stripes.com Free to Deployed Areas Volume 79, No. 35B ©SS 2020 CONTINGENCY EDITION SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 2020

MUSIC Country rocker Moore looked inward duringpeople’s ‘time of need’Page 12

NATION Mail-in ballots power Biden across delegate threshold for nominationPage 9

VIRUS OUTBREAK Many jobs lost to pandemic shutdown won’t be returningPage 7

Goodell: NFL wrong to ignore players’ fight for racial justice » Page 23

Plan to reduce US forces by one-third, could relocate some troops to Poland

BY KAREN DEYOUNG

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has signed off on a plan to permanently withdraw up to one-third of about 34,500 U.S. troops currently based in Germany, bringing the total down to no more than 25,000, according to U.S. officials.

Implementation of the plan is being turned over to the De-fense Department, a senior administration official said. Defense officials said they had no immediate comment on the subject, and referred questions to the White House National Security

SEE FORCES ON PAGE 3

US soldiers move off the demolition area at Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany earlier this year. Under a plan approved by President Donald Trump, the Pentagon must reduce the number of troops based in Germany by one-third.

GERTRUD ZACH/U.S. Army

BY TOM FOREMAN JR., DAVID CRARY AND JOHN LEICESTER

Associated Press

RAEFORD, N.C. — Mourners held a pri-vate memorial service Saturday in George Floyd’s North Carolina hometown, and the nation’s capital prepared for what was ex-pected to be the city’s largest demonstra-tion against police brutality yet.

Military vehicles and officers in fatigues closed off much of downtown Washington to traffic ahead of the planned march, which was expected to attract up to 200,000 peo-ple outraged by Floyd’s death 12 days ago at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Large protests also took place across the U.S. and in major cities overseas, in-cluding London, Paris, Berlin and Sydney, Australia.

In Raeford, the small town near Fayette-ville where Floyd was born 46 years ago, two lines of people about 100 deep formed separate lines at the entrance to the church where the private service took place. A public service was scheduled for later in the day.

When a hearse bearing Floyd’s coffin arrived, chants of “Black Power,” “George Floyd” and “No justice, no peace,” echoed

from beneath the covered entrance.“It could have been me. It could have

been my brother, my father, any of myfriends who are black,” said a man in the crowd, Erik Carlos of Fayetteville. “It was a heavy hit, especially knowing that George Floyd was born near my hometown.It made me feel very vulnerable at first.”

SEE MOURNING ON PAGE 6

Amid mourning, nation’s capital braces for more protests

PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

T O D A YIN STRIPES

American Roundup ..... 17Books ....................... 14Comics/Crossword ...... 15Music ....................12-13 Opinion ..................... 18 Sports .................. 20-24Travel ........................ 11

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108/88

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SUNDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST MONDAY IN THE PACIFIC

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Associated Press

For weeks, critics said Wall Street’s big rally made no sense when the economy seemed set for only more despair. On Friday, it got a bit of validation.

The S&P 500 jumped another 2.6% after a report said the U.S. job market surprisingly strength-ened last month, bolstering hopes that the worst of the recession may have already passed. Employers added 2.5 million workers to their payrolls, when economists were

expecting them instead to slash another 8 million jobs.

While economists cautioned that it’s just one month of data and that many risks still loom on the long road to a full recovery, the report gives some credence to the optimism that’s been build-ing among stock investors that the economy can climb out of its current hole faster than forecast. That hope has been a big reason for the S&P 500’s rally of more than 40% since late March.

“It looks like the healing pro-

cess is underway in the jobs mar-ket and it looks like it’s happening sooner than expected,” said Todd Lowenstein, equity strategy ex-ecutive of The Private Bank at Union Bank. “It looks like the worst is behind us.”

The S&P 500 rose 81.58 points to 3,193.93 for its eighth gain in the last 10 days.

The Dow Jones Industrial Av-erage gained 829.16, or 3.2%, to 27,110.98, and the Nasdaq com-posite rose 198.27, or 2.1%, to 9,814.08.

Jobs news sends Wall Street zooming higher Military ratesEuro costs (June 8) ............................... $1.11Dollar buys (June 8).............................. €0.86British pound (June 8) ......................... $1.24Japanese yen (June 8) .......................106.00South Korean won (June 8) ...........1,186.00

Commercial ratesBahrain (Dinar) ....................................0.3775British pound .....................................$1.2672Canada (Dollar) ...................................1.3441 China (Yuan) ........................................7.0880Denmark (Krone) ................................6.6003Egypt (Pound) ................................... 16.2369 Euro ........................................ $1.1297/0.8852 Hong Kong (Dollar) ............................ 7.7502Hungary (Forint) ................................ 304.79Israel (Shekel) .....................................3.4643Japan (Yen) ........................................... 109.70Kuwait (Dinar) .....................................0.3083Norway (Krone) ...................................9.3097 Philippines (Peso)................................ 49.85 Poland (Zloty) .......................................... 3.92Saudi Arabia (Riyal) ........................... 3.7551Singapore (Dollar) ..............................1.3946South Korea (Won) ...........................1206.05

Switzerland (Franc)............................0.9644Thailand (Baht) ..................................... 31.50Turkey (Lira) .........................................6.7803(Military exchange rates are those available to customers at military banking facilities in the country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check with your local military banking facility. Commercial rates are interbank rates provided for reference when buying currency. All figures are foreign currencies to one dollar, except for the British pound, which is represented in dollars-to-pound, and the euro, which is dollars-to-euro.)

EXCHANGE RATES

INTEREST RATESPrime rate ................................................ 3.25Discount rate .......................................... 0.25Federal funds market rate ................... 0.053-month bill ............................................. 0.1530-year bond ........................................... 1.62

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3Sunday, June 7, 2020

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two separate militant attacks killed 14 Afghan security personnel on Saturday in the northeastern Badakhshan province and the capital of Kabul, officials said.

A roadside bomb killed 11 security force members in Badakhshan when it tore through a security vehicle responding to attacks on checkpoints in Khash district. Sanaullah Rohani, spokesman for Badakh-shan’s provincial police chief, said a local commander was among the dead, and that

four militants were killed in the fighting.An hour-long gunbattle also erupted in

Kabul’s Gul Dara district when insurgents attacked a police checkpoint, killing three police officers, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian.

Both Afghan officials said the Taliban had carried out the attacks, although no one immediately claimed responsibility.

The Taliban on Saturday claimed an at-tack a day earlier that killed 10 policemen in the southern Zabul province. Afghan government officials said the Taliban am-bushed an Afghan police convoy on Friday

after setting off a roadside bomb.U.S. forces had carried out two sets of

airstrikes Friday against the Taliban in western and southern Afghanistan. These were the first U.S. strikes following a brief cease-fire declared by the insurgents for a major Muslim holiday last month.

Since the signing of a U.S.-Taliban peace agreement at the end of February, U.S. forces have only once before announced a strike against the Taliban, in defense of Afghan forces.

The uptick in fighting comes as U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad embarked

on a new round of diplomatic trips to Qatar,Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to aU.S. State Department statement Friday.

The U.S.-Taliban agreement was signed to allow American soldiers to return home, ending America’s longest militaryengagement.

The deal also calls for Afghans in Kabuland the Taliban to start negotiations to de-cide the country’s future. Those negotia-tions have been delayed because of political feuding between Afghanistan’s PresidentAshraf Ghani and his rival in last year’spresidential polls, Abdullah Abdullah.

FROM FRONT PAGE

Council, which did not respond to queries.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the move, said the troops would be shifted by September.

Moving 9,000 troops, many of them likely with families, within three months would be a major logistical undertaking. U.S. Euro-pean Command declined to com-ment on whether it was drawing up plans to scale down, referring questions to the Pentagon.

Reuters News Agency quoted an unidentified administration official as saying some of the 9,500 troops would be sent to Po-land, some to other allied coun-tries, and some would return to the United States.

An Air Force F-16 squadron and Army support units are among the forces that would be moved out of Germany, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed former defense officials.

Trump pledged during his last presidential campaign to end U.S. involvement in what he has called America’s “forever wars,” primarily in the Middle East and Afghanistan. He has repeatedly threatened to end or reduce the peacetime defensive deployments of troops in Asia and Europe, charging that those countries were not paying enough for what he has described as U.S. protection.

Until now, however, he has made only small reductions — along with a number of increas-es — in U.S. forces deployed in war zones, while threats to scale back the tens of thousands of U.S. forces in countries such as South Korea, Japan and Germany have not been acted upon.

The reduction plan, pushed by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, has been close-ly held within the White House. Grenell has also served for the past several months as acting director of national intelligence, following Trump’s firing of his predecessor, acting director Jo-seph Maguire, over concerns about Maguire’s staff’s loyalty. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, was confirmed for the post last month. Attempts to contact Grenell were not successful.

As of late Friday, Germany had not been officially informed of the withdrawal order, which the Wall

Street Journal, said had been for-mally signed by Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien after the president approved it.

It was unclear whether mem-bers of Congress had been told of the withdrawal. But as word of the plan became public, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking mem-ber of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Trump’s order “petty and preposterous.”

“It’s another favor to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and another leadership failure by this Administration that further strains relations with our allies,” Reed said in a statement issued by his office on Friday.

U.S. troops in Germany, num-bering 235,000 during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, have been gradually reduced over the years. German officials have ar-gued that their primary function was not to defend that country but to defend U.S. interests by being close to Russia, serving as a transfer station and training fa-

cility for American deployments worldwide and the site of massive U.S. military hospital facilities. Germany is the headquarters for U.S. forces throughout Europe, and also hosts the U.S. Africa Command.

Factoring in rotations and over-laps, the number of troops in Ger-many at any given moment can total more than 50,000. It was not clear whether the 25,000 cap was absolute, or would still allow for such temporary spikes.

U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the still-unannounced plan, said that it had been under consider-ation for several months. But con-firmation that Trump has signed off on it came as he has been in-creasingly at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel declined to attend the Group of Seven summit that Trump had announced for later this month in Washington, citing health concerns. Other leaders had also expressed worries about

traveling during the pandem-ic, particularly given the high numbers of U.S. infections and deaths.

But Merkel’s public refusal tipped the balance, and Trump was forced to postpone the gath-ering of world leaders, at the same time he declared that America was ready to “reopen” and to re-capture the economic boom that he has hoped would lead to his reelection.

The fact that Germany was given no “heads up” that Trump had signed off on the withdrawal “speaks for itself,” said one se-nior European official, and is unlikely to improve the generally low state of “the trans-Atlantic environment.”

Trump has frequently criti-cized Germany’s foot-dragging in reaching the 2% NATO target for member defense spending. He has also pledged to deploy more troops to Poland, whose right-wing populist government he has praised.

Jeff Rathke, a former careerForeign Service officer and aGermany scholar at Johns Hop-kins University, was critical ofthe move. “For those who think this will punish Merkel and Ger-many, they have it wrong,” hesaid. “It is important to remem-ber that the U.S. force presencein Germany is not about defend-ing Germany, but about having aplatform from which the U.S. canengage and bolster NATO allies, deter Russia, and project powerinto the Middle East and North Africa when necessary.”

“Until we know more about thetypes of forces that will be with-drawn, and how the U.S. plans tocompensate for a smaller plat-form,” Rathke said, “it is hard totell what the strategic intent might be behind this, and how it leads togreater security for the U.S. and NATO, rather than less.”

Stars and Stripes reporter John Vandiver contributed to this report.

Forces: Over 9K US troops to be moved from GermanyMILITARY

Separate attacks kill 14 Afghan forces in Kabul, northeast

MARKUS RAUCHENBERGER/U.S. Army

U.S. Soldiers with Archer Battery, Field Artillery Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, supported by 12th Combat Aviation Brigade CH-47 Chinook helicopter crews, conduct M777A2 howitzer air assault training at the 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, on May 7 .

PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

BY WYATT OLSON

Stars and Stripes

FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — The general nominated to be-come the Air Force’s first African American chief of staff weighed in on the racial unrest roiling the country in a poignant video de-scribing his personal and profes-sional experiences navigating the “two worlds” of black and white lives.

“As the commander of Pacific Air Forces, a senior leader in our Air Force and an African Ameri-can, many of you may be won-dering what I’m thinking about current events surrounding the tragic death of George Floyd,” Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said in the opening moments of the 5-minute video posted to Facebook on Friday.

“I’m thinking about living in two worlds, each with their own perspective and views,” he said of the divide many African Ameri-cans feel during lives and careers spent encountering — and often accommodating — the worldview

of white America.Other high-ranking U.S. mili-

tary officials issued statements and videos earlier this week on protests and riots sparked by Floyd’s death on May 25. The 46-year-old African American died as a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck for nearly 9 minutes while he was handcuffed and lying on the pavement.

Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright, who is also African American, ex-pressed solidarity with protesters Monday by saying, “I am George Floyd.” He and Gen. David Gold-

fein, the sitting chief of staff, held a virtual town hall on Wednesday discussing the matter.

Brown — in a speech that at times seemed to barely contain his rage — said he was filled with emotion “not just for George Floyd, but for the many African Americans who have suffered the same fate as George Floyd.”

He noted that the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution “that I’ve sworn my adult life to support and de-fend” have not always delivered “liberty and equality” to all.

He and his sister were the only African Americans in their ele-

mentary school, where they tried their best to fit in, Brown said. Roughly half the students in his high school were African Ameri-can, but the sense of trying to fit in remained.

In the Air Force, he was often the only African American in his squadron and, as a senior officer, “the only African American in the room,” he said.

“I’m thinking about wearing the same flight suit with the same wings on my chest as my peers, and then being questioned by an-other military member, ‘Are you a pilot?’ ” he said.

“I’m thinking about some of the incidents and comments made without awareness by oth-ers,” he said. “I’m thinking about being a captain at the [officers] club with my squadron and being told by other African Americans that I wasn’t black enough since I was spending more time with my squadron than with them.”

His nomination to the Joint Chiefs of Staff has brought to him both a feeling of hope and burden,

Brown said. “I can’t fix centuriesof racism in our country, nor can Ifix decades of discrimination thatmay have impacted membersof our Air Force,” he said. “I’mthinking about how I can makeimprovements — personally, pro-fessionally and institutionally — so that all airmen, both today andtomorrow, appreciate the value of diversity and can serve in an en-vironment where they can reach their full potential.”

Brown said he does not have “clear-cut answers” for creatingsuch an environment across theAir Force.

“I just want to have the wisdomand knowledge to lead during dif-ficult times like these,” he said. “Iwant the wisdom and knowledgeto lead, participate in and listento necessary conversations onracism, diversity and inclusion. Iwant the wisdom and knowledgeto lead those willing to take com-mitted and sustained action makeour Air Force better.”olson.wyatt@stripes.comTwitter: @WyattWOlson

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, spoke privately with con-gressional leaders and many other lawmakers as Pentagon officials came under fire for the military’s role in containing pro-tests following the police killing of George Floyd.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Milley, chair-man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to express her concerns on Tues-day, according to two people who were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations and were granted anonymity. That was the day after authori-ties cleared protesters near the White House so President Donald Trump could hold a photo oppor-tunity at a nearby church. Mil-ley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper were sharply criticized for accompanying Trump and thereby giving the impression of endorsing a politicization of the military.

Milley also reached out Tues-day to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, said another person granted ano-nymity to discuss the situation. A third official said Milley had spoken with perhaps 20 or more members of Congress in the days following Monday’s photo op and Trump’s implicit threat to invoke the Insurrection Act to permit him to use federal troops in a law enforcement role in the nation’s capital and in other cities.

The outreach comes as Mil-ley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper have tried to contain dam-age in the aftermath of Monday’s walk with Trump. Federal au-thorities used smoke canisters and pepper balls to clear peace-

ful protesters from a park so the president and his entourage could walk to the church and Trump could pose with a Bible.

Late Friday, Esper and Milley declined a request from Demo-crats to appear before the House Armed Services Committee next week.

“This is unacceptable,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the com-mittee chairman, said in a state-ment Friday, joined by the panel’s 30 Democrats.

“Our military leaders are sworn to be accountable to the people

of this country, and Congress is constitutionally responsible for oversight,” the Democrats wrote. “They must appear and testify on these crucial matters in order to meet that responsibility.”

An informal briefing Friday with the secretary of the Army was also canceled, according to a congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that had not been pub-licly disclosed.

The White House has prohib-ited officials from the adminis-tration from testifying before the

House unless they have cleared any appearances with the White House chief of staff.

The protests in Washington were among those nationwide fol-lowing the death of Floyd, a black man who died when a white po-lice officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes.

In the call with Milley, Pelosi raised a number of issues that were spelled out in a subsequent letter to Trump seeking an ac-counting of “increased militariza-tion” in response to the protests.

Schumer on Tuesday warned

Milley and Esper, in a speech onthe Senate floor, not to allow theU.S. military to engage in “uglystunts” like the event the nightbefore outside the White House.

Esper told reporters Wednes-day he was not aware of the op-eration to clear the park and did not know he was heading into a photo op. He also distanced him-self from Trump’s threat to stepup the military’s role in quellingprotests, arguing against invok-ing the Insurrection Act.

