By Stars and Stripes

SEOUL, South Korea — The Pentagon has given the White House options for reducing the U.S. military presence in South Korea amid a defense cost-sharing dispute between the allies, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed administration officials.

In the fall, the White House requested preliminary options for withdrawing troops

stripes.com Free to Deployed Areas Volume 79, No. 65B ©SS 2020 CONTINGENCY EDITION SUNDAY, JULY 19, 2020

MUSIC Best-selling Chicks back in spotlight witha new name, albumPage 12

NATION John Lewis, icon of civil rights movement, passes away at 80Page 9

MILITARY Pentagon weighing newmeasures to address biasin promotion processPage 3

Player’s Association wants clarity from NFL on virus protocols » Back page

Firefighting gear may have spread COVID-19 to sailors battling USS Bonhomme Richard blaze

BY ANDREW DYER

The San Diego Union-Tribune

t least two sailors from the amphibi-ous transport dock USS San Diego tested positive for COVID-19 after fighting the fire onboard the USS

Bonhomme Richard, the Navy said Friday.At least 27 people who were in contact with

them are quarantined.The Navy’s statement came in response

to questions raised by several USS San Diego sailors during interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune. According to the sailors, at least five sailors from their ship have tested positive in the last few days.

The sailors spoke anonymous-ly because they are not autho-rized to publicly comment on the matter.

The Navy confirmed that two of the sick were at the scene of the fire.

“Two Sailors supporting USS Bonhomme Richard firefighting operations recently tested positive for COVID-19 after exhibiting

SEE RISK ON PAGE 5

� US death count climbsPage 7

Report: Pentagon gave White House options for South Korea cuts POINT OF CONTENTIONThe U.S. and South Korea have failed to reach a new agreement for sharing the cost of housing Americans on the divided peninsula after President Trump demanded that Seoul increase its contribution to $5 billion per year.

worldwide, including Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, the newspaper said Friday.

The Pentagon came up with broad ideas by the end of the year that reflected its strategy for competing with China and Russia, and its emphasis on rotational forces.

It refined a number of options, including some for South Korea, and presented them to the White House in March, one of the of-

ficials was quoted as saying.The officials declined to provide details

about contingency plans to cut the number oftroops in South Korea below the current level of 28,500 and said no decision has been made,according to the Journal.

The report came weeks after PresidentDonald Trump approved a plan to cut nearly

SEE OPTIONS ON PAGE 5

Sailors prepare to combat the fire onboard the USS Bonhomme Richard on July 12. At least two sailors from the USS San Diego have tested positive for COVID-19 after fighting the fire, the Navy said Friday.

CHRISTINA ROSS/U.S. Navy

VIRUS OUTBREAK

PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

T O D A YIN STRIPES

American Roundup ..... 17Books ....................... 14Comics/Crossword ...... 15Music ....................12-13 Opinion ..................... 18 Sports .................. 19-24Travel ........................ 11

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Wall Street ticked higher Friday to close out its third straight winning week, one punctuated by hopes that the economy can continue to steady itself despite the pandemic.

The S&P 500 rose 9.16 points, or 0.3%, to 3,224.73 after yet another day of wobbly trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 62.76, or 0.2%, to 26,671.95, while the Nasdaq composite added 29.36, or 0.3%, to 10,503.19.

Most stocks across the market rose.

Trading was muted across other markets, too, with stocks overseas, oil and gold making rel-atively modest moves. Even Chi-na’s market held steady: Stocks in Shanghai inched up 0.1% fol-lowing a run earlier this month where their average daily move was more than 2%.

Friday’s meandering trad-ing came after reports showed a strengthening in U.S. home build-

ing activity but also a weakening in consumer sentiment. They’re the latest in a stream of data that has shown how uncertain the path is for the economy, as the continu-ing rise in coronavirus counts threatens to undo improvements that seemed to have taken root in the economy.

“The market just continues to try and get its finger on the pulse,” said James McCann, se-nior global economist at Aber-deen Standard Investments.

BUSINESS/WEATHER

Wall Street closes 3rd straight winning week

WEATHER OUTLOOK

Bahrain106/92

Baghdad117/83

Doha106/93

KuwaitCity

117/95

Riyadh112/86

Djibouti104/89

Kandahar107/74

Kabul95/69

SUNDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST MONDAY IN THE PACIFIC

Misawa73/64

Guam88/81

Tokyo86/70

Okinawa93/82

Sasebo86/77

Iwakuni90/73

Seoul77/69

Osan76/68 Busan

79/72

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

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

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

67/47

Ramstein84/54

Stuttgart82/59

Lajes,Azores74/66

Rota84/70

Morón100/69 Sigonella

81/67

Naples90/76

Aviano/Vicenza81/62

Pápa70/56

Souda Bay89/71

SUNDAY IN EUROPE

Brussels78/56

Zagan80/61

Drawsko Pomorskie

81/62

Military ratesEuro costs (July 20) .............................. $1.11Dollar buys (July 20) .........................€0.8543British pound (July 20) ........................ $1.22Japanese yen (July 20).......................104.00South Korean won (July 20) ..........1,176.00

