contingency edition s aturday ,s eptember changing …
TRANSCRIPT
Volume 80 Edition 100A ©SS 2021 CONTINGENCY EDITION SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2021 Free to Deployed Areas
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COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Florida QB Jones getshis chance to shineafter waiting 3 yearsPage 24
Afghan women demand rights as Taliban seek recognition ›› Page 6
NEW YORK — Police went
door to door in search of more pos-
sible victims and drew up lists of
the missing as the death toll rose to
49 on Friday in the catastrophic
flooding set off across the North-
east by the remnants of Hurricane
Ida.
The disaster underscored with
heartbreaking clarity how vulner-
able the U.S. is to the extreme
weather that climate change is
bringing.
More than three days after the
hurricane blew ashore in Louisia-
na, the storm’s rainy remains hit
the Northeast with surprising fury
on Wednesday and Thursday,
submerging cars, swamping sub-
way stations and basement apart-
ments and drowning scores of
people in five states.
It overwhelmed urban drainage
systems never meant to handle so
much rain in such a short time — 3
inches in just an hour in New York.
Commuter train service north
of New York City remained sus-
pended or severely curtailed. In
the Hudson Valley, train tracks
were covered in several feet of
mud. New York’s subways were
running with delays or not at all.
In Philadelphia, part of the
crosstown Vine Street Express-
way remained under water as peo-
ple in neighborhoods along the
swollen Schuylkill River started
cleaning up and assessing the
damage.
President Joe Biden approved
emergency declarations for New
York and New Jersey.
The death toll was highest in
New Jersey, where at least 25 peo-
Police looking for missing in wake of catastrophic Ida floodingBY MIKE CATALINI
AND MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press
SEE IDA ON PAGE 7
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Ma-
rine Corps leaders have their eyes
on the kind of combat that a war
against an adversary such as Chi-
na or Russia could bring, and they
are training their troops to be pre-
pared for that fight by building
better-thinking, more well-round-
ed infantrymen capable of operat-
ing in small units with little over-
sight.
The Corps wants to create in-
fantrymen who will arrive at their
first duty station with the critical
and creative thinking skills of Ma-
rines several years into their ca-
reer, instead of the robot-like, trig-
ger-pullers that some have ac-
cused the service of producing in
its longstanding entry-level infan-
try course, Marine officials said
last week.
At Camp Lejeune, N.C., the
Corps’ School of Infantry-East is
attempting to make those chang-
es, experimenting with a new ini-
tial infantry training program that
lasts longer, includes more face-
to-face time with instructors, and
challenges green infantrymen on
more difficult skills, said Col. Da-
vid Emmel, the school’s com-
mander.
“The Marine Corps is going
through very large changes … and
we are one element of that within
the larger service’s efforts,” Em-
mel told reporters Aug. 27 at
Camp Lejeune, as the first group
of 194 Marines neared completion
of the School of Infantry-East’s
first attempt of the new training
program, known as the Infantry
Marine Course. “That’s making a
A Marine infantry student at Camp Lejeune, N.C., practices settingup an ambush Aug. 27 as part of a pilot program meant todrastically change the way the Corps trains its infantrymen.
COREY DICKSTEIN/Stars and Stripes
CHANGINGCOURSEMarine Corps revamps infantry school to producecritical thinking and more advanced infantrymen
BY COREY DICKSTEIN
Stars and Stripes
SEE COURSE ON PAGE 4
PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
BUSINESS/WEATHER
DETROIT — The global short-
age of computer chips is getting
worse, forcing automakers to
temporarily close factories in-
cluding those that build popular
pickup trucks.
General Motors announced
Thursday that it would pause pro-
duction at eight of its 15 North
American assembly plants during
the next two weeks, including two
that make the company’s top-sell-
ing Chevrolet Silverado pickup.
Ford will stop making pickups
at its Kansas City Assembly Plant
for the next two weeks. Shifts will
be cut at two more truck plants in
Dearborn, Mich., and Louisville,
Ky.
The cuts will compound an al-
ready short supply of cars, trucks
and SUVs on dealer lots nation-
wide that have pushed prices to
record levels. Automakers report-
ed that U.S. dealers had just un-
der a million new vehicles on
their lots in August, 72% lower
than the 3.58 million in August of
2019.
Industry analysts say the delta
variant of the novel coronavirus
has hit employees at chip facto-
ries in southeast Asia hard, forc-
ing some plants to close. That’s
worsened a chip shortage that
was starting to improve earlier in
the summer.
“Now the prospects for new
sales for the rest of the year con-
tinue to dim with the reality that
tight inventory will last well into
2022,” said Kevin Roberts, direc-
tor of industry insights for Cargu-
rus.com.
GM, Ford halt some production due to chip shortage Associated Press
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SUNDAY IN THE PACIFIC
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TODAYIN STRIPES
American Roundup ...... 12Comics/Crossword .......18Health & Fitness ......... 16Opinion ........................ 17Sports .................... 19-24Travel ......................14-15Video Games ................13
Military rates
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Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3
institutions.
Brown, a retired Army aviator and judge
advocate general, believes U.S. military
commanders already have inherent author-
ity to ban extremism to the degree that it is,
by its nature, a threat to military order and
discipline. His measure is intended to clar-
ify the terms of that authority, aides said.
The amendment does not create a new
crime in the Uniform Code of Military Jus-
tice but would alter the law to explicitly au-
thorize commanders to root out — be it in
recruits or those currently serving — any-
one who advocates hatred based on bigotry
or puts it into violent practice.
The measure would not mandate moni-
toring of social media but would authorize
the services to use an online post advocat-
ing supremacist views as cause for dis-
charge.
Brown also argues that nothing in the bill
would shortchange due process protections
for servicemembers.
Even beyond the attack on the Capitol,
troubling signs have appeared recently of a
small but festering problem in the ranks.
The director of national intelligence said
in March that violent extremists pose “a
WASHINGTON — House Democrats
want the new National Defense Authoriza-
tion Act to make plain that armed services
personnel and recruits are not allowed to
advocate or take part in extremist activities
or belong to extremist groups.
But the debate over what extremism
means and how such a prohibition would be
enforced is expected to be fierce — starting
at Wednesday’s House Armed Services
Committee markup of the fiscal 2022 bill.
Maryland Democrat Anthony G. Brown
plans to file an amendment at the markup
that would make explicit a military com-
mander’s authority to bar or expel people
who espouse or act on extremist beliefs or
are members of such groups. The amend-
ment also says that the military can use so-
cial media posts as evidence of extremist
views that could lead to so-called separa-
tion from service.
“An individual who engages in extremist
activities or is a member of an extremist or-
ganization may not serve as a member of
the armed forces,” states a draft of the
amendment.
Brown would leave it to the secretary of
Defense to define extremist activities. A
Pentagon Countering Extremism Working
Group is reportedly already at work on that
question.
Brown told CQ Roll Call in a statement
that he recognizes that extremists form a ti-
ny fraction of the U.S. military, but he be-
lieves it is a growing peril.
“Racism, white supremacy, antisemi-
tism, discrimination, and other extremist
beliefs are not in line with the values of our
armed services and have no place in our
ranks,” Brown said.
Brown’s amendment would set up a Pen-
tagon Office of Countering Extremism to
track reports of such behavior across the
Defense Department’s uniformed and ci-
vilian ranks. The office would share data on
the problem with other federal agencies
and would produce an annual report to Con-
gress. The amendment would empower the
military services to train personnel and
recruiters in identifying and avoiding ex-
tremism.
The amendment is a response to recent
data indicating that extremists — ranging
from white supremacists to criminal gangs
— represent a small but seemingly growing
and increasingly dangerous portion of the
U.S. military. The fact that some 20% of the
rioters in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol re-
portedly had ties to the military has cata-
lyzed these concerns.
But Republicans have regularly pushed
back against most attempts to crush extre-
mism in the ranks and are expected to do so
again. The GOP critics generally say Dem-
ocrats are exaggerating the extent of the
problem. Republicans say they are con-
cerned too that what constitutes extremist
activity is not clearly defined. And they
worry that servicemembers’ privacy and
their rights to due process could be threat-
ened.
Brown’s extremism amendment is not
the only NDAA proposal that will stir a ra-
cially charged, partisan debate.
One of the highest-temperature debates
could come when Republicans offer one or
more amendments seeking to restrict the
Pentagon from teaching so-called critical
race theory, an academic approach to reex-
amining how racial bias is encoded in social
heightened threat to the homeland.”
Moreover, the Army Criminal Investiga-
tion Command, in a report last year, found a
66% increase in gang or domestic extremist
activity from the previous year, Brown
said.
A 2019 survey found more than one third
of all active-duty servicemembers had wit-
nessed instances of white nationalism or
ideologically driven racism in their units.
The Pentagon has been working on this
issue for many months.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III re-
quired in February that all military com-
manders take time over a two-month period
to discuss extremism. And he set up the
Countering Extremism Working Group to
study the issue.
In April, Austin ordered the review of
how best to define extremism. He also man-
dated updating security questionnaires to
more accurately determine recruits’ back-
grounds on the issue. And he required new
training for retiring personnel who may
face recruitment efforts from extremist
groups.
In 2020, after protests over the killing of
George Floyd, the department convened a
task force to take a closer look at military
efforts to become more racially diverse.
One of the group’s recommendations, bur-
ied in its voluminous report, was to make
extremist violence punishable under the
military’s code of justice.
The House’s fiscal 2021 NDAA included
language by California Democrat Jackie
Speier that would have done just that. But
senators, fearing a veto by President Do-
nald Trump over the issue, diluted that
mandate in the final measure, Speier said
earlier this year.
The fiscal 2021 NDAA instead created a
new deputy inspector general to oversee di-
versity and anti-extremism efforts.
Brown’s bill would require the director of
the proposed Office of Countering Extre-
mism to coordinate with the deputy inspec-
tor general.
The Senate’s fiscal 2022 NDAA would
again defer definitive action on the matter.
It would merely require the Defense secre-
tary to report to Congress on whether and
how to potentially make violent extremism
a crime under the military code.
House panel to debate banning extremism in the ranksBY JOHN M. DONNELLY
CQ-Roll Call
SUSAN WALSH/AP
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon inWashington on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin has
agreed to restart 16 defense advi-
sory boards, after halting activity
by all the panels in February and
essentially purging a number of
members who were appointed in
the final days of the Trump admin-
istration.
Pentagon spokesman John Kir-
by said a sweeping review of all
the boards is complete, and Austin
has begun taking action on some of
the recommendations from the
study. The 16 boards being rein-
stated so far include many of the
more prominent panels, including
the Defense policy, business, sci-
ence and health boards.
Members are being named to
the panels, and Kirby said that
recommendations for other
boards to resume operations are
still under consideration. More
announcements will be made in
coming weeks.
During the last two months of
his tenure, former acting Defense
Secretary Christopher Miller re-
moved a number of longtime
members from several defense
policy, health, science and busi-
ness boards and replaced many
with loyalists of former President
Donald Trump.
After taking office, Austin in
early February, ordered a review
and said hundreds of Pentagon ad-
visory board members had to re-
sign, including more than 30 of
Miller’s last-minute replace-
ments. At the time, officials said
that Austin’s decision to suspend
the boards and study the issue was
driven by the frenetic activity of
Miller to remove dozens of board
members and replace them in
such a short amount of time be-
tween Trump’s election loss and
the inauguration of President Joe
Biden.
The review was designed to as-
sess whether each board provides
value and make sure its focus
aligns with U.S. strategic priori-
ties and the National Defense
Strategy. And all committee mem-
bers whose appointment comes
from the defense secretary were
ordered to resign by Feb. 16.
Of the 42 advisory panels listed
in Austin’s initial memo, 31 had
their members removed, six were
part of the review but their mem-
bers were retained, and five oth-
ers had either no members or had
concluded their business. Among
the 31 were some of the depart-
ment’s most well known boards,
including those with purview over
defense policy, science, health, in-
novation, Arlington National
Cemetery and women in the mil-
itary.
All together there were more
than 600 members on the 42
boards, but defense officials we-
ren’t able to say exactly how many
had to resign. They said it was
“hundreds.”
The 16 that will be able to begin
again are: Defense Business
Board, Defense Policy Board, De-
fense Health Board, Defense
Board of Actuaries, Medicare-Eli-
gible Board of Advisors, Defense
Science Board, Defense Advisory
Committee on Investigation, Pros-
ecution, and Defense of Sexual As-
sault in the Armed Forces, Uni-
form Formulary Beneficiary Ad-
visory Panel, Inland Waterways
Users Board, Defense Depart-
ment Wage Committee, Board on
Coastal Engineering Research,
Marine Corps University Board of
Visitors, Department of the Air
Force Scientific Advisory Board,
U.S. Strategic Command Strategic
Advisory Group, Army Science
Board and the Defense Advisory
Committee on Women in the Ser-
vices.
Pentagon is restarting 16 advisory boards BY LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press
MILITARY
PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
more lethal, smarter, more elite
Marine infantryman — Marines
with a strong moral foundation,
who are grounded in the Marine
Corps ethos, who possess the skill
and the will to succeed in the fu-
ture operational environment.
And, as part of that, the critical
thinking which allows him [or
her] to be adaptive in that environ-
ment.”
Those changes have been dri-
ven by the vision of Marine com-
mandant Gen. David Berger —
who, since becoming the top Ma-
rine in 2019, has instituted an
overhaul of the service aimed
largely at checking Chinese power
in the Indo-Pacific region, where
he believes his troops will need to
work more closely with the Navy
and in smaller units to compete
with China’s forces. As comman-
dant, Berger has axed the Ma-
rines’ tank units, urged Congress
to shrink its force size and in-
structed units to prepare its
youngest Marines to make tough
battlefield decisions without a
higher command’s input.
At Camp Lejeune, Marine in-
structors are preparing some of
the Corps’ newest infantrymen for
just that operating environment in
the Infantry Marine Course pilot
program, which expands initial
infantry training from nine weeks
to 14 weeks. It marks the second
use of the new program, which be-
gan with a course at the Marine’s
School of Infantry-West at Camp
Pendleton, Calif.
The new course puts new Ma-
rines in the field for about nine
weeks, practicing critical infantry
skills, fighting each other in force-
on-force battles, and training
them on advanced weapons to
which those who have completed
traditional Marine initial infantry
training have not been exposed.
But the most critical change to
the course is how instructors work
with their students, Emmel and
other officials said.
The new model pairs a single
combat instructor — an experi-
enced infantry noncommissioned
officer trained to teach new Ma-
rines — with a squad of 14 Ma-
rines, who the instructor is
charged with overseeing, teaching
and mentoring throughout the en-
tire course. For decades, instruc-
tors taught Marines in infantry
school in large groups, 80 to 200-
plus at a time, officials said.
Sgt. Jonathon Ritter, a combat
instructor in charge of one of the
Infantry Marine Course squads,
said he has gotten to know his trai-
nees much better during the pilot
course than when he has taught in
previous iterations of initial infan-
try training.
The one-on-one time allows him
to better understand how his stu-
dents learn, what they respond to
and how they react to challenges.
His young Marines have ad-
vanced quicker than those he has
taught in the traditional class, he
said.
“Their development is actually
exceeding a lot of our expecta-
tions,” Ritter said. “I took them
from Day 1 where they couldn’t do
any infantry skills, and then now
to see them on the live-fire ranges,
being able to execute, use their
weapons for the right target with-
out any [instructor] supervision —
that’s extremely rewarding.
“A lot of the stuff they’re learn-
ing now is stuff that Marines [who
are] traditionally one or two years
into the fleet learn, and here we
have them learning this stuff at en-
try level training. That’s huge.”
An ambush
A blast from a Claymore mine
shot a cloud of smoke billowing
dozens of feet into the air. From
positions concealed by trees just
beyond the mine’s reach, 14 young
Marines opened fire with M27 ri-
fles and M240B machine guns.
In minutes, the smoke cleared
and the firing ceased. The enemy
— robotic targets outfitted in cam-
ouflage — had been defeated. For
the squad of freshly minted Ma-
rines about 12 weeks into the new
Infantry Marine Course, the brief
live-fire operation was the culmi-
nation of a week focused on sharp-
ening the planning and tactical
skills that go into executing an
age-old combat tactic — an am-
bush.
For those leading the Marines, it
was verification of the new efforts.
The squads each planned their
ambushes on their own without
their instructors’ input after
spending the week learning the
tactics that go into planning an
ambush and practicing without
live ammunition, said Marine
Capt. David Allen, the command-
er of the School of Infantry’s Echo
Company, which is conducting the
pilot course. Combat instructors
then tagged along as the squads
conducted their ambushes, offer-
ing the occasional pointer, but al-
lowing the Marines to make — and
hopefully — learn from their own
mistakes, Allen said.
One squad after another on Aug.
27 ran through the exercise on the
sandy, wooded training grounds.
Some groups executed near-per-
fect ambushes, Allen said. Others
struggled.
In at least one iteration, a Ma-
rine’s M240B machine gun
jammed, likely because it had not
been cleaned well enough before
the attack, his instructor said. In
another, Marines set their mine
off too early, failing to injure any
enemy targets. In another am-
bush, some of the Marines set
themselves up in positions where
they were ultimately unable to see
the enemy targets as they entered
the “kill box,” another instructor
said.
Despite the shortcomings, none
of the Marines were chewed out.
Combat instructors rarely yelled,
except over the roar of gunfire.
Young Marines held their heads
high, as their instructors went
Course: New training puts instructors with smaller groupsFROM PAGE 1
PHOTOS BY COREY DICKSTEIN/Stars and Stripes
Marine infantry students at Camp Lejeune, N.C., practice setting up an ambush, as their instructor looks on. The livefire training on Aug. 27was part of their 12th week of initial infantry training and part of a program meant to drastically change the way the Corps trains its infantrymen.
A Marine infantry student places a claymore mine during training atCamp Lejeune.
SEE COURSE ON PAGE 5
A Marine infantry student practices setting up an ambush duringlivefire training event.
MILITARY
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5
over what they had done right and
wrong just minutes after complet-
ing the mission. The Marines
asked questions, and they pre-
pared to run ambushes again.
“They’re more willing to ap-
proach you, ask a question, more
willing to engage in the training
and just learn,” said Sgt. Govan
Walcott, a combat instructor lead-
ing one of the 14-man squads in the
pilot. “We’re not yelling. We’re
here to instruct, to teach and then
let them learn it their way and
then go out and execute what it is
that we’re trying to teach.”
‘Not just idiots’Traditionally, a new Marine in-
fantryman — a boot, in Marine
slang — will arrive at his or her
first station with an elementary
understanding of infantry tactics
and spend the next two or more
years learning how to actually op-
erate from unit leaders, Walcott
said.
The pilot program is designed to
provide boot Marines to the Corps’
infantry battalions nearly ready to
fight on the first day.
“We’re speeding up the time-
line,” said Emmel, the School of
Infantry-East commander.
For the instructors, it takes a
shift in mindset. Walcott, who en-
listed in 2015, said his instructors
at the School of Infantry-East
would tell him exactly what to do
and when to do it. In the pilot pro-
gram, instructors explain to stu-
dents an outcome they want out of
ascenario and let the new Marines
find their own paths to that result.
“We’re looking at it like, hey,
these are not just idiots, you know.
