March and by late May was a regularin the lineup of the most storied franchise in the NHL, helping Montreal to the third round of the playoffs.

Caufield, college stars add‘young energy’ to playoffs

BY STEPHEN WHYNO

Associated Press

AP hockey writer John Wawrow contributed tothis report.


MLB

American League

East Division

W L Pct GB

Tampa Bay 40 24 .625 _

Boston 39 25 .609 1

New York 33 30 .524 6½

Toronto 31 30 .508 7½

Baltimore 22 40 .355 17

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Chicago 39 24 .619 _

Cleveland 33 27 .550 4½

Kansas City 30 32 .484 8½

Detroit 26 37 .413 13

Minnesota 25 38 .397 14

West Division

W L Pct GB

Oakland 38 27 .585 _

Houston 36 27 .571 1

Los Angeles 31 32 .492 6

Seattle 31 34 .477 7

Texas 24 40 .375 13½

National League

East Division

W L Pct GB

New York 31 24 .564 _

Philadelphia 30 31 .492 4

Atlanta 29 32 .475 5

Miami 28 35 .444 7

Washington 25 34 .424 8

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Chicago 36 27 .571 _

Milwaukee 36 27 .571 _

St. Louis 32 31 .508 4

Cincinnati 30 31 .492 5

Pittsburgh 23 39 .371 12½

West Division

W L Pct GB

San Francisco 39 23 .629 _

Los Angeles 38 25 .603 1½

San Diego 37 28 .569 3½

Colorado 25 39 .391 15

Arizona 20 44 .313 20

Friday’s games

Tampa Bay 4, Baltimore 2Cleveland 7, Seattle 0Chicago White Sox 5, Detroit 4, 10 in-

ningsBoston 6, Toronto 5Houston 6, Minnesota 4Oakland 4, Kansas City 3L.A. Dodgers 12, Texas 1L.A. Angels 6, Arizona 5, 10 inningsChicago Cubs 8, St. Louis 5San Francisco 1, Washington 0N.Y. Mets 3, San Diego 2Cincinnati 11, Colorado 5Miami 4, Atlanta 3Milwaukee 7, Pittsburgh 4

Saturday’s games

N.Y. Yankees at PhiladelphiaKansas City at OaklandBaltimore at Tampa BayChicago White Sox at DetroitL.A. Angels at ArizonaSeattle at ClevelandToronto at BostonHouston at MinnesotaTexas at L.A. DodgersSan Francisco at Washington (2)Atlanta at MiamiColorado at CincinnatiPittsburgh at MilwaukeeSan Diego at N.Y. MetsSt. Louis at Chicago Cubs

Sunday’s games

N.Y. Yankees (Germán 4-3) at Philadel-phia (Nola 4-4)

Baltimore (Zimmermann 4-3) at TampaBay (TBD)

Chicago White Sox (Rodón 5-2) at Detroit(TBD)

Seattle (Gilbert 1-2) at Cleveland (Bieber7-3)

Toronto (Ray 3-2) at Boston (Pérez 4-3)Houston (Valdez 2-0) at Minnesota

(Pineda 3-3)Kansas City (Bubic 1-1) at Oakland (Bas-

sitt 6-2)San Francisco (Cueto 4-2) at Washing-

ton (Lester 0-2)Atlanta (Smyly 2-3) at Miami (López 2-3)Colorado (Senzatela 2-6) at Cincinnati

(Santillan 0-0)San Diego (Paddack 2-5) at N.Y. Mets

(Lucchesi 1-4)Pittsburgh (Brubaker 4-5) at Milwaukee

(Houser 4-5)L.A. Angels (Sandoval 0-2) at Arizona

(Smith 2-2)Texas (Dunning 2-4) at L.A. Dodgers

(Buehler 5-0)St. Louis (Martínez 3-6) at Chicago Cubs

(TBD)

Scoreboard

CHICAGO — Anthony Rizzo could feel the

fans hanging onto each pitch as he fouled off

one after another.