Commercial ratesBahrain (Dinar) ....................................0.3770British pound .....................................$1.2532Canada (Dollar) .................................. 1.3579China (Yuan) ........................................6.9973Denmark (Krone) ................................ 6.5142Egypt (Pound) ....................................15.9546Euro ........................................ $1.1431/0.8748Hong Kong (Dollar) ............................. 7.7541Hungary (Forint) .................................309.41Israel (Shekel) .....................................3.4378Japan (Yen) ........................................... 107.18Kuwait (Dinar) .....................................0.3076Norway (Krone) ...................................9.2841Philippines (Peso)................................. 49.45Poland (Zloty) .......................................... 3.92Saudi Arabia (Riyal) ...........................3.7504Singapore (Dollar) ..............................1.3901South Korea (Won) ...........................1204.91

Switzerland (Franc)............................0.9400Thailand (Baht) ..................................... 31.70Turkey (Lira) .........................................6.8671(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 ................... 0.033-month bill ............................................. 0.1130-year bond ........................................... 1.30

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY COREY DICKSTEIN

Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Top Pentagon offi-cials said Friday that they are considering new moves to remove information from service members’ promotion packets that could potentially lead evaluators to dis-criminate against them, such as redacting individuals’ full names and gender.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said a task force was created last month to study issues of racism and equality in the ranks would consider whether the inclusion of troops’ names and genders could “trig-ger unconscious bias” in some evaluators. Esper on Wednesday released updated

guidance that directed the military ser-vices to remove all official photographs from promotion packets later this year. That followed the Army’s decision last month to remove photos from its promo-tions processes.

“We are trying to root these practices out that might enable unconscious bias and things like that,” Esper said Friday during a virtual town hall session at the Pentagon alongside Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the mili-tary’s top enlisted service member, Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman Ramon Colon-Lopez.

The subject was raised in a video record-ing played during the town hall by Army

1st Sgt. Jonathan Fadeyi, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Michigan after moving to the United States when he was 5 years old.

Fadeyi said he was concerned evalua-tors could determine the gender or race of the service member they were evaluating by reading their name, instead of looking merely at the person’s qualifications for advancement.

Esper’s new task force is challenged with looking at a wide range of race-relat-ed issues within the ranks, including how to train service members to identify their own unconscious biases and to root out practices, policies or cultural norms that might be discriminatory. The services are

to develop new training protocols on thoseissues by Oct. 1.

“When it comes to names and possibil-ity of redacting certain information, weare taking a very holistic look at the waythat boards can look at packages by virtue of merit toward promotion,” Colon-Lopez said. “That is looking at character, demon-strated abilities and credibility of [the per-son] based on actions, to go ahead and pickthe best person for the best duties.”

He vowed improvement in the Penta-gon’s military promotions systems.

“We can do better when it comes to thoseboards,” Colon-Lopez said. dickstein.corey@stripes.comTwitter: @CDicksteinDC

BY JOHN M DONNELLY

CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON — The De-fense Department wants to spend less in fiscal 2021 on chemical and biological defense programs, budget documents show, in the middle of a pandemic and despite its own officials’ warning of a heightened risk of attacks on U.S. troops from such weapons.

After what Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper called a Defense Wide Review of spending in Feb-

ruary, he proposed cutting $5.7 billion from dozens of programs to instead pay for hypersonic missiles, the nuclear arsenal and other weapons that, he said, were needed to deter or fight Russia and China.

Lost in the fine print and un-mentioned in the press was a proposed drop in funding for research and procurement ini-tiatives in the Chemical and Bio-logical Defense Program — from $1.4 billion this fiscal year to $1.2 billion.

The armed services have doz-ens of programs, organizations and systems for dealing with chemical and biological weap-ons. But the chem-bio defense program centralizes the budget and oversight for the bulk of the military’s chem-bio efforts. It is managed by a deputy assistant secretary. It develops the tech-nical tools — from medicines to military gear — that can detect and protect against chem-bio agents and help people respond to or recover from such unconven-

tional weapon attacks or disease outbreaks.

Throughout the Trump admin-istration, spending on the chem-bio program has lagged behind the rate of surge in the wider de-fense budget. The proposed fiscal 2021 cut would reduce spending on programs such as protective shelters for troops, decontamina-tion gear and systems for detect-ing when dangerous agents are present, according to the budget documents.

Now this decision has started to

draw attention on Capitol Hill. The Senate adopted without de-

bate on July 1 an amendment toits defense authorization bill by Utah Republicans Mitt Romneyand Mike Lee that would requireEsper to explain the impact of re-ducing chem-bio spending.

Notably, the provision orders“an assessment of the threatposed to members of the ArmedForces as a result of a reductionin testing of gear for field readi-ness,” the amendment said.

BY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

AUSTIN, Texas – Plans to build the first phase of an $11 million mounted warfare museum at Fort Hood, Texas, have been approved after nearly 10 years of planning, fundraising and designing, the foundation spearheading the fa-cility announced.

The National Mounted Warrior Museum, which is slated to open in 2022, will feature the storyline of America’s warfighting from the Revolutionary War to the con-flicts of today.

Construction will take about a year and could begin as early as September, said Bob Crouch, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and vice president of the National Mounted Warfare Foundation, which has led efforts to build the museum. Fort Hood officials will make the final decision on when crews can begin work.

“The intent is to do a ground-breaking ceremony,” Crouch said, noting any plans will follow necessary guidelines of the coro-navirus pandemic. “We’re hoping things are at a point where we can make a big deal out of it.”