Milley released a message thisweek to military leaders statingthat the Constitution “is founded on the essential principle that all men and women are born free and equal and should be treatedwith respect and dignity” andthat it “also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.”

The chairman of the SenateArmed Services Committee,James Inhofe, R-Okla., defendedMilley’s handling of the protest.

In his own Senate speech Tues-day morning, Inhofe said he want-ed to “set the record straight”after conferring with Milley be-fore and after Monday’s events.

Inhofe said Milley “told me thathe intends to honor his oath anduphold the delicate balance be-tween civilians and the military,and I fully believe him.”

In her letter to Trump on Thurs-day, Pelosi asked the presidentunder what authority and chain of command the troops were operat-ing in the nation’s capital, warn-ing the approach “may increasechaos.”

The House Armed Services Committee members said they expect a briefing from the De-fense Department by Monday.

Top black general addresses racial unrest

Top US military officer reaches out to Capitol Hill leaders

ALEX BRANDON/AP

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley speaks during the presentation of the Space Force Flag in the Oval Office of the White House with President Donald Trump on May 15 in Washington.

NATION

‘ I just want to have the wisdom and knowledge to lead during difficult times like these. ’

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. commander of Pacific Air Forces

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5Sunday, June 7, 2020

CAROL D. LEONNIG AND DAN LAMOTHE

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — For former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, it was the last straw: the sight of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, walking the streets of downtown Washington in battle-ready camouflage amid a show of brute federal force.

Smoke was still rising from Lafayette Square, where authori-ties had just used pepper spray and smoke canisters to disperse a group of largely peaceful pro-testers, when Gen. Mark Milley, along with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, joined President Donald Trump Monday evening as he strolled to a nearby church to pose for cameras with a Bible.

In Mattis’s eyes, the appearance of the two top military leaders ap-peared to condone an unprovoked use of force. The nonpartisan military that Mattis had served for nearly five decades was being featured as decoration for a photo op, and Mattis fumed that the president was using the leaders who replaced him at the Defense Department to further divide the nation, according to four people familiar with his thinking.

He was especially upset to see Milley — whom Mattis believed had sought to curry favor with Trump when he was defense secretary — appear in his Army combat uniform at a peace-ful demonstration. That jarring image highlighted the military’s involvement in a heavy-handed crackdown on civilians.

With that, the military histo-rian and retired Marine general decided it was time to call out the damage he saw Trump doing to the country.

“The military was never set up to prop up anyone’s political agenda, and I think that really pissed him off, when he saw that,” said Carlton Kent, a retired Ma-rine sergeant major who advised Mattis in Iraq. “He never wanted them to be in a compromising situation.”

In a statement published by the Atlantic two days later, Mattis described himself as “angry and appalled” — and denounced the president he had served for two years.

“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Con-stitution,” Mattis wrote. “Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to vio-late the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

Mattis’s decision to thrust him-self in the maw of the country’s fraught politics — after long hov-ering on the sidelines — grew out of his ongoing concern about the Defense Department’s indepen-dence, according to people who know him.

His former colleagues still

serving in the military had warned him in recent months about Trump’s sway over its lead-ership. Some told him that Esper had been dubbed “Yesper” by some in the Pentagon because he seemed unable to say no to the president. And they said they be-lieved Milley was effectively run-ning the department by talking to Trump directly and bypassing the secretary, a dynamic that po-tentially threatened civilian con-trol of the military.

Several Pentagon officials de-clined to address Mattis’s criti-cism on the record.

An administration official, who spoke on the condition of ano-nymity because of the sensitiv-ity of the issue, defended Esper’s actions during a “fast-moving week.”

“Esper is working to keep the Department of Defense apolitical in turbulent times,” the adminis-tration official said. “That is not easy and is not without criticism — both inside and outside DOD — but in the long run it is what is best for the department, the men and women in uniform, and the nation.”

The official said Mattis never reached out to his successor to share his concerns before his statement was published.

Mattis’s decision to speak out came after he had long refused to directly criticize Trump, even though the fact that he had been frustrated with the president was well known.

Critics have said he should have used his standing to express his concerns sooner, noting that in his book “Call Sign Chaos” that was published last year, he faulted Obama administration decisions but held back when it came to the sitting president.

In a PBS interview during his book tour, Judy Woodruff prodded him on why he had not offered his

assessment of Trump, noting that Americans would soon be decid-ing whether to give him a second term.

“Are you saying you don’t think it’s your responsibility to speak up before the election?” she asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m say-ing,” Mattis replied, adding that he and other former defense secretaries believe “the defense of this country is a nonpartisan issue.”

Mattis had told friends that he did not want any critiques he has to interfere with the efforts of the new defense secretary and his for-mer colleagues at the Pentagon to work with the White House.

He made his general disagree-ment with the president clear when he announced his resigna-tion in December 2018 amid a dis-pute with the president’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria at the Turkish president’s request.

Mattis’s resignation letter sig-naled his disapproval of Trump’s long-standing objections to inter-national alliances, and his dismay at the president leaving Kurdish allies unprotected in Syria.

But while at the helm of the Pentagon, Mattis himself failed at times to shield his department from the perception that the mili-tary was furthering the presi-dent’s political objectives.

The most prominent example was Trump’s contentious deploy-ment of active-duty troops to the southern border beginning in fall 2018, just ahead of midterm elections.

When pressed about the bor-der mission, Mattis dismissed suggestions that the troops were being used for political purposes, saying, “We don’t do stunts.”

He visited the border in No-vember 2018, one month before he resigned, and defended the mission.

Since the civil unrest that has

followed the police killing of George Floyd, Trump has repeat-edly raised the threat of mili-tary force to quell the protests and pushed the Pentagon to de-ploy troops to cities hit hard by protests.

On May 29, as protests spread to Washington and other cities, active-duty members of the Army were put on alert.

“Crossing State lines to in-cite violence is a FEDERAL CRIME!” Trump tweeted May 30. “Liberal Governors and May-ors must get MUCH tougher or the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests.”

Esper and Milley, meanwhile, were advocating privately to use the National Guard — but not active-duty troops, which have rarely been called up to respond to domestic unrest.

The current secretary has re-peatedly stressed his belief that the U.S. military should remain apolitical. But at least two inci-dents on Monday drew Mattis’s ire.

First, on a call with Trump, administration officials and gov-ernors, Esper said that the sooner that authorities could “dominate the battlespace” in their cities, the sooner things could return to normal. A recording of that call leaked to the media within hours.

Then Esper and Milley walked with Trump from the White House to nearby St. John’s Epis-copal Church, which had been damaged in a fire started during protests, minutes after federal authorities rushed at demonstra-tors with shields and batons.

The White House quickly pack-aged the scene into a video set to triumphant music.

The following day, the Penta-gon announced that it was deploy-

ing 1,600 active-duty troops to the D.C. region, including infantry-men. That decision was reversed by Esper this week, halted for a day amid the tension and thencontinued Thursday night.

Amid this week’s furor, somePentagon officials have privately acknowledged that it was a mis-take for Esper and Milley to ap-pear with Trump on Mondayevening after the protesters hadbeen forcefully cleared away.

Esper’s supporters say he hasattempted to right the ship whenit comes to keeping politics out ofthe department, sending a mes-sage to U.S. troops on Tuesdaynight that reminded them of their role to protect the American peo-ple and highlighting on Wednes-day at the Pentagon the role of theNational Guard in maintainingpeace in the nation.

Under fire, Esper also ex-pressed regret for his use of theterm “battlespace,” saying itwas a part of the lexicon he grewup with as an Army officer. He said that when he joined Trump for the walk through LafayetteSquare, he thought he was goingto survey damaged buildings and meet National Guard members,not participate in a photo op.

But for Mattis, the damage was done.

“He knew his voice would havepower and he could see that no-body was stopping this danger,”one ally said.

Kent, who speaks frequentlywith Mattis, said he was glad tosee his old battle buddy speak up.Other retired generals, includingDavid Petraeus, have since, as well.

“You never should put them ina compromising situation in themilitary,” Kent said. “You shouldnever put them in a political situ-ation, and that’s where they areright now.”

NATION

U.S. Navy

President Donald Trump stands outside the Pentagon with then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis in 2017.

‘Nonpartisan issue’ Mattis’ decision to speak out based on his belief that DOD should be apolitical

PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

BY COREY DICKSTEIN

Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The Penta-gon on Friday sent home the re-maining 900 active-duty soldiers that it had rapidly deployed to the Washington region this week in response to large protests in the city, the Army said.

Those military police officers from Fort Drum, N.Y., and Fort Bragg, N.C., were on alert at Joint Base Andrews, Md., all week, but they never entered Washington before they were ordered home Friday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. They follow the roughly 700 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division who were sent

back to Fort Bragg on Thursday.The Army will leave a small

contingent of the 3rd U.S. Infan-try Regiment, known as the Old Guard, on alert status to respond in case demonstrations in the com-ing days grow violent, McCarthy said. The active-duty unit, based at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va., primar-ily serves ceremonial purposes, including providing sentinels for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Ceremony, which is guarded at all times.

“It is our intention to turn that off as quickly as possible,” Mc-Carthy said of those soldiers serving on alert status.

He said Esper made the deci-

sion to end the deployments after four consecutive nights without violence on Washington’s streets, where more than 5,000 National Guard troops from the city and at least 10 states were on duty to aid law enforcement efforts dur-ing demonstrations. The mostly peaceful protests against police brutality and institutional racism were sparked by the May 25 kill-ing of a handcuffed black man, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer. That officer has since been fired and faces charg-es, including second-degree mur-der in Floyd’s death.

“We are in a very good pos-ture because we’ve been able to

generate enough personnel from the National Guard standpoint to support operations at present,” McCarthy said.

But Washington’s mayor has called for Guard troops from out-side of D.C. to return home.

Mayor Muriel Bowser on Thursday sent a letter to Trump demanding removal of those troops and federal law enforce-ment officers deployed from out-side the city.

She said violence in the city has dropped and local police force and federal law enforce-ment agencies in Washington were “well equipped to handle large demonstrations and First

Amendment activities.”National Guard troops in recent

days have been photographed working alongside federal law en-forcement officers and guardingnational monuments, includingthe Lincoln Memorial, which wasvandalized over the weekend.

The vast majority of the Na-tional Guard troops have not beencarrying firearms, Pentagon offi-cials have said. The WashingtonPost on Friday reported Esperhad ordered none of those troopscarry such weapons in a signalof “de-escalation,” citing an un-named U.S. defense official.dickstein.corey@stripes.comTwitter: @CDicksteinDC

NATION

DOD sends home all troops deployed to DC

Mourning: Protests continue around world; US looks at police reform FROM FRONT PAGE

Washington has seen daily protests for the past week — largely peaceful, with people marching back and forth from the White House to the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. Army Secretary Ryan McCar-thy said local officials expected 100,000 to 200,000 protesters for Saturday’s event. The White House has been forti-fied with new fencing and extra security precautions.

In general, demonstrations in the U.S. have shifted to a calmer tenor in recent days after frequent episodes of violence in the early stages. Protesters and their supporters in public office say they are determined to turn the extraordinary out-pouring of anger and grief into change, no-tably in regard to policing policies.

In Minneapolis, city officials have agreed to ban chokeholds and neck re-straints by police and to require officers to try to stop any other officers they see using improper force. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state’s police train-ing program to stop teaching officers how to use a neck hold that blocks the flow of blood to the brain.

Democrats in Congress are preparing a sweeping package of police reforms, which are expected to included changes to police-accountability laws, such as revising im-munity provisions and creating a database of police use-of-force incidents. Revamped training requirements are planned, too, among them a ban on chokeholds.

The House is expected to vote by month’s end. With Democrats in the majority, the bills will almost certainly pass the House. The outcome in the Senate is less certain. Republican Majority Leader Mitch Mc-Connell has said the chamber would look at the issues, but he has not endorsed any particular legislation.

Meanwhile in New York, two Buffalo po-lice officers were charged with assault Sat-urday after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester, who fell backward onto the pavement and was hospitalized. Both pleaded not guilty to second-de-gree assault and were released without bail. The two were suspended without pay Friday after a TV crew captured the confrontation.

In London, thousands of demonstrators endured cold rain to gather in Parliament Square, a traditional venue for protests. They knelt in silence and chanted Floyd’s name before applauding his memory.

Thousands of mostly young people, many dressed in black and wearing face masks,

joined a Black Lives Matter protest in Ber-lin’s Alexanderplatz. Some held up plac-ards with slogans such as “I can’t breathe” and “Germany is not innocent.”

In Paris, hundreds of people gathered at the Place de la Concorde in defiance of a police ban on large protests. Members of the multiracial crowd chanted the name of Adama Traore, a black man whose death while in police custody a few years ago has been likened by critics of French police to Floyd’s death in Minnesota.

Jessica Corandi, a subway driver, said she cried when she saw the video of Floyd’s death, which came after a white officer pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.

Corandi said her three young girls have started to notice people looking at them strangely on the streets of Paris, which she believes is because they are black.

“It’s sad to say to our kids that we have to fight just to exist,” said Corandi, 37, who at-tended the protest near the U.S. Embassy.

A checkpoint blocks traffic on 16th Street Northwest as people gather near the White House, before scheduled protests over the death of George Floyd .

PHOTOS BY PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP

People kneel in silence, Saturday, in Washington, in remembrance of George Floyd .

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7Sunday, June 7, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

BY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

Military and veteran health care providers would be required to ask service members and vet-erans who test positive for the coronavirus about their exposure to burn pits under bipartisan leg-islation introduced Wednesday in the Senate.

The Pandemic Care for Burn Pits Exposure Act, introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., is de-signed to ensure that service members and veterans with ex-posure to burn pits, which often impacts the respiratory system, receive the care they need if they contract the coronavirus.

Burn pits were commonly used during the first several years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and in other wars, as a place to get rid of anything the military no longer had use for, such as computers, tires, medical waste and aircraft engines. The smoke that drifted across military bases from these pits often included

toxic chemicals linked to cancers and chronic respiratory illnesses.

If passed into law, the bill would require the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Af-fairs to ask service members and veterans who have tested positive for the virus if they were exposed to burn pits to ensure they re-ceive proper care, according to a

release from Klobuchar’s office.Those who answer yes will be

enrolled in the VA’s AirborneHazards and Open Burn Pit Reg-istry, unless they choose to opt out. That registry collects namesof veterans who voluntarily pro-vide their information and detailsabout personal exposure to burnpits on deployment.

Senators introduce bill to help veterans with toxic exposure

Amid reopening, some jobs gone for good BY ANGELA CHARLTON

AND TASSANEE VEJPONGSA

Associated Press

BANGKOK — Factories and stores are reopening, economies are reawakening — but many jobs just aren’t coming back.

That’s the harsh truth fac-ing workers laid off around the world, from restaurants in Thai-land to car factories in France, whose livelihoods fell victim to a virus-driven recession that’s ac-celerating decline in struggling industries and upheaval across the global workforce.

New U.S. figures released on Friday showed a surprise drop in joblessness as some of those who were temporarily laid off returned to work. But it’s only a dent in the recent months’ surge of unemployment, which remains near Depression-era levels. In a pattern repeated across the world, high unemployment means less money spent in surviving stores, restaurants and travel business-es, with repercussions across economies rich and poor.

“My boss feared that since we come from Kibera (an impov-erished slum), we might infect them with COVID-19, and so he let us go,” said Margaret Awino, a cleaning worker in a Nairobi charity. “I don’t know how I can go on.”

As the virus and now protests across the U.S. have shed new light on economic inequalities, some experts say it’s time to re-think work, wages and health benefits altogether, especially as automation escalates and tradi-tional trades vanish.

� Thai chef: When Wannapa Kotabin got a job as an assistant chef in the kitchen of one of Bang-kok’s longest-established Italian restaurants, she thought her ca-reer was set.

But five years on, she’s in line with more than 100 other jobless Thais outside an unemployment office.

The government ordered all restaurants closed in March to combat the coronavirus, and 38-year-old Wannapa has been spending her savings on food and shelter.

When restaurants were allowed to re-open in May, Wannapa’s res-taurant told staff its closure was permanent.

“I never thought this would happen,” she said. “It’s like my heart got broken twice.”

Around the world, new virus

safety rules mean restaurants and stores can’t hold as many people as they used to, so they can’t afford as much staff. Many can’t afford to reopen at all.

Bangkok’s restaurants are fir-ing, not hiring, she said.

“I will have to go on and keep fighting,” she declared. “If there is any job that I can do, I will do it.”

Wannapa’s unemployment ben-efit can only tide her over for so long. She said if she can’t find work, she’ll have to return to her family’s rubber plantation to start life all over again.

� Israeli programmer: When the coronavirus first broke out, Israeli software developer Itamar Lev was told to work from home. Then the online advertising com-pany he worked for slashed his salary 20%. Finally, just as re-strictions started to ease, he was fired.

Lev, 44, is among hundreds of thousands of Israelis out of a job as a result of the pandemic, more than 25% of the workforce.

“It was sudden. I wasn’t ready for it,” he said.