These are individuals who can ac-
tually think and operate on their
own and operate as a unit,” Wal-
cott said. “So it’s — I’m going to
give you this knowledge. Let me
see how you apply it. And, the way
you apply it actually might be
somewhat of a different train of
thought than I would have had. It
might even work better.”
Walcott and other instructors
said the pilot course was proving
beneficial to the new Marines.
He said he believed the Corps
should adopt the training, which
Corps brass will consider later
this year after running at least two
more pilot courses, one each at
Camp Pendleton and Camp Le-
jeune.
Unlike infantry Marines who
graduate traditional initial infan-
try training, those who complete
the pilot program will have
learned to shoot Javelin anti-tank
missiles, fire machine guns, and
use other weapons that new rifle-
men usually would not be trained
to do.
The decision to incorporate
more advanced weapons than just
the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle
comes as the Corps considers
merging all infantry jobs into a
single military occupational spe-
cialty. That decision is yet to be
made, a Marine spokesman said
Tuesday.
Training Marines to use multi-
ple weapons systems is a major
advantage on the battlefield, Wal-
cott said, adding he had never
been exposed to some of the weap-
ons, including the Javelin before
becoming an instructor.
“These guys are definitely more
trained up, so it wouldn’t take as
long to spin them up” at their first
unit, he said. “And, then these
guys are going to bring skills to the
fleet that are not there right now.”
The pilot model is also more de-
manding on the instructors, Wal-
cott and Ritter admitted. Their
days often last from sun up to sun
down and occasionally well into
the night, they said. Nonetheless,
they said those challenges were
worthwhile.
An influx of new instructors
would also be needed to adopt the
Infantry Marine Course pilot pro-
gram as the Corps’ initial infantry
training program, officials said.
Emmel said the East Coast and
West Coast infantry schools were
working with Marine headquar-
ters to determine how large a
cadre was possible, but he de-
clined to provide a specific num-
ber of additional instructors he
would require.
Those figures could change as
the pilot course is adjusted based
on feedback from the first two it-
erations, he added. Even the num-
ber of weeks could be changed.
Nonetheless, Emmel and other
School of Infantry officials en-
dorsed the pilot program as send-
ing the Corps in the right direction
for the future.
“We’re giving the fleet more le-
thal Marines,” Emmel said.
Course: Infantry Marines learn to use more advanced weaponsFROM PAGE 4
PHOTOS BY COREY DICKSTEIN/Stars and Stripes
Marine infantry students listen to their combat instructor’s feedback after conducting an ambush during training at Camp Lejeune, N.C., onAug. 27.
Marine infantry students at Camp Lejeune practice setting up an ambush in a livefire training event.
In the trial program, instructorsexplain a scenario's desiredoutcome and let students findtheir own paths to that result.
“Their development is actuallyexceeding a lot of ourexpectations.”
Sgt. Jonathon Ritter
combat instructor
[email protected]: @CDicksteinDC
MILITARY
PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
KABUL, Afghanistan — A small
group of Afghan women protested
near the presidential palace in Ka-
bul on Friday, demanding equal
rights from the Taliban as Afghan-
istan’s new rulers work on form-
ing a government and seeking in-
ternational recognition.
The Taliban captured most of
the country in a matter of days last
month and celebrated the depar-
ture of the last U.S. forces after 20
years of war. Now they face the ur-
gent challenge of governing a war-
ravaged country that is heavily re-
liant on international aid.
The Taliban have promised an
inclusive government and a more
moderate form of Islamic rule
than when they last ruled the
country from 1996 to 2001. But
many Afghans, especially women,
are deeply skeptical and fear a
rollback of rights gained over the
last two decades.
The protest in Kabul was the
second women’s protest in as
many days, with the other held in
the western city of Herat. Around
20 women with microphones gath-
ered under the watchful eyes of
Taliban gunmen, who allowed the
demonstration to proceed.
The women demanded access
to education, the right to return to
work and a role in governing the
country. “Freedom is our motto. It
makes us proud,” read one of their
signs.
A Taliban fighter ventured into
the crowd at one point, but wit-
nesses said he was angry at the by-
standers who had stopped to
watch the demonstration and not
the protesters themselves.
The Taliban have said women
will be able to continue their edu-
cation and work outside the home,
rights denied to women when the
militants were last in power. But
the Taliban have also vowed to im-
pose Sharia, or Islamic law, with-
out providing specifics.
Interpretations of Islamic law
vary widely across the Muslim
world, with more moderate
strains predominating. The Tali-
ban’s earlier rule was shaped by
Afghanistan’s unique tribal tradi-
tions, under which women are not
to be seen in public. Those cus-
toms endure, especially in the
countryside, even during 20 years
of Western-backed governments.
A potentially more pressing
concern for the Taliban is the
economy, which is mired in crisis.
Civil servants haven’t been paid
for months, ATM’s have been shut
down and banks are limiting with-
drawals to $200 per week, causing
large crowds to form outside
them. Aid groups have warned of
widespread hunger amid a severe
drought.
The Taliban said Western
Union, which halted service after
the militants entered Kabul last
month, will resume transfers,
which may help Afghans to re-
ceive cash from relatives living
abroad. But most of Afghanistan’s
foreign reserves are held abroad
and frozen while Western nations
consider how to engage with the
Taliban, putting pressure on the
local currency.
There was no immediate com-
ment from Western Union on the
resumption of service.
The Taliban say they want good
relations with all countries, even
the United States, and have held a
string of meetings with foreign en-
voys in recent days in the Gulf na-
tion of Qatar, where they have
long maintained a political office.
Western nations are expected to
demand the Taliban live up to
their promises to form an inclu-
sive government and prevent Af-
ghanistan from being a haven for
terrorist groups. They may also
press the Taliban on women’s
rights, though that could be a har-
der sell for the group’s hard-line
base, which is steeped in Afghan-
istan’s deeply conservative, tribal
culture.
Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a spokes-
man for the Taliban’s cultural
commission, said a senior official
from the United Arab Emirates
flew into Kabul’s international
airport on Friday to meet with Ta-
liban officials, without naming
him. Afghanistan’s TOLO TV re-
ported that the aircraft was also
carrying 60 tons of food and med-
ical aid.
Sher Mohammad Stanikzai, a
senior Taliban official based in
Qatar, recently met with British
and German delegations, accord-
ing to the Taliban, which said an-
other official, Abdul Salam Hana-
fi, had a phone call with Chinese
deputy foreign minister Wu Jiang-
hao.
Most Western embassies were
evacuated and shuttered in the
days after the Taliban rolled into
Kabul on Aug. 15. The Taliban
have urged diplomats to return.
Taliban political leaders have
gone on TV to say the world has
nothing to fear from them. But
many Afghans, as well as Western
nations that spent two decades
fighting the group, remain deeply
skeptical.
Afghan womendemand rightsas Taliban rule
BY KATHY GANNON
Associated Press
PHOTOS BY WALI SABAWOON/AP
Women gather to demand their rights under Taliban rule during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday.
Women gather to demand their rights under the Taliban rule during aprotest in Kabul, Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden and first
lady Jill Biden met with wounded
service members on Thursday at
Walter Reed National Medical
Center, where some of the Amer-
icans hurt in last week’s suicide
bombing in Afghanistan are be-
ing treated.
Thirteen U.S. service members
were killed in the Aug. 26 attack
by ISIS-K outside the Kabul air-
port, where the U.S. had been
evacuating its citizens and Af-
ghan allies after the capital fell to
the Taliban. The U.S. launched its
first retaliatory drone strike the
next day.
The bodies of the service mem-
bers were flown to Dover Air
Force Base in Delaware. On Sun-
day, Biden attended what is
known as a dignified transfer cer-
emony at the base and also met
with relatives of the dead.
A Navy corpsman, an Army
staff sergeant, and 11 Marines as
well as dozens of Afghans were
killed in the suicide bombing at
the airport’s Abbey Gate. An ad-
ditional 18 U.S. service members
were wounded.
The president said last week
had “some sense” of the loss the
families felt, pointing out that his
son, Beau Biden, had served in
the Army in Iraq before dying of
brain cancer.
”You get this feeling like you’re
being sucked into a black hole in
the middle of your chest; there’s
no way out,” Biden said. “My
heart aches for you.”
Biden is deeply familiar with
Walter Reed, having spent time
there as a patient in the 1980s af-
ter suffering a brain aneurysm.
He also kept watch over his son
there during his battle with can-
cer.
Biden visits wounded service members at Walter Reed
SUSAN WALSH/AP
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden leave Walter ReedNational Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Thursday, aftervisiting with injured troops.
BY JENNIFER EPSTEIN
Bloomberg News
AFGHANISTAN
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7
ple perished. Most drowned after
their vehicles were caught in flash
floods.
At least six people were still
missing in New Jersey, Gov. Phil
Murphy said.
Floodwaters and a falling tree
also took lives in Maryland, Penn-
sylvania, Connecticut and New
York. In New York City, 11 people
died when they were unable to es-
cape rising water in their low-ly-
ing apartments.
After the storm, fires broke out
in several New Jersey homes and
businesses that were largely inac-
cessible to firefighters because of
the floodwaters. Authorities said
they suspect gas leaks triggered
by the flooding fed the blazes.
The search for possible victims
was not over.
“I don’t have an exact answer
regarding how many people are
actually missing, but we are going
to continue to work hard through-
out the day, throughout the eve-
ning to make sure we identify ev-
eryone’s location,” Rodney Harri-
son, New York City police chief of
department, said Thursday.
In Wilmington, Delaware,
crews rescued more than 200 peo-
ple after the Brandywine River re-
ached record levels, swamping
roads, bridges and homes. No ma-
jor injuries or deaths were report-
ed.
Elsewhere, work continued on
hauling away ruined cars, clear-
ing mud and other debris from
streets and restoring transit ser-
vice.
In Philadelphia, crews worked
seven large pumps to drain the
flooded expressway, with officials
giving no estimate on when the
heavily trafficked interstate
would fully reopen. An inch-thick
layer of muck was left behind in
the portions that were drying out.
Leaders in some states pledged
to examine whether anything
could be done to prevent a catas-
trophe like this from happening
again.
New Jersey and New York have
both spent billions of dollars im-
proving flood defenses after Su-
perstorm Sandy hit in 2012, but
much of that work was focused
primarily on protecting communi-
ties from seawater, not rain.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul
said Thursday the region needs to
turn its attention to storm systems
unprepared to handle a future of
more frequent flash flooding be-
cause of climate change.
“One thing I want to make clear:
We’re not treating this as if it’s not
going to happen again for 500
years,” she said.
Ida: Hochul says region should prepare for future FROM PAGE 1
EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AP
Floodwaters cover Route 206 as a result of the remnants of Hurricane Ida in Somerville, N.J., Thursday.
NEW ORLEANS — Power
should be restored to almost all of
New Orleans by Wednesday, 10
days after Hurricane Ida de-
stroyed the electric gird, tearing
down poles, transformers and
even a massive steel transmission
tower and leaving more than 1 mil-
lion customers in Louisiana with-
out power.
Not every customer will have
power back in the city, utility En-
tergy said in a statement Friday.
Customers with damage where
power enters their home will need
to fix it themselves, and there
could be some smaller areas that
take longer.
And there still is no concrete
promise of when the lights will
come back on in the parishes east
and south of New Orleans, which
were battered for hours by winds
of 100 mph or more, Entergy said.
The company asked for pa-
tience, acknowledging the heat
and misery in Ida’s aftermath. En-
tergy said more than 25,000 work-
ers from 40 states are fixing the
14,000 damaged poles, 2,223 bro-
ken transformers and 155 de-
stroyed transmission structures.
“Please know that thousands of
employees and contractors are
currently in the field working day
and night to restore power. We will
continue working until every com-
munity is restored,” said Rod
West, a group president for utility
operations.
Ida’s agonizing aftermath took
another grim turn Thursday as
Louisiana officials announced an
investigation into the deaths of
four nursing home residents who
had been evacuated to a ware-
house ahead of the severe weath-
er.
The nursing home residents
who died were among hundreds
from seven nursing homes taken
to the warehouse in Independ-
ence, where conditions became
unhealthy and unsafe after the
hurricane struck on Sunday, state
health officials said. A coroner
classified three of the deaths as
storm-related.
Health officials received re-
ports of people lying on mattresses
on the floor, not being fed or
changed and not being socially
distanced to prevent the spread of
the coronavirus, which is current-
ly ravaging the state, Louisiana
Department of Health spokesper-
son Aly Neel said. When a large
team of state health inspectors
showed up on Tuesday to investi-
gate the warehouse, the owner of
the nursing homes demanded that
they leave immediately, Neel said.
Neel identified the owner as Bob
Dean. Dean did not immediately
respond Thursday to a telephone
message left by The Associated
Press at a number listed for him.
Most of New Orleansto get power backby next Wednesday
Associated Press
NATION
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. —
Fire crews took advantage of de-
creasing winds to battle a California
wildfire near popular Lake Tahoe
and were even able to allow some
people back to their homes but dry
weather and a weekend warming
trend meant the battle was far from
over.
The Caldor Fire remained only a
few miles from South Lake Tahoe,
which was emptied of 22,000 resi-
dents days ago, along with casinos
and shops across the state line in
Nevada.
The wind-driven fire that began
Aug. 14 had raged through densely
forested, craggy areas and still
threatened more than 30,000
homes, businesses and other build-
ings ranging from cabins to ski re-
sorts.
But there was optimism and pro-
gress as winds eased on the fire’s
western flank while in the north-
east, despite gusty ridgetop winds,
firefighters with bulldozers and
shovels were steadily hacking out
fire lines or burning away vegeta-
tion to box in the flames before they
reached Tahoe.
“In the valleys we’re doing plenty
of work,” fire information officer
Marco Rodriguez said. “The crews
are working and they’re doing con-
trolled fires … to try to make those
containment lines a little bit stron-
ger.”
Residents who were forced to
flee South Lake Tahoe earlier this
week remained evacuated along
with people across the state line in
Douglas County, Nev.
The resort can easily accommo-
date 100,000 people on a busy week-
end but on Thursday, just before the
Labor Day weekend, it was eerily
empty.
Yet after days of flames threaten-
ing to engulf the resort at any mo-
ment, any respite was welcome.
“I feel like we are truly the luck-
iest community in the entire world
right now. I’m so incredibly happy,”
said Mayor Tamara Wallace, who
evacuated to Truckee, Calif.
“It’s finally a chance to take a
breath,” said Clive Savacool, chief
of South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue.
“It’s a breath full of smoke. None-
theless, I think we’re all breathing a
little bit easier and we feel like
we’re making some progress.”
Russ Crupi, who two days ago
was arranging sprinklers around
his mobile home park in South Lake
Tahoe just miles from the fire line,
had turned off the water for now,
feeling confident his neighborhood
was no longer under threat. The
nearby mountains, cloaked in
smoke for most of the week, had be-
come visible.
“I’m just happy they stopped it. It
looked close,” he said.
Farther west, evacuation orders
were lifted or downgraded to warn-
ings in several areas of El Dorado
County.
Friday’s forecast called for light-
er winds but also extremely dry
daytime weather, with a warming
trend through the weekend as high
pressure builds over the West, fire
officials said.
Calmer winds aid firefighters inCalifornia but hot weekend looms
BY SAM METZ
AND JANIE HAR
Associated Press
JAE C. HONG/AP
A firefighter pauses briefly with a water hose while monitoring a spotfire from the Caldor Fire near South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Thursday.
PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
NATION
The COVID-19 pandemic has
created a nurse staffing crisis that
is forcing many U.S. hospitals to
pay top dollar to get the help they
need to handle the crush of pa-
tients this summer.
The problem, health leaders
say, is twofold: Nurses are quitting
or retiring, exhausted or demoral-
ized by the crisis. And many are
leaving for lucrative temporary
jobs with traveling-nurse agen-
cies that can pay $5,000 or more a
week.
It’s gotten to the point where
doctors are saying, “Maybe I
should quit being a doctor and go
be a nurse,” said Dr. Phillip Coule,
chief medical officer at Georgia’s
Augusta University Medical Cen-
ter, which has on occasion seen 20
to 30 resignations in a week from
nurses taking traveling jobs.
“And then we have to pay pre-
mium rates to get staff from anoth-
er state to come to our state,”
Coule said.
The average pay for a traveling
nurse has soared from roughly
$1,000 to $2,000 per week before
the pandemic to $3,000 to $5,000
now, said Sophia Morris, a vice
president at San Diego-based
health care staffing firm Aya
Healthcare. She said Aya has
48,000 openings for traveling
nurses to fill.
The explosion in pay has made
it hard on hospitals without deep
enough pockets.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly la-
mented recently that the state’s
hospitals risk being outbid for
nurses by other states that pay a
“fortune.” She said Wednesday
that several hospitals, including
one in Topeka, had open beds but
no nurses to staff them.
In Kansas City, Mo., Truman
Medical Centers has lost about 10
nurses to travel jobs in recent days
and is looking for travelers to re-
place them, said CEO Charlie
Shields.
He said it is hard to compete
with the travel agencies, which
are charging hospitals $165 to $170
an hour per nurse. He said the
agencies take a big cut of that, but
he estimated that nurses are still
clearing $70 to $90 an hour, which
is two to three times what the hos-
pital pays its staff nurses.
“I think clearly people are tak-
ing advantage of the demand that
is out there,” Shields said. “I hate
to use ‘gouged’ as a description,
but we are clearly paying a premi-
um and allowing people to have
fairly high profit margins.”
In Texas, more than 6,000 travel
nurses have flooded the state to
help with the surge through a
state-supported program. But on
the same day that 19 of them went
to work at a hospital in the north-
ern part of the state, 20 other nurs-
es at the same place gave notice
that they would be leaving for a
traveling contract, said Carrie
Kroll, a vice president at the Texas
Hospital Association.
“The nurses who haven’t left,
who have stayed with their facil-
ities, they are seeing these other
people come in now who are mak-
ing more money. It provides a
tense working environment,”
Kroll said.
The pandemic was in its early
stages when Kim Davis, 36, decid-
ed to quit her job at an Arkansas
hospital and become a travel
nurse. She said she has roughly
doubled her income in the 14
months that she has been treating
patients in intensive care units in
Phoenix; San Bernardino, Califor-
nia; and Tampa, Fla.
Davis said many of her col-
leagues are following the same
path.
“They’re leaving to go travel be-
cause why would you do the same
job for half the pay?” she said. “If
they’re going to risk their lives,
they should be compensated.”
US hospitalshit with nursestaffing crisis
Associated Press
KYLE GREEN/AP
Registered nurse Jack Kingsley attends to a COVID19 patient in the Medical Intensive care unit at St.Luke's Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — Centrist
Sen. Joe Manchin said Thursday
that Congress should take a “stra-
tegic pause” on more spending,
warning that he does not support
President Joe Biden’s plans for a
sweeping $3.5 trillion effort to re-
build and reshape the economy.
The West Virginia Democrat’s
pointed opposition was stronger
than his past statements and taps
into a grab-bag of arguments over
inflation, national security and
other concerns to deny Biden and
his party a crucial vote on the
emerging package. The timing of
his comments comes as lawmak-
ers are laboring behind the scenes
to draft the legislation ahead of
this month’s deadlines.