Though the pandemic has cre-ated added challenges to in-per-son fundraising efforts, Crouch said they do not anticipate an im-

pact on construction. The museum will be built in a

large field near Fort Hood’s Mar-vin Leath Visitors Center and the stables of the 1st Cavalry Divi-sion Horse Cavalry Detachment. The area is on Fort Hood land, but outside of the base gate so that it is accessible to the public.

Army Secretary Ryan McCar-thy had to sign off on the plans be-cause the land is Army property and the museum will be owned and operated by the Army upon completion, according to a news release.

Though the foundation has been working since 2011 to raise funds for the museum, it did not submit for approval until they had the $11 million needed for the first phase of construction and opening.

The first phase includes a 58,000 square foot museum with 13,000 square feet of permanent exhibit space and 7,000 square feet of temporary exhibit space, according to the news release. The Army Center of Military History will create the exhibits.

While the museum is meant to be a national museum dedicated to the history of modern warfare, it will also feature the history of Fort Hood and its units, which includes III Corps, the 1st Cav-alry Division and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. The two later units al-

ready have museums dedicated to their history on base and those will move into the new museum.

“Because it will talk about that history and the history of com-bined arms, which is the way we fight, it will make it a unique mu-seum in the Army’s inventory,” Crouch said.

In the past month, discussions have resurfaced about the nam-ing history of Fort Hood, which was named during World War II in recognition of John Bell Hood, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy who went on to serve as a Confederate general during the Civil War.

Democrats in Congress are pushing for the 2021 National

Defense Authorization Act to in-clude language to begin changing the name of Fort Hood and nine other Army bases that bear the names of Confederate generals.

“I’m sure in the storyline we will address the history very briefly of the namesake. It won’t be in a glorious manner. It’s a fac-tual manner,” Crouch said.

With this first phase of the museum funded and approved, the foundation will continue its fundraising efforts to support fu-ture project phases, including an 11,000-square-foot expansion of the permanent exhibit space, four large multifunctional classrooms and conference rooms, a gift shop and offices for the foundation and

museum staff. “Fort Hood is exceptionally

excited to soon host the NationalMounted Warrior Museum,” Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt, III Corps deputy commander, said in a statement. “The home of America’s armored corps is the ideal place to display the historyand innovation of mounted andarmored warfare. This museumwill stand as a testimony to the strength, agility and power thatarmored warfare brings to themodern battlefield.”

For more information on the project, go to https://nmwfounda-tion.org.Thayer.rose@stripes.comTwitter: @Rose_Lori

MILITARY

Pentagon mulls promotion packet changes

Mounted warfare museum in works

National Mounted Warfare Foundation

The National Mounted Warrior Museum is expected to open at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2022.

Amid pandemic, Pentagon would cut back chem-bio efforts

PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

MILITARY

Marine gets 5-year term in shooting death

Guillen family attends memorial for slain specialist at Ford Hood

Soldier’s widow arrested in animal cruelty case in Texas

BY CAITLIN M. KENNEY Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON— The Marine Corps has sentenced a lance corporal to five years in jail and a dishonorable discharge for the shooting death of a fellow Marine while they were on guard duty at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Day in 2019.

Lance Cpl. Andrew M. Johnson was found guilty of involuntary manslaugh-ter and four charges of willful dereliction of duty as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced June 5 to a reduction in rank to E-1 or private, loss of all pay, five years of confinement, and a dishonorable discharge, Capt. Allison Burgos, a spokes-woman for Marine Corps Base Quantico, said in a statement Friday. The base is where Johnson was sentenced.

On Jan. 1, 2019, Johnson pointed his M9 service pistol at the head of Lance Cpl. Riley S. Kuznia, 20, and pulled the trig-ger “believing the weapon was unloaded,” Burgos said. A charge sheet released by the Marine Corps in August stated John-son had pulled “the trigger in jest.”

“Lance Cpl. Johnson had not followed procedures to unload his pistol in accor-dance with Guard Company policy,” Bur-gos said.

Kuznia, from Karlstad, Minn., was a team leader for Guard Company at the barracks, according to the Marine Corps.

Guard Company is responsible for pro-viding security to the installation, accord-ing to the barracks website.

Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., is about a half-mile from the Washington Navy Yard and home to the Marine Corps Commandant. It hosts

“Evening Parades” on Fridays throughout the summer, featuring the Marine Corps band, the service’s drum and bugle corps and its silent drill platoon.

At the end of his shift on the first day of 2019, Johnson unloaded his pistol alone and incorrectly, not waiting for a supervi-

sor to watch him, Marine Capt. Brendan McKenna, the prosecutor in the case, said in August during a preliminary hearing, The Washington Post reported.

Investigators determined he had re-versed the steps to unload the weapon safely, McKenna said during the hearing. Instead of removing the clip from the pis-tol first, he instead pulled back the pistol’s slide, ejected a bullet, released the slide forward and then removed the clip. John-son had apparently forgotten when the slide moves forward with the clip still in the pistol, another bullet is pushed into the chamber. When he removed the clip, John-son thought the gun was empty, McKenna said, according to The Washington Post.

He then pointed the pistol at Kuznia’s head, laughing as he called Kuznia by a nickname and then pulled the trigger, ac-cording to McKenna. When he saw Kuznia collapse with a head wound, Johnson be-came distraught and dropped the pistol.

Kuznia’s mother, Markelle Kuznia, wrote on Facebook a week after the sentencing that “no justice was served that day.” The family wanted Johnson to stand trial, not

work out a plea bargain, she said.Markelle Kuznia also wrote it was dif-

ficult to hear Johnson’s apology for killingher son because they “felt he made excuses for every action.”