When he finally launched one over the right-

field wall on the 14th pitch of his at-bat, Wri-

gley Field rocked in a way it hadn’t in years,

with a near-capacity crowd on its feet and roar-

ing.

“It was incredible,” Rizzo said.

Joc Pederson homered and drove in three

runs, Rizzo and Willson Contreras went deep

and the Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardi-

nals 8-5 on Friday.

Wrigley Field allowed 100% capacity for the

first time since 2019 on what the Cubs called

“Opening Day 2.0.” They fell behind 5-1, then

treated a crowd of 35,112 to a comeback win

over their NL Central rivals.

Mets 3, Padres 2: Jacob deGrom was

pulled from a do-it-all gem with right flexor

tendinitis, a troubling diagnosis for host New

York that clouded a victory over San Diego.

DeGrom (6-2) faced the minimum over six

innings and ripped a two-run single, giving

him five RBIs this season — compared to four

earned runs allowed. He struck out 10 in the

abbreviated outing.

San Diego dropped its third straight. Blake

Snell (2-3) allowed three runs in four-plus in-

nings, and the Padres couldn’t do enough dam-

age against New York’s bullpen.

Giants 1, Nationals 0: Washington ace Max

Scherzer left after just 12 pitches because of

groin inflammation, Buster Posey homered

and visiting San Francisco won on Anthony

DeSclafani’s career-best two-hitter.

A crowd of 18,029 attended the first game at

Nationals Park without capacity limits since

the 2019 World Series.

Scherzer retired leadoff batter LaMonte

Wade Jr. on a fly ball to left and had a 3-2 count

on Brandon Belt when he stretched his body.

He took a warmup toss before exiting.

DeSclafani (6-2) struck out eight and walked

on his his third career shutout and complete

game.

Angels 6, Diamondbacks 5 (10):Shohei Oh-

tani struck out eight, hit two doubles and

pushed through an injury scare to lead visiting

Los Angeles past slumping Arizona.

Max Stassi’s RBI groundout scored Jared

Walsh in the top of the 10th to put the Angels

ahead for good. Extra innings were needed af-

ter Arizona’s Eduardo Escobar hit a two-out,

tying homer off Raisel Iglesias (4-2) in the

ninth.

Arizona lost its eighth in a row and has lost 31

of its last 36. The team’s 20-44 record is the

worst in the big leagues.

Dodgers 12, Rangers 1: Clayton Kershaw

bounced back from two bad outings with six

sharp innings, Gavin Lux drove in four runs

and hit one of his team’s five homers as host

Los Angeles routed Texas.

Max Muncy, Justin Turner and Lux home-

red in the first inning. Albert Pujols and Will

Smith also went deep as Los Angeles won its

fourth in a row and sent Texas to its 16th

straight road loss.

Kershaw (8-5) gave up only one unearned

and three hits. He struck out nine and walked

none.

Athletics 4, Royals 3: Elvis Andrus hit a

winning single in the ninth inning after making

pair of fielding gaffes, and host Oakland beat

Kansas City.

Seth Brown homered to snap a long funk for

the A’s. Matt Chapman had three hits includ-

ing an RBI double.

Kansas City has lost six of seven.

Indians 7, Mariners 0: Aaron Civale gave up

a single to start the game before dominating

Seattle’s light-hitting lineup for eight innings,

leading host Cleveland to the win in front of the

largest crowd at Progressive Field since 2019.

Civale (9-2) allowed J.P. Crawford’s leadoff

hit and nothing else to become the first AL

pitcher with nine wins. He struck out a career-

high 11 and retired 22 in a row after loading the

bases in the first. Blake Parker worked the

ninth to complete the two-hitter.

Rays 4, Orioles 2: At St. Petersburg, Fla.,

Ryan Yarbrough pitched six solid innings and

Tampa Bay became the first team to reach 40

wins this season.

Brandon Lowe homered for the Rays, who

are 21-5 since May 13.