“Instead of rushing to spend
trillions on new government pro-
grams and additional stimulus
funding, Congress should hit a
strategic pause on the budget-rec-
onciliation legislation,” Manchin
wrote in an op-ed published in the
Wall Street Journal.
“I, for one, won’t support a $3.5
trillion bill, or anywhere near that
level of additional spending, with-
out greater clarity about why Con-
gress chooses to ignore the serious
effects inflation and debt have on
existing government programs.”
Democrats have no votes to
spare as they labor to helm Bi-
den’s big “build back better”
agenda to passage in the narrowly
divided Congress, where they
have the majority in the 50-50 Sen-
ate because of the tie-breaking
vote of Vice President Kamala
Harris.
Manchin has long been a hold-
out against the topline amount,
$3.5 trillion, even though he voted
last month to approve a budget
resolution that set the figure.
Manchin
seeks halt
on Biden
$3.5T billAssociated Press Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Repub-
lican states that have passed in-
creasingly tough abortion restric-
tions only to see them blocked by
the federal courts have a new
template in an unusually written
Texas law that represents the
most far-reaching curb on abor-
tions in nearly half a century.
On Thursday, Republican law-
makers in at least half a dozen
states said they planned to intro-
duce bills using the Texas law as a
model, hoping it provides a path-
way to enacting the kind of abor-
tion crackdown they have sought
for years.
In Mississippi, Republican
state Sen. Chris McDaniel said he
would “absolutely” consider fil-
ing legislation to match the Texas
law after a sharply divided U.S.
Supreme Court let it stand.
“I think most conservative
states in the South will look at this
inaction by the court and will see
that as perhaps a chance to move
on that issue,” he said.
The Texas law, which took ef-
fect Wednesday, prohibits abor-
tions once medical professionals
can detect cardiac activity, usual-
ly around six weeks and before
many women know they’re preg-
nant. While a dozen states have
tried to enact bans early in preg-
nancy, those laws have been
blocked by courts.
Texas may have found an end-
run around the federal courts by
enacting an unusual enforcement
scheme that authorizes private ci-
tizens to file lawsuits in state
court against abortion providers
and anyone involved in aiding an
abortion, including someone who
drives a woman to a clinic. The
law includes a minimum award of
$10,000 for a successful lawsuit,
but does not have government of-
ficials criminally enforce the law.
In addition to Mississippi, GOP
lawmakers and abortion oppo-
nents in at least five other Repub-
lican-controlled states — Arkan-
sas, Florida, Indiana, North Da-
kota and South Dakota — said
they were considering pushing
bills similar to the Texas law and
its citizen-enforcement provi-
sion.
“Even though you may have
pro-life legislators, you do not al-
ways have pro-life bureaucrats
who are willing to do enforcement
inspections,” said Indiana state
Sen. Liz Brown, a Republican
who has been the sponsor of sev-
eral anti-abortion bills adopted in
recent years.
Democrats also anticipated the
Supreme Court’s new conserva-
tive majority overturning Roe, al-
though they fear a ruling striking
it down would leave old state laws
outlawing abortions in effect.
“Reproductive freedom in our
state is built on case law,” said
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a
Democrat, as he pushed for state
lawmakers to enact a bill that
would enshrine access to abor-
tions.
“All of that case law is in turn
built on the Supreme Court’s de-
cision on Roe v. Wade. If the foun-
dation of that series of case laws is
impacted, impaired, taken away,
the entire reality in our state falls
like a house of cards, which is why
we need to, as soon as possible,
put this protection into statute.”
GOP-led states see Texas lawas model to restrict abortions
Associated Press
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9
NATION
WASHINGTON — America’s
employers added just 235,000
jobs in August, a surprisingly
weak gain after two months of ro-
bust hiring at a time when the
delta variant’s spread has dis-
couraged some people from fly-
ing, shopping and eating out.
The unemployment rate drop-
ped to 5.2% from 5.4% in July.
The August job gains the gov-
ernment reported Friday fell far
short of the roughly 940,000 that
employers had added in each of
the previous two months, when
widespread vaccinations allowed
the economy to fully reopen from
pandemic restrictions. Still, the
number of job openings remains
at record levels, and hiring is ex-
pected to stay solid in the coming
months.
With COVID cases having
spiked in July and August, Amer-
icans have been buying fewer
plane tickets and reducing hotel
stays. Restaurant dining, after
having fully recovered in late
June, has declined to about 10%
below pre-pandemic levels.
Some live shows, including the
remaining concerts on country
star Garth Brooks’ tour, have
been canceled. Businesses are
delaying their returns to offices,
threatening the survival of some
downtown restaurants, coffee
shops and dry cleaners.
Supply shortages have also fed
an inflation surge, with consumer
prices having jumped in July by
the most in three decades, ac-
cording to the Fed’s preferred
measure. Rising inflation pres-
sures have contributed, in turn, to
a sharp drop in consumer confi-
dence.
Yet there are signs that many
companies are still looking to
hire, particularly those that are
not in public-facing service in-
dustries like restaurants and
bars. The job listings website In-
deed says the number of availa-
ble jobs grew in August, led by
such sectors as information tech-
nology and finance, in which
many employees can work from
home.
Walmart announced this week
that it will hire 20,000 people to
expand its supply chain and on-
line shopping operations, includ-
ing jobs for order fillers, drivers
and managers. Amazon said
Wednesday that it is looking to fill
40,000 jobs in the U.S., mostly
technology and hourly positions.
And Fidelity Investments said
Tuesday that it is adding 9,000
more jobs, including in customer
service and IT.
Hiring slows to235K jobs after2 strong monthsBY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
Associated Press
U.S. traffic deaths in the first
quarter of 2021 rose by 10.5% over
last year, even as driving has de-
clined, the government’s road
safety agency reported Thursday.
The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration estimated
that 8,730 people died in motor ve-
hicle traffic crashes from January
through March, compared with
the 7,900 fatalities from the same
period in 2020.
The increase in traffic fatalities
is a continuation of a trend that
started in 2020. In June, the
NHTSA reported that traffic
deaths rose 7% last year to 38,680,
the most since 2007. That increase
came even as the number of miles
traveled by vehicles fell 13% from
2019 due to the coronavirus pan-
demic.
The NHTSA said drivers con-
tinue to exhibit risky behavior on
the roads, including speeding, not
wearing seat belts and driving un-
der the influence of drugs or alco-
hol.
Preliminary data from the Fed-
eral Highway Administration
shows that vehicle miles traveled
fell 2.1% — roughly 14.9 billion
miles — in the first three months
of 2021. The agency estimates that
there were 1.26 deaths per 100 mil-
lion vehicle miles traveled in the
first quarter this year, compared
to a rate of 1.12 deaths for the same
period in 2020.
Neither the data from 2020 nor
2021 is final.
SHAFKAT ANOWAR/AP
Traffic flows along the Interstate 90 highway in Chicago March 31. The government’s road safety agencyreported Thursday that traffic deaths in the first quarter of 2021 rose by 10.5% over last year.
NHTSA: Traffic deaths riseagain as drivers take risks
Associated Press
SCHOHARIE, N.Y. — The oper-
ator of a limousine company was
spared prison time Thursday in a
2018 crash that killed 20 people
when catastrophic brake failure
sent a stretch limo full of birthday
revelers hurtling down a hill in up-
state New York.
Loved ones of the dead excoriat-
ed Nauman Hussain, 31, as he sat
quietly at the defense table during
a hearing that was held in a high
school gymnasium to provide for
social distancing among the many
relatives, friends and media mem-
bers attending.
Hussain, who operated Prestige
Limousine, had originally been
charged with 20 counts each of
criminally negligent homicide and
second-degree manslaughter in
what was the deadliest U.S. trans-
portation disaster in a decade.
But under an agreement for
Hussain to plead guilty only to the
homicide counts and spare fam-
ilies the uncertainties and emo-
tional toll of a trial, he faces five
years of probation and 1,000 hours
of community service. His case
had been de-
layed by the cor-
onavirus pan-
demic.
As Judge Ge-
orge Bartlett III
prepared to ac-
cept the agree-
ment, loved ones
of the victims
took turns talk-
ing of lives cut short, the holes left
in their own and their frustration
that the operator would avoid time
behind bars.
“Every day I try to wrap my
head around this impossible situa-
tion,” said Sheila McGarvey,
whose 30-year-old son Shane
McGowan and his wife, Erin, were
passengers. “I hate every day
without him.”
She wished, she said, that a frac-
tion of any money Hussain spent
on lawyers would have been spent
to fix the limo’s brakes.
Hussain was accused of putting
the victims in a death trap.
“My son, my baby boy, was
killed in a limo while trying to be
safe,” said Beth Muldoon, the
mother of Adam Jackson, 34, who
was killed along with his wife, Abi-
gail King Jackson.
The couple, who with the others
had rented the limo to avoid drink-
ing and driving, had two small chil-
dren. Muldoon lamented the holi-
days and life milestones the par-
ents will miss.
One spectator left the hearing,
cursing and shouting, “He killed
20 people,” before apologizing to
the judge on her way out.
Hussain sat quietly as parents
talked about their smothering
grief and anger. Defense attorney
Joseph Tacopina said his client ac-
cepts responsibility for his actions
and cried as the relatives spoke.
Hussain did not answer report-
ers’ questions after the court pro-
ceeding.
Under the deal, Hussain will be
formally sentenced after an inter-
im probation of two years. The
judge noted that Hussain’s guilty
plea could be used to buoy any law-
suits.
On Oct. 6, 2018, Axel Steenburg
of Amsterdam, 30 miles west of Al-
bany, rented the 2001 Ford Excur-
sion limousine for the 30th birth-
day of his new wife, Amy. The par-
ty group, ranging in age from 24 to
34, included Axel’s brother, Amy’s
three sisters and two of their hus-
bands, and close friends.
En route to Brewery Omme-
gang, south of Cooperstown, the li-
mo’s brakes failed on a downhill
stretch of state Route 30 in Schoha-
rie, west of Albany. The vehicle
blew through a stop sign at a T-in-
tersection at over 100 mph and
crashed into a small ravine near a
popular country store.
Seventeen family members and
friends were killed, along with the
driver and two bystanders outside
the store.
Schoharie County District At-
torney Susan Mallery’s office has
said Hussain allowed passengers
to ride in the limo despite having
received “multiple notices of vio-
lations” from the state and having
been told repairs were inadequate.
State police said the vehicle should
have been taken out of service be-
cause of brake problems identified
in an inspection a month before the
crash.
But complications were high-
lighted in the plea agreement.
In a separate report last fall, the
National Transportation Safety
Board concluded that while the
crash was likely caused by Pres-
tige Limousine’s “egregious disre-
gard for safety” that resulted in
brake failure, ineffective state
oversight contributed.
Lee Kindlon, an attorney for
Hussain, has said his client tried to
maintain the limousine and relied
on what he was told by state offi-
cials and a repair shop that in-
spected it.
Limo operator avoids prison time in crash that killed 20 Associated Press
Hussain
PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
SANGEH, Indonesia — De-
prived of their preferred food
source — the bananas, peanuts
and other goodies brought in by
tourists now kept away by the cor-
onavirus — hungry monkeys on
the resort island of Bali have tak-
en to raiding villagers’ homes in
their search for something tasty.
Villagers in Sangeh say the
gray long-tailed macaques have
been venturing out from a sanctu-
ary about 500 yards away to hang
out on their roofs and await the
right time to swoop down and
snatch a snack.
Worried that the sporadic sor-
ties will escalate into an all-out
monkey assault on the village,
residents have been taking fruit,
peanuts and other food to the San-
geh Monkey Forest to try to pla-
cate the primates.
“We are afraid that the hungry
monkeys will turn wild and vi-
cious,” villager Saskara Gustu
Alit said.
About 600 of the macaques live
in the forest sanctuary, swinging
from the tall nutmeg trees and
leaping about the famous Pura
Bukit Sari temple, and are consid-
ered sacred.
In normal times the protected
jungle area in the southeast of the
Indonesian island is popular
among local residents for wed-
ding photos, as well as among in-
ternational visitors. The relative-
ly tame monkeys can be easily
coaxed to sit on a shoulder or lap
for a peanut or two.
Ordinarily, tourism is the main
source of income for Bali’s 4 mil-
lion residents, who welcomed
more than 5 million foreign vis-
itors annually before the pandem-
ic.
The Sangeh Monkey Forest
typically had about 6,000 visitors
a month, but as the pandemic
spread last year and international
travel dropped off dramatically,
that number dropped to about
500.
Since July, when Indonesia
banned all foreign travelers to the
island and shut the sanctuary to
local residents as well, there has
been nobody.
Not only has that meant nobody
bringing in extra food for the
monkeys, the sanctuary has also
lost out on its admission fees and
is running low on money to pur-
chase food for them, said oper-
ations manager Made Mohon.
The donations from villagers
have helped, but they are also
feeling the economic pinch and
are gradually giving less and less,
he said.
“This prolonged pandemic is
beyond our expectations,” Made
Mohon said, “Food for monkeys
has become a problem.”
The macaque is an omnivore
and can eat a variety of animals
and plants found in the jungle, but
those in the Sangeh Monkey For-
est have had enough contact with
humans over the years that they
seem to prefer other things.
FIRDIA LISNAWATI/AP
A worker feeds macaques during a feeding time at Sangeh Monkey Forest in Sangeh, Bali Island,Indonesia, on Wednesday.
With no tourist handouts, hungryBali monkeys steal from villages
Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand
— New Zealand authorities were
so worried about an extremist in-
spired by the Islamic State they
were following him around-the-
clock and were able to shoot and
kill him within 60 seconds of him
unleashing a frenzied knife attack
that wounded six people Friday at
an Auckland supermarket.
Three of the shoppers were tak-
en to Auckland hospitals in critical
condition, police said. Another
was in serious condition, while
two more were in moderate condi-
tion.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
said the incident was a terror at-
tack. She said the man was a Sri
Lankan national who was inspired
by ISIS and was well known to the
nation’s security agencies.
Ardern said she had been per-
sonally briefed on the man in the
past but there had been no legal
reason for him to be detained.
“Had he done something that
would have allowed us to put him
into prison, he would have been in
prison,” Ardern said.
The attack unfolded at about
2:40 p.m. at a Countdown super-
market in New Zealand’s largest
city.
Police Commissioner Andrew
Coster said a police surveillance
team and a specialist tactics group
had followed the man from his
home in the suburb of Glen Eden
to the supermarket in New Lynn.
But while they had grave ongo-
ing concerns about the man, they
had no particular reason to think
he was planning an attack on Fri-
day, Coster said. The man ap-
peared to be going into the store to
do his grocery shopping.
“He entered the store, as he had
done before. He obtained a knife
from within the store,” Coster
said. “Surveillance teams were as
close as they possibly could be to
monitor his activity.”
Witnesses said the man shouted
“Allahu akbar” — meaning God is
great — and started stabbing ran-
dom shoppers, sending people
running and screaming.
Coster said that when the com-
motion started, two police from
the special tactics group rushed
over. He said the man charged at
the officers with the knife and so
they shot and killed him.
One bystander video taken from
inside the supermarket records
the sound of 10 shots being fired in
rapid succession.
Coster said there would be
questions about whether police
could have reacted even quicker.
He said that the man was very
aware of the constant surveillance
and they needed to be some dis-
tance from him for it to be effec-
tive.
Ardern said the attack was vio-
lent and senseless, and she was
sorry it had happened.
“What happened today was de-
spicable. It was hateful. It was
wrong,” Ardern said. “It was car-
ried out by an individual. Not a
faith, not a culture, not an ethnic-
ity. But an individual person who
is gripped by ideology that is not
supported here by anyone or any
community.”
Ardern said the man had first
moved to New Zealand in 2011 and
had been monitored by security
agencies since 2016.
‘Terrorist’ killedafter stabbing 6in New Zealand
BY NICK PERRY
Associated Press
WORLD
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Brit-
ish national admitted Thursday
evening in a federal courtroom
near the nation’s capital that he
played a leadership role in an Is-
lamic State scheme to torture,
hold for ransom and eventually
behead American hostages.
Alexanda Amon Kotey, 37,
pleaded guilty to all eight counts
against him at a plea hearing in
U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
The charges include hostage-tak-
ing resulting in death and provid-
ing material support to ISIS from
2012 through 2015.
He admitted guilt in connection
with the deaths of four American
hostages — journalist James Fo-
ley, journalist
Steven Sotloff
and aid workers
Peter Kassig and
Kayla Mueller —
as well as Eu-
ropean and Ja-
panese nationals
who also were
held captive.
Kotey is one of four ISIS mem-
bers who were dubbed “the Beat-
les” by their captives because of
their British accents. He and an-
other man, El Shafee Elsheikh,
were brought to the U.S. last year
to face charges after the U.S. as-
sured Britain that neither man
would face the death penalty.
Elsheikh is still scheduled to go
on trial in January. A third Beatle,
Mohammed Emwazi, also known
as “Jihadi John,” was killed in a
2015 drone strike. A fourth mem-
ber is serving a prison sentence in
Turkey.
The plea deal sets a mandatory
minimum sentence of life without
parole. After 15 years, though, he
would be eligible to be trans-
ferred to the United Kingdom to
face any possible charges there.
In the plea deal, he admits that
life is an appropriate sentence in
the United Kingdom as well. If he
were to receive a sentence of less
than life there, the deal requires
that he serve the rest of his life
sentence, either in the United
Kingdom if that country will do
so, or be transferred back to the
U.S. to serve the life term.
The deal also requires him to
cooperate with authorities and
answer questions about his time
in the Islamic State group. He
would not, though, be required to
testify at Elsheikh’s trial.
The deal also requires him to
meet with victims’ families if they
request it.
Family members of all four vic-
tims attended Thursday’s hearing
and stood outside the courthouse
afterward with prosecutors. They
will have an opportunity to speak
at Kotey’s formal sentencing on
March 4.
James Foley’s mother, Diane,
said she was grateful for the con-
viction and praised prosecutors
for obtaining a detailed account of
Kotey’s culpability.
“This accountability is essen-
tial if our country wants to dis-
courage hostage-taking,” she
said. Diane Foley also called on
the U.S. government to prioritize
the return of all Americans being
held abroad.
British national pleads guilty to role in ISIS beheadingsAssociated Press
Kotey
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11
PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
AMERICAN ROUNDUP
Drone operators warnedahead of air show
ME BRUNSWICK — The
Great State of Maine
Air Show this weekend will fea-
ture aerial acrobats, all manner of
vintage and modern planes, and
the Navy’s flight demonstration
team. But drones are not welcome.
The Brunswick Police Depart-
ment said drones and other air-
craft are not allowed within 5
miles of the Brunswick Executive
Airport effective Thursday and
through the show’s completion on
Sunday.
“The FBI has been working di-
rectly with Brunswick PD in plan-
ning the security/safety for the Air
Show and stated that they will
prosecute those that choose to not
follow the no-fly restriction,” said
Police Chief Scott Stewart.
Drones are typically used by the
public to get aerial footage and
photographs, and are controlled
remotely by their operators. The
flight ban also applies to conven-
tional aircraft.
Authorities raid pet storecalled ‘shop of horrors’
KY BURNSIDE — Police
and members of the
Humane Society have removed
150 neglected animals from a pet
shop in southern Kentucky.