“True apologies are when you man upand take full responsibility for your ac-tions. Unfortunately, this never happened,”she wrote.

After the incident, the Marines’ unit— Guard Company — took steps to pro-vide more supervision and personal ac-countability, Gunnery Sgt. John Jackson,a spokesman for Marine Barracks Wash-ington, said in a statement Friday. Thisincludes changes to shift turnover proce-dures and each day having an officer orstaff noncommissioned officer who serves as the guard duty officer to provide moresupervision.

“The newly implemented proceduresprovide more oversight and increased per-sonal accountability of all service weaponsand ammunition during the turnover pro-cess,” according to the statement.Kenney.Caitlin@stripes.com@caitlinmkenney

BY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

AUSTIN, Texas — Soldiers of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment held a memorial service Friday to honor the life of Spc. Vanessa Guillen, a small arms repairer for the reg-iment’s engineer squadron who was killed by another soldier on April 22.

Guillen’s family attended the closed service, as did Fort Hood commanders and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville.

“This is difficult to discuss be-cause the tragedy of her loss has forever changed our squadron and it has forever changed her family,” Lt. Col. Edward Gavin, the engineer squadron command-er, said during the ceremony, ac-cording to a base release. “We wrestle with feelings of anger, depression, anxiety, fear, frustra-tion and sadness. And, we have so many questions, some of which may never be answered.”

After the service, Natalie Kha-wam, the Guillen family attorney, addressed a crowd gathered out-

side of the base’s east gate where a mural was painted with the soldier’s image. A protest seeking justice for Guillen was scheduled at that location for later in the afternoon.

“We were all able to witness a very beautiful memorial for Van-essa over at Fort Hood, but it’s not enough,” Khawam said. “That special investigation? Not enough. We didn’t mince our words when we said we want a congressio-nal investigation. Do you under-stand? We want a congressional investigation.”

Guillen, a 20-year-old Houston native, was reported missing in late April. She was last seen work-ing in one of the regiment’s arms room. More than two months later, her remains were found along the Leon River more than 20 miles from the base.

Spc. Aaron Robinson, 20, a fellow soldier in the squadron is believed to have killed Guillen with a hammer in an arms room, and then moved her body to a site along the river using a large plas-

tic box. When confronted June 30 by local law enforcement in Killeen, the city located outside of Fort Hood, Robinson shot himself in the head and died.

A civilian suspect, Cecily Agui-lar, 22, was being held without bail on three federal charges re-lated to helping Robinson, her boyfriend, mutilate and hide Guillen’s body.

“My sister did not have to go to war, go to combat to die,” said Lupe Guillen, the soldier’s 16-year-old sister. “Someone killed her. She got murdered. The most gruesome, horrifying, disgust-ing way someone could take a human’s life. My sister was taken away from me.”

The family has called for a congressional investigation into what happened to Guillen and the subsequent investigation lead by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, which the family be-lieves did not respond fast enough to find the soldier.

The Army has said it is creat-ing an independent review panel

to review the climate and culture of Fort Hood.

“They all express their con-dolences. They all express their words,” said Lupe Guillen. “But I said, ‘Words are nothing. Actions

speak louder than words.’ If youwant to take action, take actionand demand a congressional in-vestigation as well.” Thayer.rose@stripes.comTwitter: @Rose_Lori

BY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

AUSTIN, Texas — The widow of Fort Hood soldier Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, who was found dead in Killeen last month, was arrested Thursday at her on base resi-dence on animal cruelty charges, accord-ing to base officials.

The Fort Hood Military Police desk re-ceived a call at around 10 a.m. Thursday from someone reporting animal cruelty and neglect at the home of Penny Morales,

a civilian who was married to Wedel-Mo-rales, according to a statement released by Fort Hood officials. About two hours later, Morales was taken into custody in relation to possible cruelty to dogs.

Morales was to be issued citations and released. The statement said there was no indication that the incident was related to her husband’s case.

The Killeen Police Department is lead-ing the investigation into Wedel-Morales’s death after the 23-year-old’s remains were found in a field in Killeen on June 19. He

was last seen Aug. 19 driving in Killeen, the city located just outside the gates of Fort Hood, according to Army Criminal Investigation Command.

The Army initially declared him AWOL and listed him as a deserter, which blocked his family’s wishes to have the soldier buried with full military honors. His unit, the 1st Cavalry Division, changed Wedel-Morales’s status this week to active duty, which entitles him to full honors at burial, according to a statement from the division.

“His status was administrativelychanged based on trustworthy investiga-tive updates into his disappearance in co-ordination with investigators,” according to the statement.

Autopsy results are pending and detec-tives from the Killeen police homicide unitcontinue to investigate the case alongside Army personnel.

The two agencies are offering a rewardof up to $25,000 to anyone with credible in-formation on Wedel-Morales.

Kuznia

BLAIR DUPRE, FORT HOOD PUBLIC AFFAIRS/U.S. Army

The family of Spc. Vanessa Guillen grieves in front of her Soldier’s Cross, Friday, during her unit memorial ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas .

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY CAITLIN M. KENNEY Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON— The Navy’s top officer, Adm. Mike Gilday, toured the fire damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard at Naval Base San Diego on Friday, describing it as “very extensive in terms of the damage and the intensity.”