Tied to the American market, Lev’s company’s advertising rev-enue dried up and they had to make cutbacks. Lev said he was treated respectfully, and sees himself as simply a victim of the times.

He is already preparing for interviews and confident he will find a new position soon. In a country versed in disruptions from wars and security threats, he said Israelis have built up a certain resilience to upheaval.

Still, he said this time feels dif-ferent. His wife, a self-employed dance instructor, has also seen her income temporarily evapo-rate, forcing the couple to dig into their savings.

“The ‘comeback’ is going to take longer,” said Lev, father of a 5-year-old girl. “It’s a difficult period. We’re just going to have to take a deep breath and get through it.”

� Kenyan cleaner: Perhaps hardest-hit by virus job losses are low-paid service workers like Awino, 54, who lost her job after 15 years as a cleaner at one of Mother Teresa’s charities in Nairobi.

Awino shares a shack with her four daughters, including one who has epilepsy and requires costly medical care, and they share a communal toilet nearby. She hasn’t seen her husband in nine years.

Without her regular $150 monthly salary, she now buys raw chicken and fries it on the streets for sale.

“Ever since I was fired because of COVID-19, I put all my efforts

into my business,” she said.Some days she earns more

than what she was making at her old job, but it’s hard work, and unpredictable. City council and health inspectors are known to raid informal street vendors, who are often arrested and have their goods confiscated.

Awino has no choice but to take the risk, and she’s not alone: Hun-dreds of thousands of Kenyans have also lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

� Cloudy skies: On a global scale, the industry perhaps most vulnerable is aviation.

Germany’s Lufthansa is losing a million euros an hour, and its CEO estimates that when the pan-demic is over it will need 10,000 fewer workers than it does now. Emirates President Tim Clark signaled it could take the Dubai-based airline four years to return to its full network of routes.

The ripple effect on jobs in tourism and hospitality sectors is massive.

Countries like the United Arab Emirates are home to millions of foreigners who far outnumber the local population — many of whom have lost their jobs. Their families in countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal and the Philippines rely on their monthly remittances for survival.

Egyptian hotel chef Ramadan

el-Sayed is among thousands senthome in March as the pandemicbegan to decimate Dubai’s tour-ism industry. He returned to hiswife and three kids in the city ofSohag, about 310 miles south ofCairo. He has not been paid since April.

“There’s no work here at all,” he said. “Even tourism here is op-erating at 25% so who’s going tohire here?”

He sits idle, relying on hisbrother and father for support.He is hopeful the Marriott hotel where he worked will bring himback at the end of the summerwhen they plan to re-open.

“We are waiting, God willing,” el-Sayed said.

� Long road ahead: So why aren’t all the jobs coming back, ifeconomies are reopening?

Some companies that came into the recession in bad shapecan no longer put off tough deci-sions. Meanwhile, even thoughreopened cities are filling anewwith shoppers and commuters,many consumers remain waryabout returning to old habits for fear of the virus.

“Some firms that were healthybefore governments imposedshutdowns will go bankrupt, andit could take a long time for themto be replaced by new business-es,” Capital Economics said in aresearch note. “Other firms willdelay or cancel investment.”

It estimates that a third of U.S. workers made jobless by the pan-demic won’t find work withinsix months. And some Europeanworkers on generous govern-ment-subsidized furlough pro-grams could get laid off whenthey expire, as companies like French carmaker Renault and plane maker Airbus face up to ableaker future.

CHRISTOPHE ENA/AP

Protesting Renault workers stand outside their plant Friday, in Choisy-le-Roi, outside Paris last month.

KHALIL SENOSI/AP

Margaret Awino, 54, prepares raw chicken to fry in the street to earn some income in Nairobi, Kenya earlier this month.

PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

Bars and movie theaters reopen in most of Florida

Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. — Universal Orlando Resort along with bars, movie theaters and other enter-tainment venues reopened with restrictions in most of Florida on Friday as the state took another step away from the economic shutdown caused by the corona-virus outbreak.

Also allowed to reopen are bowling alleys, tattoo and mas-sage parlors and arcades in most of the state. Bars, theaters, concert halls and bowling alleys must limit their capacity to 50% of normal and keep groups at least 6 feet apart — restrictions restaurants statewide have been using.

Massage, tattoo, tanning and similar parlors must employ masks, limit times in waiting areas and sanitize work areas be-tween customers. Barbershops, hair stylists and nail salons have been operating under similar re-strictions statewide.

However, bars, movie theaters and these other entertainment and personal services businesses remain closed in the state’s three most-populous, hardest-hit coun-ties — Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. Those counties must seek permission from Gov. Ron DeSantis — their facilities such as restaurants have been reopen-ing about one to two weeks after the rest of the state.

The state reported Friday that there have been almost 61,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state since March 1 and at least 2,660 deaths. That’s a jump of about 1,500 cases in one day and 60 deaths. Both the number of confirmed cases reported daily and the percentage of tests re-turning positive have been trend-ing up over the last week as the state’s economy reopens.

Universal Orlando Resort on Friday became the first of Or-lando’s major theme park resorts to open their gates to the public since coronavirus fears forced their closures in mid-March. Passholders were welcomed back on Wednesday and Thursday.

Arizona

GLENDALE — Arizona has hit a grim milestone in its battle with the new coronavirus as deaths topped 1,000 on Friday and the number of new infections soared to a new high.

The state Department of Health Services reported 16 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,012 since the first death was revealed on March 21. The department said 1,578 new cases were tallied, by far the highest daily count since the outbreak began.

The number of emergency room visits and hospitalized pa-tients also hit records. Hospitals told the department that 713 people were seen in emergency rooms Thursday and 1,234 people were hospitalized.

The number of people con-firmed infected with COVID-19,

the disease caused by the virus, is now at 24,332.

Gov. Doug Ducey allowed his stay-home orders to end May 15. A surge of new cases began about 10 days later — about the time it takes an infected person to de-velop symptoms.

Ducey didn’t appear overly concerned Thursday when he said the surge in cases wasn’t un-expected and not yet a trend that merited a reimposition of restric-tions. And he noted that no matter what is done, the virus isn’t going away.

Idaho

BOISE — More than 60% of Ida-ho’s coronavirus-related deaths are among residents of long-term care facilities like nursing homes, according to numbers released by the state on Friday.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare said that so far 25 long-term care facilities have had COVID-19 outbreaks since the pandemic reached Ida-ho’s borders earlier this year. A total of 289 residents and staffers at the facilities were confirmed to have the illness, according to the report, and of them 52 people have died.

Statewide more than 3,000 peo-ple have contracted COVID-19 and 83 people have died, accord-ing to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

The facilities with the biggest outbreaks so far include the Life Care Center of Lewiston, where 54 people were infected and 18 died; Bridgeview Estates in Twin Falls, where 48 people were in-fected and 11 died; and Avamere Transitional Care and Rehabili-tation in Boise, where 42 people were infected and two died.

Illinois

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois on Friday reported 59 new deaths related to COVID-19, raising the total to nearly 5,800.

The state also said a cat recent-ly tested positive for COVID-19 while in a house with people who had also tested positive.

“This is the first animal to test positive for the virus in Illinois,” the Department of Public Health said. “There is no evidence COVID-19 is transmitted from animal to humans. However, if you are sick, you should distance yourself from pets as well as people.”

The state logged an additional 1,156 virus cases, boosting the total since the outbreak began to about 126,000.

Labs said they have received more than 1 million specimens for testing.

Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS — Some busi-nesses were slammed from the minute they reopened Friday after a 2 1/2-month COVID-19 pandemic closure, while others waited for their first custom-

ers or even took another week to prepare.

Bars, massage facilities, bowl-ing alleys, recreational pools and tattoo shops in Louisiana were al-lowed to reopen under an order signed Thursday by Gov. John Bel Edwards.

At A Bodyworks Massage and Spa in Monroe, owner Donna La-seter had no time for an interview. “We’ve been off for 10 weeks, so we’ve got everybody coming in and our phone’s ringing off the hooks,” she said.

Restaurants and other busi-nesses that had been allowed to open in mid-May at 25% of ca-pacity were allowed to expand to half-capacity on Friday. The new rules will be in effect for at least three weeks, Edwards said.

New Orleans, the state’s origi-nal outbreak hot spot, isn’t par-ticipating in the wider reopening. More time and data are needed to decide when that is safe, city of-ficials said.

Michigan

DETROIT — The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday over-turned orders that directed a barber to close his shop during the coronavirus pandemic, with one justice saying judges need to follow the “rule of law, not hysteria.”

The Michigan appeals court made mistakes in telling a local judge to shut down Karl Manke’s shop in Owosso, 40 miles north-east of Lansing, the Supreme Court said.

On May 4, Manke stopped com-plying with Gov. Gretchen Whit-mer’s order to keep barbershops and salons closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In re-sponse, the state suspended his licenses. It also got a prelimi-nary injunction from the appeals court.

But Justice David Viviano said the 2-1 injunction needed to be unanimous under Michigan court rules. In addition, he said there

should have been a full briefing and oral arguments.

New Mexico

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Supreme Court is temporarily suspending consumer debt collec-tion — such as garnishing wages or seizing assets — in response to the coronavirus pandemic and related economic downturn.

The court ordered the tem-porary suspension Friday in a new effort to alleviate economic hardship amid a surge in unem-ployment and uncertainties. The suspension takes effect Monday and does not pertain to business debts.

The decision took place as a COVID-19 outbreak raced through privately run prison fa-cilities for state and federal in-mates in Otero County, infecting 583 prisoners as of Friday.

The Court said it took action “in response to the extraordi-nary circumstances presented by the current public health emer-gency.” Consideration was given to “protecting the due process rights of New Mexicans to claim exemptions and protect their as-sets from garnishment and ex-ecution as provided by law.”

There have been 8,672 cases in New Mexico, and 387 deaths have been linked to the virus.

Texas

HOUSTON — Health officials said Friday that they are investi-gating an outbreak of the COVID-19 virus at a suburban Houston health care facility that has been quarantined after 14 deaths were reported.

Harris County Public Health began investigating the outbreak on April 21 after two people tested positive for the new coronavirus at the Oakmont Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Humble. The facility provides short-stay rehabilitation and long-term and hospice care to older patients.

It looked like things were im-proving but then officials learnedthat conditions had deterioratedand COVID-19-related deaths and cases weren’t being quicklyreported, said Dr. Umair Shah, the health department’s execu-tive director.

Officials weren’t told of eight ofthe 14 deaths until after May 27, Shah said.

The facility had also failed toimplement protocols and create aplan to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Shah said.

The health department said 56residents and staff members areactively being monitored for thevirus that causes COVID-19.

In a statement, officials of thehealth care facility said they were was doing everything theycan “to ensure we stop the spread of this within our center and our community.”

Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah reported its largest single-day in-crease in the number of COVID-19 cases on Friday, with many ofthose coming in connection withan outbreak at a meatpackingplant in northern Utah.

Health officials are investigat-ing the “ongoing outbreak” atthe unnamed facility in the BearRiver Health District, which cov-ers Cache, Rich and Box Eldercounties. One-third of the 439 cases reported Friday came from that area, and many of those arelinked to the facility.

“I expect to see additionalcases of COVID-19 identified aspart of this outbreak, both at theworksite and in the community,”said Utah State Epidemiologist Angela Dunn in a statement.“Many of the workers at this fa-cility match the demographics ofwho we know are at the highest risk for infection.”

More than 11,000 people have now been infected with the virusin Utah. A total of 120 people havenow died .

SOPHIA GERMER, THE TIMES-PICAYUNE/The New Orleans Advocate

Artist Chris Paul tattoos Alexandra “Ali” Terrebonne at Galactic Tattoo Studio after they open for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in Metairie, La., on Friday .

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9

BY JILL COLVIN AND PATRICK WHITTLE

Associated Press

GUILFORD, Maine — Presi-dent Donald Trump on Friday laced into Maine’s Democratic governor for not moving quickly enough to reopen the state’s econ-omy and urged his supporters to help him win the rest of the state in November if they want to see the country rebound from the coronavirus shutdown.

Referring to Maine’s electoral votes, Trump said: “Get that other half to go with Trump.” He spoke in the small town of Guil-ford, home to Puritan Medical Products, one of only two major companies producing a special type of swab needed to ramp up coronavirus testing.

At stops in Guilford and Ban-gor, Trump used his first visit to the state as president to lob jabs at Gov. Janet Mills for not reopening businesses more quickly. Trump won just one of Maine’s four elec-toral votes in 2016.

“When are you going to open the state up?” Trump demanded as he spoke at Puritan Medical Products. “What’s she doing? ”

Earlier in Bangor, Trump com-pared Mills to a “dictator” and

said she was preventing her state from reaping money from Maine’s busy summer tourist season.

“She’s going to destroy your state,” he said. “I’m not a fan.”

Mills responded with a lengthy rebuttal.

“Yesterday, I asked the presi-dent to check his rhetoric at the door and to lead us with courage and compassion through this dif-ficult time, ” she said. “Sadly, but unsurprisingly, he continues to prove himself incapable of doing so.”

“What Maine people heard today was more of the same incen-diary rhetoric and insults he uses to try to divide us and to stoke ten-sion and fear ,” she added. “What Maine people heard today was largely devoid of fact and absent of reality. What Maine people saw today was a rambling, confusing, thinly veiled political rally.”

She rebuffed Trump’s claim that Maine remained shuttered by the virus, saying 13 of Maine’s 16 counties have been reopened and that the state was the first in New England to allow indoor din-ing at restaurants.

Ahead of Trump’s visit, Mills had urged him to cancel the trip because of security con-cerns given the civil unrest over

the death of George Floyd and Trump’s heavy-handed response to protests.

Trump is anxious to get be-yond the unrest and the economic downturn caused by the corona-virus and focus on his reelection. His visit to Puritan had the feel of a campaign rally.

The official White House event showcased the fact that his ad-ministration is providing $75.5 million through the Defense Pro-duction Act for Puritan to double production to 40 million swabs a month, and the company plans to open a second production site by July 1.

More than 350 workers in Guilford have been working long hours since the coronavirus pan-demic began.

“We’re doing our best to sup-ply the needs. It’s critical that our country is taken care of, ” co-owner Timothy Templet told The Associated Press.

Trump began his visit in Ban-gor, where he met commercial fishermen and signed an order to reopen fishing waters that were closed in 2016 when the Obama administration designated the first and only national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean.

Sunday, June 7, 2020

NATION

Mail ballots allow Biden to clinch nomination

Trump uses visit to Maine as opportunity to rebuke governor

Ruling: Hickenlooper violated Colo. ethics law by accepting gifts

BY STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — After pri-maries and caucuses in 42 states and the District of Columbia, Joe Biden has won the last few dele-gates needed to clinch the Demo-cratic nomination for president as states worked to tally a surge of mail ballots.

Indiana, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were among the seven states, plus the district, holding elections Tuesday. But a huge increase in vote-by-mail

ballots, driven in large part by the coronavirus pandemic, meant election officials were still count-ing ballots Friday.

Democrats don’t hold winner-take-all contests in which the top vote-getter wins all the delegates. Instead, the delegates are split up proportionally among the candi-dates based on their share of the vote — both statewide and in indi-vidual congressional districts.

As the states that voted Tuesday updated their results, a team of analysts at The Associated Press parsed the votes into the correct

congressional districts so the del-egates could be allocated between Biden and Bernie Sanders.

The process led the AP to al-locate 21 delegates to Biden late Friday, after it completed an analysis of votes released by elec-tion officials in the three states earlier in the evening. AP later added two more to Biden’s total, after the release of additional re-sults in New Mexico.

The former vice president now has a total of 1,995 delegates. It takes 1,991 delegates to win the nomination on the first bal-

lot at the Democratic National Convention.

Biden became the party’s pre-sumptive nominee two months ago, following decisive wins over Bernie Sanders in several March primaries and in Wisconsin on April 7. The Vermont senator, the final major challenger in the race, dropped out the next day.

Biden would have wrapped up the Democratic nomination much earlier, if not for the coronavirus pandemic — 15 states, along with Guam and Puerto Rico, post-poned their nominating contests

due to the outbreak.The formality of reaching 1,991

was also delayed by a deal Biden’scampaign cut with Sanders in aneffort to build Democratic Partyunity and avoid the bitter feelingsthat marred the party’s 2016 con-vention and helped lead to Hill-ary Clinton’s defeat.

The agreement allowed Sand-ers to keep about 300 delegateshe would have otherwise forfeited under party rules after suspend-ing his campaign.

Associated Press

DENVER — U.S. Senate candi-date John Hickenlooper violated Colorado ethics law as governor by accepting a private jet flight to an official event and by receiv-ing benefits he didn’t pay for at a meeting of government, business and financial leaders in Italy, the state’s ethics commission ruled Friday.

The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission dismissed four other complaints against Hickenlooper that were filed by a conservative group led by a for-mer Republican Colorado House speaker.

It scheduled a June 12 hearing to discuss possible fines for the vi-olations as well as for a contempt order it issued when Hickenloop-er ignored a subpoena to appear at its hearing on Thursday.