Local authorities in Pulaski
County, including the Burnside
Police Department, served a
search warrant on the pet shop,
Tim’s Reptiles and Exotics, on
Wednesday morning. A media re-
lease from the Humane Society of
Kentucky said dozens of “snakes,
lizards, turtles, rabbits, guinea
pigs, hamsters, gerbils and fish
were found living in filthy, poor
conditions.”
Todd Blevins, Kentucky direc-
tor for the Humane Society, called
the store a “shop of horrors.”
The pet shop owner was
charged with 19 counts of animal
cruelty, according to the Humane
Society.
Roadside flower photossought for calendar
WV CHARLESTON —
The West Virginia De-
partment of Environmental Pro-
tection is planning its 2022 wild-
flower calendar and says there’s a
week left to send in photo submis-
sions.
Photos must show flowers
growing along a road, with the
road prominently visible in the
photo. Flowers may be natural
growth or in a Division of High-
ways wildflower bed, but photos of
cultivated species in arranged
beds don’t qualify, the Depart-
ment of Environmental Protec-
tion said in a news release.
Photos must have been taken in
West Virginia and no more than
three per person submitted, each
as an 8-by-10-inch color print in
landscape orientation, with a
high-resolution digital copy on a
CD or flash drive.
Bad batteries, illness:School year starts rocky
MI BALDWIN — The
school year is off to a
slow start in a western Michigan
district due to power outages,
faulty batteries and students with
flu-like symptoms.
The Baldwin district, 70 miles
north of Grand Rapids in Lake
County, called off classes for
Wednesday and Thursday and
told students to return Sept. 7.
Schools were already closed Fri-
day ahead of the holiday weekend.
“The state requires that we
have 75% of attendance across the
entire district,” interim Superin-
tendent J. Mark Parsons told
9and10news.com. “We were not
making that threshold.”
Most flu-like symptoms were in
the elementary school. Parsons
canceled classes on two days last
week, too.
Online learning is not an imme-
diate option. The batteries used in
internet hot spots were recalled.
Gray wolf spotted in areafor 1st time in decades
CA BAKERSFIELD — A
gray wolf was spotted
in Kern County earlier this year,
the farthest south the species has
traveled since being reintroduced
in California after going extinct,
wildlife officials said.
The collared gray wolf was cap-
tured on a trail camera drinking
from a water trough on private
property back on May 15, but offi-
cials received the footage last
week, the California Department
of Fish and Wildlife said in a state-
ment Saturday.
It is possible the wolf could be
OR-93, a young male wolf that en-
tered California from Oregon in
January. The animal was spotted
in San Luis Obispo County on
April 5, when his collar stopped
transmitting, they said.
OR-93 dispersed from the
White River pack in northern Ore-
gon, officials said.
School locked down afterparent’s fit over masks
FL SARASOTA — A Flor-
ida elementary school
was placed in a temporary, limited
lockdown after a parent threat-
ened to leave his job and confront
an assistant principal for telling
his children they couldn’t come to
school without being masked.
Christopher Kivlin was met by
police officers Tuesday outside
Ashton Elementary School in Sa-
rasota. No charges were filed but
he was ordered not to come back
to the school without calling first
and getting permission.
An incident report said Kivlin
showed up to campus saying the
school was violating the law by not
allowing his children to attend
school.
Kivlin told television station
WFLA that he had no intention of
hurting anyone but just wanted to
talk to a school official.
He apologized for scaring any-
one and said “it was just emotions
built up.”
“I found out after the fact that
the school had to go into lockdown,
I was like, ‘That’s horrible,’ ” Kiv-
lin said. “I feel like I might have
scared other parents.”
Department gets mentalhealth program funds
WV CHARLESTON —
The West Virginia De-
partment of Education’s program
to increase mental health aware-
ness among youth and train school
staff to respond has received a $1.8
million grant from the federal gov-
ernment.
The award was announced
Tuesday by U.S. Sens. Joe Man-
chin and Shelley Moore Capito of
West Virginia.
Project AWARE, or Advancing
Wellness and Resiliency in Edu-
cation, also works to train school
teachers and employees to detect
and respond to mental health is-
sues and connect young people af-
fected by behavioral health issues
with needed services, Manchin
and Capito said in a news release.
The award comes from the U.S.
Department of Health and Hu-
man Services Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Ad-
ministration.
Crews pull people fromflooded apartments
MD ROCKVILLE — Af-
ter the remnants of
Hurricane Ida dumped heavy
rains in Maryland, rescue crews
pulled people from flooded base-
ment units in apartment buildings
and two people remained unac-
counted for Wednesday morning,
officials said.
Montgomery County Fire Chief
Scott Goldstein said the water had
almost reached the ceiling when
crews arrived at the apartments in
Rockville, news outlets reported.
“In many years I have not seen
circumstances like this,” Gold-
stein said.
About 200 people from 60 apart-
ments are displaced because of
the flooding, Goldstein said. Two
people were unaccounted for
Wednesday morning, he said.
Once rescues were complete, the
focus turned to pumping out water
so crews could search the apart-
ments, he said.
GILLIAN JONES, THE BIRKSHIRE EAGLE/AP
Vera de Jong, left, walks along Main Street in Williamstown, Mass. with her umbrella, while Valerie Krall wears a raincoat as she walks her twodogs Harrie and Llewey around the corner at Cole Avenue on Wednesday.
Wet walk
THE CENSUS
$50M The amount the University of Massachusetts has re-ceived as a gift from a pair of alumni, the largest gift of
any kind in system history, school officials announced Wednesday. The giftfrom Robert J. and Donna Manning will be spread among the system’s fivecampuses, with $15 million earmarked to endow the UMass Boston nursingprogram, which will become the Robert and Donna Manning College of Nurs-ing and Health Sciences.
From The Associated Press
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13
VIDEO GAMES
If you want to enjoy thetrue Deathloop experience,don’t read previews aboutthe game. Seriously. Stopright now.
Here’s the thing: Death-loop’s defining activity isnot the elimination of eightboss-type characters, orbreaking the time loop inwhich the protagonist istrapped. The game’s coreexperience is about discov-ery — and not just plotpoints. It starts with dis-covering simply how toplay the game.
Deathloop is a uniquegame. It reminded me, allat once, of Fallout, Hitman,Returnal, the movie “Me-mento” and the TV series“Lost.” But when you pickup a Fallout title, for exam-ple, you mostly know whatyou’re going to get and howto play. Deathloop, by con-trast, asks you to play byits rules, which are fairlyunique. And so, to explainhow the game works is tospoil one of Deathloop’smost enjoyable aspects:just learning its distinctivemechanics.
So, if you want to fullyimmerse yourself in thestory of this game, stopreading. Have a nice day.Go outside. Read a book.Do literally anything asidefrom scrolling down andreading more. You canthank me later.
Doing so, we’re told, will break the loop.
You progress in the game every time
Colt discovers a new lead, information
critical to breaking the loop, the game’s
principle quest. Colt can gather info on
other things as well, including weaponry
and slabs, which are objects that grant
characters special abilities like teleporta-
tion, invisibility and rewinding the game
to before Colt dies. Colt’s weapons and
movement abilities can be upgraded
through the use of trinkets, which look like
shiny credit cards and are scattered
around Blackreef.
The information you uncover while
combing through the game’s four main
maps (the slummy urban residential area
of Updaam; the remote outpost of Fris-
tad’s Rock; the coastline of Karl’s Bay; and
the hulking central hub of the Complex)
endures beyond the resetting of the time
loop. The retention of your findings about
Blackreef, the time loop, the Visonaries
and Colt’s role in all of it gives Deathloop a
more satisfying sense of progress than
Returnal, the PS5 bullet-hell roguelike
that released earlier this year. Additional-
ly, there’s a way for Colt to retain his gear
after the loop resets, which is achievable
fairly early in the game.
The dialogue is witty and entertaining,
with the banter between Julianna and Colt
particularly enjoyable. And the game
delivers more than a few early-game plot
twists.
Mechanically, though, the game played
a little stiff at times. The gun play is more
Fallout than Call of Duty, which is fine in
AI gunfights but might yield some frustra-
tion for first-person shooter fans going
head-to-head against a human-controlled
Julianna. There were also a few glitches in
the early hours. More than once, the game
lagged for a few seconds — an unusual
feeling on the PS5.
Deathloop isn’t the easiest game to
grasp due to its originality, and its early
hours are certainly a learning process. But
so far, it’s been an enjoyable series of
lessons, well integrated with how the pro-
tagonist acts and feels, bringing the player
right into the story. It will be nice, after
the game releases Sept. 14, to see how that
story ends.
Platforms: PlayStation 5; PC
Online: bethesda.net/en/game/death-
loop
Julianna in an online version where
they’re tasked with killing another player
who is completing the game as Colt. We
haven’t seen this in action yet; it could
either be very cool or very troll-y.
The learning process begins on the
aforementioned beach, where Colt stum-
bles ahead guided by the map’s design and
floating words that appear to be visual
reminders from Colt’s runs during previ-
ous loops. But are the words actually from
Colt’s memory, or something else? Should
you trust them? The paranoia sets in and
wreaks havoc on your decision-making.
Here’s how that manifests in gameplay:
Knowing that my progress would be lost
upon death, and knowing that there was a
time limit in which I had to complete my
assignment of killing all eight bosses, in
my early hours with the game I would
often beeline to the objective, retrieve the
information I needed to progress the
game’s plot and return to the safety of my
home base in the island’s tunnels, which
acts as a checkpoint. Forget looting, forget
exploring — time was of the essence.
There are a lot of prompts in the game
spelling out the game’s mechanics and
how certain items or weapons work, as
well as delivering a ton of information (too
much for my liking). But the first prompt I
can recall that referenced time indicated
that I had two choices: to return to the
tunnels or stay and explore the current
map. What it didn’t make clear was that
when you’re exploring the map, time es-
sentially stands still.
Each day is broken into four stages of
the day: morning, noon, afternoon and
nighttime. Each time you return to the
tunnels, time advances to the next stage.
For example, if you explore the urban
map of Updaam at noon, it will stay
“noon” the entire time you’re there no
matter how long you spend exploring.
When you leave to return to your home
base in Blackreef’s tunnels, the game
moves to the next time frame, so noon
becomes afternoon. After completing a
stage at nighttime, the loop resets and you
find yourself back on the beach.
Knowing this, you can better plan your
runs, organizing them in a way so that you
can find the bosses in specific places in
specific times and line up the dominoes, so
to speak, for your final mission of offing
them all.
Without spoil-
ers, we can share
that so far — and
we played about
five hours of the
game — Death-
loop is an origi-
nal, witty and
stylized thinking-
person’s shooter
from Bethesda
and Arkane
Studios. But if you really want to know
more about Deathloop’s mechanics and
what the game’s early hours are like, read
on.
Are you sure about this?
Really? You’re still here? OK. I guess I
don’t blame you: Arkane’s Deathloop is
one of just a few PlayStation 5 exclusives
to hit the market in 2021 and is, as such,
one of the year’s most anticipated titles.
Below, I’ll go over what I’ve learned
without spoiling any plot details.
Deathloop’s early hours (which I still
think you shouldn’t read)
The game’s protagonist, Colt, wakes up
on a beach complaining of a wicked han-
gover and knowing absolutely zilch. He
doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t
know how he got there. He doesn’t know
why he feels hungover. He doesn’t even
know his own name. Deathloop sends
players on a search for answers as basic as
the main character’s identity and as com-
plex as the workings of the space-time
continuum.
Eventually you’ll figure out your ulti-
mate task (breaking the time loop) and
head off to explore the island of Blackreef.
Rather than one big, open world, Black-
reef is divided into four main explorable
areas, each filled with crash-test-dummy-
looking foot soldiers, called Eternalists,
who are tasked with killing you on sight.
There are also eight bosses, called Vision-
aries, who preside over the island and are
likewise not fond of your desire to break
the time loop.
Among the bosses is Julianna, Colt’s foil,
who has a nasty habit of popping up out of
nowhere and trying to kill Colt. And she’s
better than the average bot because — and
this is one of the cooler aspects of the
game — players can choose to play as
Secret toDeathloop:discoveryWarning to future players:Stop reading if you’d liketo save best part of game
BY MIKE HUME
The Washington Post
Arkane Studios photos
The world of Deathloop is filled with crashtestdummylike foot soldiers called Eternalists who are tasked with killing players on sight.
PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
TRAVEL
“You want a drink,
sir?”
The passen-
ger looked up at
the male flight attendant, then
slurred a request for five more
drinks. The flight attendant re-
fused, causing the drunk traveler
to become irate.
He lunged out of his seat to-
ward the flight attendant, then an
air marshal appeared, pummel-
ing the unruly passenger. The
man’s hands were now cuffed
behind his back.
This was just a drill. The drunk
passenger was from the Federal
Air Marshal Service. But the
dangerous behavior flight crews
are dealing with in the skies
today is very real.
In a nondescript office building
near LaGuardia Airport in
Queens, N.Y., a group of real
flight attendants watched the
drill in a fake airplane, beginning
their four-hour self-defense
training run by the Transporta-
tion Security Administration.
TSA has offered these classes
across the country free of charge
to flight crews since 2004, but
they seem more relevant than
ever.
As air travel began to rebound
from its pandemic rock-bottom,
so has bad passenger behavior.
The Federal Aviation Adminis-
tration has received nearly 4,000
reports of unruly passengers in
2021, an uptick from the 146 total
reports received in 2019.
“This is the most dangerous
and uncertain time in our entire
history,” said Sara Nelson, in-
ternational president of the Asso-
ciation of Flight Attendants-
CWA.
Nelson says the pandemic has
wreaked havoc on the profession
for myriad reasons, from the fear
of contracting coronavirus to the
logistic issues of returning to an
industry operating with a staffing
shortage.
“Flight attendants are working
longer days with shorter nights,
wearing masks for 14, 15 hours a
day ... having a harder time get-
ting nutrition throughout the day
and charged with keeping every-
one safe on the plane,” Nelson
said. “Those are just the basics.”
While most flights get from A
to B without incident, the new
stressors are driving flight at-
tendants to seek out TSA’s volun-
tary self-defense training.
“I just wanted to make sure
that I’m prepared for anything
that could happen,” says Katie, a
flight attendant attending the
training at the Federal Air Mar-
shal Service (F.A.M.S.) New
York field office. So she could
speak freely, she asked that her
last name and employer to be
kept private.
During her 17 years working in
the industry, Katie was always
interested in enrolling in the
class, but because it only takes
place at a handful of locations
across the country, it was diffi-
cult to find the right free time in
her travel schedule.
During the pandemic, the
monthly four-hour classes were
put on hiatus until July of this
year. When Katie got an email
announcing class openings in the
New York area, she jumped at
the opportunity to attend.
“I’ve been involved in situa-
tions before,” she said. “And we
have de-escalation scenarios that
we try to run through to the best
of our abilities, but sometimes it
just gets to a level that we need a
little extra defense training,” she
said.
After watching the pretend
scenarios in the simulated air-
plane, the flight attendants were
taken to a room with a padded
mat floor to learn how to phys-
ically and mentally prepare
themselves for aggressive-pas-
senger interactions.
The instructors demonstrated
how to stand, move and approach
an attacker, as well as fight or
defend themselves with their
hands, elbows, palms, knees, feet
and shins. Some techniques are
standard, like a punch to the face.
Others are new, like raking an
attacker’s face with your nails.
The flight attendants wince at the
mention of gouging an attacker’s
eyes.
“Remember, this guy is attack-
ing you,” the air marshal said,
encouraging the class to keep
their warrior mind-set.
Katie and the other flight at-
tendants practiced their new
techniques on the air marshals,
punching bags and B.O.B.s, or
“Body Opponent Bags,” life-size
dummies.
“I want you to strike through
him,” an air marshal told Katie’s
group of flight attendants while
demonstrating a palm heel strike
to a B.O.B. “I want you to take his
head off.”
PHOTOS BY MONICA RODMAN/The Washington Post
Federal Air Marshals reenact a scene involving an unruly passenger. While this was only a reenactment, incidents in which flight crews have to handle dangerous behavior frompassengers have been on the rise this year. Some crews are taking selfdefense classes to learn how to handle dangerous behavior.
Fight and flightSelf-defense courses teach air crewshow to handle unruly plane passengers
BY NATALIE B. COMPTON
The Washington Post
Katie, a flight attendant, gets ready to practice some punches on the bag during a selfdefense class.
SEE SELFDEFENSE ON PAGE 15
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15
Cramped seats, mask requirements
and surly service aren’t the worst
part of international airline travel.
No, it’s that awful feeling when they
turn on the cabin lights in the middle of the
night and try to serve you breakfast before
landing. Fortunately, there are some new
tricks for fighting jet lag.
Jet lag is a sleep disorder that affects peo-
ple crossing several time zones quickly. It
leaves your body’s internal clock, better
known as your circadian rhythm, out of sync
with the local time zone.
Christopher Lee, author of the book “Jet
Lag,” says a disrupted circadian rhythm is
becoming a more common problem — and
not just because of air travel.
“One way of thinking about jet lag is that it
is part of a broader pattern of technological
innovation and time acceleration in the pre-
sent,” says Lee, an associate professor of
history at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.
There are some new services aimed at
combating jet lag, ranging from hotel pro-
grams to smartphone apps. But the best way
to avoid nodding off on your first day of vaca-
tion is to take some common-sense steps
beforehand.
Jet lag leaves me feeling as if I’ve gotten
half a night’s sleep each night for an entire
week. I once flew from New York to London
and scheduled an interview for 8 a.m. the
next day. About five minutes into the meet-
ing, I dozed off. I had to reschedule the in-
terview for the following afternoon. I return-
ed to my room and tried, in vain, to sleep it
off.
Pamela Losey used to commute across the
Atlantic frequently. She says she thinks of the
red-eye to London as a missed night’s sleep.
“I once nodded off very briefly during a
client meeting,” says Losey, a garden design-
er from Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. “But when
they learned that I basically flew 24 hours
just to be there, they were very kind.”
Hotels are trying to help. The Hoshinoya
Tokyo hotel has a deep-breathing spa re-
gimen for people who arrive in Japan feeling
a little disoriented. It also offers a three-day
regimen of body-warming herb treatments
and open-air baths to help you get acclimated
to the 13-hour time difference between Japan
and the East Coast. The hotel adjusts the
humidity and brightness of your room to ease
the transition, and a massage therapist shows
you deep-breathing techniques to help you
sleep.
In late 2019, Four Seasons Hotels and Re-
sorts began collaborating with celebrity train-
er Harley Pasternak to create an anti-jet lag
exercise routine for its hotels. The series of
exercises, called Jet Lag Rescue, is meant to
restore guests’ circadian balance. It includes
simple activities to raise your heart rate and
engage your glutes, quads, hamstrings and
calves, as well as a restorative sequence of
stretches to ease aching muscles.
Of course, there’s also an app for jet lag.
It’s called Timeshifter ($24.99 a year), and it
allows you to create a personalized plan to
avoid jet lag based on variables such as your
sleep pattern and itinerary. You can even
factor melatonin supplements into your re-
gimen. The Minnesota-based business travel
agency CWT announced last year a deal to
distribute Timeshifter to all of its clients, so if
you work for a large company with a man-
aged business travel program, you might
already have access to Timeshifter at no
extra cost.