“We’ve not seen a fire of this magnitude in a Navy ship in re-cent memory, at least in my ca-reer,” Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said during a news conference following the tour of the ship.

The fire aboard the amphibi-ous assault ship started Sunday morning and lasted more than four days, spreading throughout the ship. During the effort to ex-tinguish the multiple fires, 40 sail-ors and 23 civilians were treated for minor injuries and helicopters were called in to dump water on the ship to cool it down.

Gilday said he toured four decks, the flight deck and in-spected the damage to the ship’s superstructure.

“I was able to get a good sense of the extent of the damage, and the damage is extensive. There is obviously electrical damage to the ship, there’s structural dam-age to the ship, and mechanical damage to the ship that we need to assess in much more detail be-fore we make a final determina-tion of next steps,” he said.

Navy officials believed there was potential to get the fire under control and put it out by Sunday evening, according to Gilday. How-ever, the wind coming off the bay and the location of the fire allowed it to spread throughout the ship.

“This fire probably couldn’t have been in a worst point on the ship in terms of its source that allowed it to spread up elevator shafts as an example, up exhaust stacks as an example. To take that

fire up into the superstructure and then forward,” he said.

How the fire started is still un-known, however, Navy officials believe it began in the cargo hold of the ship where supplies for the maintenance work being con-ducted on the ship were stored at the time.

There were also a series of explosions during the fire that forced firefighters off the ship, Gilday said. One explosion could be heard about 13 miles away, he said he was told, and another blew debris across the pier and onto another ship.

There will be three different but synchronized investigations into the events of the fire and Gil-day intends to make them avail-able to the public once they are completed. One will be a safety investigation to determine the fire’s cause. Another will be led by Naval Criminal Investigative Service to make certain “there’s no malfeasance at the root of the fire,” Gilday said. The last in-vestigations will be a command investigation to see whether the right procedures were in place and what could have been done differently.

There will also be an assess-ment to determine the damage to the ship and its future in the Navy. While Gilday said he be-lieves the defense industry can repair the ship and bring it back to sea, he questions whether the Navy should “make that invest-ment in a 22-year-old ship.”

“And I’m not going to make any predictions until we take a look at all the facts and we follow the facts. And we can make reasoned recommendations up the chain of command on the future steps, any future repair efforts with Bon-homme Richard,” he said.Kenney.Caitlin@stripes.com@caitlinmkenney

FROM FRONT PAGE

symptoms,” said Lt. Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman, a Navy spokeswoman.

“Contract tracing identified 27 close contacts. All contacts were placed in ROM (restriction of movement). The Navy con-tinues to implement COVID-19 mitigation measures to protect the health of our force.”

The sailors from the ship said a significant number of the 27 “close contacts” work in the San Diego’s engineering department and include senior department personnel. The department has increased its staffing rotations to fill in gaps left by those under quarantine, the sailors said.

Citing health privacy law, Schwegman declined to com-ment on who is quarantined or in which department they work.

One USS San Diego sailor who helped fight the fire told the Union-Tribune Friday that the scene outside the Bonhom-me Richard during the height

of the conflagration was “cha-otic” and responding sailors routinely swapped and shared firefighting equipment, such as masks and gloves.

Photos provided by the Navy show firefighting equipment being washed and sanitized.

More than 400 sailors from 16 San Diego-based ships helped fight the fire, said Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, at a news confer-ence Friday. Gilday was in San Diego touring the fire-ravaged ship and meeting with its lead-ers, sailors and firefighters who battled the blaze over five days.

According to the sailor who fought the fire, much of the Bonhomme Richard’s firefight-ing equipment was damaged or destroyed in the flames, so its sailors relied on gear brought from neighboring vessels — in-cluding the USS San Diego.

The Navy announced the fires onboard were extinguished midday Thursday. The damage done to the ship is “extensive,” Gilday said.

It has been a tumultuous few months for the Navy as it tries to balance its national de-fense mission with the need to keep sailors healthy amidst a pandemic.

The San Diego-based air-craft carrier Theodore Roos-evelt was sidelined in Guam for two months earlier this year as the virus spread to almost 25% of its 5,000-person crew, claim-ing the life of one of them. The subsequent firing of the Roos-evelt’s captain by then-Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly ignited a political firestorm that ended with Modly’s resignation days later.

The fate of the Bonhomme Richard is up in the air. Gilday said he believes the 22-year-old ship can be repaired but he isn’t sure it should be. A damage as-sessment is not yet complete

Navy fire teams are expected to continue to rotate through the Bonhomme Richard throughout the weekend, doing fire watches and inspecting the ship, the sailors said.

FROM FRONT PAGE

a third of the 34,500 American troops in Germany, prompting worries in South Korea and other allied nations that they may face similar decisions.

U.S. legislators also have raised con-cerns, with Congress including restric-

tions on drawing down troops in last year’s funding bill. Similar legislation is being considered this year.

Trump has frequently complained about the cost of stationing troops overseas and said he wanted to bring them home.

The United States and South Korea have

failed to reach a new agreement for sharing the cost of housing the Americans on the divided peninsula after Trump demand-ed that Seoul increase its contribution as much as fivefold to $5 billion per year.

The previous deal, known as the Special Measures Agreement, expired at the end

of the year, leaving the military to operatewith Defense Department funds approvedfor critical projects and positions.

Seoul also agreed last month to spendabout $200 million to pay the salaries ofSouth Korean base workers to end a two-month furlough.