Hickenlooper has long denied the charges as politically moti-vated. But his absence Thursday drew fire from his Democratic primary opponent, former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, as well as national Republicans seeking to defend U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner’s seat in November. The primary is June 30.

Hickenlooper declined to par-ticipate in the remote hearing after seeking an in-person hear-ing that he said would make it easier to confront his accusers. The Public Trust Institute, the conservative group that brought the complaint, didn’t oppose that request. Commissioners ul-timately set this week’s remote hearing, noting the format ad-opted because of the coronavirus pandemic worked for civil cases not requiring juries in Colorado courts.

Hickenlooper repeatedly in-sisted the trips either involved personal business or happened while he was promoting Colora-do’s economy to potential inves-tors during his 2011-2019 term as governor.

Colorado law at the time pro-hibited gifts worth more than $59 to elected officials with limited

exceptions. That figure is now $65.

By a 4-1 vote, the quasi-judicial commission found that Hicken-looper violated ethics law by ac-cepting transport, meals, toursand other perks during a 2018 conference in Turin, Italy, spon-sored by Fiat Chrysler. Hicken-looper testified that he believed a $1,500 hotel bill he paid therecovered all expenses.

Institute attorney Suzanne Stai-ert asked Hickenlooper whether he felt that the $1,500 he paidpersonally covered hotel costs,shuttles, tours of cultural attrac-tions, dinners and cocktail hoursat the event.

“To my knowledge I felt I paid the full cost,” Hickenlooper re-plied, adding he was invited toattend not as governor but in aprivate capacity.

Commissioners voted 5-0 tofind that Hickenlooper also vio-lated the law by accepting a tripto Connecticut on a jet ownedby Republican billionaire LarryMizel’s company, MDC Holdings, to preside at the commissioningof the USS Colorado, a U.S. Navysubmarine. MDC Holdings is alarge developer in Colorado. They cited several of Hickenlooper’s attendances at VIP events hosted by MDC Holdings.

“What was given to the gover-nor in this case was far beyondwhat was necessary for the gov-ernor to represent the state at this event,” Commissioner WilliamLeone said.

Hickenlooper insisted he ei-ther was not on state business,had offered to pay personally for the travel or accepted the travelto save time for pressing statebusiness, among other reasons.He said he and his top staff re-viewed each trip for possible eth-ics violations.

The ex-governor acknowledgedthat on several occasions he ei-ther didn’t seek an opinion fromthe ethics commission on indi-vidual gifts.

He also acknowledged he didn’t get formal training on Coloradoethics law.

PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP

President Donald Trump tours Puritan Medical Products medical swab manufacturing facility, Friday in Guilford, Maine.

PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

NATION/WORLD

US-Mexico wall breached; solution sought

North Korea threatens to shut liaison office with South

BY NICK MIROFF

The Washington Post

U.S. Customs and Border Pro-tection has asked contractors for help making President Don-ald Trump’s border wall more difficult to climb over and cut through, an acknowledgment that the design currently being in-stalled across hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico boundary re-mains vulnerable.

The new Request For Informa-tion notice that CBP posted gives federal contractors until June 12 to suggest new anti-breaching and anti-climbing technology and tools, while also inviting propos-als for “private party construc-tion” that would allow investors and activists to acquire land, build a barrier on it and sell the whole thing to the government.

Trump continues to campaign for reelection on a promise to complete nearly 500 miles of new barrier along the border with Mexico by the end of 2020, but administration officials have scaled back that goal in recent weeks. The president has ceased promoting the $15 billion barrier as “impenetrable” in the months since The Washington Post re-ported smuggling crews have been sawing through new sec-tions of the structure using inex-pensive power tools.

In a statement, CBP officials said their new request for infor-mation — first reported by the KJZZ Fronteras Desk in Arizona — does not amount to an admis-sion that the current design is in-adequate or flawed.

“We have an adaptive adver-sary; regardless of materials, nothing is impenetrable if given unlimited time and tools,” the agency said. “Walls provide the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) the ability to slow and stop potential crossings. That means building the wall will deter some people from attempting to cross, while

slowing the efforts of those who still try.”

The public notice is the first indication CBP officials do not believe the steel bollard design they selected from prototypes in 2017 is sufficiently formidable to achieve that goal. The primary design, consisting of 30-foot-tall steel bollards topped with flat metal anti-climb panels, is now being installed by private con-tractors at multiple locations along the border.

“This is the most sophisticated

border wall system we have ever built, but we will never disregard innovative and creative ideas that could continue to enhance border barriers,” CBP said.

Trump is expected to attend a ceremony in Yuma, Ariz., next week to mark the completion of the barrier’s 200th mile, accord-ing to officials who were not au-thorized to describe the plans.

CBP has not said publicly how often smuggling crews have breached or attempted to breach the structure. Records obtained

by The Post via the Freedom of Information Act indicate there were 18 breaches in the San Diego area during a single one-month period last fall. The San Diego areas have some of the most for-midable barriers along the entire border, and construction of new double-layered fencing there is largely complete.

Smuggling crews have nonethe-less managed to saw through the steel bollards using commercially available demolition tools such as reciprocating saws with inexpen-

sive metal-cutting blades. Others have fashioned long, improvisedladders out of cheap metal rebar. More athletic border-jumpershave been seen using rope lad-ders to climb up the wall, slidingdown the other side by grippingthe bollards like a fireman’s pole.

The CBP request for informa-tion says the agency is looking fornew ways to stop them.

“Customs and Border Protec-tion (CBP) recognizes that in-dustry, other agencies, and other private entities may have inter-esting, innovative, and usefulideas that could be implemented to enhance and or improve mis-sion essential operational deter-rent capabilities related to theanti-climb/anti-cut features ofthe border wall and persistent impedance,” it reads.

Such proposals could includesensors and cameras that would provide early warnings for climb-ing and breaching attempts, aswell as “advanced paint tech-nology that would enhance theability of thermal sensors to rec-ognize wall jumpers and improvedetection.”

Trump maintains a keen inter-est in the aesthetics and designelements of the barrier, and his shifting preferences have re-peatedly left border officials andmilitary engineers struggling toadjust his tastes to the operation-al and geographic realities of theU.S.-Mexico border.

In recent weeks, the president has once more insisted the bar-rier should be painted black, tell-ing aides it will absorb more heatfrom the sun and deter climbing by scalding the hands of would-be fence jumpers. The black paint will drive up construction costsby at least $500 million, accord-ing to government estimates, andskeptics have pointed out that theblack paint will increase mainte-nance costs. That, and climberscould simply use gloves to protecttheir hands.

BY KIM TONG-HYUNG

Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — In the latest blow for inter-Korean cooperation, North Korea threatened to permanently shut a liaison office with South Korea as it con-tinued to condemn its rival for failing to prevent activists from sending anti-North Korean leaflets across the border.

The statement by North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party late Friday came a day after the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said her country would end a mili-tary agreement reached with South Korea in 2018 to reduce tensions if Seoul fails to stop the activists.

Kim Yo Jong also said North Korea could permanently shut the liaison office and a joint factory park in the border town of Kaesong, which have been symbols of reconciliation between the two countries.

Desperate to save a faltering diplomacy, South Korea in response said it would push new laws to ban activists from flying leaf-lets by balloon to the North, which trig-

gered a debate over freedom of speech.But an unidentified spokesman of the

Workers’ Party’s United Front Depart-ment said Seoul’s promise lacked sincer-ity, and the scrapping of the liaison office will be the first in a series of North Korean steps that would cause extreme suffering for the South.

The statement also confirmed an el-evated status for Kim Yo Jong, who was described as her brother’s top official for inter-Korean affairs.

“We do not hide that we have had long in mind decisive measures to fundamentally remove all provocations from the South and to completely shut down and remove all the contact leverage with the (South),” said the spokesman.

Referring to the leaflets, he said the “nonstop disposal of dirty rubbish from the South side has exhausted us so much as to come to a clearer conclusion that enemies are enemies after all ... Our determination is to follow as far as the evil cycle of the confrontation leads.”

Seoul had no reaction to the statement

Saturday afternoon. In a speech marking South Korea’s Memorial Day, President Moon Jae-in vowed to strengthen the na-tion’s defense, but he made no mention of North Korean threats to abandon inter-Ko-rean peace agreements.

Sending balloons across the border has been a common activist tactic for years, but North Korea considers it an attack on its government. Defectors and other activ-ists in recent weeks have used balloons to fly leaflets criticizing Kim Jong Un over his nuclear ambitions and dismal human rights record.

Pyongyang’s official Rodong Sinmun on Saturday published several articles and columns expressing contempt for de-fectors it says are behind the protests. Its photos showed mass rallies in North Korea where crowds raised their fists beneath signs such as “Death to the human scum defectors.”

While Seoul has sometimes sent police officers to block the activists during sensi-tive times, it had previously resisted North Korea’s calls to fully ban them, saying the

activists were exercising their freedom.South Korea’s ruling liberal party

clinched a resounding victory in April’sparliamentary elections, giving it a solidmajority to win approval in the Nation-al Assembly for legislative restrictionsagainst the leaflet protests.

“It’s remarkable how this comes when the Moon government looks to reengageafter relative success fighting COVID-19and the new progressive majority is seatedin the National Assembly,” said Leif-EricEasley, a professor at Ewha University inSeoul.

“Instead, Kim uses his sister, who wasspecial envoy for North Korea’s smile di-plomacy during the 2018 Winter Olympics, to threaten the minimal foundation that remains of inter-Korean cooperation onwhich South Korean progressives hope to build.”

The liaison office in Kaesong has beenclosed since late January after the Kore-as agreed to temporarily shut it until thecoronavirus is controlled.

CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/The Washington Post

The border fence construction continues up a mountain in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Lukeville, Ariz. , in January.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11Sunday, June 7, 2020

With eyes on the futureHow the coronavirus pandemic is changing entertainment in Japan BY SHOKO ODA AND NAO SANO

Bloomberg

Singing your heart out at karaoke boxes may never feel the same in Japan in the coronavirus era.

To encourage customers to return following the lifting of the state of emergency, the Japan Karaoke Box Association has drafted a set of guidelines detail-ing recommendations on how the industry can safely resume. They call for a limit on how many people can be in one box — typically a booth smaller than a motel room — and for people to wear masks “and/or other protective gear that covers the eyes and face” while belting out the latest hits.

A national pastime and cultural export, karaoke un-fortunately ticks every box in the government’s guidelines of environments to avoid: crowded, cramped and potentially laden with virus-carrying droplets. But that didn’t stop customers from lining up outside outlets of Manekineko, Japan’s largest karaoke chain, as they reopened for business on Wednesday in Kanagawa, south of Tokyo.

“We’re asking for everyone ex-cept the person singing to wear masks,” said Hitomi Baba, a spokeswoman for chain operator Koshidaka Holdings Co. “We’re also giving out a mask to each customer where possible, and where we can’t, giving disinfec-tant sheets instead.” About half of the chain’s 527 outlets across the country have resumed busi-ness.

Japan lifted its state of emer-gency nationwide on May 25, as new infections and overall hospi-talizations dropped to fractions of the peak. The government has warned people they must adjust to a “new lifestyle,” with recom-mendations covering everything from how to commute and shop to the right way to enjoy leisure and hobbies.

Some recommendations may be easier to obey than others, however. An organization repre-senting theme parks, including the operators of Tokyo Disney Resort and Universal Studios Japan, unveiled a set of mea-sures to reduce risk at the parks. Among the recommendations was one calling on customers to refrain from screaming on roller coasters and attractions and, of course, to wear masks while on the rides.

Countries around the world are cautiously reopening their economies as people try to re-sume a sense of normality while mindful that the virus could re-turn in second waves until there is a vaccine for widespread use.

People in Japan have begun to speak of the “With Corona” era, meaning a time in which

people live with the virus as part of their everyday lives and try to reduce risk of infection, instead of sheltering at home to avoid it. Japan’s approach to the pandemic has assumed that the virus won’t be wiped out, with small clusters already spreading days after the emergency was declared over.

Amid lingering questions over why Japan hasn’t seen anywhere near the level of cases and deaths from the virus as other coun-tries, the nation’s experts have credited advice given early in the pandemic to avoid what they term the “Three Cs” — closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings where the virus is thought to spread most easily.

The seven-week loose lock-down — which requested some fi rms to close and urged residents to stay home, albeit no penalties for disobedience — has pushed many businesses to the brink, and left industries scrambling to create environ-ments where customers will feel safe spending.

“Companies that don’t take

care of their customers will be subject to fi erce criticism if it comes to light,” said Tomoki Inoue, chief analyst at NLI Re-search Institute. “That’s a risk, so everyone will be looking to turn behavior into daily habits.”

Japanese TV shows will begin fi lming again, with one widely reported book of guidelines from Nippon TV calling for kissing and action scenes to be avoided to the extent possible, no meet-ings over lunch, and for actors to dress and microphone them-selves.

“Japanese organizations like to create rules,” said Rochelle Kopp of Japan Intercultural Consult-ing, who advises and trains Japanese fi rms. “And Japanese individuals like to have rules so they know what’s appropriate or not. Going along with what the rule is, what has been deter-mined, is very important.”

In Tokyo, the metropolitan government has laid out a three-stage reopening road map for when businesses can resume operations. While the govern-ment can’t force businesses to close during the pandemic, a

name-and-shame campaign against outlets that defi ed calls to voluntarily close, such as pachinko parlors, was highly successful in securing coopera-tion. Karaoke booths can resume in stage three, while gyms may be reopened in stage two of the plan, which began in some regions last weekend.

High-end fi tness gym operator Rizap Group Inc., which saw its shares drop as much as 59% this year during the pandemic as it closed outlets, has gone as far as announcing that it will provide coronavirus antibody tests to more than 6,000 employees and trainers, and in principle test all new clients.

“We have established our own safety and security standard protocol, ‘Rizap Standard With Corona,’ as a new normal, de-veloped under the guidance of in-fectious disease control doctors,” the company said in a statement.

One sector that has yet to get guidance from the authorities is Japan’s nighttime entertainment sector, known as “mizu shobai,” meaning “the water trade,” which spans everything from

casual bars where young women chat to customers to prostitution, which is in large parts legal.

Hostess bars, where female escorts pour drinks and chat with multiple tables of men throughout an evening, have been particularly singled out as a source of multiple infection clusters. The government has continued to urge people to avoid them, with several of the recent cases identifi ed in Tokyo linked to such outlets, according to an NTV report.

With no end to the situation in sight, some have resorted to opening hostess bars online to alleviate the fi nancial hit. Cus-tomers can choose a bar of their choice, and chat and virtually drink with a hostess or other cus-tomers in a webcam “nomikai,” or drinking session.

Whether it’s a small bar or a fairly large one, you can’t avoid close-contact settings with these places as hostesses need to socialize with customers, said Mayuko Igarashi, who started an online bar. “We launched it May 14 and it’s been full house the past four, fi ve days,” she said.

TRAVEL

iStock

The Shibuya shopping street district, a major fashion and nightlife center in Tokyo, was crowded in this 2017 photo. How the coronavirus changes the landscape of such hot spots remains to be seen as restrictions are slowly lifted and businesses once again open their doors.

PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

BY KRISTIN M. HALL

Associated Press

When country singer Kip Moore wasn’t performing, he was traveling the world to places like Iceland and Costa Rica looking for the next great wave to surf, or a cliff to climb or a remote trail to hike. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, the Georgia-born

globetrotter found himself pretty well suited to isolation as well.“I’ve always kind of been an introvert at heart that’s forced to be an

extrovert because of what I do,” said Moore, from his rock-climbing lodge near the Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky.

When other artists have decided to postpone releasing albums during the pandemic, Moore put out on May 29 “Wild World,” his fourth album and one of his most soul-searching releases.

“This is a time of need for people,” Moore said. “I think there’s so many messages on this album that it will help people dig up those bones of what they’ve suppressed and analyze them and process them.”

In ‘Wild World,’ Kip Moore turns mirror on himself

Moore made his name in 2011 with his multiplatinum hit “Somethin’ ’Bout a Truck,” but to lump him into the truck- and beer-focused bro-coun-try set that has dominated country radio over the past decade would be selling him short. When programmed beats and pop-infl uenced country is the sound of the moment, Moore’s heartland country-rock songs with his growling voice feel muscular, nostalgic and honest.

“He’s probably one of the most refl ective, introspective humans I know,” said Cindy Mabe, president of Universal Music Group Nashville. “And that’s not necessar-ily common DNA in the entertainment indus-try. He really is soul searching every day.”

The album’s title track isn’t just an apt description of today’s uncertain times. In the lyrics of “Wild World,” he’s thinking back to the life lessons his mother and his father taught him

around their kitchen table. On “Fire and Flame,” which builds like a U2 “Joshua Tree”-era arena rock song, Moore addresses his tendency to sometimes neglect his faith.

“When I am taking the time to pray and meditate and stay grounded in that, I am so much more in peace,” Moore said. “But yet, I still push it away and I’ll walk away from it for a long time. I still hold onto it, but I don’t spend time nurturing it. And that’s when I get really dark and lost feeling.”