There are new preventive measures for jet
lag, too. Steven Lamm, medical director of
NYU Langone Health’s Preston Robert Tisch
Center for Men’s Health, says a study pub-
lished in 2018 showed that supplementing
with the natural antioxidant Pycnogenol (a
French maritime pine bark extract) reduced
the duration and severity of jet lag symptoms.
“This research showed that supplementing
with Pycnogenol actually reduced the dura-
tion of time individuals felt jet lagged by
nearly 50 percent and improved feelings of
fatigue, visual impairment and inability to
sleep,” Lamm says.
Tried-and-true ways of warding off jet lag
include melatonin supplements (which help
regulate the circadian rhythm) and prescrip-
tion sleeping pills. I used melatonin on a trip
to Africa a few years ago and had almost no
jet lag.
On a recent flight from San Francisco to
Lisbon, I tried a more natural approach. I
bought a bag of pistachios, which are loaded
with melatonin, and ate a handful every hour.
I know it sounds, well, nuts, but my jet lag
was minimal. It took me about two days to
adjust to the eight-hour time difference.
If you go with a sedative, be mindful of the
side effects. Always consult a physician be-
fore taking pills before a flight — and, as you
would on the ground, avoid combining them
with alcohol.
One of the best weapons against jet lag is
common sense. The bone-dry aircraft cabin
can dehydrate you quickly; drink lots of wa-
ter. Don’t sit in your seat for nine straight
hours; get up and move around. And, for the
sake of yourself and the travelers around you,
stay away from alcohol. The “free” wine
that’s served in business class has a cost.
When I was younger, I suffered from days of
disrupted sleep after having a drink too many
on a transatlantic flight.
Josephine Arendt, a professor emeritus at
the University of Surrey in England, has
proposed a potential defense against jet lag: a
wearable sensor that measures light expo-
sure and tells the wearer when to take mela-
tonin.
Cindy Geyer, medical director at Canyon
Ranch Lenox, a wellness resort in Lenox,
Mass., says this approach shows some prom-
ise. In fact, aspects of Arendt’s research have
already been incorporated into the Timeshift-
er app.
“But, as of now, there’s no current treat-
ment yet available that can instantly shift our
body’s circadian rhythm to a new time zone,”
Geyer says.
iStock
Gettingin syncHotel programs, smartphone apps take aim at jet lag
BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT
Special to The Washington Post
TRAVEL
Judith, another flight attendant
in attendance who requested to
keep her last name and employer
private, believes unruly pas-
sengers have been an issue for
the airline industry for years. It
is not just the pandemic trigger-
ing the latest violence.
“I think it’s the many layers of
stress,” said Judith, who has
been a flight attendant for nearly
a decade. “There is the stress of
getting to the airport, the stress
of going through the security,
stress of getting up early, stress
of traveling, stress of family,
traveling with family.”
Stephanie Metzger, a super-
visory air marshal in charge who
was on-site for the training, said
a big part of the class is to build
self-confidence, as well as give
flight crews critical self-defense
lessons. The right mind-set is
essential for carrying out the
defenses.
“This is important training for
flight attendants because it pre-
pares them with the basic skills
that are needed for them to be
able to address unruly passen-
gers on board aircraft,” Metzger
said.
Nelson agrees. Taking the class
one time is not enough to turn
flight attendants into self-defense
experts, and it is not going to
solve the issue of violence on
planes, but “it gives just some
basic maneuvers to help better
protect yourself from getting
hurt,” she said.
The flight attendants finished
the class sweating and tired.
Despite the serious nature of the
course, they ended on a high
note, laughing and swapping
contact information with the air
marshals who encouraged them
to return to the class whenever
they would like.
Katie hopes she will be able to
take refresher courses to keep
her new skills fresh in her mind
going forward.
“I hope that it doesn’t get to the
physical level, but more and
more these days it has been sort
of getting to the physical level,”
she said. “I think it’s really im-
portant to make sure that you’re
prepared for that as well.”
Judith, who had never taken
self-defense or martial arts class-
es before her TSA experience,
found the training rewarding,
albeit conflicting.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody. I
never want to use these tech-
niques on a real person,” she
said. “But it was surprisingly fun
and very gratifying to see how a
little technique can really do big
changes.”
Self-defense:Classes buildself-confidence,teach basic skillsFROM PAGE 14
PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
HEALTH & FITNESS
On Feb. 28, David
Campbell woke up
with a terrible case of
vertigo.
“I couldn’t open my eyes with-
out the room and all of the ob-
jects around me just spinning
violently,” he said. “Any slight
movement of my head massively
exacerbated the symptoms.”
Campbell, a 58-year-old re-
tired pharma director, couldn’t
walk. He had intense nausea. He
called a family member, who
carried him down the steps of his
Northern Liberties, Pa., home
and took him to Penn Presby-
terian Medical Center’s emer-
gency department.
An electrocardiogram and a
CT scan found nothing life-
threatening. Over the course of a
day and night in the department,
he got medicines that helped the
nausea and dizziness, but he was
still sick enough that, under nor-
mal circumstances, he would
have been admitted to the hospi-
tal. Instead, he entered a clinical
trial supported by Penn Med-
icine and Independence Blue
Cross that was testing an alterna-
tive to hospitalization: going
home.
As part of the Practical Al-
ternative to Hospitalization
(PATH) program, Campbell got
extra support from a team head-
ed by emergency physician Aus-
tin Kilaru. A nurse practitioner
called him every day to discuss
his symptoms, explain vertigo
and answer his questions. The
program coordinated follow-up
care with his primary care doc-
tor.
Campbell was understandably
worried about his disturbing
symptoms. He didn’t trust him-
self to decide whether he needed
to go back to the hospital. He felt
vulnerable, disoriented. The
nurse calmed him.
“I’ve not needed someone in
the past to help me manage car-
ing for myself,” he said.
After a few days, Campbell felt
better. He emerged a fan of the
experimental approach.
“It was phenomenal,” he said.
“I would imagine that, without it,
the outcome would have been
several unnecessary trips to the
ER on my part.” That, he said,
would have added cost to the
health system and inconvenience
for him.
Kilaru, who has a masters in
health policy, initially hoped to
prevent emergency department
visits entirely by sending home
health nurses or paramedics to
the homes of sick people. That
proved difficult, because those
patients still needed lab and
imaging tests that were difficult
to deliver at home.
He changed his focus to help-
ing emergency patients avoid
hospitalization. In 2018, a quarter
of patients admitted to the hospi-
tal through Penn Presbyterian’s
emergency department stayed
for two days or less, a sign that
some had problems that could be
managed elsewhere.
Working with Penn’s Center
for Health Care Innovation, Kila-
ru and his team developed a
program that would identify
patients who could safely go
home and coordinate the person-
alized support they would need
for about a week once they got
there. That included nursing
care, lab work, transportation,
medication refills and physical
therapy.
Extra support has become
common after hospitalized pa-
tients are discharged, Kilaru
said, but he believes Penn’s
emergency department program
is unique.
Two pilot tests of PATH were
successful. Results of one of
them, which involved 30 patients,
were published in April in the
journal Healthcare. The most
common diagnoses for participa-
ting patients were chest pain,
heart failure and high blood
sugar, the study found. Research-
ers estimated that the program
reduced time in the emergency
department for those patients by
8.2 hours and prevented hospital
inpatient stays averaging 2.3
days. Four participants returned
to the emergency department
within the next 30 days.
Kilaru’s team did a larger
randomized trial with 72 patients
this year. Results are still being
analyzed, and Kilaru said he
could not discuss them in detail
before they are published in a
medical journal.
“Our results look very promis-
ing,” he said. The program itself
is on hiatus now while the eval-
uation is underway.
Patients with COVID-19 were
not included in the trial, but Penn
had a similar program for those
who sought help for infection in
the emergency department.
COVID-19 was not on Kilaru’s
radar when PATH was con-
ceived. Even before the pandem-
ic, occupancy at Penn Presby-
terian was often high, making it
important to use available space
wisely and increase outpatient
capacity. COVID-19 surges have
only emphasized the importance
of reserving hospital beds for
patients who really need them.
Independence Blue Cross
chose to give Penn a grant to test
PATH after hearing about it
during a competitive pitch day,
said Rodrigo Cerdá, an internist
who is vice president of clinical
care transformation at the in-
surer. His program seeks to
improve health care value, which
it defines as a combination of
quality, patient experience, equi-
ty and cost.
“PATH was clearly one of the
ones that has the most potential,”
he said.
Patients generally prefer to
receive care at home, he said,
and COVID-19 has pushed health
providers to improve efficiency.
“COVID helps us sometimes to
move faster because of being
really careful with hospital ca-
pacity,” he said.
Cerdá said PATH’s results look
“encouraging” so far. If that
continues, IBC will figure out
how it can change the way it pays
for care at home to encourage
wider use of the concept.
IBC is also interested in “hos-
pital at home” models, which
provide more complicated care
at home. It is in discussions with
providers, but no one is trying it
yet.
Cerdá’s program this year
gave five Clinical Care Innova-
tion Grants of about $200,000
each to study ideas ranging from
enhanced primary care treat-
ment for chronic kidney disease
to automated text messaging for
cancer patients on complicated,
at-home chemotherapy re-
gimens.
Kilaru said that both physi-
cians and patients accepted the
idea that some could go home.
“Patients loved it,” he said.
“The consistent thing that amaz-
es me is that patients really do
want to be at home.”
Leslie Meeks, who was also
part of the recent trial of PATH,
went to Penn Presbyterian in
early February with extreme
gastric distress. Meeks, who
would say only that she is in her
“golden years,” has had short
stays in the hospital before.
“You don’t get a lot of rest in
the hospital, because there’s a lot
of things going on all the time,”
she said. “… It’s just not very
quiet and calming.”
She got IV fluids and medica-
tions at home after she was stabi-
lized at the emergency depart-
ment. A nurse called every day.
Meeks called once with a ques-
tion. Her roommate was there to
help her.
She thought it was a good ex-
perience. At the hospital, she
said, “it’s always busy. At home,
you get more rest and you start
feeling better.”
HEATHER KHALIFA, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/TNS
Austin Kilaru, an emergency physician at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, led research on whethersome emergency department patients who would normally be admitted could safely recover at home.
No place like home to rest and heal
Penn Medicine tests home-care program to help potential ERpatients sick enough to be hospitalized avoid being admitted
BY STACEY BURLING
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The most common diagnoses for participating patientswere chest pain, heart failure and high blood sugar, thestudy found. Researchers estimated that the programreduced time in the emergency department for those
patients by 8.2 hours and prevented hospital inpatientstays averaging 2.3 days. Four participants returned tothe emergency department within the next 30 days.
results of one PATH pilot test with 30 patients published in the journal Healthcare in April
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17
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OPINION
Amid the anger and finger-pointing
at the end of America’s flawed 20-
year mission in Afghanistan, it’s
easy to conclude that it was all a
failure from start to finish. While I broadly
agree that the effort failed overall — due to
mistakes the U.S. made in training the Af-
ghan army, the Taliban’s nimble perform-
ance at the end, Pakistan’s support for the
Taliban and Afghan leadership failures —
certain positive outcomes are worth remem-
bering.
Obviously, for 20 years we prevented an-
other devastating attack on the U.S. from the
ungoverned wilderness of Afghanistan. And
after a 10-year manhunt, we killed Osama bin
Laden. But there were also other, more sub-
tle successes.
The most important of these is literacy.
When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, most of
the population couldn’t read, especially girls
and women, who had been denied the bene-
fits of even primary school education. NATO
struggled to train the Afghan army, because
the soldiers couldn’t read maintenance
manuals, understand the wording on a map
or communicate in writing on command and
control networks. In 2009, as the supreme al-
lied commander of NATO, I found myself of-
ten complaining in planning sessions about
how illiteracy made our job difficult.
At one meeting, Ambassador Richard Hol-
brooke, who at the time was a presidential
envoy to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, lost
patience with my complaining. “Hey Admi-
ral,” he said, “stop whining and teach them to
read.”
So we did. The basic literacy program we
created, working with various humanitarian
organizations, became foundational to the
NATO training mission. Nongovernmental
organizations were also teaching reading,
under our protection, in villages, districts
and provinces around the country. Eventual-
ly, we instructed hundreds of thousands of
Afghan recruits in the basics of reading, and
our efforts contributed to a significant im-
provement in literacy in the country. It may
be the most lasting thing we did to help Af-
ghanistan.
The U.S. military also helped advance the
rights of girls and women. Several genera-
tions of female Afghans were provided edu-
cation, medical care, the ability to work out-
side the home and other opportunities —
leading to profound shifts in Afghan culture,
especially in the bigger population centers.
Will these changes survive the return of the
Taliban? It’s hard to say. The world has yet to
see the real policy direction of “Taliban 2.0.”
But I’d bet on at least an improvement over
2001. And if the Taliban leaders of today are
serious about entering the international sys-
tem, accessing the global financial networks,
and gaining diplomatic recognition from
most countries, they will have to show some
progress in this key area.
A third success in Afghanistan was the
military’s learning to rise above the frustra-
tions of coalition warfare and work cooper-
atively with other countries. At the time I led
NATO operations in Afghanistan, more than
50 countries had troops on the ground, rang-
ing in numbers from the massive U.S. pres-
ence to a small detachment from tiny Lux-
embourg. Troops from Central America,
Mongolia and New Zealand fought bravely
and well.
The situation was far from perfect, and
many countries restricted how NATO could
use their forces. But most militaries were en-
gaged in true combat operations, and their
soldiers fought and died alongside ours.
Some countries had more combat deaths per
capita than the U.S. had. Of the roughly 2,000
letters of condolence I signed over four years
to the families of NATO troops killed in ac-
tion, about 700 went to non-American servi-
cemen and women. Special operations in
particular was a multinational effort, as was
intelligence gathering. The lessons we
learned in Afghanistan about coalition oper-
ations will be part of U.S. military doctrine
for decades to come.
Measured against all that the U.S. got
wrong, perhaps these achievements provide
small comfort. In retrospect, it’s clear we
built the wrong kind of Afghan army, under-
estimated the Taliban and overestimated Af-
ghan leadership. We overshot the goal on at-
tempting to build a new Afghan nation, failed
to prevent cross-border sanctuaries for the
enemies of that effort, and staged a messy
and humiliating final exit. Even so, the U.S.
military has learned some things that will
prepare it to face the next foreign crisis.
US military got some things right in AfghanistanBY JAMES STAVRIDIS
Bloomberg Opinion
Bloomberg Opinion columnist James Stavridis is a retired U.S.Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO,and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacyat Tufts University. He is also chair of the board of the Rocke-feller Foundation and vice chairman of Global Affairs at theCarlyle Group. This column does not necessarily reflect theopinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Illinois Democrats on Monday released
their proposed new legislative district
maps. They are a textbook-perfect ex-
ample of why partisan gerrymandering
is a cancer eating away at our democracy.
Every gerrymander employs the same two
tactics: dividing opposing party voters into di-
gestible districts, and packing them together
to create supermajority enclaves so that they
waste votes on a seat they would never lose.
The new Illinois maps use these techniques so
masterfully that they would make any practi-
tioner of the dark redistricting arts proud.
Consider state House maps in the Chicago
area. Democratic map wizards take thin slices
of heavily Democratic precincts in the city
and string them out, one on top of the other, to
drown marginally Republican territory in the
suburbs. This slicing is so obscene that elec-
tion guru Sean Trende dubbed it “the bacon-
mander.” That’s not a tasty dish for disenfran-
chised GOP voters.
Democrats also eagerly packed partisans of
both parties into safe seats. House seat 96, for
example, takes Democratic parts of Spring-
field and strings them together with similar
regions of Decatur to create a safe blue seat
where none should exist. Republicans in
neighboring rural areas are meanwhile
packed into GOP vote sinks such as House
District 116.
The new map is so brazen that progressive
elections analyst Drew Savicki found it would
create up to 85 districts expected to be Demo-
cratic in the 118-seat state House, even though
only 69 Democrats would be elected in a map
that fairly reflected the proportional strength
of each party. So while Democrats would nat-
urally win a majority because they dominate
the state, the Democratic plan would net them
nearly 80% of the seats from less than 60% of
the votes.
It’s true that Republicans also pass egre-
gious gerrymanders that use all the same
techniques. I focus on the Illinois Democratic
plan because it is the first plan to be finished
after data from the 2020 Census was fully re-
leased in August, and because it demonstrates
that no party has a lock on political virtue. Con-
servative election analyst Dan McLaughlin
has found that Democrats have received a
larger share of U.S. House seats than their
share of votes cast in every one of their major-
ities going back to 1938. Some of that is be-
cause of voting patterns in the Deep South, or
the tendency for majorities to win more than a
proportional number of seats in the winner-
takes-all, single-member district system used
in the United States. Some, however, is be-
cause Democrats have amplified their power
through gerrymandering for so long that it be-
came mere background noise. Widespread
Republican abuse of the system is a relatively
recent occurrence.
Stopping gerrymandering is something de-
mocracy needs but will be hard to accomplish.
Many advocates of good governance want
courts to step in, but that’s inherently prob-
lematic. There’s no obvious objective stan-
dard that courts could use to judge whether a
map is fair, as there is with official population
counts that empower the Supreme Court’s
“one person, one vote” standard. A local can-
didate’s popularity, or whether both parties
decide to target a particular district, can have
a great effect on an election’s results, render-
ing any simple comparison of vote share to
seats gained dubious.
There’s also a problem with politicization of
the courts themselves. Nineteen states elect
their Supreme Court justices, six in partisan
votes. Another 19 states subject justices to re-
tention elections to stay on the court. It should
be no surprise, then, that Democrats worked
to elect majorities to the state Supreme Courts
of Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the
2010s, and that those majorities then conve-
niently ruled that GOP-passed district maps
were unconstitutional partisan gerryman-
ders. In most states, getting the courts in-
volved in redistricting simply shifts partisan
game-playing to another forum.
The obvious solution is for both parties to
agree to disarm. At the federal level, that
would require passage of a law mandating
some type of nonpartisan commission to draw
congressional district lines. That idea is one
provision of H.R. 1., the Democrats’ election
law bill. Democrats would probably need to
agree to forestall implementation of that law
until after the 2030 Census to have any chance
of getting Republican support, but that might
be worth it. Alternatively, both parties could
agree to pass a constitutional amendment re-
moving congressional and perhaps even state
legislative redistricting from state legisla-
tures, and installing them in a special, biparti-
san body.
Every other major democracy that elects
representatives via districts uses nonpartisan
entities to draw the lines. For the sake of our
democracy, the U.S. should do so, too.
Dems denounce gerrymandering, then offer this map?BY HENRY OLSEN
Special to The Washington Post
Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellowat the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
PAGE 18 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
ACROSS
1 Pizzazz
6 Guitarist Havens
12 Henner of “Taxi”
13 Quantity
14 Wunderkind
15 Zipper substitute
16 Toni Morrison
novel
17 Monogram pt.
19 Understanding
20 Green gem
22 Canine cry
24 Rug cleaner,
briefly
27 TV host Mike
29 Opera set
in Egypt
32 1981 hit song
by Journey
35 Poet Teasdale
36 Faxed
37 Stanley Cup org.
38 Refusals
40 Queens
stadium name
42 Vintage
44 Small pie
46 Dazzle
50 Unemotional
52 Bistro,
for one
54 “That makes
me happy!”