MILITARY

Adm. Gilday visits ship in San Diego to survey damage

Risk: Many shared masks, equipment during chaotic battle against the blaze

Options: Trump complains about cost of basing troops in other countries

MASS COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS KYLE CARLSTROM/U.S. Navy

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, right, walks through the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, on Friday.

Bonhomme Richard’s future stillto be determined, top officer says

PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

Associated Press

Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three months of the year, the U.S. Defense De-partment’s inspector general con-cluded in a new report, its first to detail Turkish deployments that helped change the course of Lib-ya’s war.

The report comes as the con-flict in oil-rich Libya has esca-lated into a regional proxy war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country. The U.S. military has grown increasingly concerned about Russia’s growing influ-ence in Libya, where hundreds of Russian mercenaries backed a campaign to capture the capital, Tripoli, in the country’s west.

The quarterly report on coun-terterrorism operations in Africa by the Pentagon’s internal watch-dog, published Thursday, says Turkey paid and offered citizen-ship to thousands of mercenaries fighting alongside Tripoli-based militias against troops of east Libya-based commander Khalifa Hifter.

Despite widespread reports of the fighters’ extremist links, the report says the U.S. military found no evidence to suggest the mercenaries were affiliated with the Islamic State extremist group or al-Qaida. It says they were “very likely” motivated by gen-erous financial packages rather than ideology or politics.

The report covers only the first quarter of the year, until the end of March — two months before a string of Turkish-backed victo-ries by the Tripoli forces drove Hifter’s self-styled army from the capital’s suburbs, its strong-hold at Tarhuna and a key west-ern airbase.

The reversal for Hifter and his foreign backers, including Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, trained the spotlight on Turkey’s deepening role in the proxy war.

The latest report says the Turk-ish deployments likely increased ahead of the Tripoli forces’ tri-umphs in late May. It cites the U.S. Africa Command as saying that 300 Turkish-supported Syri-an rebels landed in Libya in early

April. Turkey also deployed an “unknown number” of Turkish soldiers during the first months of the year, the inspector general adds.

To the consternation of re-gional rivals and NATO allies like France, Turkey is staking its hopes for greater leverage in the eastern Mediterranean on the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli. Ankara’s open military intervention stands in contrast to covert support from foreign backers on the other side of the conflict.

The inspector general had re-ported in its last quarterly review

that Russia brought in hundreds of mercenaries to back Hifter’s monthslong siege of Tripoli. A private Kremlin-linked military company known as the Wagner Group first introduced skilled snipers and armed drones last fall, inflicting “significant casu-alties” on Tripoli forces strug-gling to fend off Hifter’s assault, the report said.

This year, in response to Turkey’s new shipments of bat-tle-hardened Syrians, Wagner in-creased its deployment of foreign fighters, also including Syrians, with estimates ranging from 800 to 2,500 mercenaries. Russia and the Syrian government agreed to send 300 to 400 former opposition rebels from the southwest village of Quneitra to Libya in exchange for a $1,000 per month salary and clemency from President Bashar Assad, the report added.

In May, the Pentagon accused Russia of sending at least 14 warplanes to a central Libyan airbase, which it claimed were repainted in Syria to hide their Russian origin. Earlier this week, it alleged Russian mercenaries

planted land mines and otherbooby-trap explosives aroundTripoli that have killed 52 peopleand wounded 96, including civil-ians and mine clearance workers,by U.N. estimates.

Kremlin spokesman DmitryPeskov dismissed the U.S. mili-tary’s accusations Thursday, in-sisting “the Russian military is not involved in any processes inLibya in any way.”

The warring sides are mobiliz-ing now around the edges of Sirte,a strategic gateway to Libya’s central and eastern oil crescent, where most of the country’s pro-duction of 1.2 million barrels a day flowed before Hifter-alliedtribes choked off pipelines inJanuary to protest unequal distri-bution of oil revenues to the long-neglected east.

Following Hifter’s retreat from Tripoli, his backers pushed fora cease-fire and proposed a po-litical settlement. But Turkey refused to back down. The Trip-oli government, eager to regainaccess to Hifter’s blockaded oilfields, has pledged to retake the coastal city .

Associated Press

DOHUK, Iraq — Iraq’s min-ister of water resources says his country will face severe water shortages if agreements are not forged with neighboring Turkey over Ankara’s irrigation and dam projects that have decreased river inflows to Iraq’s parched plains.

Descending from the moun-tains of southeast Turkey and coursing through Syria and then Iraq before emptying out in the Persian Gulf, the Tigris and Eu-phrates rivers are Iraq’s main water source and essential for agriculture.

But tensions have mounted over the years as Turkey pressed ahead with dam projects to meet its domestic electricity demands. In turn, this has directly impact-ed water flows into Iraq.

Measurements of inflows from the border with Turkey in north-ern Iraq were 50% below average this year, Iraq’s Water Resources Minister Mahdi Rashid Al-Ham-dani said in an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday. This year also saw a reduction in annual rainfall by 50% compared to last year, he said.

“We asked our Ministry of For-eign Affairs to send an urgent message to Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to ask them what is the reason for the drop in our flow,” he said.

Iraq is still waiting for a re-sponse, he added.

With the impacts of climate change as well as future hydro-electric projects in Turkey, the ministry estimates Iraq will face a shortage of 10.5 billion cubic meters of water by 2035, accord-ing to an internal study, al-Ham-dani said.