Moore tends to put the most impor-tant song at the end of record, which are also the album cuts that fans gravitate toward the most, whether they are played on radio or not. On this album’s closer, “Payin’ Hard,” he shares his remorse of not spending more time with his father, who died in 2011 just as his career was starting.

“ ‘Payin’ Hard’ was the single most personal song I’ve ever written,” Moore said. “Those are deep-rooted, dark-kept things I’ve had in the closet for a long time with regret.”

Moore didn’t expect to be trying to promote his album remotely from a lodge in Kentucky, but he’s trying to make the most of the situation by

focusing on the simple things, like writing songs and rock

climbing in the nearby sandstone cliffs.

“This has given me a chance to take a little breath, sleep in the same bed every night for a little bit,” he

said. “I’m ready to get back out

and play now, but I needed a little bit of this pause.”

The Green Room

MUSIC

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13Sunday, June 7, 2020

BY MIKAEL WOOD

Los Angeles Times

Lady Gaga released “Chromatica” on May 28, marking a return to the sleek dance-pop

sound that made her a star more than a decade ago.

Her fi rst studio album since the classic-rock-inspired “Joanne” in 2016, “Chromatica” follows Lady Gaga’s Oscar-nomi-nated acting turn in director Bradley Cooper’s 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born,” in which she played the showbiz-ingenue role previously portrayed by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland.

(“Shallow,” one of Gaga’s rootsy power ballads from the movie musical, won an Academy Award for best original song.)

The new record — whose original April 10 release date the singer planned to celebrate with a surprise appearance at the since-delayed Coachella festival — goes long on the throbbing beats and synthetic textures that Gaga was drawn to for early hits such as “Just Dance,” “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance.”

Her studio collaborators on the 16-track “Chromatica” include rave-circuit regulars such as BloodPop, Axwell, Madeon

and Skrillex; it also contains much-hyped features by Ariana Grande (“Rain on Me”), K-pop girl group Blackpink (“Sour Candy”) and 73-year-old Elton John, who duets with the singer on “Sine From Above,” about feeling immortal when you’re young.

“I’ll keep on looking for Won-derland,” Gaga sings in “Alice,” which carries echoes of Crys-tal Waters’ 1991 dance staple “Gypsy Woman”; “911,” with a lyric regarding mood-stabilizing drugs, has the singer processing her voice with an android-like effect.

In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Lady Gaga described the album as being about healing and per-severance — about “dancing through pain,” as she put it, while detailing her struggles with mental health. But “Chro-matica” arrives, of course, just as the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down the very festivals and clubs in which the singer might’ve envisioned her new music coming to life.

“I can’t wait to dance with people to this music,” she told Lowe, “to show them how much I love them.”

‘Chromatica’: A star is reborn on the dance floorMUSIC REVIEWS

Lady GagaChromatica (Interscope)

Charli XCXhow i’m feeling now (Atlantic)

The title of Charli XCX’s fourth album is lowercase, e.e. cummings-style, to express the disconnection and dissatis-faction of leading a life in limbo during lockdown.

The British electro pop star and song-writer — who has penned hits for Icona Pop, Iggy Azalea and Camila Cabello — conceived, wrote and recorded the entirety of the glitchy, uneasy “how i’m feeling now” during the coronavirus pandemic.

Quarantining in Los Angeles with boyfriend Huck Kwong, she announced the project in early April and give herself a May 15 deadline, keeping fans up to speed on her progress on Instagram Live.

The resulting music, made in collabo-ration with producers like A.G. Cook and Dylan Brady of 100 gecs, is restless

— itching to start a party at a time that it wouldn’t be prudent to do so.

“Lip gloss on, and I’m looking like a star,” she sings on the hard-edged “Pink Diamond.” “Gonna give you good views.” But those views will be virtual only: She’s turning herself out in anticipation of going “on a video chat.”

“How i’m feelin” explores the impact of living in isolation with one you love: “Building walls,” Charli sings in the com-bustible “Detonate.” “Close myself off in new ways.”

But in the end, the strange new world breeds optimism. “Anthems” longs for an epic night out on the town but hopes that the forced intimacy of lockdown might lead to a connection that lasts: “Finally, when it’s over,” she sings, “we might even be closer.”

— Dan DeLucaThe Philadelphia Inquirer

Atlantic Records

Willie NileNew York at Night (River House Records)

Not for the fi rst time in his career of more than 40 years, Willie Nile fi nds his muse nearby with “New York At Night,” an album inspired by his adopted city.

His 13th studio effort has plenty of rockers and a few refl ective ballads and is as sharp and guitar-driven as ever, with Nile and his long-serving live band radiating energy and commitment.

Opener “New York Is Rockin’ ” is enthusiastic even if it feels a bit like a commission from Madison Avenue, listing a catalog of NYC neighborhoods, personalities, sports teams and land-marks.

It also mentions the Giants and the Jets, even though their shared stadium is in New Jersey. It’s OK, though, be-cause despite Nile’s Big Apple identity, he recorded this album, like several of its predecessors, at Hobo Sounds in Weehawken, N.J.

Even better is the metropolitan boogie of “The Backstreet Slide,” one of several songs showing how the fi re within Nile, once a peer of bands like The Replacements and The Clash, con-tinues to light a similar torch.

Other high points: The furious “The Fool Who Drank the Ocean”; the anthe-mic “A Little Bit of Love,” inspired by a visit to his 102-year-old father in his na-tive Buffalo; and “Surrender the Moon,” with some fi nely intertwined guitars.

The empathy and security offered on “Under This Roof,” a truly fi ne song that builds up from an acoustic intro, feels custom-made for these challenging times, and closer “Run Free” deserves to be a big hit.

Nile once sang that “MTV rock ’n’ rollers will lose all their hair.” While limited exposure on the video channel may have helped preserve his locks, albums like “New York at Night” show that Nile still has all it takes to be a radio star, and more.

— Pablo GorondiAssociated Press

SparksA Steady Drip, Drip, Drip (BMG)

Sparks, that most European of Ameri-can bands, has released one of their best albums nearly 50 years after their debut.

“A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip” shows brothers Ron and Russell Mael as eclectic, extravagant, inventive, melodic and theatrical as ever, preoccupying themselves with lawnmowers, the en-vironment and life on their native West Coast, all while envisioning how an iPhone would disrupt Eden or the Get-tysburg Address and fantasizing about Igor Stravinsky’s life as a pop star.

The album follows in a similar vein to both its immediate predecessor — “Hip-popotamus,” surely the best, if likely only, record of 2017 to tip its hat to both Mrs. Lincoln and Taylor Swift — and to many of the 22 studio albums before that one. No two tracks are alike, even when the subject matter is related.

That is the case with “I’m Toast” and “Existential Threat,” which are both understandably anxious, but the fi rst alternates power chords with sweet vocal harmonies, while the other sounds like a klezmer band with a saxophone instead of a clarinet.

“All That,” on the other hand, is about as earnest as Sparks gets, a paean to lasting love with a catchy melody that, if it went on just a little longer, could be the band’s “Hey Jude.”

Sometimes, music and lyrics show a natural affi nity, like the angularity of the music of “Stravinsky’s Only Hit” or the youth choir on the album closer, which asks people to, ahem, not mess up our world.

“A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip” enhances Sparks’ position as the Picassos of art rock, their current resurgence proof of their irrepressible creativity and curiosity with no visible signs of slowing down, even as the brothers unsettle into their 70s.

— Pablo GorondiAssociated Press

PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

BY KARIN TANABE

Special to The Washington Post

If you know Suzanne Collins’ dys-topian Hunger Games trilogy, you know Coriolanus Snow. He’s Katniss Everdeen’s nemesis and the tyrannical

president of Panem, where every year 24 kids from the districts are selected to fi ght to a televised death. He’s a sadist who smells of roses and has a talent for crushing both spirits and heartbeats.

Do you need to know more? With the publishing odds ever in her favor (the Hun-ger Games trilogy has sold more than 100 million copies), Collins believes you do. In her new book, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a prequel to “The Hunger Games,” she looks at the man (OK, the teenager) who became the monster.

To do that, Collins takes readers back 64 years before Katniss competed in the Games, to a Capitol that is still rebuilding after the districts’ unsuccessful rebellion. Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus, Coryo to his friends, is a student at the prestigious Academy, desperately in need of a fi nancial scholarship. Heavy on lineage but short on food, Coryo is living with his cousin Tigris and his grandmother in a luxury apartment stripped of all luxuries. He is the son of a dead war hero, and his singular goal is to bring glory back to the House of Snow.

That’s a tall order for someone surviving off beans and cabbage, but the Games prove to be a game-changer. It’s been 10 years since their inception, and like any reality

show that has been on for a decade, it could use new bells and whistles. It is decided that for the fi rst time, Academy students will mentor the tributes forced to compete. Coriolanus is chosen as a mentor and is as-signed Lucy Gray Baird, the District 12 girl.

“Could there be a bigger slap in the face?” Coriolanus wonders. “District 12, the smallest district, the joke district, with its stunted, joint-swol-len kids that always died in the fi rst fi ve minutes, and not only that ... but the girl?” Turns out Coriolanus has no need to panic.

Hunger Games fans know that District 12 was Katniss’ district, and that she was anything but stunted. The same can be said of Lucy Gray Baird. Though lacking that killing-machine vibe, she’s a singer with charisma to spare, crooning her way into hearts and making pronouncements such as, “I’ve got a song that was made for this whiskey voice.” She’s basically the Stevie Nicks of the Hunger Games, and Coriolanus, who has survived on smiles, knows what a powerful weapon charm can be. For the populace placing bets on the tributes, she is an easy girl to fall in love with — and she is for Coryo, too.

Though we won’t fi nd out the origin of

the Games until the end of the book, much of “Songbirds and Snakes” is rooted in the idea that what is past is prologue. Although the Games are inspired by the theatrics and violence of ancient Rome, the TV viewers aren’t materializing. The ratings need a boost, and it’s up to the mentors to increase them. Shall they execute those who don’t watch? Or let viewers feed the tributes as if they were zoo animals? Oh, the possibilities.

The scenes during the Games are sharply plotted and move with the same super-speed readers will remember from the series. But it is the third part of the book, which takes the action to District 12, that is the most revelatory in terms of the gradual chipping away of Coryo’s humanity.

One of the delicious qualities of a prequel is that it fi lls in the blanks. For those who lapped up the trilogy and have been waiting 10 long years for answers — to questions like “Which unhinged savage came up with kids killing kids?” or “What’s the mean-ing behind the song ‘The Hanging Tree’? — Collins has them.

As soon as news of the book broke, this was the question: In a series with so many likable characters, why did Collins choose the most sadistic as the protagonist? In the fi rst third of the book, head gamemaker Dr. Gaul reminds her Academy students that “wars are won with heads, not hearts.” It’s the pull between Coryo’s head and heart — and the realization that he actually has a beating heart, not just a rose-scented lump of coal — that makes the future President Snow very worthy of a 517-page prequel.

P.D. James said, “Crime fi ction confi rms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehen-sible, and moral universe.’ ”

Ready for some escape into a rational universe? A few new top-notch mysteries and thrillers are here to help out.

The Delightful Life of a Suicide PilotColin Cotterill

It’s too bad that this 15th installment in the Siri Paiboun mystery series is the fi nal one. In 1981, Dr. Paiboun is retired from his job as the national coroner in corrupt, Communist Laos. He’s helping out in his wife’s noodle shop when an anonymous party sends him a Japanese soldier’s World War II-era bilingual diary. While tracking down a present-day perilous connection to the relic, the good doctor is assisted by, among others, Auntie Bpoo, Dr. Paiboun’s recently deceased “transvestite spirit guide.” It’s a wonderful farewell to a bound-ary-breaking series.

The MistRagnar Jonasson

If you’re looking for a fi ctional good fright to distract you from the real ones, look no further than this third entry in the Hidden Iceland series , featur-ing brainy, glum police inspec-tor Hulda Hermannsdottir. It’s midwinter with blowing snow and little daylight when three bodies are found in and near a remote farmhouse. The talented Jonasson backs up two months to portray — with the precision of Harold Pinter — two complex marriages whose outcomes are not at all ambiguous, this being a crime novel.

The SilenceSusan Allott

Australia’s ugly history of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their families is central to the plot of this fi rst novel, a wrenching melodrama about a Sydney seaside neighbor-hood that’s rife with alcoholism, marital discord, thwarted good intentions and possibly murder. Londoner Isla Green, intent on sobering up and staying that way, fl ies to Sydney to help her ever-tipsy father, a suspect in the disappearance 30 years earlier of a neighborhood woman.

The StreelMary Logue

The author of the Deputy Sher-iff Claire Watkins series is off on a winning new tangent with Brigid Reardon, an immigrant Irish housemaid who lands in the Dakota Territory of the 1870s and sets out to clear her gold-miner brother in the murder of a “streel,” a Deadwood prostitute. Reardon is a prayerful Catholic girl who is also appealingly droll and self-possessed. Brigid also learns to swoon on cue and aim a derringer in this vibrant new series.

— Richard LipezThe Washington Post

BOOKS

An ode to oddballs

‘Hunger Games’ prequel fills in villain’s backstory

‘Weird’ an entertaining examination of unique individuals

Thrillers, mysteries offer summer escape

BY ANNIE MURPHY PAUL

Special to The Washington Post

‘Weird” is a dis-tinctly odd cre-ation. A medley of social science

reporting, autobiographical confession and in-depth inter-views with an array of “weird” people, it is held together — just barely — by the singular voice of its author, Atlantic magazine writer Olga Khazan . By turns insouciantly candid, calmly authoritative and poignantly insightful, Khazan’s persona has a startling freshness that ultimately wins over the reader, though not without inspiring some head-scratching and eye-brow-raising along the way.

Khazan, she tells us, has evoked such bewildered reac-tions all her life. She has always felt weird, not like others — a painful and seemingly perma-nent state that she traces back to her childhood as a Russian immigrant transplanted to Mid-land, Texas. Her experiences growing up in this Bible Belt oil town are a mix of baffl e-ment, biting mockery and rueful humor — often featuring her father, a larger-than-life per-sonality notable for his strong opinions and gleeful penny-pinching. “One day, someone toilet-papered our house, and I had to explain to my parents that this is what American kids do to losers,” Khazan recounts. “Undeterred, my dad eagerly

raked the toilet paper into a garbage bag and put it in his bathroom for future use. ‘Free toilet paper!’ he said happily over dinner.”

Now a successful magazine writer, Khazan nonetheless acknowledges that “having been weird for so long still haunts me in so many ways.” It’s a status that others seem to sense immediately. “Sometimes,” she writes, “strangers ask me if I’m lost.”

“Weird” is Khazan’s attempt to fi nd herself — in the psycho-logical and sociological litera-ture she regularly covers for the Atlantic, and in the narratives of other people who feel they don’t fi t. On her wide-ranging tour of the former realm, she examines research on norms, conformity, ostracism, preju-dice, loneliness and “impostor syndrome” — a voluminous catalogue of the ways humans create groups that include some and exclude others. One frame-work to which Khazan returns repeatedly concerns tight vs. loose cultures. “Tight cultures are those in which social norms are strict and formal, and the punishments for breaking them are severe,” she explains. Loose cultures, by contrast, “permit a wider range of behaviors.” This distinction appears in a less academic form in many of the weird-people stories Khazan proceeds to tell. Most of these narratives trace a path of liberation from a rigidly rule-

bound community to a more liberal and accepting milieu. “It’s easier to be weird in a loose culture than in a tight one,” she observes.

This is Khazan’s own journey, of course, and the book is driven by her search for answers to her eternal questions: Why are some people made to feel weird? How do such “weirdos” come to feel more comfortable in their skin? Khazan trains her attention outward, on a cast of real-life outsiders and misfi ts. The fi rst of these is Michael Ain, a professor of orthopedic sur-gery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Ain’s difference from others is immediately ap-parent: He has achondroplasia, or dwarfi sm, and stands only 4 feet 3 inches tall. When he fi rst interviewed for admission to medical school, Khazan reports, “some admissions offi cers would go through the motions. Others stared awkwardly, then dismissed him from the meet-ing. ‘Patients won’t respect you,’ one said. ‘They want tall doctors with long, white coats.’ He was rejected from every school.”

More oddballs follow: a male preschool teacher, a female racecar driver, a Mormon mis-sionary who doubts his faith, a rebellious teenager in an Amish order, a liberal professor in a conservative small town, a transgender city council mem-ber in another small town — so many purportedly weird people, in fact, that their biographical

details begin to blur. It’s not clear, either, if there is

any essential quality that unites this motley group; as Khazan herself hastens to acknowledge, she doesn’t intend “to imply that I consider the low-level unease of, say, a white immigrant to be equivalent to the obstacles faced by people of color or those living with rare medical conditions.” Yet Khazan is looking for com-monalities, and she fi nds them, making connections among her many sketches and drawing parallels to her own story.