55 Peaceful
56 Without difficulty
57 Dweebs
DOWN
1 Honolulu’s isle
2 Pitcher Hershiser
3 Rapper Nicki
4 Mideast org.
5 Cigar holders
6 Sitarist Shankar
7 “— man who
wasn’t there”
8 Gen.’s underling
9 Tom Sawyer’s pal
10 Concerning
11 Harrow rival
12 AWOL pursuers
18 Annual
celebration
21 Lob’s path
23 Tatter
24 Beetle and
Rabbit, briefly
25 “Eureka!”
26 Deep-fried franks
28 Genius
30 Homer’s cry
31 Piercing tool
33 — Paulo, Brazil
34 Ultimate
39 Filch
41 Perfume
compound
42 Tot’s scrape
43 — Linda, Calif.
45 Opie’s dad
47 Look after
48 “Topaz” author
49 The Big Apple,
briefly
51 Roman 551
53 “— you serious?”
Answer to Previous Puzzle
Eugene Sheffer CrosswordFra
zz
Dilbert
Pearls B
efo
re S
win
eN
on S
equitur
Candorv
ille
Beetle B
ailey
Biz
arr
oCarp
e D
iem
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19
SCOREBOARD
Thursday’s transactionsBASEBALL
Major League BaseballAmerican League
BOSTON RED SOX — Claimed 3B TaylorMott off waivers from Colorado.
CLEVELAND INDIANS — Optioned C Gianpaul Gonzalez to Columbus (TripleAEast). Selected the contract of C Ryan Lavarnway from Columbus.
SEATTLE MARINERS — Sent RHP JimmyYacabonis outright to Tacoma (TripleAWest). Sent RHP Diego Castillo to ArizonaComplex League (ACL) on a rehab assignment.
TAMPA BAY RAYS — Placed RHP ChrisMazza on the COVID19 related IL.
TEXAS RANGERS — Sent RHP SpencerHoward to Round Rock (TripleA West) ona rehab assignment.
National LeagueATLANTA BRAVES — Recalled LHP Sean
Newcomb from Gwinnett (TripleA East).Placed RHP Chris Martin on the 10day IL.
CINCINNATI REDS — Optioned RHP R.J.Alaniz to Louisville (TripleA East). SentRHP Art Warren to Louisville on a rehab assignment.
COLORADO ROCKIES — Sent CF Yonathan Daza to Albuquerque (TripleA West)on a rehab assignment.
LOS ANGELES DODGERS — Selected thecontract of LHP Andrew Vasquez from Oklahoma City (TripleA West). OptionedRHP Ryan Meisinger to Oklahoma City.Transferred LHP Scott Alexander from the10day IL to the 60day IL.
MIAMI MARLINS — Returned INF LewinDiaz to Jacksonville (TripleA East). Designated RHP Austin Pratt for assignment.Reinstated RHP Paul Campbell, LHP TrevorRogers and INF Joe Panik from the 10dayIL.
MILWAUKEE BREWERS — Placed LHPBrett Anderson on the 10day IL. RecalledRHP Alec Bettinger from Nashville (TripleA East).
NEW YORK METS — Claimed LHP BradHand off waivers from Toronto. Designated RHP Geoff Hartlieb for assignment. Recalled RHP Yennsy Diaz from Syracuse(TripleA East). Optioned OF Khalil Lee toSyracuse. Sent RHP Jake Reed and INF JoseMartinez to Syracuse on a rehab assignment.
PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES — Sent RHPVince Velasquez to Lehigh Valley (TripleAEast) on a rehab assignment.
PITTSBURGH PIRATES — Recalled LFPhillip Evans from Indianapolis (TripleAEast). Optioned RHP Max Kranick to Indianapolis.
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS — Sent RHP Dakota Hudson to Springfield (DoubleA Central) on a rehab assignment.
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — Placed 2BWilmer Flores on the 10day IL Recalled SSMaurico Dubon from Sacramento (TripleA West).
BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association
MIAMI HEAT — Signed G Marcus Garrettto a twoway contract.
FOOTBALLNational Football League
ARIZONA CARDINALS — Activated OLJustin Pugh from the reserve/COVID19list. Placed DL Jordan Phillips on injuredreserve. Waived LB Jamell GarciaWilliams with an injury settlement.
ATLANTA FALCONS — Claimed OL ColbyGassett off waivers from Cleveland.Signed RB Wayne Gallman. Released RBQadree Ollison. Signed LS Josh Harris.
BALTIMORE RAVENS — Resigned OLBPernell McPhee. Signed TE Eric Tomlinson.
BUFFALO BILLS — Signed TE Kahale Warring to the practice squad. Signed LS ReidFerguson.
CAROLINA PANTHERS — Signed WR Aaron Parker to the practice squad. ClaimedRB Royce Freeman off waivers from Denver. Waived RB Trenton Cannon. SignedQB James Morgan to the practice squad.
CHICAGO BEARS — Signed CB ArtieBurns and DB Marqui Christian.
CINCINNATI BENGALS — Resigned WRMike Thomas. Placed DE Khalid Kareem oninjured reserve.
CLEVELAND BROWNS — Signed DB TimHarris, G David Moore, K Chris Naggar andT Jordan Steckler to the practice squad.Signed DE Joe Jackson.
DALLAS COWBOYS — Signed LS JakeMcQuaide. Signed TE Ian Bunting to thepractice squad.
DENVER BRONCOS — Signed DT ShamarStephen and OT Cameron Fleming.
DETROIT LIONS — Resigned TE DarrenFells and S Dean Marlowe. Placed QB TimBoyle and DE Da’Shawn Hand on injuredreserve. Signed OLB Jessie Lemonier, QBSteven Montez, CB Parnell Motley, TEsJared Pinkney and Shane Zylstra to thepractice squad. Released OLB Rashod Berry, NT Miles Brown, TE Alize Mack and RBDedrick Mills from the practice squad.
GREEN BAY PACKERS — Signed LS Steven Wirtel to the practice squad. ReleasedDL Willington Previlon.
HOUSTON TEXANS — Signed LB Joe Thomas. Placed DB A.J. Moore Jr. on the reserve/COVID19 list.
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS — Signed WR KekeCoutee to the practice squad. Activated CRyan Kelly, WR Zach Pascal and QB CarsonWentz from the reserve/CIVID19 list.Placed QB San Ehlinger, WRs T.Y. Hiltonand Dezmon Patmon on injured reserve.Waived TE Noah Togiai with an injury settlement.
JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS — Signed TEMatt Sokol and QB Kyle Lauletta to thepractice squad.
LAS VEGAS RAIDERS — Resigned TE Derek Carrier and DB Dallin Leavitt. SignedOL Jermaine Eluemunor. Signed DB MadreHarper to the practice squad. Placed LBsNicholas Morrow, Javin White, DB KeisanNixon and RB Jalen Richard on injured reserve. Waived LB Asmar Bilal with an injury settlement.
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS — Waived OTTyree St. Louis and DT Chris Okoye with injury settlements. Signed WR AustinProehl.
LOS ANGELES RAMS — Signed G JaredHocker.
MIAMI DOLPHINS — Signed OT KionSmith to the practice squad. Signed DB Tino Ellis and DE Jason Strowbridge to thepractice squad.
MINNESOTA VIKINGS — Signed QB SeanMannion and WR Triston Jackson to thepractice squad. Signed P Jordan Berry. Released P Britton Colquitt. Signed LS Andrew DePaola and DE Everson Griffen.
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS — Placed WRN’Keal Harry on injured reserve. Signed QBGarrett Gilbert, FB Ben Mason and LB Jahlani Tavai to the practice squad. ClaimedRB/WR malcolm Perry off waivers fromMiami.
NEW YORK GIANTS — Signed OL MattSkura and TE Chris Myarick to the practicesquad. Waived CB Montre Hartage, TECole Hikutini and WR Alex Bachman withinjury settlements. Signed LS Casey Kreiter and WR C.J. Board.
NEW YORK JETS — Resigned DE JabariZuniga to the practice squad. Signed TEsRyan Griffin and Daniel Brown
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES — Signed DTHassan Ridgeway. Placed T/G Jack Driscoll, TE Tyree Jackson and CB Josiah Scotton injured reserve. Signed TE Nick Eubanks, WR KeeSean Johnson and DT Marvin Wilson to the practice squad. AcquiredDB Andre Chachere via waivers.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS — Signed OG B.J.Finney, CB Arthur Maulet and OT RashaadCoward.
SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Released LBMychal Kendricks from injured reservewith a settlemnt. Signed C Jake Brendeland DB Dontae Johnson.
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS — Signed QB JakeLuton. Signed CB Mike Jackson to the practice squad.
TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS — Activated KRyan Succop from the reserve/COVID19list. Placed G John Molchon on injured reserve. Signed RB Darwin Thompson, S Andrew Adams, OLB Ladarius Hamilton, WRJaydon Mickens and DB Troy Warner tothe practice squad.
TENNESSEE TITANS — Signed DL AmaniBledsoe and QB Matt Berkley to the practice squad. Waived TE Luke Stocker.Placed RB Darrynton Evans, WR MarcusJohnson and OL Daniel Munyer on injuredreserve. Activated LB Nick Dzubnar fromthe reserve/COVID19 list.
WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM —Waived OT Rick Leonard with an injury settlement. Signed OLB David Mayo.
SOCCERMajor League Soccer
MLS — Fined Toronto FC F Noble Okelloan undisclosed amount for failure to leavethe field in a timely manner in a match onAugust 27 against CF Montreal.
National Women’s Soccer LeagueNWSL — Fined Angel City FC for signing a
player prior to the full execution of theplayer’s agreement and for ignoring aleague directive regarding the announcement.
DEALSPRO SOCCER
MLS
EASTERN CONFERENCE
W L T Pts GF GA
New England 15 4 4 49 44 28
Orlando City 9 4 8 35 30 24
Nashville 8 2 11 35 34 20
NYCFC 10 6 4 34 36 19
Philadelphia 8 6 8 32 28 23
CF Montréal 8 7 7 31 30 27
D.C. United 9 10 3 30 35 32
Columbus 7 9 6 27 25 29
Atlanta 6 7 9 27 25 28
Chicago 6 11 5 23 24 33
Inter Miami CF 6 9 5 23 21 31
New York 6 10 4 22 23 25
Cincinnati 3 9 8 17 21 37
Toronto FC 3 13 6 15 26 47
WESTERN CONFERENCE
W L T Pts GF GA
Seattle 12 4 6 42 35 19
Sporting KC 11 4 7 40 37 22
Colorado 11 4 5 38 30 20
LA Galaxy 11 8 3 36 35 35
Minnesota 8 6 7 31 24 24
Portland 8 10 3 27 29 39
Real Salt Lake 7 8 6 27 31 27
Vancouver 6 7 8 26 27 31
San Jose 6 7 8 26 24 29
FC Dallas 6 9 7 25 30 33
LAFC 6 9 6 24 28 31
Austin FC 5 12 4 19 20 29
Houston 3 9 10 19 24 34
Note: Three points for victory, one pointfor tie.
Friday’s games
New York City FC at Nashville New England at Philadelphia Portland at Houston Sporting Kansas City at Los Angeles FC
Saturday’s games
Austin FC at Vancouver Columbus at Orlando City Miami at Cincinnati FC Dallas at Real Salt Lake Colorado at San Jose
Friday, Sept. 10
Orlando City at Atlanta Portland at Vancouver
NWSL
W L T Pts GF GA
Portland 10 4 2 32 24 11
North Carolina 8 4 4 28 22 9
Reign FC 9 7 1 28 23 18
Orlando 6 5 6 24 20 19
Chicago 7 7 3 24 19 22
Washington 6 5 5 23 19 18
Gotham FC 5 5 6 21 17 15
Houston 6 7 3 21 18 21
Louisville 4 8 4 16 13 23
Kansas City 2 11 4 10 9 28
Note: Three points for victory, one pointfor tie.
Wednesday, Sept. 1
Reign FC 1, Houston 0 Saturday’s games
Chicago at Gotham FC Reign FC at Louisville Washington at Portland
Sunday’s games
Houston at OrlandoNorth Carolina at Kansas City
Thursday’s scoresEAST
American International 14, Millersville 9Buffalo 69, Wagner 7California (Pa.) 23, Fairmont St. 14Delaware 34, Maine 24East Stroudsburg 35, Pace 14New Hampshire 27, Stony Brook 21Seton Hill 16, Wheeling Jesuit 14Walsh 27, West Liberty 6
SOUTHAlbany St. (Ga.) 24, Mississippi College 0Appalachian St. 33, East Carolina 19Austin Peay 30, Chattanooga 20Chowan 30, Mars Hill 24, OTCoastal Carolina 52, The Citadel 14Delta St. 48, Bethel (Tenn.) 14FIU 48, LIU 10Frostburg St. 20, Kentucky Wesleyan 13Kennesaw St. 35, Reinhardt 25Mercer 69, Point (Ga.) 0Murray St. 35, MVSU 0NC State 45, South Florida 0Samford 52, Tennessee Tech 14Tennessee 38, Bowling Green 6UCF 36, Boise St. 31W. Kentucky 59, UT Martin 21West Georgia 45, CarsonNewman 7Wingate 30, Shaw 7
MIDWESTAngelo St. 40, Lindenwood (Mo.) 20Ball St. 31, W. Illinois 21Bemidji St. 24, Sioux Falls 16Capital 41, Defiance 7Cent. Oklahoma 24, Missouri Western 20Drake 45, WV Wesleyan 3E. Texas Baptist 37, Wis.Platteville 31Ferris St. 54, Findlay 14Gannon 28, Northwood (Mich.) 21, OTLakeland 28, Illinois College 18Minn. St. (Moorhead) 33, SW Minnesota
21Minnesota St. 40, Northern St. 34, OTNW Missouri St. 15, Fort Hays St. 7Neb.Kearney 38, Missouri Southern 0Ohio St. 45, Minnesota 31Pittsburg St. 35, Cent. Missouri 16S. Illinois 47, SE Missouri 21S.D. Mines 34, Missouri S&T 31Shepherd 35, Ohio Dominican 30Slippery Rock 24, Wayne St. (Mich.) 21Trine 52, Manchester 14Washburn 76, Lincoln (Mo.) 12Wayne St. (Neb.) 34, Mary 27Winona St. 47, Concordia (St.P.) 6Youngstown St. 44, Incarnate Word 41,
OTSOUTHWEST
Ark.Monticello 30, S. Nazarene 23Henderson St. 31, SW Oklahoma 13Lamar 47, 3Ouachita Baptist 38, Oklahoma Baptist 31S. Arkansas 32, NW Oklahoma 13SE Oklahoma 38, Arkansas Tech 20UC Davis 19, Tulsa 17
FAR WESTArizona St. 41, S. Utah 14Black Hills St. 30, Dickinson St. 24Cent. Washington 66, E. New Mexico 24Colorado Mesa 40, William Jewell 3Colorado Mines 42, W. Oregon 3E. Washington 35, UNLV 33, OTNew Mexico 27, Houston Baptist 17Sam Houston St. 42, N. Arizona 16Texas A&M Commerce 12, CSUPueblo 6Utah 40, Weber St. 17West Texas A&M 73, Texas College 0
ScheduleSaturday’s games
EASTHoly Cross (00) at Uconn (01)Colgate (00) at Boston College (00)Villanova (00) at Lehigh (00)Marist (00) at Georgetown (00)St. Anselm (00) at Merrimack (00)West Virginia (00) at Maryland (00)Marshall (00) at Navy (00)Towson (00) at Morgan St. (00)Umass (00) at Pittsburgh (00)Bowie St. (00) at Delaware St. (00)Bucknell (00) at Sacred Heart (00)
Bryant (00) at Rhode Island (00)SOUTH
LouisianaMonroe (00) at Kentucky (00)Army (00) at Georgia St. (00)West Florida (00) at McNeese St. (00)Davidson (00) at VMI (00)NC A&T (00) at Furman (00)Howard (00) at Richmond (00)Wofford (00) at Elon (00)Alabama (00) vs. Miami (00) at AtlantaSt. Andrews (00) at Presbyterian (00)Louisiana Tech (00) at Mississippi St.
(00)GardnerWebb (00) at Georgia South
ern (00)Morehead St. (00) at James Madison
(00)E. Kentucky (00) at W. Carolina (00)Virginia Union (00) at Hampton (00)Miles (00) at Alabama St. (00)Campbell (00) at Liberty (00)Warner University (00) at Stetson (00)Akron (00) at Auburn (00)Monmouth (NJ) (00) at Middle Tennes
see (00)Nicholls (00) at Memphis (00)Southern U. (00) at Troy (00)North Alabama (00) at SE Louisiana
(00)E. Illinois (01) at South Carolina (00)SC State (00) at Alabama A&M (00)N. Illinois (00) at Georgia Tech (00)FAU (00) at Florida (00)Georgia (00) vs. Clemson (00) at Char
lotte, N.C.William & Mary (00) at Virginia (00)ETSU (00) at Vanderbilt (00)Southern Miss. (00) at South Alabama
(00)MIDWEST
Stanford (00) vs. Kansas St. (00) at Arlington, Texas
W. Michigan (00) at Michigan (00)Fordham (00) at Nebraska (01)Robert Morris (00) at Dayton (00)Penn St. (00) at Wisconsin (00)St. Francis (Ill.) (00) at St. Thomas
(Minn.) (00)Albany (NY) (00) at N. Dakota St. (00)Miami (Ohio) (00) at Cincinnati (00)Indiana (00) at Iowa (00)Cent. Michigan (00) at Missouri (00)N. Iowa (00) at Iowa St. (00)Valparaiso (00) at Indiana Wesleyan
(00)Syracuse (00) at Ohio (00)Oregon St. (00) at Purdue (00)Norfolk St. (00) at Toledo (00)UTSA (00) at Illinois (10)Butler (00) at Illinois St. (00)
SOUTHWESTRice (00) at Arkansas (00)LouisianaLafayette (00) at Texas (00)Tulane (00) at Oklahoma �(00)Missouri St. (00) at Oklahoma St. (00)Lane (00) at Ark.Pine Bluff (00)Tarleton St. (00) at Stephen F. Austin
(00)Texas Tech (00) at Houston (00)Baylor (00) at Texas State (00)Cent. Arkansas (00) at Arkansas St. (00)Abilene Christian (00) at SMU (00)Northwestern St. (00) at North Texas
(00)Kent St. (00) at Texas A&M (00)Prairie View (00) at Texas Southern
(00)Duquesne (00) at TCU (00)BethuneCookman (00) at UTEP (10)
FAR WESTFresno St. (10) at Oregon (00)Lafayette (00) at Air Force (00)North Dakota (00) at Idaho St. (00)Montana St. (00) at Wyoming (00)Simon Fraser (00) at Idaho (00)Cal Poly (00) at San Diego (00)San Jose St. (10) at Southern Cal (00)Montana (00) at Washington (00)LSU (00) at UCLA (10)Sacramento St. (00) at Dixie St. (00)New Mexico St. (01) at San Diego St. (00)Nevada (00) at California (00)BYU (00) vs. Arizona (00) at Las VegasUtah St. (00) at Washington St. (00)
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
U.S. OpenThursday
At USTA Billie Jean King National TennisCenter
New YorkSurface: Hardcourt outdoor
Men’s SinglesSecond Round
Reilly Opelka (22), United States, def. Lorenzo Musetti, Italy, 76 (1), 75, 64.