Ordinary Iraqis have yet to fill the effects of the drop, partly be-cause of the reservoir at the Had-hitha dam on the Euphrates River in Iraq, which is compensating for the shortage, he said.

In Fishkhabour, along the border with Turkey, Ramadan Hamza, a senior expert on water strategy and policy at the Univer-sity of Dohuk, eyed the drop in river flows with concern.

“The water level of the Tigris River was around 600 cubic me-ters per second,” he said. After Turkey built the so-called Ilisu

Dam, “it dropped to around 300-320.”

The Ilisu Dam on the Tigris, part of a megaproject by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan, is at the heart of the dispute. The dam, which became opera-tional in May after three years of delay, is to be one of 22 power dams in southeastern Turkey. Ne-gotiations over water allocations resumed when Ankara began to make progress on plans to fill the Ilisu reservoir last year but have since stalled.

Hezha Abdulwahed, the direc-

tor of Dohuk’s water department, said water levels had dropped by 8 billion cubic meters, compared to water flows in April 2019.

“Iraq needs to put pressure on Turkey to release its share of water,” Hamza said.

A recent report by the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration found that water lev-els of the Tigris and Euphrates are decreasing at an “unprec-edented rate,” that could result in the forced displacement of entire Iraqi communities.

Water shortages, pollution and

high levels of salinity lead to many Iraqis falling sick and promptedviolent protests in the summer of 2018 across southern Iraq.

Many letters were sent to An-kara over its plans for the Ilisu dam, said al-Hamdani, but Tur-key only responded with “manyexcuses.”

“They say it’s their right tobuild a dam, and we argue that it is harmful to our rights to water,” he said.

The coronavirus pandemic postponed a face-to-face meetingwith Turkish officials. The Iraqishave requested a videoconference in the meantime to revive talks.Last year, an envoy of Erdogan came to Baghdad with an action plan to improve data sharing andmanagement of water resources.

A Turkish official, speaking oncondition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk tojournalists, said negotiations to ensure a certain amount of waterallocations to Iraq are difficult because of climate change issues.

At one point, Iraq demanded Turkey ensure at least 500 cubic meters per second.

“But inside Turkey, the Tigrissometimes doesn’t go above 350 on average,” he said. “It’s hardto speak about certain limits ofwater — it’s so unpredictablenow.”

In the absence of an interna-tional agreement, it also unclear what responsibilities Turkey hastoward Iraq’s water supply. Butal-Hamdani said there are inter-national laws Iraq could turn to ifneeded to pressure Ankara.

“Turkey’s position will change,” al-Hamdani said on a hopeful note.

DOD IG: Turkey sends Syrians to fight in Libya

Iraqi official: Water shortage likely unless Turkey cooperates

NABIL AL-JURANI/AP

A street vendor who sells drinking water waits for customers in Basra, Iraq on July 13 . Iraq’s Minister of Water Resources is sounding the alarm over looming water shortages

MIDEAST

Erdogan

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

BY GRIFF WITTE AND BEN GUARINO

The Washington Post.

For weeks this summer, it was a seeming paradox of the coro-navirus pandemic: cases in the United States were rising but deaths were falling.

To the Trump administration, this was evidence that its strat-egy for combating COVID-19 was working. To medical experts, it was only a matter of time before the trajectory changed.

And now it has. Nationwide, deaths have begun to rise again. In some of the worst-hit states, especially across the South and the West, new death records are being set daily. As a virus-scarred summer wears on, public health specialists say the numbers are almost certain to continue to climb.

“Even if we could magically lock everyone in their room and no one transmits to any-one, we would still be seeing an increase in deaths for the next several weeks,” said Catherine Troisi, an epidemiologist with the UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston.

That grim assessment came as the United States on Friday set another record for total cases, with more than 76,000 — includ-ing a new high of nearly 15,000 in Texas alone.

More than 900 people died, matching a death count of recent days that has consistently hov-ered just below 1,000. That is well

beneath the toll during the vi-rus’s most devastating stretch, in April, when 2,000 or more people were dying daily nationwide. But it is also well above the totals ear-lier this month, when the average number of daily deaths dropped below 500.

More than 136,000 people in the United States have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The recent increase in fatali-ties follows a nationwide surge in cases that has brought the coun-try record numbers of new infec-tions. Public health experts have long said that the death count is a lagging indicator — with patients typically taking two to three weeks after diagnosis to succumb — and that the number of new deaths would inevitably follow the case count higher.

But Trump administration offi-cials — and the president himself — have repeatedly sidestepped that view and used lower mortal-ity rates as an argument for why concerns about a coronavirus re-surgence were overblown.

“When you look at the mortal-ity rate, we’re seeing that our efforts here at the federal govern-ment have been working,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said this week.

Experts say there are legiti-mate reasons mortality rates are lower now than in the spring, when COVID-19 ravaged New York City and other major urban centers.

For one thing, doctors have learned new techniques for at-tacking the virus.

“We’ve gotten better at treating patents,” Troisi said, “so they’re less likely to die.”

For another, the latest spike of infections has been concen-trated among younger people, many of whom have contracted the virus while at work, bars or restaurants. They are generally less vulnerable to severe conse-quences from COVID-19 than older people, many of whom have continued to stay home despite economic reopenings.

But that phenomenon can only last for so long as working-age Americans meet up with their el-

derly parents or grandparents.“Young people are not liv-

ing in a vacuum,” said Farshad Fani Marvasti, director of public health at the University of Arizo-na College of Medicine Phoenix. “They’re interacting with people who are more susceptible.”