Toward the end of the book, the author experiments with trying to become less weird, while also advancing the notion that being odd is actually an advantage. Both of these efforts feel a bit halfhearted. “Weird” is at its strongest when Khazan allows herself to explore, with bracing candor and unexpected humor, what it feels like to be weird — a state that is “at once energizing and maddening, like trying to squeeze into a space where you might plausibly fi t, but don’t quite.”

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15Sunday, June 7, 2020

CROSSWORD AND COMICS

“Gunston Street” is drawn by Basil Zaviski. Email him at gunstonstreet@yahoo.com, and online at gunstonstreet.com.

GUNSTON STREET RESULTS FOR ABOVE PUZZLE

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

ATTACKRACERSTAMEN

LEAGUEREVILESCIMINO

PATINAOVERLAPAKINTO

APTLYNAMEDCELEBRITIES

COLEFALANICEYORE

ATEBLINISINGENOS

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MINNIEKARENSTEADY

PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

BY GREGG ELLMAN

Tribune News Service

Even with the lockdown starting to lift, our hours at home are more plenti-ful than ever, so what

better time to turn some of those priceless photos you have stored on your iPhone into a coffee table photo book? Think of vacations, graduations, birthdays, anniver-saries or just a select period of time. Any group of images will work.

Storing photos digitally is the way go compared to the closet full of prints my mom had in shoeboxes. If you’re like me, you have photos taken over the course of time in your iPhone, which when combined would make a great photo book to give the images a permanent, person-

alized home that’s easily accessible.

I recently did just that with Motif, using the photo roll on my iPad, which is synced with my iPhone, to produce a hardcover 24-page 11-by-8.5-inch book.

To start the project, the fi rst thing I did was fi nd all the photos for the subject of my book and put them in their own folder in the iOS photo app.

Next, I got the Motif iOS for iPhone or iPad or the Motif for macOS app for laptop or desktop. Once downloaded, I chose the type of book I wanted among sizes; hardcover choices are 13-by-10, 11-by-8.5, 10-by-10 and 8-by-8 inches. Softcover sizes are 11-by-8.5, 8-by-6 and 8-by-8 inches.

After creating my account,

TECH & GADGETS

GADGET WATCH

Turn your iPhone images into a book

BY RUSSELL CONTRERAS

Associated Press

A woman who identi-fi ed herself as Rachel from San Ysidro, Calif., called into the syndicat-

ed “The Art Laboe Connection Show” last month with a message for Alex “the Wizard.”

“Babe, I want you to know I love you more than the distance between us,” Rachel told her husband, who is serving time in a state prison in Delano, Calif. “We got mail from you this week.” She then asks DJ Art Laboe to play “God Blessed Our Love” by Al Green. He obliged.

In Boston, DJ Jose Masso of 90.9 WBUR-FM’s “Con Salsa!” got a similar letter from a Mas-sachusetts inmate. The writer wanted a Celia Cruz song and asked Masso to tell his family to stay inside. He also obliged.

Some Latino families sepa-rated by distance or with loved ones serving time in prisons are bypassing COVID-19 restrictions on visits by sending dedica-tions and messages through the airwaves and internet via two of the nation’s longest-working disc jockeys. With the novel coronavi-rus forcing these families in the American Southwest and New England to stay home, some are turning to the two popular radio shows to reaffi rm public declara-tions of love — or pain — even while the shows’ vulnerable, elder DJs have to sequester, too.

The DJs say they welcome the challenge and will do what they can to bring joy amid uncer-tainty.

The two shows have long been popular with Latinos and those with family members in prison.

But now those in lockdown are sending messages to others in lockdown. “We’re all in confi nement today,” Masso, 69, said.

The 94-year-old Laboe is insu-

lated in his Palm Springs, Calif., home while still hosting his syndicated oldies show, accord-ing to Dale Berger, Laboe’s busi-ness partner. Still, he insists that the show continue, even though he has to call in from home or record promos.

“We don’t want him out and anywhere near the studio,” Berger said. “He can’t catch this thing.”

Born Arthur Egnoian in Salt Lake City to an Armenian Amer-ican family, Laboe gained fame when he worked as a disc jockey for KXLA in Los Angeles. He was one of the fi rst DJs to play R&B and rock ’n’ roll in Califor-nia and is credited by scholars for helping integrate dance halls among Latinos, blacks, Asian Americans and whites who were

drawn to his multicultural musi-cal lineup.

Over the decades, Laboe maintained a fan base, especially among Mexican Americans who followed him from station to station. He started getting calls from inmates’ family members in the 1990s on his syndicated oldies show. Current and former gang members were some of his most loyal fans.

“I don’t judge,” Laboe said in an interview with The Associ-ated Press at his Palm Springs studio last year. “I like people.”

Today, his Sunday show airs in California, Arizona and Nevada. It’s also popular in New Mexico where audiences listen online.

Masso began “Con Salsa!” 45 years ago on Boston University’s

public radio station while he was a high school teacher in the city. In addition to playing salsa and Afro-Latino artists, Masso has used the show as a community forum and a vehicle for families to communicate with inmates.

The show runs from 10 p.m. EDT Saturday until 3 a.m. Sun-day, and can be heard in most of Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and parts of Con-necticut. Like Laboe’s show, it also is streamed live online.

But Masso also has been barred as a nonessential em-ployee from the studio’s Boston University public radio station, which has opted to play old “Con Salsa!” shows. And Masso still is receiving letters from inmates and family of inmates.

Last month, Masso decided he would try to record new shows from his home. While he worked to get the quality squared, he began live-streaming a version of his show on Facebook.

Some battling depression from isolation messaged. They thanked him for bringing delight by allowing Puerto Rican salsero Hector Lavoe to sing about “Mi Gente” (My People).

A woman had another request. She had turned 75 and was alone. Could Masso play the following songs?

He obliged.“This woman had expected

to celebrate alone,” Masso said. “But there on Facebook, strang-ers across the globe were danc-ing with her.”

Closing the gapDJs use dedications to help separated families feel closer

JOSH REYNOLDS/AP

Radio host Jose Masso reads the liner notes of a song played during the bilingual “Con Salsa!” radio show on WBUR 90.9 FM in Boston. Fans of Masso’s show frequently call in with song requests dedicated to separated family members.

Laboe

Motif

using the app was easy once I selected my photos for the book. The app connects to my photo folders, where I choose what I want in the book.

Overall it’s an easy app to navi-gate with a user-friendly dash-board and screen shot examples of what all the choices will look like.

I let the Motif app organize the images, which took no time at all. In a few steps, the app evaluated image content of my selections and then gave me a screen with all the images and checkmarks for the choices the software thought were best.

I thought the automation gave me a great starting point, but it also allowed for customization, so I did change the order of a few pictures and swap out a few pictures entirely. The app made it easy to make these changes.

Next was the choice of the book theme; you’ll see samples of each image, and how many can fi t on a page with different layouts and designs. There’s no right or wrong here, it’s whatever you like and want.

After you choose the book style, it gives you a full layout of the book with the chosen images.

You can re-crop the images

or change them entirely for full customization. Either is easy.

Overall, I thought the quality of the product was high, includ-ing the premium paper and the overall craftsmanship.

A few days later, the book of memories arrived at my door-step, encased in a protective sleeve.

Motif states on its home page: “Your Best Memories Just Got Better.” I can absolutely agree after I had my completed book. I have a few more books I need to do, and I certainly have the time.

Online: motifphotos.com; prices vary based on book sizes

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17Sunday, June 7, 2020

cilman Andre Knight during a discussion about renovations in Battle Park, the Rocky Mount Telegram reported.

“I feel that we should not at this time allocate $100,000 or in the future any money to that park until we as a council address the Confederate statue in light of what has happened all across the country and in close proximity to us,” Knight said.

Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson told WRAL-TV that once the decision is finalized with another open meeting vote , the monument will be removed from the park and stored elsewhere.

Restaurant chain to sell company to pay debts

TX HOUSTON — A popu-lar Texas cafeteria

chain known for its comfort foods announced it plans to sell the company to pay off its millions of dollars in debt.

Luby’s said it will begin the process of selling its business op-erations and assets, including real estate, to pay off $35 million of debt. The remaining money from the sale will go to stockholders, the Houston Chronicle reported.

In the meantime, some restau-rants will remain open while the Houston-based company seeks a buyer.

The move to sell comes after a special board committee exam-ined how to maximize sharehold-er value, which also considered selling the company altogether. Luby’s has been struggling to lure customers in recent years.

Police: Boy shot by gun found in father’s truck

OH CLEVELAND — A 12-year-old Cleveland

boy was killed when a gun he and his brother found in their father’s truck was accidentally fired, au-thorities said.

Donell King Sr., 37, is charged with involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and a weap-ons offense in the death of his son, Donell King Jr.

Cleveland.com reported that the boy and his brother found the gun and the brother picked it up. Donell Jr. tried to take the gun away, authorities said, but the weapon somehow fired and Donell Jr. was struck in the chest.

His brother, who wasn’t in-jured, ran to a nearby police sta-tion to report the shooting. Police went to the home and found the wounded child, who was taken to a hospital but died a short time later.

Police found the gun in some overgrown grass outside a near-by apartment building, authori-

ties said, but it’s not clear how the weapon ended up there.

Arson suspect held after fire threatens homes

CA SAN JOSE — A man suspected of setting

a half-dozen spot fires in San Jose was detained as firefight-ers worked to corral a blaze that briefly threatened homes, au-thorities said.

The fires were reported in the dry Santa Teresa foothills near a water treatment plant. They prompted evacuations of some homes but the evacuations were lifted .

No homes were damaged.

Deputies investigate cross burning on bridge

AL TUSKEGEE — Depu-ties in Alabama are in-

vestigating a cross burning after a wooden cross lit ablaze was found by drivers passing along-side a bridge.

The burning cross was first

seen stationed on top of a bridgeover Interstate 85 in Macon Coun-ty , Macon County Sheriff AndreBrunson told WRBL-TV.

John Bolton, one of the people who saw the burning cross, toldthe news outlet what “looked like a shadow” fled from the scene ashe ran toward the blaze with twoother men who were with him. He called 911 while “one of the guysclimbed up to the bridge to knock the cross down,” Bolton said.

A few minutes later, deputiesarrived and helped extinguish the fire, Sheriff Brunson said. Oncethe fire was gone, Bolton said they saw a tire and a fuel canister had also been set on fire.

Oil spill settlement to aid in loon restoration

MA HADLEY — Federaland state environ-

mental agencies are spendingmore than $8 million from a legal settlement stemming from a 2003oil spill to help restore the com-mon loon to some areas of Massa-chusetts, and to support existing populations of the birds acrossNew England and New York, fed-eral wildlife officials said .

The plan calls for the release of 45 to 60 common loon chicks fromMaine and New York to historicMassachusetts breeding sites atthe Assawompset Pond Complexin Lakeville and October Moun-tain Reservoir in Washington.

Another portion of the settle-ment will be used to increasesurvival of nesting loons at manybreeding sites in the Northeast.

AMERICAN ROUNDUP

The amount Idaho is offering as a bonus for people to return to work. Idaho gov-ernor Brad Little said the incentive is in-tended to help get the Idaho economy going again. Part-time workers would re-ceive $750. The state’s unemployment

rate has rocketed to 11.5% with more than 100,000 unemployed. The money for the payments is coming from $100 million of the $1.25 billion Idaho received in federal rescue money. State officials estimate it will only last long enough to cover about 70,000 workers, but it could be supplemented with other federal money.

Man suspected of cannibalizing grandma

CA RICHMOND — Police in the San Francisco

Bay Area arrested a man on sus-picion of murdering and canni-balizing his own grandmother.

Dwayne Wallick, 37, was ar-rested after Richmond police allegedly caught him in the act of eating his 90-year-old grand-mother, Ruby Wallick. Police are unsure of a motive, and continued to investigate, the East Bay Times reported.

Officers responded to the home after receiving a report of a man standing over a woman’s body cov-ered in blood. When they entered the home, they allegedly found Dwayne Wallick standing over his grandmother, police said.

Police: Man stole from same bar twice in 3 days

NM FARMINGTON — A northwestern New

Mexico man faces charges after police said he burglarized the same bar twice within three days and stole alcohol both times.

And police said he fell asleep on a couch in one of the cases.

The Farmington Daily Times reported Tyrone John was ar-rested following two reported burglaries at the B Lounge inside the Brentwood Inn and Garden Motel in Farmington.

According to court documents, John was arrested May 26 after police arrived and found the bar’s window broken.

Farmington police were dis-patched on May 29 after a man al-legedly walked out of a side door of the bar with a bag of liquor bottles. Officers said video sur-veillance footage showed a man who appeared to be John.

John was found two hours later and arrested.

Man allegedly pointed gun at an ATF agent

IL CHICAGO — A Chicago man was in federal cus-

tody after he allegedly pointed a gun at a federal agent while a child stood by his side, authorities said .

Joseph Hammond was arrested after U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, To-bacco, Firearms and Explosive agents responded to a call of an armed man firing shots on a Chi-cago street.

Prosecutors said agents drove toward Hammond, announc-ing themselves and instructing him to stop and show his hands. Hammond, 33, pointed a hand-gun with an extended magazine at one of the agents and told him to “keep moving,” according to the federal complaint. He then picked up the child and ran. He was later tracked down by agents and arrested.

City votes to remove Confederate monument

NC ROCKY MOUNT — The Rocky Mount City

Council in North Carolina voted to remove a Confederate monu-ment from a city park.

The 6-1 vote during a budget meeting was prompted by Coun-

THE CENSUS

Rushing waters

$1,500

CHRIS DILLMANN, VAIL (COLO.) DAILY/AP

From wire reports

Lydia Smith digs in for the turn to ring the bell during the opening Vail Recreation District Whitewater Series in Vail, Colo. The Whitewater Series runs the next two Tuesdays at International Bridge in Vail.

Sunday, June 7, 2020PAGE 18 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •

OPINIONMax D. Lederer Jr., Publisher

Lt. Col. Marci Hoffman, Europe commanderLt. Col. Richard McClintic, Pacific commander Caroline E. Miller, Europe Business Operations Joshua M. Lashbrook, Pacific Chief of Staff

EDITORIALTerry Leonard, Editor

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BY ELLIOT SILVERBERGAND ANDREW INJOO PARK

Special to Stars and Stripes

President Donald Trump’s prom-ise to put “America First” has precipitated arguably the most consequential rethinking of U.S.

foreign policy since the end of World War II. Taking its cues from a populist ground-swell of deglobalization, America First repudiates Washington’s accustomed role since 1945 at the helm of an international order backed by its military and economic leadership, a global network of alliances, and multilateral institutions responsible for enforcing the rule of law and common liberal values.

The subject of both extreme derision and devotion, induced partly by the controver-sy surrounding Trump himself, America First carries the imprimatur of isolationist opponents of the Washington “blob.” These bipartisan critics of the U.S. foreign poli-cy establishment, constituting a diverse group of both fringe and mainstream el-ements, protest the irresponsibility of America’s endless wars and transnational crony capitalism.

But for proponents of the established “Washington consensus,” America First worryingly disavows many of the achieve-ments of neoliberal internationalism. These successes include its unleashing of human ingenuity through multinational private enterprise, and, on balance, its measured defense of global public goods such as democracy, human rights, and the free flow of goods, people and ideas.

Proponents of the established system ad-ditionally worry that America First’s dis-missal of multilateral alliances, institutions and public goods weakens Washington’s command over geopolitics. With neoliberal internationalism increasingly under siege from a distended group of authoritarian regimes led by China and Russia, America First has caused perceptions of U.S. cred-ibility to dim, and left multilateral institu-tions vulnerable to the malign influence of powerful donors like the Chinese Commu-nist Party. Independent barometers of U.S. soft power, such as Pew Research Center

and the Soft Power 30 index, have cor-roborated America First’s negative impact on Washington’s international standing. Today we are witnessing the debilitating effects of America First in real time, as the U.S. struggles to formulate a constructive international response to COVID-19.

America’s prioritization of domestic interests may seem myopic next to the challenges of climate change, deadly pan-demics and other potentially existential threats. But whether Trump is reelected or a Biden administration that attempts to hit the reset button replaces him, Wash-ington will continue struggling to balance its competing national and global com-mitments. This is because America First speaks more poignantly to the needs of an impoverished underclass worried about being hung out to dry by globalization.

The problem with Trump’s articulation of America First, however, is that it re-jects certain features of the postwar order critical for winning today’s great-power competition. Even critics of neoliberal in-ternationalism like Andrew Bacevich, a decorated Army colonel and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible State-craft, admit that “the challenge is to save ‘America First’ from Trump.” Accordingly, a more responsible formulation of America First than Trump’s might begin by doing the following:

1) Reestablish U.S. leadership in mul-tilateral organizations. Despite early in-dications to the contrary, multilateral frameworks like the Trans-Pacific Part-nership, World Trade Organization and Paris climate accord have been relegated to the sidelines in favor of unilateral and bilateral approaches under America First. COVID-19, however, affirms the endur-ing need for proactive U.S. leadership in global institutions. While Trump’s deci-sion to defund the World Health Organi-zation is regrettable, the administration’s concerns regarding the WHO are not un-founded. German intelligence from Janu-ary indicates that the CCP pressured the WHO to hold off on publicly responding to the coronavirus for as long as six weeks. Going forward, it won’t be enough for the

U.S. to remain the majority shareholder at multilateral organizations. The U.S. will need to be even more vigilant in ensuringthat these institutions uphold their man-date instead of playing politics or showingbad faith.