Alexander Zverev (4), Germany, def. Albert RamosVinolas, Spain, 61, 60, 63.
Nikoloz Basilashvili, Georgia, def. Maxime Cressy, United States, 76 (3), 63, 75.
Ilya Ivashka, Belarus, def. Vasek Pospisil, Canada, 63, 64, 76 (5).
Oscar Otte, Germany, def. Denis Kudla,United States, 64, 64, 62.
Matteo Berrettini (6), Italy, def. CorentinMoutet, France, 76 (2), 46, 64, 63.
Andreas Seppi, Italy, def. Hubert Hurkacz (10), Poland, 26, 64, 64, 76 (6).
Lloyd Harris, South Africa, def. ErnestoEscobedo, United States, 64, 64, 62.
Gael Monfils (17), France, def. SteveJohnson, United States, 75, 46, 64, 64.
Aslan Karatsev (21), Russia, def. JordanThompson, Australia, 36, 36, 75, 76 (9),61.
Jannik Sinner (13), Italy, def. ZacharySvajda, United States, 63, 76 (2), 67 (6),64.
Kei Nishikori, Japan, def. MackenzieMcDonald, United States, 76 (3), 63, 67(5), 26, 63.
Novak Djokovic (1), Serbia, def. TallonGriekspoor, Netherlands, 62, 63, 62.
Jack Sock, United States, def. AlexanderBublik (31), Kazakhstan, 76 (3), 67 (2), 64,46, 63.
Jenson Brooksby, United States, def.Taylor Fritz, United States, 67 (7), 76 (10),
75, 62.Denis Shapovalov (7), Canada, def. Ro
berto Carballes Baena, Spain, 76 (7), 63,60.
Women’s SinglesSecond Round
Belinda Bencic (11), Switzerland, def.Martina Trevisan, Italy, 63, 61.
Varvara Gracheva, Russia, def. PaulaBadosa (24), Spain, 64, 64.
Anett Kontaveit (28), Estonia, def. JilTeichmann, Switzerland, 64, 61.
Maria Sakkari (17), Greece, def. KaterinaSiniakova, Czech Republic, 64, 62.
Sara Sorribes Tormo, Spain, def. HsiehSuwei, Taiwan, 61, 63.
Emma Raducanu, Britain, def. ZhangShuai, China, 62, 64.
Ashleigh Barty (1), Australia, def. ClaraTauson, Denmark, 61, 75.
Iga Swiatek (7), Poland, def. Fiona Ferro,France, 36, 76 (3), 60.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (14), Russia,def. AnnaKarolina Schmiedlova, Slovakia, 62, 57, 62.
Petra Kvitova (10), Czech Republic, def.Kristyna Pliskova, Czech Republic, 76 (4),62.
Greet Minnen, Belgium, def. LiudmilaSamsonova, Russia, 64, 64.
Jessica Pegula (23), United States, def.Misaki Doi, Japan, 63, 62.
Angelique Kerber (16), Germany, def.Anhelina Kalinina, Ukraine, 63, 62.
Shelby Rogers, United States, def. Sorana Cirstea, Romania, 75, 62.
Bianca Andreescu (6), Canada, def. Lauren Davis, United States, 64, 64.
Ajla Tomljanovic, Australia, def. PetraMartic (30), Croatia, 76 (6), 64.
Karolina Pliskova (4), Czech Republic,def. Amanda Anisimova, United States,75, 67 (5), 76 (7).
TENNIS
PRO BASKETBALL
WNBA
EASTERN CONFERENCE
W L Pct GB
xConnecticut 21 6 .778 —
Chicago 14 14 .500 7½
Washington 10 16 .385 10½
New York 11 18 .379 11
Indiana 6 19 .240 14
Atlanta 6 20 .231 14½
WESTERN CONFERENCE
W L Pct GB
xLas Vegas 20 7 .741 —
xSeattle 19 10 .655 2
xMinnesota 17 9 .654 2½
xPhoenix 16 10 .615 3½
Dallas 12 15 .444 8
Los Angeles 10 18 .357 10½
Thursday’s games
Minnesota 66, Los Angeles 57Dallas 72, Atlanta 68Seattle 85, New York 75Las Vegas 90, Chicago 83
Friday’s games
No games scheduledSaturday’s games
Phoenix at IndianaWashington at Minnesota
Sunday’s games
Las Vegas at ChicagoAtlanta at Dallas
GOLF
Tour ChampionshipPGA TourThursday
At East Lake Golf ClubAtlanta, Ga.
Yardage: 7,346; Par: 70Purse: $46 Million
First RoundPatrick Cantlay 34-33—67 -13Jon Rahm 34-31—65 -11Harris English 34-32—66 -8Bryson DeChambeau 36-33—69 -8Viktor Hovland 31-35—66 -7Cameron Smith 32-36—68 -7Justin Thomas 36-31—67 -7Kevin Na 34-32—66 -6Tony Finau 38-34—72 -6Billy Horschel 33-32—65 -5Brooks Koepka 32-35—67 -5Jason Kokrak 33-34—67 -5Dustin Johnson 35-33—68 -5Louis Oosthuizen 35-33—68 -5Jordan Spieth 34-35—69 -5
AP SPORTLIGHT
Sept. 4
1932 — Olin Dutra defeats Frank Walsh inthe final round 4 and 3 to win the PGAChampionship.
1951 — Frank Sedgman becomes thefirst Australian to win the men’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Associationchampionships, beating Victor Seixas inthree sets. Sixteenyearold MaureenConnolly wins the first of three consecutive women’s titles, beating Shirley Fry inthree sets.
1983 — Lynn Dickey of Green Bay completes 27 of 31 passes, including 18straight, for 333 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Packers in a 4138 overtime victory over Houston.
1992 — Jimmy Connors loses to IvanLendl 36, 63, 62, 60 in his record 115thand final U.S. Open singles match.
1994 — Fu Mingxia of China becomes thefirst woman to win consecutive highboardworld diving titles, beating countrywoman Chi Bin in Rome.
2010 — DeMarco Murray’s careerbest218 yards rushing leads Oklahoma to a 3124 victory for the Sooners’ 800th win.
PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
MLB/SOCCER
American League
East Division
W L Pct GB
Tampa Bay 84 50 .627 _
New York 77 56 .579 6½
Boston 77 59 .566 8
Toronto 70 62 .530 13
Baltimore 41 91 .311 42
Central Division
W L Pct GB
Chicago 78 56 .582 _
Cleveland 67 64 .511 9½
Detroit 63 72 .467 15½
Kansas City 59 74 .444 18½
Minnesota 58 75 .436 19½
West Division
W L Pct GB
Houston 78 55 .586 _
Oakland 74 60 .552 4½
Seattle 72 62 .537 6½
Los Angeles 66 68 .493 12½
Texas 47 86 .353 31
National League
East Division
W L Pct GB
Atlanta 71 62 .534 _
Philadelphia 69 64 .519 2
New York 66 67 .496 5
Washington 55 77 .417 15½
Miami 55 79 .410 16½
Central Division
W L Pct GB
Milwaukee 82 53 .607 _
Cincinnati 72 63 .533 10
St. Louis 68 64 .515 12½
Chicago 60 75 .444 22
Pittsburgh 48 86 .358 33½
West Division
W L Pct GB
Los Angeles 85 49 .634 _
San Francisco 85 49 .634 _
San Diego 71 63 .530 14
Colorado 61 73 .455 24
Arizona 45 90 .333 40½
Thursday’s games
Oakland 8, Detroit 6 Boston 4, Tampa Bay 0 Cleveland 4, Kansas City 2 Philadelphia 7, Washington 6 San Francisco 5, Milwaukee 1 N.Y. Mets 4, Miami 3 Atlanta 6, Colorado 5 Chicago Cubs 6, Pittsburgh 5, 11 innings
Friday’s games
Baltimore at N.Y. Yankees Oakland at Toronto Cleveland at Boston Minnesota at Tampa Bay Chicago White Sox at Kansas City Texas at L.A. Angels Pittsburgh at Chicago Cubs N.Y. Mets at Washington Detroit at Cincinnati Philadelphia at Miami St. Louis at Milwaukee Atlanta at Colorado Seattle at Arizona L.A. Dodgers at San Francisco Houston at San Diego
Saturday’s games
Baltimore (Ellis 1-0) at N.Y. Yankees(Montgomery 5-5)
Oakland (Blackburn 0-1) at Toronto(Berríos 9-7)
Minnesota (Albers 1-0) at Tampa Bay(Archer 0-1)
Cleveland (Morgan 2-6) at Boston(Houck 0-3)
Chicago White Sox (López 3-1) at KansasCity (Hernández 4-1)
Texas (Allard 3-11) at L.A. Angels (Sua-rez 5-7)
N.Y. Mets (Stroman 9-12) at Washington(Fedde 6-9)
Pittsburgh (TBD) at Chicago Cubs (Hen-dricks 14-6)
N.Y. Mets (Megill 2-3) at Washington(TBD)
Philadelphia (Suárez 6-4) at Miami (Rog-ers 7-6)
Detroit (Boyd 3-7) at Cincinnati (Mahle10-5)
St. Louis (Kim 6-6) at Milwaukee (Houser7-6)
Atlanta (Anderson 6-5) at Colorado(Márquez 11-10)
Seattle (Gonzales 6-5) at Arizona (TBD) Houston (Valdez 9-4) at San Diego (Mus-
grove 9-8) L.A. Dodgers (Urías 15-3) at San Francis-
co (TBD)
CalendarDec. 1 — Collective bargaining agree-
ment expires, 11:59 p.m. EST.Dec. 6-9 — Winter meetings, Lake Buena
Vista, Fla.Dec. 8 — Winter meeting draft, Lake Bue-
na Vista, Fla.
MLB scoreboard
SAN FRANCISCO — Thairo Es-
trada hit a three-run homer dur-
ing San Francisco’s four-run
eighth inning, and the Giants beat
the Brewers 5-1 on Thursday to
avoid a four-game sweep.
A day after falling out of first
place for the first time since May
30, the Giants (85-49) moved into a
tie atop the NL West with the idle
Los Angeles Dodgers. Austin Slat-
er also connected, and Logan
Webb pitched seven sparkling in-
nings.
San Francisco had dropped four
in a row.
Milwaukee (82-53) wasted a
terrific performance by Eric
Lauer, who tossed seven innings
of three-hit ball. The NL Central
leaders had won four in a row.
Darin Ruf put the Giants ahead
to stay with a two-out RBI double
off Devin Williams (7-2) in the
eighth. Estrada followed with a
drive to left for his fourth homer.
Red Sox 4, Rays 0: Eduardo
Rodriguez (11-7) pitched four-hit
ball into the seventh inning, and
visiting Boston earned a split in its
four-game series against AL East-
leading Tampa Bay.
Bobby Dalbec drove in two runs
for Boston, which has a two-game
lead over Oakland in the race for
the second AL wild card.
Braves 6, Rockies 5: Adam
Duvall hit a two-run homer in his
team’s three-run fifth inning, and
visiting Atlanta overcame a grand
slam by Charlie Blackmon to beat
Colorado.
Jorge Soler also homered and
Austin Riley had a two-run double
for Atlanta, which stayed two
games ahead of Philadelphia in
the NL East.
Phillies 7, Nationals 6: Andrew
McCutchen drove in four runs and
visiting Philadelphia erased a six-
run deficit on its way to a three-
game series sweep of Washington.
The Phillies overcame a disap-
pointing start from Aaron Nola
and rallied against the Nationals’
bullpen for their sixth consecutive
win. Philadelphia pulled within
two games of idle Cincinnati in the
race for the second NL wild card.
Mets 4, Marlins 3: Dominic
Smith broke a seventh-inning tie
with a pinch-hit RBI single, send-
ing host New York past Miami.
Athletics 8, Tigers 6: Jed Lowrie
hit a three-run homer in the first
inning for the first of visiting Oak-
land’s eight two-out runs against
Detroit’s Matt Manning.
Indians 4, Royals 2: Triston
McKenzie (4-5) pitched six effec-
tive innings in his return from the
injured list, leading visiting Cleve-
land past Kansas City.
Cleveland has won 11 straight
games against the Royals, the
longest winning streak over Kan-
sas City in club history.
Cubs 6, Pirates 5 (11): Sergio
Alcántara scampered home when
second baseman Wilmer Difo
mishandled a popup in the 11th in-
ning, and host Chicago beat Pitts-
burgh for its third straight win.
MLB ROUNDUP
Estrada helps Giants halt skidAssociated Press
JEFF CHIU/AP
The Giants’ Thairo Estrada watches his threerun home run against the Milwaukee Brewers during theeighth inning of Thursday’s game in San Francisco. The Giants won 51 to avoid a fourgame sweep.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador
— American players and the en-
tire U.S. soccer community waited
1,424 days for this moment. Nei-
ther a triumph nor another tum-
ble, the night showed problems
mixed among promise.
“First reaction is disappointed,”
defender Tim Ream said after a
0-0 draw at El Salvador on Thurs-
day night in the opener of pan-
demic-delayed World Cup quali-
fying.
At the type of Central American
stadium that repeatedly has sty-
mied the Americans, fireworks
started during El Salvador’s na-
tional anthem and lasted into the
fifth minute. That energized an al-
ready boisterous crowd of about
29,000 that started filling Monu-
mental Estadio Cuscatlán, Central
America’s largest stadium, about
8½ hours before kickoff.
American starters averaged 23
years, 282 days, the fourth-young-
est in a qualifier in the modern
era. Twelve Americans, included
nine starters, made their qualify-
ing debuts.
Right back DeAndre Yedlin,
who started in the infamous 2-1
loss at Trinidad and Tobago in Oc-
tober 2017 that ended a streak of
seven straight World Cup appear-
ances, and Ream, a central de-
fender who was on the bench in
Couva that night, were the only
holdovers.
In his first qualifier as Ameri-
can coach, Gregg Berhalter didn’t
have star attacker Christian Pulis-
ic (regaining fitness after testing
positive for COVID-19) and goal-
keeper Zack Steffen (back
spasms).
Goalkeeper Matt Turner, who
debuted in January, made a key
stop when he was tested, diving to
stop Eriq Zavaleta’s header from
Marvin Monterroza’s corner kick
in the 57th.
“I thought the fight was good,”
Berhalter said. “The intention to
win the game was good, but we’ve
got to get better.”
US, El Salvador battle to scoreless drawBY RONALD BLUM
Associated Press
MOISES CASTILLO/AP
The United States’ Tyler Adams, center, and El Salvador’s MelvinCartagena fight for the ball during a World Cup qualifying matchThursday in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21
SPORTS BRIEFS/US OPEN
NEW YORK — Novak Djokovic
missed an overhead along the way
to getting broken for the only time
Thursday night and stared at a
man in the Arthur Ashe Stadium
stands who made noise during the
point.
After breaking right back in the
next game of his second-round vic-
tory at the U.S. Open, Djokovic
glared in that direction again, as if
to say, “How you like me now?”
Miffed as the distractions persist-
ed, he later spoke to the chair um-
pire about what’s considered a no-
no in tennis.
That, then, is pretty much what
provided some intrigue and inter-
est in this one, because the ultimate
outcome — a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 victory
for Djokovic over Tallon Grieks-
poor — seemed fairly obvious after
all of about 15 minutes. Or maybe
even before the No. 1-ranked Djo-
kovic and his 121st-ranked oppo-
nent stepped on court on a cool,
breezy evening.
“That guy, for some reason, was
calling, raising the sound and kind
of screaming just before I would hit
my smash, which was a big point.
Before that, he would do it a few
times. After that, again,” Djokovic
said. “That wasn’t nice. That’s all. I
don’t mind the noise. Don’t get me
wrong. I think it’s important for the
entertainment, for the crowds, the
music. I get it. But if someone does
it over and over again ... he knows
why he’s doing it. The guy that I
pointed out, he knew exactly what
he was doing, and that’s all.”
If that bothered Djokovic, his
shot-making and serving boosted
his mood as he took another step to-
ward completing the first calen-
dar-year Grand Slam in men’s ten-
nis since 1969 and claiming a 21st
major championship to eclipse the
mark he shares with Roger Feder-
er and Rafael Nadal.
“All in all very good, very good.
I’m very pleased with the level of
my tennis,” Djokovic said. “All is
going in the right direction.”
About the only problems No. 1
Ash Barty and other top women en-
countered earlier Thursday came
in the delays trying to get to Flush-
ing Meadows in the aftermath of
Hurricane Ida’s remnants blowing
through the Northeast a night earli-
er.
Barty, a two-time major cham-
pion including at Wimbledon in Ju-
ly, three-time Grand Slam champ
Angelique Kerber, Tokyo Olympic
gold medalist Belinda Bencic, dou-
ble Wimbledon title winner Petra
Kvitova and other seeded women
including No. 14 Anastasia Pavlyu-
chenkova, No. 17 Maria Sakkari,
No. 23 Jessica Pegula and No. 28
Anett Kontaveit all won in two sets
during the afternoon to reach the
third round.
At night, 2019 U.S. Open cham-
pion Bianca Andreescu improved
her tournament record to 9-0 by
defeating Lauren Davis 6-4, 6-4.
Among the men’s winners were
Summer Games gold medalist and
2020 U.S. Open runner-up Alexan-
der Zverev, 2021 Wimbledon final-
ist Matteo Berrettini, No. 17 Gael
Monfils and No. 22 seed Reilly
Opelka of the U.S. But No. 10 Hub-
ert Hurkacz, a Wimbledon semifi-
nalist, lost to Andreas Seppi of Ita-
ly, and No. 31 Alexander Bublik
was beaten by American wild-card
recipient Jack Sock 7-6 (3), 6-7 (2),
6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
Another U.S. man who got a wild
card, 20-year-old Jenson Brooks-
by, won an all-Californian match-
up against Taylor Fritz 6-7 (7), 7-6
(10), 7-5, 6-2.
FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP
Serbia’s Novak Djokovic returns a shot to the Netherlands’ Tallon Griekspoor during the second round ofthe US Open on Thursday in New York. Djokovic won in straight sets to advance to the third round.
Djokovic stays on trackfor calendar-year Slam
BY HOWARD FENDRICH
Associated Press
FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP
Canada’s Bianca Andreescu, the2019 U.S. Open champion,improved her tournament recordto 90 by defeating Lauren Davis.
The NHL is set to return to the
Olympics in Beijing this winter af-
ter reaching an agreement with
international officials, though the
league and players have the op-
portunity to withdraw if pandemic
circumstances warrant.
The NHL, its players’ union, the
International Olympic Committee
and the International Ice Hockey
Federation struck a deal Friday
that will put the best players in the
world back on sports’ biggest
stage in February after they
skipped the 2018 Pyeongchang
Games.
“It was not easy, but we did it,”
IIHF president Rene Fasel told
The Associated Press by phone.
“I’m really, really happy. When
you see the last was 2014, and they
would wait until 2026, so you have
12 years in between — that means
we have a generation of hockey
players that would not be able to
play in the Olympics.”
Even after the NHL and players
agreed to Olympic participation
as part of a long-term extension of
the collective bargaining agree-
ment last summer, the coronavi-
rus pandemic and related costs
threatened to shelve that possibil-
ity. Instead, the sides were able to
figure it out, allowing for the
league or players to withdraw if
virus circumstances change for
the worse or there’s an outbreak
during the season.