Marlins 4, Braves 3: Jazz Chisholm’s two-

out, two-run single in the fourth inning put his

team ahead to stay, and Miami beat visiting At-

lanta for the fourth time in five meetings this

year.

The Braves have lost three consecutive

games by a run each.

Reds 11, Rockies 5: Joey Votto’s three-run

blast highlighted a five-homer effort as host

Cincinnati extended Colorado’s road woes.

The Rockies fell to 5-25 away from Coors

Field and have lost every road series this sea-

son.

Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 5: Alex Verdugo hit a

line drive off the Green Monster to drive in the

game-winning run in the ninth inning and Bos-

ton rallied from a four-run deficit to beat vis-

iting Toronto.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had three of Toronto’s

16 hits, including his major league-leading 19th

homer of the season, to help the Blue Jays open

afour-run lead in the sixth inning. The Red Sox

scored three in the bottom half and tied it on

Christian Arroyo’s towering solo home run.

Astros 6, Twins 4: Martín Maldonado hit a

go-ahead double in the ninth and Houston beat

host Minnesota.

Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel homered and

Alex Bregman drove in two runs for Houston,

which won for the fourth time in five games.

Brewers 7, Pirates 4: Christian Yelich hit a

bases-loaded double that broke a tie and Pitts-

burgh relievers issued three consecutive

bases-loaded walks in a five-run seventh in-

ning that helped fuel host Milwaukee’s win.

White Sox 5, Tigers 4 (10):Liam Hendricks

angrily threw a wet ball into foul territory after

his first pitch of the ninth inning, leading to a

lengthy rain delay, then gave up a tying two-

run homer to Daz Cameron before Chicago

beat host Detroit in 10 innings.

Cubs beat Cards on ‘Opening Day 2.0’

CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/AP

The Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo celebrates his home run off St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Daniel Poncede Leon on the 14th pitch of his atbat during the sixth inning Friday in Chicago.

Associated Press

ROUNDUP


SPORTSFirst-time champion

Krejcikova earns first Slam titleby winning French Open ›› Page 20

Embiid, 76ers take 2-1 lead in series with Hawks ›› NBA playoffs, Page 21

If the teams left in the NHL playoffs are sick

and tired of facing the same opponents over

and over, they are in luck in the semifinals.

After exclusively divisional play this sea-

son and through the first two rounds, the

hockey playoffs are down to a final four of teams that

haven’t played each other all year. The New York Is-

landers face the Tampa Bay Lightning in one semi-

final that’s a rematch of the 2020 Eastern Conference

finals, while the Vegas Golden Knights play the Mon-

treal Canadiens in a playoff series for the first time.

After so much familiarity from seeing the same

teams over and over, the final two rounds bring every

element of the unknown.

“It’s such a different series in terms of the prep-

aration,” Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon

said. “Now with the Islanders and Tampa Bay, our

own series with Montreal, it’s brand new. Starting

from scratch.”

The league that has emphasized rivalries for dec-

ades limited play within four remade divisions for

one season only because of the pandemic. It allowed

all 31 teams to complete a condensed, 56-game sched-

ule with 16 making the playoffs.

New York emerged from the East, Tampa Bay the

Central, Vegas the West and Montreal the North.

Players and coaches from these teams haven’t

thought much about each other all season, let alone

Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Pat Maroon(14) congratulates center Ross Colton (79)following Colton’s goal against the CarolinaHurricanes during the third period of Game 5of their secondround series.

GERRY BROOME/AP

JOHN LOCHER/AP

Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Alec Martinez, left, andgoaltender MarcAndre Fleury celebrate after defeating the ColoradoAvalanche in Game 6 to close out their secondround series.

Unfamiliar foesDivisional play prevented final fourteams from facing off this season

BY STEPHEN WHYNO

Associated Press

NHL PLAYOFFS

SEE FOES ON PAGE 22

MILITARY WAR MUSIC Wolfgang Van Halen

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