2) Discern friends from rivals in geopo-litical competition. Since before the pan-demic, China has worked relentlessly to exploit a loosening U.S. alliance network through intimidation and appeasement.However, instead of immediately clos-ing ranks with like-minded nations in re-sponse, Trump pursued a self-destructive trade war with China that caused spilloverharm to trading partners, while also play-ing hardball in burden-sharing negotia-tions with South Korea, Japan and NATO. Thanks, however, to the strong COVID-19 responses of U.S. allies like Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, Washington has an op-portunity to shift the focus of U.S.-China relations away from a futile game of con-spiracy mud-slinging to a meaningful demonstration of how democracies func-tion better during nontraditional crisesthan authoritarian states. Trump is finallystarting to rally like-minded nations, for example, through a new Economic Pros-perity Network intended to help allies di-versify their supply chains from China. More of the same will gradually correct America’s trust deficit.

America is already a great nation. How-ever, America is exceptional not simply due to its military might or democratic val-ues, but because 75 years ago it took upon itself the monumental task of underwrit-ing an international system of rules, normsand institutions that, on balance, have con-tributed to global stability and prosperityever since. Though Trump’s central con-cern for U.S. interests is worthy, America First must not be allowed to absolve Wash-ington of its indispensable role in global governance.Elliot Silverberg is a fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and a nonresident fellow at Pacific Forum in Hawaii. Andrew Injoo Park is president of the Sejong Society. He is a political consultant in Washington and a former interpreter with the U.S.-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command in Seoul.

BY WILLIAM J. “DOC” SCHMITZ

Special to Stars and Stripes

Americans are feeling the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in different ways, and for veterans, the concerns about food insecuri-

ty — which is defined as the lack of access to enough nutritionally adequate foods to live an active and healthy life — are all too real.

Now that the demand for food bank sup-port has escalated due to this pandemic, the 18.8 million veterans living in the Unit-ed States face increased hardship as they struggle to put food on the table. Consider that more than 9 million veterans are over age 65, many of whom have underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of complications or mortality from COVID-19, and you can feel the weight of the hardship our senior service members face.

Veterans are at greater risk of mental health issues as a result of experiences they endure during service. Coupled with the fact that food insecurity is associated with a range of adverse health outcomes, including poorer control of diabetes, hy-pertension, depression and other major psychiatric disorders, these collective is-sues can result in a devastating impact on those who have sacrificed so much for our country.

Since food insecurity has increased dra-matically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Humana, and offices within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — including the Secre-

tary’s Center for Strategic Partnerships,Voluntary Service Office and HomelessPrograms Office — are mobilizing do-nors and volunteers for the “Uniting toCombat Hunger” campaign in an effort to help food insecure veterans and theirfamilies through this pandemic. By donat-ing directly to VA medical centers across the country, we are able to take a target-ed approach to assist our nation’s service men and women and ensure donations godirectly to those who need it, whether it’sproviding food, gift cards to local grocerystores or even basic supplies to help them during this difficult time.

While our efforts have helped to providemore than 200,000 meals thus far, we in-vite citizens and organizations to join us in this mission by visiting vfw.org/UTCH andmaking a monetary donation to a VA medi-cal center near you. Every donation will goa long way to help veterans in need.

Now more than ever, it’s important wedon’t take anything for granted — includ-ing access to food. Veterans have sacrificed so much to protect our country, and theyshouldn’t have to fight against hunger aswell. Now is the time for us to do our partto assist these service men and women andensure they can put food on the table for themselves and their families.William J. “Doc” Schmitz is commander-in-chief of Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Put America first by leading again

We can’t let vets go hungry during COVID-19 crisis

DAVID GOLDMAN/AP

An image of Stephen Kulig is projected onto the home of his daughter, Elizabeth DeForest, in Chicopee, Mass., on May 3 . Kulig, a U.S. Navy veteran and resident of the Soldier’s Home in Holyoke, Mass., died from the COVID-19 virus at age 92.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19Sunday, June 7, 2020

PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

SCOREBOARD/GOLF/SPORTS BRIEFS

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

Sports on AFN

Deals

Friday’s transactionsFOOTBALL

National Football LeagueGREEN BAY PACKERS — Signed 2020

sixth-round draft pick G Jon Runyan.KANSAS CITY CHIEFS — Signed S An-

drew Soroh. WR Felton Davis placed on waivers.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

DETROIT REDWINGS — Signed 2020 second round draft pick D Albert Johans-son to a three-year entry-level contract.

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

MLS — Suspended FC Dallas G Jesse Gonzalez.

LOS ANGELES GALAXY — Agreed to mutually part ways with M Aleksander Katai.

COLLEGECHARLESTON SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY

— Hired Anthony Izzio To join baseball coaching staff as pitching coach.

Auto racing

Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500lineup

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series At Atlanta Motor Speedway

AtlantaRace Sunday

Lap length: 1.54 miles(Car number in parentheses)

1. (9) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet.2. (10) Aric Almirola, Ford.3. (22) Joey Logano, Ford.4. (18) Kyle Busch, Toyota.5. (14) Clint Bowyer, Ford.6. (2) Brad Keselowski, Ford.7. (12) Ryan Blaney, Ford.8. (88) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet.9. (4) Kevin Harvick, Ford.10. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota.11. (19) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota.12. (1) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet.13. (17) Chris Buescher, Ford.14. (20) Erik Jones, Toyota.15. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet.16. (3) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet.17. (6) Ryan Newman, Ford.18. (38) John Hunter Nemechek, Ford.19. (42) Matt Kenseth, Chevrolet.20. (24) William Byron, Chevrolet.21. (21) Matt DiBenedetto, Ford.22. (47) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet.23. (43) Bubba Wallace, Chevrolet.24. (8) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet.25. (32) Corey LaJoie, Ford.26. (51) Joey Gase, Ford.27. (95) Christopher Bell, Toyota.28. (13) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet.29. (37) Ryan Preece, Chevrolet.30. (77) JJ Yeley, Chevrolet.31. (41) Cole Custer, Ford.32. (27) Josh Bilicki, Ford.33. (15) Brennan Poole, Chevrolet.34. (53) Garrett Smithley, Chevrolet.35. (00) Quin Houff, Chevrolet.36. (34) Michael McDowell, Ford.37. (96) Daniel Suarez, Toyota.38. (66) Timmy Hill, Toyota.39. (78) BJ McLeod, Ford.40. (7) Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet.

Pro soccer

MLSEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GAAtlanta 2 0 0 6 4 2New York 1 0 1 4 4 3Montreal 1 0 1 4 4 3Toronto FC 1 0 1 4 3 2Columbus 1 0 1 4 2 1D.C. United 1 1 0 3 3 3Chicago 0 1 1 1 2 3New England 0 1 1 1 2 3Orlando City 0 1 1 1 1 2Philadelphia 0 1 1 1 3 5Cincinnati 0 2 0 0 3 5Inter Miami CF 0 2 0 0 1 3New York City FC 0 2 0 0 0 2

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GASporting Kansas City 2 0 0 6 7 1Minnesota United 2 0 0 6 8 3Colorado 2 0 0 6 4 2FC Dallas 1 0 1 4 4 2Los Angeles FC 1 0 1 4 4 3Seattle 1 0 1 4 3 2Portland 1 1 0 3 2 3Vancouver 1 1 0 3 2 3Real Salt Lake 0 0 2 2 1 1LA Galaxy 0 1 1 1 1 2San Jose 0 1 1 1 4 7Houston 0 1 1 1 1 5Nashville SC 0 2 0 0 1 3

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

Memorial will have spectators

BY DOUG FERGUSON

Associated Press

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine ap-proved a plan for Muirfield Village Golf Club to have at least some fans for the Memorial in July, which would make it the first PGA Tour event with a crowd since the

tour was shut down March 13 by the coronavirus.

DeWine announced the decision Friday. He said on Twit-ter that casi-nos, racinos, amusement parks and water parks

will be able to open on June 19.“In addition, we received safe-

ty plans for the Memorial Golf Tournament to be held July 13-19,” he wrote. “We are approving that plan.”

The PGA Tour resumes its schedule next week at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas. That is to be followed by

the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head, the Travelers Championship in Connecticut and the Rocket Mortage Classic in Detroit. The tour said the opening four events would not have spectators.

The John Deere Classic was the first possibility for fans until it decided last week to cancel this year’s event. It was replaced by another tournament, also to be held at Muirfield Village, only

without spectators.The Memorial said it would

have more details later.In a statement, the Memorial

praised DeWine and his staff and said it would work with state, county and city leaders to use the tournament “as an example of how public gathering events can be developed and implemented with approved and accepted pro-tocols in place.”

Dan Sullivan, the tournament director of the Memorial, hadbeen planning on different sce-narios on returning from theCOVID-19 pandemic dependingon state and local governments.

Sullivan told the Greater Co-lumbus Sports Commission lastmonth about inserting chips intotournament badges to know howmany people are congregating indifferent areas of the golf course.

Ohio governor approves planfor some fans

DeWine

DORAL CHENOWETH, COLUMBUS DISPATCH/TNS

Murifield Village Golf Club will host the first PGA event to allow spectators when it hosts the Memorial.

Briefl y

Elway joins call for change after Lloyd killingAssociated Press

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — John Elway says he’s no longer stay-ing on the sidelines and is “join-ing with the players, coaches and our organization in speaking up against racism, police brutal-ity and any injustice against the black community.”

On Friday night, Elway tweeted that he spent much of the week lis-tening to his players and coaches and realized the views he’s held for decades were wrong.

“I always thought that since I grew up in a locker room, I knew everything there was to know about understanding teammates from different backgrounds and walks of life,” Elway wrote. “What I’ve realized is that I could not have been more wrong.

“Listening to players and reading their social media, the strength they have shown and the experiences they have shared has been powerful. It has impacted me. I realize I have a long way to go, but I will keep listening and learning,” Elway added. “That is the only way to grow. I truly be-lieve a lot of good will come from the many difficult conversations that are taking place around our team, league and country.”

In other NFL news:� More than half of the 32

NFL teams did not have coach-ing staffs at their facilities Friday even though the league has ap-proved such returns where local governments allow them.

Clubs with coaches in place at their training complexes were Super Bowl champion Kansas City, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, Washington, Denver, Dallas, Jacksonville and Atlanta. While entire staffs had not yet returned in many cities, on hand were such head coaches as the Chiefs’ Andy Reid, the Steelers’ Mike Tom-lin, the Falcons’ Dan Quinn, the Broncos’ Vic Fangio and three of the new hires: the Browns Kevin Stefanski, the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy and the Redskins’ Ron Rivera, who had much of his staff with him.

NASCAR sets scheduleof races through August

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NAS-CAR’s All-Star Race will be a midweek event on July 15 at Char-lotte Motor Speedway as part of a new revision to the schedule that runs through the first weekend of

August.NASCAR already has resched-

uled races through June 21 and the update released Thursday be-gins the next weekend at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania. The track will host ARCA, the Truck Series, two Cup Series races on consecutive days, June 27-28, and the Xfinity Series.

NASCAR will then move to In-dianapolis Motor Speedway for a July 4 weekend event combined with the IndyCar Series. Then it is on to Kentucky Speedway, the All-Star Race and then Texas Motor Speedway.

Kansas Speedway will host the Cup Series for a Thursday night race July 23.

New Hampshire will host the Cup Series on Aug. 2 in the final event announced in this latest re-vised schedule.

Colonial attracts top 5 golfers in return to tour

FORT WORTH, Texas — The PGA Tour returns after three months, and some of its biggest stars are ready to play.

The 148-man field for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial features the top five in

the world — Rory McIlroy, JonRahm, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson.

The biggest name — TigerWoods — chose not to play. Woodshas only played Colonial once, in 1997, when he was going for histhird straight victory and shot 72in the final round to finish threeshots behind.

Galaxy drop Katai afterwife’s online posts

LOS ANGELES — Aleksan-dar Katai has been released bythe LA Galaxy after a series ofalarming social media posts by his wife, Tea.

The Galaxy announced their decision to “mutually part ways” with their new Serbian wingerFriday in a one-sentence newsrelease.

Tea Katai made the posts on her Instagram story earlier thisweek, and the Galaxy angrilycondemned them as “racist andviolent” on Wednesday. The postsincluded a photo with a caption written in Serbian urging police to “kill” protesters, another re-ferring to protesters as “disgust-ing cattle,” and a third sharing aracist meme.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21Sunday, June 7, 2020

NBA

BY GENE WANG

Washington Post

Michael Jordan offered his most com-pelling response to date in debunking the narrative that the greatest player of his lifetime, and perhaps in the history of bas-ketball, isn’t doing enough to advance the cause of social justice. The six-time NBA champion, in conjunction with his Jordan Brand, pledged $100 million over the next 10 years to “organizations dedicated to en-suring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education.”

The announcement came four days after the Hall of Famer and owner of the Char-

lotte Hornets released a statement con-demning the death of George Floyd; a white Minneapolis police of-ficer had pressed his knee against the back of the black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

“Black lives mat-ter,” Friday’s state-ment read in part. “This isn’t a contro-

versial statement. Until the ingrained rac-ism that allows our country’s institutions to fail is completely eradicated, we will re-main committed to protecting and improv-ing the lives of black people.”

Floyd’s death May 25 sparked demon-strations around the country, including in the District of Columbia, with protests continuing on the heels of charges being elevated against Derek Chauvin, the po-lice officer whose knee was on the back of Floyd’s neck, to second-degree murder.

“We represent a proud family that has overcome obstacles, fought against dis-crimination in communities worldwide and that works every day to erase the stain of racism and the damage of injustice,” Jordan Brand’s statement read.

Jordan has been criticized for his per-ceived indifference to activism, including not endorsing Harvey Gantt, an African American, during the 1990 Senate race against incumbent Jesse Helms in his home state of North Carolina.

“I’ll be honest: When it was reported that Michael Jordan said, ‘Republicans buy sneakers, too,’ for somebody who was at that time preparing for a career in civil rights law and public life, and knowing what Jesse Helms stood for, you would have wanted to see Michael push harder on that,” former president Barack Obama said in an episode of “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s 10-part documentary on the Jor-dan-era Bulls.

Fellow Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who long has spoken about social issues, even chastised Jordan in 2015 for choosing “commerce over conscience.”

But in 2017, Jordan offered a statement in support of peaceful protest and free speech. That same year, he voiced displea-sure over North Carolina’s so-called “bath-room bill” that compelled the NBA to move the All-Star Game out of Charlotte.

“We must join forces with the communi-ty, government and civic leaders to create a lasting impact together,” Jordan Brand President Craig Williams said in a state-ment. “There is still more work for us to do to drive real impact for the black commu-nity. We embrace the responsibility.”

Jordan

Jordan giving $100 million for equality, racial justice

BY TIM REYNOLDS

Associated Press

For the NBA, it is not officially time to play. It’s getting closer, but the league isn’t there yet.

The move to agree on a 22-team format for the resumption of the pandemic-inter-rupted season is a major step forward, but it was just the first of many major deci-sions that have to be completed before the league moves into the ESPN Wide Wide Of Sports complex at the Disney campus near Orlando, Fla., next month.

Another step was completed Friday as expected when the representatives from the National Basketball Players Associa-tion voted to unanimously approve the pro-posal that the NBA’s Board of Governors approved a day earlier.

More talks and negotiations are sched-uled for the coming days to work out every-thing else, and it is a sizable list. A look at some of the other issues facing the league, both in the quest to finish this season and then what awaits in the coming year:

Testing: The format was significant, but not the biggest hurdle for the NBA to clear in this process. That one, by far, is testing. The medical protocols are the most critical part of the return-to-play plan.

The league and the players know they must go above and beyond in the interest of safety. The protocols are the key — play-ers will have to practice social distancing when they aren’t playing, plus submit to a quarantine at the beginning of the time at Disney and likely daily testing for the en-tirety of their stay there.

Players and coaches likely won’t even be able to have their families at Disney until September, at the earliest.

A person with direct knowledge of the talks said the NBA and NBPA have been working on what will be lengthy protocols — which, among other things, will explain what happens when a player or coach tests positive while at the Disney complex.

The games: The season is set to resume July 31, with playoffs starting in mid-Au-gust and leading up to an NBA Finals that could stretch until Oct. 12.

Other than Milwaukee and the Los An-geles Lakers, who are all-but certain of going into the playoffs with No. 1 seeds, ev-eryone at Disney will be playing for some-thing — a playoff seed or a playoff spot.

The dynamic at the bottom of the East is fascinating with Brooklyn and Orlando separated by a half-game — and Washing-ton just 1 ½ games out of getting into a two-game play-in series for the No. 8 spot.

Out West, expect craziness with six teams basically assured of vying for one berth.