As long as that does not happen,
NHL players will compete in the
Olympic men’s hockey tourna-
ment for the sixth time in seven
chances dating to 1998.
In other NHL news:
■ The NHL plans to punish un-
vaccinated players more harshly
if they test positive for the corona-
virus as part of new protocols for
the upcoming season.
Teams will be able to suspend
unvaccinated players without pay
if they cannot participate in hock-
ey activities as part of the proto-
cols, according to a person with
knowledge of the new rules. The
person spoke to The Associated
Press on condition of anonymity
Friday because the protocols had
not been announced.
Fully vaccinated players will
have any COVID-19 positives
treated as hockey injuries and still
be paid. Coaches and other team
staff who closely interact with
players are required to be fully
vaccinated.
Female Mexican boxer
dies five days after fightMONTREAL — A female Mex-
ican boxer died Thursday, five
days after being injured in a Mon-
treal ring.
Groupe Yvon Michel, the orga-
nizer of the boxing event, said
Thursday that 18-year-old Jea-
nette Zacarias Zapata died from
injuries sustained in a bout with
Marie-Pier Houle on Saturday
night at IGA stadium.
Zapata suffered a series of pow-
er punches in the corner of the
ring and, after a solid uppercut,
the Mexican seemed stunned near
the end of the fourth round. A final
right hook caused Zapata’s mouth-
guard to fly out and left her unable
to return to her corner after the
bell rang.
Zapata, who appeared to con-
vulse while still standing, was
joined by her partner and trainer
Jovanni Martinez, who quickly
laid her down in the ring. The on-
site medical team rushed to her
side and she was immobilized on a
stretcher before being rushed to a
hospital by ambulance.
Cubs’ Ross, Hoyer test
positive for COVID-19CHICAGO — Chicago Cubs
manager David Ross and presi-
dent of baseball operations Jed
Hoyer have tested positive for CO-
VID-19.
A spokesman for the team said
Ross and Hoyer are feeling fine
and quarantining. Both of them
are vaccinated.
Bench coach Andy Green will
run the team while Ross is away,
beginning with Friday afternoon’s
game against the Pittsburgh Pi-
rates. There was no word on any
players being unavailable.
The Cubs are among a handful
of big league teams that have
failed to reach the 85% vaccina-
tion threshold required for the re-
laxation of Major League Base-
ball’s COVID-19 protocols.
Cantlay starts with lead,
keeps his distanceATLANTA — Patrick Cantlay
met his goal in the first round of
the Tour Championship on Thurs-
day, and it had nothing to do with
the score on his card or the size of
his lead.
As the top seed in the FedEx
Cup, he started with a two-shot
lead over Tony Finau before even
hitting a shot. He finished the
warm, breezy day at East Lake at
3-under 67 with a two-shot lead
over Jon Rahm.
Only four players had a better
score, so it was a good day regard-
less of the format that allows play-
er to start at various points under
par depending on their FedEx
Cup position.
Five shots behind were Bryson
DeChambeau and Harris English.
BRIEFLY
NHL players to playin Beijing Olympics
Associated Press
PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
“I think he understands it,”
Mullen said Monday. “You look at
his playing time and experience
throughout the years. Everybody
says this will be his first time play-
ing the first play of the game, but
to say he hasn’t played in a lot of
big moments in a lot of different
games, big difference.”
Mullen made it clear that the of-
fense won’t be watered down or
scaled back with Jones at the
helm. Jones helped create the
game plan and will have the free-
dom to audible or scramble on any
play. The sky-high expectation is
Jones will be able to improvise
like no other quarterback in Flor-
ida lore, too.
“We’ll just throw the whole
thing at him and let him go,” Mul-
len said.
Mullen has raised some eye-
brows with some of his claims re-
garding Jones, especially the one
about Jones being able to make
throws that Trask could only
dream about.
“He’s got a cannon for an arm,”
Mullen said.
Teammates have delivered
equally glowing praise.
“I don’t like to call Emory a dual
threat because most people like
see Emory break and see him
run,” running back Dameon
Pierce said. “I call Emory a mo-
bile pocket passer because this
guy, he can launch that ball.
“That’s probably the most un-
derrated aspect of his game. He
can launch the ball! He wants to
throw the ball first. He only runs
when there’s absolutely nothing
there or pressure comes and he’s
got to get out the pocket. I feel like
Emory brings a lot to the table this
year.”
His best attribute might be pa-
tience. After all, Jones never com-
plained or caused a scene during
his time on the bench — three
years in which the NCAA transfer
portal exploded in popularity.
He could have moved on and
gotten on the field sooner. He
could have already started some-
where else. Instead, he stuck it
out. Now, the payoff could be sig-
nificant.
Even though the Gators lost two
first-round draft picks, dynamic
tight end Kyle Pitts and elusive re-
ceiver Kadarius Toney, they seem
to have enough talent to be a title
contender in the Eastern Division.
A lot of that will depend on
Jones’ development. And his time
comes with a twist: Jones waited
so long and now might have to
share the spotlight with redshirt
freshman Anthony Richardson,
who’s bigger, faster and quite pos-
sibly a better NFL prospect.
“Coach Mullen definitely uses
his offense around the quarter-
back,” Jones said. “Whatever
type, style quarterback you are,
he’s going to make it happen. For
me, just a different skill set. I feel I
can do anything on the field.”
Shine: Expectationssky-high for QB JonesFROM PAGE 24
LYNNE SLADKY/AP
Florida head coach Dan Mullen hasn’t scaled back the playbook forquarterback Emory Jones, who will have the freedom to audible orscramble on any play the Gators call this season.
“I call Emory (Jones)a mobile pocketpasser because thisguy, he can launchthat ball.”
Dameon Pierce
Florida running back
No team has lost its opening
game and reached the Bowl
Championship Series title game or
the College Football Playoff.
Something to keep in mind
when watching No. 3 Clemson
play No. 5 Georgia in the biggest
game of the opening weekend of
the season.
Tigers-Bulldogs is one of five
games matching teams in the AP
Top 25 on Saturday, the center-
piece of a long Labor Day week-
end of college football.
The Big Ten decided to em-
brace early season conference
games this year like never before,
and the result is two ranked
matchups (No. 17 Indiana at No. 18
Iowa and No. 19 Penn State at No.
12 Wisconsin) plus both of last sea-
son’s division winners (No. 4 Ohio
State and Northwestern) opening
up.
There are also a plethora of in-
triguing games with neither team
ranked such as Texas Tech vs.
Houston, West Virginia at Mary-
land and Louisville-Mississippi on
Monday night.
New starting quarterbacks will
debut at powerhouse programs
such as No. 1 Alabama, Ohio State,
No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 9 Notre
Dame.
Let the fun begin!
Best gameGeorgia vs. Clemson in Char
lotte, N.C.: Sometimes the game
with the highest-ranked teams is
not the best game. This is not one
of those times.
Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart has
been stacking top-three recruiting
classes in recent years to keep up
with Alabama — but Georgia
hasn’t had Tide-level success.
Is this the season for a break-
through, with USC transfer JT Da-
niels now healthy and established
at quarterback?
Meanwhile, Clemson’s new
starter at quarterback, D.J. Uiaga-
lelei, gave everyone a glimpse at
his high ceiling in two starts last
season replacing Trevor Law-
rence.
Realistically, the 60th meeting
between the schools — first since
2014 — should not be a CFP elim-
ination game, but history suggests
the loser is in a bind.
Hesiman watchBryce Young, QB, Alabama:
Young played some mop-up duty
last year, throwing 22 passes, but
the former five-star recruit is still
mostly an unwrapped present.
The Crimson Tide unleash him
against No. 14 Miami in Atlanta.
Despite the inexperience, Young
is already one of the betting favor-
ites to win the Heisman Trophy,
according to FanDuel.
Exploding out of the gate with a
big game against a ranked oppo-
nent would quickly help validate
the hype around a player that gets
compared to Heisman Trophy
winner and Arizona Cardinals
quarterback Kyler Murray.
Numbers to know113: No. 17 Indiana’s record in
its last 14 Big Ten games. That’s
the best stretch of 14 games in the
history of the program.
13: Consecutive games in
which Wisconsin’s defense has
forced at least one turnover, the
longest streak in the Big Ten.
Penn State’s Sean Clifford tied for
the Big Ten lead with nine inter-
ceptions thrown last season.
214: Combined record the last
two seasons for No. 23 Louisiana-
Lafayette, which opens at No. 21
Texas. It’s the first game for new
Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian
and it comes against a team that
beat a ranked Big 12 school (Iowa
State) last year.
3411: No. 15 Southern Califor-
nia’s record against current mem-
bers of the Mountain West. The
Trojans open Saturday against de-
fending Mountain West champion
San Jose State, which is 0-4
against USC.
376: Nebraska’s sellout streak
after a donor bought up the re-
maining tickets for the Cornhusk-
ers’ game Saturday against Ford-
ham, an FCS school from New
York. The streak dates to 1962, but
if the Huskers continue to struggle
— they opened the season with a
loss at Illinois in Week 0 — Ne-
braska might have to continue to
rely on the generosity of boosters
to keep its record streak rolling.
Hot seatCan opening weekend be a
must-win? No, not really.
However, after taking a pay cut
after last year’s losing season, it
would certainly help Michigan
coach Jim Harbaugh to take care
of business in a drama-free way
against Mid-American Confer-
ence contender Western Michi-
gan at the Big House.
JOSH MORGAN/AP
Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei finally has the national spotlight to himself when he leads the No. 3Tigers against No. 5 Georgia on Saturday in the Duke’s Mayo Classic in Charlotte, N.C.
Clemson-Georgia biggestgame of opening weekend
BY RALPH D. RUSSO
Associated Press
WEEKEND PREVIEW
Saturday, September 4, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
MINNEAPOLIS — C.J. Stroud’s
mind was not right as he sparred
with first-game jitters, feeling
“kind of all over the place” in his
debut as Ohio State’s starting
quarterback.
Playing for the Buckeyes comes
with plenty of pressure. It also
brings plenty of help.
Stroud passed for 294 yards and
four touchdowns, and the fourth-
ranked Buckeyes kept coach Ryan
Day unbeaten in Big Ten play with
a 45-31 victory over Minnesota on
a rainy Thursday night.
Ohio State trailed at halftime
(14-10) for the first time in a regu-
lar-season game under Day, but
time in the locker room was all
Stroud needed to settle in. He
passed for 246 yards in the second
half.
“Everybody was encouraging
me, telling me I can do it. My team-
mates all have belief in me,” said
Stroud, who went 13-for-22 with
one interception.
Said Day, who is 24-2 overall
and 16-0 in conference games
starting his third full year on the
job: “We weren’t going to play it
close to the vest. That’s not how we
do it here.”
The Buckeyes flashed their five-
star speed with two 70-plus-yard
scores in the opener, one early on a
run off right end by Miyan Wil-
liams and one late on a third-down
screen to true freshman TreVeyon
Henderson.
Chris Olave had touchdown
catches of 38 and 61 yards, and
Garrett Wilson scored on a 56-
yard reception that gave Ohio
State the lead for good at 24-21
midway through the third quarter.
Less than three minutes later,
Haskell Garrett grabbed a fumble
from a strip-sack that Zach Harri-
son delivered on Tanner Morgan
and ran it in for a 32-yard touch-
down.
More painful for the Gophers
than their fade down the stretch
was the loss of star running back
Mo Ibrahim, who hurt his lower
left leg late in the third quarter and
left the field in a walking boot.
The second team preseason As-
sociated Press All-American had
30 carries for 163 yards and two
scores, both giving the Gophers
the lead and the first one after Te-
rell Smith intercepted an off-tar-
get pass by Stroud that hit Olave’s
hand.
The Gophers were probably
never going to have a better oppor-
tunity to topple the mighty Buck-
eyes than this, fielding one of the
most experienced teams in the
country at home — and at night —
to open the season against a new-
bie quarterback.
With fans allowed back in the
seats at what’s now called Hun-
tington Bank Stadium, after the vi-
rus emptied them out for an abbre-
viated 2020 schedule, Minnesota
enjoyed its third straight sellout
dating to the Penn State and Wis-
consin games in November 2019.
Already a time-of-possession
team, the Gophers needed to play
keep-away more than ever to
make this a game. They were ten-
tative at times but bold at others,
including a fourth-and-1 play from
deep in their own territory when
Ibrahim ripped off a 56-yard run.
That set up a touchdown throw
by Morgan to Texas A&M transfer
Dylan Wright, who had five catch-
es for 57 yards.
No. 4 Ohio State outlasts
Minnesota in Stroud’s debut
BRUCE KLUCKHOHN/AP
Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud throws a touchdown pass againstMinnesota during the third quarter of Thursday’s game inMinneapolis. Ohio State won 4531.
BY DAVE CAMPBELL
Associated Press DID YOU KNOW?
The Buckeyes have won 12 straight
games over the Gophers and 28 of
29 since their last loss at Minnesota
in 1981. The Gophers last won in
2000, at Ohio Stadium.
SOURCE: Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — Charlie
Brewer threw for 233 yards and
two touchdowns in his Utah debut
to help the No. 24 Utes beat Weber
State 40-17 on Thursday night.
Dalton Kincaid caught four pas-
ses for 75 yards and two touch-
downs in the opener for both
teams. Tavion Thomas ran for 107
yards and two touchdowns on 12
carries in his Utah debut.
Brewer beat out Cameron Ris-
ing for the starting quarterback
job in camp and did not disap-
point. He was crisp on many
throws and gave Utah a legitimate
passing attack it lacked at times
last season.
“I thought he was very poised in
the pocket,” Utah coach Kyle
Whittingham said. “He did a nice
job keeping his eyes downfield.
He was accurate. ... Did a good job
of running the offense.”
Bronson Barron threw for 213
yards and a touchdown for Weber
State, but the Wildcats had just 57
yards rushing.
“We did not do a good enough
job of getting yards on the first
down which put us in too many
third-and-longs,” Weber State
coach Jay Hill said.
Weber State took a 7-3 lead
when Rashid Shaheed cut to the
edge and returned a kickoff 100
yards untouched. He tied an FCS
record with his sixth kickoff re-
turn for a touchdown.
The teams then retreated to the
locker rooms with 8:26 left in the
first quarter because of a lightning
delay that lasted 90 minutes.
Utah marched down the field
quickly after play resumed. The
Utes covered 75 yards in five
plays, culminating in a 17-yard
pass from Brewer to Kincaid, to go
back ahead 10-7. Brewer complet-
ed four passes on the drive, includ-
ing three in a row to get Utah into
the red zone.
Devin Lloyd snagged a tipped
ball at the Weber State 31 to set up
a 12-yard touchdown run from
Thomas that extended Utah’s lead
to 19-7 in the second quarter.
Lloyd had 12 tackles, a forced
fumble and a sack to go along with
that interception.
“We had been in worse situa-
tions I felt like and came back,”
Utes cornerback Clark Phillips III
said. “That was just a stumbling
block we were excited to attack.”
No. 22 Coastal Carolina 52,
The Citadel 14: At Conway, S.C.,
Grayson McCall threw for 262
yards and a touchdown and the
Chanticleers scored on their first
seven possessions against the
Bulldogs.
Coast Carolina was among the
biggest surprises last season, go-
ing 11-1 and winning the Sun Belt
Conference’s East Division after
being picked last in the preseason.
McCall, last year’s Sun Belt of-
fensive player of the year, direct-
ed an efficient, dynamic offense
that scored touchdowns the first
four times it had the ball. After a
field goal to close the opening half,
the Chants scored TDs on their
first two series of the third quar-
ter.
McCall completed 16 of 19 pas-
ses before coming out early in the
third quarter. Reese White had
scoring runs of 4 and 16 yards, be-
fore McCall, the 6-foot-3, 210-
pound sophomore, connected with
Javion Heiligh on a 30-yard scor-
ing pass to make it 28-0.
Heiligh had six catches for 133
yards, and Shermari Jones also
had two touchdowns and ran for
100 yards.
No. 25 Arizona State 41,
Southern Utah 14: Darien Butler
had two interceptions and the Sun
Devils used their punishing run-
ning game to overcome some slop-
py moments in their season open-
er.
Arizona State was a bit rusty to
start a season of high expecta-
tions, committing numerous mis-
cues on special teams and 13 pe-
nalties for 135 yards.
The Sun Devils still proved to be
too much for the FCS Thunder-
birds (0-2), forcing four turnovers
and running for six touchdowns to
win their 22nd straight home
opener.
RICK BOWMER/AP
Utah tight end Dalton Kincaid catches a pass as Weber State safetyPreston Smith defends on Thursday in Salt Lake City.
No. 24 Utah pulls away to beat Weber StateAssociated Press
TOP 25 ROUNDUP
Emory Jones first landed on Dan Mul-
len’s recruiting radar seven years
ago.
Jones was a high school freshman
in LaGrange, Ga., and Mullen was scouring the
country for another spread quarterback at Mis-
sissippi State. Ideally, Mullen wanted to find
the next Alex Smith, Tim Tebow, Cam Newton
or Dak Prescott.
Mullen could see Jones’ raw talent: a big, ac-
curate arm and game-breaking mobility. Ev-
erything else, Mullen figured, could be taught.
They bonded quickly, and when Mullen took
over in Gainesville three years later, he asked
Jones to join him.
Jones obliged and became Mullen’s first
hand-picked quarterback to sign with the Ga-
tors.
Now, after waiting three years behind Fe-
leipe Franks and then Kyle Trask, Jones finally
gets his chance when No. 13 Florida opens the
season against Florida Atlantic on Saturday
night.
“It has been hard, but it’s all been for a rea-
son,” Jones said. “That’s what I’ve realized over
the past years. I have been playing a little bit, so
that keeps me going. I’ve just been watching the
guys in front of me do their best and watching
how they move and how they operate and it’s
definitely just helping me.”
While Trask set school and Southeastern
Conference records and became a Heisman
Trophy finalist in 2020, Jones served as a
change-of-pace option.
Jones completed 18 of 32 passes for 221 yards
last year, with two touchdowns and an intercep-
tion. He also ran for 217 yards and two scores.
He was at his best against Oklahoma in the Cot-
ton Bowl, where he threw for 86 yards and ran
for 60 more and a score.
But this, no doubt, will be different.
Florida’s Emory Jones (5) firstlanded on coach Dan Mullen’srecruiting radar seven yearsago. Jones was a high schoolfreshman in LaGrange, Ga.,and Mullen was scouring thecountry for another spreadquarterback at MississippiState. When Mullen took overin Gainesville three years later,he asked Jones to join him.
RON JENKINS/AP
QB Jones finallygetting his chance at Florida
BY MARK LONG
Associated Press
SEE SHINE ON PAGE 22
Shinetime
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
INSIDE
No. 4 Ohio State rallies pastMinnesota in opener Page 23
PREVIEW
Clemson-Georgia showdown centerpiece of longLabor Day weekend of college football Page 22
PAGE 24 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, September 4, 2021
SPORTS
Top-seeded Djokovic rolls into third round at US Open ›› Page 21
‘We’ve got to get better’United States, El Salvador battle to drawin World Cup qualifier ›› Soccer, Page 20