Whichever team emerges from that mess will be playoff-ready and loaded with con-fidence heading into Game 1 of Round 1 against the Lakers. That means the Lakers will have to be playoff-sharp right away, because LeBron James and his teammates will open against a team that’s hot.

The other eight: Consider this: Detroit didn’t win a game in March, and now won’t play in April, May, June, July, August, Sep-tember, October or November.

The Pistons’ last win was Feb. 28. The rough — very rough — draft of the NBA calendar suggests next season will start Dec. 1.

That’s almost nine full months without games. Meanwhile, the 2020 NBA finalists aren’t even slated to get nine weeks off be-fore next season starts.

And every team will have to cram a draft and free agency into very small windows next fall.

For Detroit, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Cleveland, Charlotte, Minnesota and Gold-en State, it’ll be a long break. The Warriors’ Klay Thompson last played a year ago, when he tore his ACL in the NBA Finals. He’s basically going to go a year and a half without playing a real game. The same for Kevin Durant, who told The Undefeated on Friday he won’t return to Brooklyn’s lineup

when the season resumes.“My season is over,” Durant said. “I don’t

plan on playing at all. We decided last sum-mer when it first happened that I was justgoing to wait until the following season. Ihad no plans of playing at all this season.”

Durant ruptured an Achilles tendon a year ago for Golden State in Game 5 of theNBA Finals against Toronto.

He also had COVID-19 this year.“This certainly wasn’t how we hoped

our season would come to an end, and it’sfair to say that we are disappointed thatour young team will not be allowed togain more valuable time playing togeth-er by being included in the restart of the season,” Hawks general manager TravisSchlenk and coach Lloyd Pierce said in ajoint statement Friday.

There’s a lot of teams feeling the sameway.

Next season: The very long wait for theeight teams not going to Disney and thevery short offseason for the teams that godeep into the playoffs at Disney are not theonly schedule issue on the table right now.

If the NBA goes forward with a normalregular season in 2020-21, a Dec. 1 startdate means the playoffs wouldn’t start untillate May and could reach into late July.

And that calls into question whether NBA players could take part in the Olym-pics, which has qualifying scheduled forJune 2021 for the final four spots in themen’s field and then the Tokyo Games themselves beginning on July 23, 2021.

USA Basketball managing director JerryColangelo has said the Americans will wait and see what the NBA schedule really isbefore reacting and setting a firm plan for picking a team for Tokyo next summer.

But for the players who play deep into this season, then play deep into next sea-son, that’s a lot of basketball without a lotof time off. And that could make the jobof picking an Olympic team much tougher than usual.

JOHN RAOUX/AP

A sign at the entrance to ESPN’s Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World is seen Wednesday in Kissimmee, Fla. The NBA is set to restart its season at the ESPN complex at the Disney campus near Orlando next month.

Agreement on 22-team format first in series of major decisions ahead of restart

Plan for testing next big step for NBA

PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, June 7, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

BY DAVE SKRETTA

Associated Press

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Empty seats have been the norm the past few years at the University of Kansas, where a succession of football coaches has failed to turn around the flailing fortunes of the Jayhawks.

Now, all those open seats — and short lines and quiet concourses — will be the norm in stadiums just about everywhere.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced universities, leagues and franchises to evaluate how they might someday wel-come back fans. While opinions vary from sport to sport, nation to nation and even state to state, one thing seems clear: Social distancing is a sure bet when fans return. So don’t expect 100,000-plus fans packed into Michigan Stadium for a football game this fall or 16,300 seated inside Kansas’

storied Allen Fieldhouse when college basketball season rolls around.

“We don’t know how we’ll be com-ing back,” Jayhawks ath-letic director Jeff Long ac-knowledged. “We’ve mod-eled 15 to 16,000 in

Memorial Stadium, and to be honest with you, we’ve modeled Allen Fieldhouse, and I can’t bring myself to look at it because I know how few people it will be and that’s upsetting.”

Most colleges rely heavily on ticket sales, souvenirs and concessions in football and basketball to raise the bottom line to the point that non-revenue sports can be fully funded. But smaller crowds are going to be necessary to ensure proper social dis-tancing — in pro sports around the globe, too. Forbes estimates the NFL would lose $5.5 billion in stadium revenue if all games are played without fans, and the fallout for other leagues without lucrative TV deals could be catastrophic.

The virus that causes COVID-19 is most easily spread when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks and the drop-lets spread to people nearby. That’s why guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization preach separation in public as an effective safeguard.

In a stadium, though, creating that kind of buffer is no easy task.

Most fans tend to file through the gates at the same time, creating a bottleneck in which thousands could be in close proxim-ity. They gather in concourses to chat or buy food, drinks and merchandise. They stand in lines at restrooms. They surge to-ward the exits at the end of the game.

Most teams and leagues have not pub-licly revealed their plans for fall sports, though some are up front about what to ex-pect. Iowa State is looking at selling only enough tickets to fill up half of Jack Trice Stadium for football games and Notre Dame has warned of fewer fans and limits to tailgating.

The Miami Dolphins released a num-ber of ideas under consideration: using every other turnstile, calling fans into the stadium in sections, letting them out row

by row like a church service and using technology to minimize person-to-person contact.

Once fans return, partitioning off seats will become crucial. And those won’t just be empty seats. Teams and leagues are in-vestigating the use of temporary banners spread across entire sections that can then be sold for sponsorship, helping to bridge the gap caused by unsold tickets. Such ban-ners are already used to create more inti-

mate settings for concerts or other events, and Bristol Motor Speedway had some of them strung up for last weekend’s NAS-CAR race in Tennessee.

Another idea is to turn sections of 20 or more individual or bench seats into tem-porary suites, where a group of 10 friends and family members can be socially dis-tant from other groups — and potentially selling them for a higher price.

“There are a lot of different things you

can do,” said R.J. Orr, whose Arizona-basedfirm Bluemedia specializes in such “seatkills” and temporary structures. They al-ready have worked with Arizona State andother schools on similar projects.

The next challenge is keeping fans so-cially distant when they do leave theirseats. A company called WaitTime has software applications tied to security cam-eras that allow fans and stadium operators to know on monitors or apps just how busy certain areas might be. A motion analyt-ics company, iinside, uses lidar sensors todetect unsafe crowding.

“We’re working on tools to overlay crowddensity on top of stadium maps,” iinsideCEO Sam Kamel said. “These maps wouldthen tell fans where to avoid, or when it’s‘safe’ to get a hot dog or Coke and when the food court isn’t too crowded.”

There is little dispute that the game-dayexperience will be vastly different.

At baseball games in Taiwan, up to 1,000 spectators have been allowed into the ball-park, but they were barred from bringing food, concession stands are closed and they are told to sit three seats apart. During a recent Fubon Guardians game in New Tai-pei City, about 900 people showed up at its12,500-seat stadium, leaning across empty seats to talk with friends and moving ontheir own to cues from cheerleaders and mascots.

“There’s plenty of social distance here,”said Guardians fan Sun Ming, who worksin finance in New Taipei City.

It could be that way for quite a while.AP sports writers Dave Campbell, Larry Lage and John Pye contributed to this report.

A member of the media uses a long microphone boom to interview Texas Rangers fans during tours at Globe Life Field on Monday. The coronavirus pandemic has forced sports teams and their leagues to evaluate how they will welcome back fans.

PHOTOS BY LM OTERO/AP

Baseball fans Mark Southard, center left, and his wife Janelle Southard pose for a photo taken by their son Grayson, 16, during a tour of Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers, during the first day of public tours in Arlington, Texas, on Monday.

Expect plenty of empty seats whenever fans welcomed back

Stadiums may look different post-quarantine

‘ We’ve modeled Allen Fieldhouse, and I can’t bring myself to look at it because I know how few people it will be and that’s upsetting. ’

Jeff LongKansas athletic director

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23Sunday, June 7, 2020

NFL/MLB

LM OTERO/AP

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Friday the league was wrong for not listening to players fighting for racial equality and encouraged them to peacefully protest.

Goodell says league was wrongAssociated Press

NEW YORK — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league was wrong for not listening to players fighting for racial equality and encourages them to peacefully protest.

One day after 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes and several of his peers released a video demanding the league condemn racism, Goodell made his strongest state-ment on the issues many players passion-ately support.

George Floyd’s death has ignited na-tionwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality, issues former San Fran-

cisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began speaking out against in 2016 when he started taking a knee during the nation-al anthem.

“It has been a difficult time for our country. In particular, black people in our country,” Goodell said in a video released Friday. “First, my condolences to the fami-lies of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ah-maud Arbery and all the families who have endured police brutality. We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people. We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL play-ers earlier and encourage all to speak out

and peacefully protest. We, the NationalFootball League, believe Black Lives Mat-ter. I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much needed change inthis country.

“Without black players, there would beno National Football League. And the pro-tests around the country are emblematic of the centuries of silence, inequality andoppression of black players, coaches, fans and staff.

“We are listening. I am listening, and I will be reaching out to players who haveraised their voices and others on how we can improve and go forward for a betterand more united NFL family.”

Admits it should have listened to players fighting for racial equality

FROM BACK PAGE

experience by far the steep-est cuts. Set to earn $36 million each, Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole would get $25.3 million under the union’s plan and a base of $5.6 million under the teams’ propos-al, with the chance to get back to about $8 million if the postseason is played. A rookie at the mini-mum would get $396,537 from the union plan and $256,706 from the MLB proposal — not much more than the $222,222 per game Trout and Cole originally were slated to earn.

The Yankees project to pay $155 million to players under the union’s plan, according to the AP analysis based on frozen March 28 rosters, and spend $48 million on salary under management’s proposal. The Astros drop from $149 million to $46 million and the Dodgers from $147 million to $46 million.

Lower-spending teams save, too, but not nearly as much be-cause their starting points are lower. Miami is at $33 million under the union’s plan and $16 million under MLB’s. Pitts-burgh’s salaries would drop from $36 million to $17 million and Baltimore’s from $43 million to $18 million.

Players agreed on March 26 to accept prorated shares of their salaries during a shortened sea-son, part of a deal that guaran-teed $170 million in advances and service time even if the season is scrapped. More than 100 players gathered for a digital meeting Thursday and reaffirmed their stance against additional cuts.

A player with a $20 million sal-ary, like St. Louis All-Star catcher Yadier Molina, would be guaran-teed just below $4 million under the MLB plan and about $14.1 million under the union plan. Tampa Bay pitcher Charlie Mor-ton’s $15 million salary would be cut to a $3.2 million base under the MLB plan and $10.6 million under the MLB proposal.

Philadelphia catcher J.T. Real-muto’s $10 million salary would drop to a $2.4 million base as partof the MLB proposal and to $7million under the union plan.

Milwaukee pitcher Brett An-derson would fall from $5 mil-lion to $1.4 million in MLB’s plan and to $3.5 million in the union’sformula.

“Interesting strategy of makingthe best most marketable play-ers potentially look like the badguys,” Anderson tweeted after MLB made its proposal.

MLB and the union have beenmaking plans to start the seasonnext month in ballparks withoutfans, and teams say they will sus-tain huge losses. In response to the union’s stance, MLB is con-sidering proposing a much short-er schedule, perhaps 50 games orfewer.

The pandemic-induced stop-page has wrecked baseball’s fi-nances. MLB says that by playingin empty ballparks, teams would combine to lose $640,000 for each additional regular-season game.

Teams also say they fear ex-tending play deep into the fall, asthe union proposes, would risk asecond wave of the coronavirus that would prevent the postsea-son from being played.

Both sides have said they hope to start the season around the beginning of July, and talks mayintensify next week. Some on theplayers’ side fear teams may at-tempt to implement a relatively short schedule, which could pro-voke the threat of a grievanceand to play while seeking moneydamages.

The AP study looked solely at2020 salaries and did not includeprorated shares of signing bonus-es, which are guaranteed when acontract is signed and approvedby the commissioner’s office.

MLB offered a six-tier sliding scale of cuts starting at 10% and rising to 90% for the amounts ofsalaries above $10 million, fol-lowed by prorating based on an 82-game season.

FROM BACK PAGE

Players responded on Sunday with a 114-game regular-season schedule running through Octo-ber and no additional cuts. Each player would get about 70% of his original salary under the union’s plan and roughly 22-47% under MLB’s proposal, including $200 million tied to the postseason being completed.

“We are disappointed that you are purportedly shutting down negotiations after making one proposal demanding over $800 million in further pay cuts,” Meyer wrote. “We reject your invitation at the end of the letter to negotiate against ourselves. We are similarly chagrined by your decision to carry through on Rob’s threat from last Sunday to intentionally play as few games as possible unless players agree to your demand for pay cuts.”

MLB has proposed expanding the playoffs from 10 teams to 14, which would create at least six new games with broadcast rights to sell. The union offered to agree to a playoff expansion through 2021.

Both sides have said they hope to start the season around the beginning of July, and talks may intensify next week.

Before the pandemic, players were set to earn about $4 billion in salaries, not including signing bonuses, termination pay and op-tion buyouts. Under the March 26 agreement, that would be cut to around $2 billion in an 82-game season.

MLB’s offer would lower sala-ries to $1.2 billion plus the $200 million for the postseason. The union’s proposal would leave sal-aries at $2.8 billion.

“The league needs to tell us im-mediately when it plans to start the season if it plans to do so unilaterally,” Meyer wrote. “We assume the league understands

that in the event of a unilateral implementation of a season by MLB there are numerous aspects of a season that the players asso-ciation will not be under any ob-ligation to agree to, most notably any changes to the existing play-off structure and the locations of playoff games. If you intend to seek the players’ agreement to any such changes, we suggest that you raise them expeditiously.”

Under the March agreement, the season cannot start without MLB’s consent until there are no government restrictions on playing in front of fans in home ballparks, no relevant travel re-strictions in the U.S. and Canada, and a determination by Manfred there is no health risk to play-ers, staff or spectators. The sides committed to “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate sub-stitute neutral sites.”

Halem had written to the union on Wednesday that “we do not have any reason to believe that a negotiated solution for an 82-game season is possible.”

“The commissioner is commit-ted to playing baseball in 2020,” he added. “He has started dis-cussions with ownership about staging a shorter season without fans. Assuming that those discus-sions go well, we will notify you at the appropriate time of our intentions.”

Meyer criticized MLB for the pace of negotiations and for not responding to all of the union’s document requests, which in-clude agreements between clubs and regional sports networks. Some of the RSNs have elements of ownership overlapping teams and individuals who own teams.

MLB claims that by playing in empty ballparks, it would lose $640,000 for each additional game. The union has challenged MLB’s analysis.

“We note that the league fre-quently claims that it has negative operating profits from playing baseball yet it still puts on base-ball games every year,” Meyer said. “The league has done noth-ing to persuade us of the veracity of its claims. As an example, the RSN contracts finally produced by the league on June 1 were so heavily redacted as to be essen-tially meaningless.”

The union offered to defer up to $100 million in salaries if the postseason isn’t completed this year, but Halem said teams have assumed $2 billion in additional debt.

“Rob said at our last meeting that the league ‘can pay 100% of salaries right now’ and that MLB doesn’t have liquidity issues,” Meyer wrote. “Rob’s statement that the league can easily borrow the equivalent of the proposed de-ferral is also noteworthy in light of the league’s claims about clubs being buried in debt.”

Save: Yankees, Astros,Dodgers benefit the most

Play: Sidesfighting oversalary cuts

ELAINE THOMPSON/AP

Grounds crew workers Jacob Weiderstrom, left, and Marcus Gignac continue to keep the Seattle Mariners’ field in playing shape during the coronavirus pandemic that has delayed baseball season.

S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S Sunday, June 7, 2020

SPORTS Hurdles to clearDespite settling on format, NBAstill has issues to solve » Page 21

MLB

After the quarantine: Expect stadiums to look different » Page 22

BY RONALD BLUM

Associated Press

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers would each save more than $100 million on player salaries as part of management’s proposal to start the coronavirus-

delayed season than they would under the union’s plan, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Top stars accustomed to eye-popping salaries that set them apart from mere All-Stars would

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ROSS D. FRANKLIN / AP

Are they going to play?Players say teams are

depriving Americansof baseball games

BY RONALD BLUM

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Players accused teams of “depriving America of baseball games” as part of a money fight set off by the coronavirus pandemic and raised the possibility baseball Commis-sioner Rob Manfred might push ahead with a shortened season over the union’s objection.Bruce Meyer, the union’s chief negotia-

tor, sent a letter to Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem on Friday threatening that an

attempt to play without an agreement could lead players to block any attempt to expand

the playoffs and deny consent to neutral-site games in the postseason.

“The league’s cynical tactic of depriving America of baseball games in furtherance of their demand for unwarranted salary concessions is shortsighted and troubling,” Meyer wrote. “Meanwhile, other leagues are moving forward with their plans for resumption.”

Meyer’s letter was first reported by The Athlet-ic, and a copy was obtained by The Associated Press.

Major League Baseball made its initial economic proposal on May 26, offering an 82-game regular-season schedule and a sliding scale of cuts beyond the prorated shares of salaries the sides agreed to on March 26.

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Analysis

Big-spending teams will save