That is likely contributing to the spike in deaths now, Marvasti said.

In Arizona, home to one of the nation’s fastest growing corona-virus infection rates, the aver-age daily death toll has risen by around 60% just in the past week, up to 91 on Friday. The cumula-tive number of dead in the state topped 2,500.

Worries have been rampant in

Arizona that morgues could run out of room. The medical exam-iner’s office has ordered more portable storage coolers. Funeraldirectors, meanwhile, have beenbusy ensuring they have suf-ficient capacity, said Heather Long, executive director of thetrade group that represents Ari-zona funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoria.

“It’s 115 degrees in Arizona.So we want to make sure we haveeverything in place if there is a surge,” Long said. That includespreparing for “the ability to cre-mate when we need to,” she said.“If that means cremating 24/7, we can.”

Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa was poised on Saturday to join the top five countries most af-fected by the coronavirus, while breathtaking numbers around the world were a reminder a return to normal life is still far from sight.

Confirmed virus cases world-wide have topped 14 million and deaths have surpassed 600,000, according to Johns Hopkins Uni-versity data, a day after the World Health Organization reported a single-day record of new infec-tions at over 237,000. Death tolls in the United States are reaching new highs, and India’s infections are over 1 million.

Iran’s president made the star-tling announcement that as many as 25 million Iranians could have been infected, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Saturday. Hassan Rouhani cited a new Health Ministry study that has not been made publicly available. Iran has seen the worst outbreak in the Middle East with more than 270,000 confirmed cases.

Experts believe the true num-bers around the world are higher because of testing shortages. And

as countries try to ease lockdowns, new ripples of cases follow.

South Africa could join the U.S., Brazil, India and Russia as the most badly hit countries as its cases near 350,000. Current case trends show it will surpass Peru.

That comes as the world marks Mandela Day, remembering South Africa’s first Black presi-dent and his legacy of fighting inequality. The country, however, remains the world’s most un-equal, and health officials have

warned that the pandemic will lay that bare.

“The simple fact is that many South Africans are sitting ducks because they cannot comply with World Health Organization proto-cols on improved hygiene and so-cial distancing,” the foundation of former South African archbishop and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu and his wife , said in a statement.

South Africa’s new epicenter, Gauteng province, is home to one-quarter of the country’s pop-ulation, with many poor people living in crowded conditions.

The country’s cases make up roughly half of all on the African continent. Its struggles are a sign of trouble to come for less-re-sourced nations there.

In India, a surge of 34,884 new cases was reported as local gov-ernments continue to re-impose focused lockdowns in several parts of the country, only allow-ing essential food supplies and health services.

In the U.S., teams of military medics have been deployed in Texas and California to help hos-pitals deluged by coronavirus patients. The two most populous

states each reported roughly10,000 new cases and some oftheir highest death counts sincethe pandemic began.

In China, the number of con-firmed cases in a new COVID-19outbreak in the far western regionof Xinjiang has risen to 17.

In Bangladesh, confirmed cases surpassed 200,000, butexperts say the number is much higher as the country lacks ad-equate labs for testing. Most peo-ple in rural areas have stoppedwearing masks and are throng-ing shopping centers ahead of the Islamic festival Eid al-Adha laterthis month.

And in Britain, scientists are pouring cold water on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s hopethat the country may emerge from lockdown and return to nor-mality by Christmas.

Epidemiologist John Edmunds, a member of the government’sScientific Advisory Group forEmergencies, said a return topre-pandemic normality is “along way off, unfortunately” with-out a vaccine for the virus.

Britain has registered more than 45,000 COVID-19 deaths,the highest in Europe.

VIRUS OUTBREAK

JOSH BELL, THE SUN NEWS/AP

Tidelands Health medical professionals conduct drive- thru COVID-19 test s Friday at Myrtle Beach Pelicans Ballpark in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

THEMBA HADEBE/AP

People protest against coronavirus trials outside Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in the township of Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday . The first clinical trial in Africa for a COVID-19 vaccine started last week in South Africa.

Trajectory reversal: US deaths climbing

South Africa poised to join ranks of worst-hit countries

PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

NYC cleared to open zoos; malls, museums stay shut

Associated Press

NEW YORK — New York City was cleared Friday to take the next step in its reopening next week, allowing movie and TV crews to film, zoos to welcome re-duced crowds, professional sports teams to play to empty seats. Visi-tors are set to return to the island that houses the Statue of Liberty — but not the statue itself.

But malls, museums and res-taurant dining rooms will stay shuttered in the nation’s biggest city.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the city is set to begin a lim-ited version of the fourth phase of the statewide reopening process starting Monday. But he warned that New York’s progress is frag-ile as COVID-19 cases surge else-where in the country.

“I feel like we’re standing on a beach and we’re looking out at the sea and we see the second wave building in the distance, so I want all New Yorkers to be on high alert,” the Democratic governor told reporters during a telephone briefing.

New York City, which has seen the bulk of the state’s confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths, began reopening June 8, after the rest of the state.

In the city’s scaled-down Phase 4, botanical gardens and zoos can reopen at 33% capacity, produc-tion of movies and TV shows can proceed and professional sports such as baseball can be played without fans in the stands, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service announced that the grounds of Liberty Island would reopen to visitors Monday after being closed since March 16. But there’s no reopening date yet for Lady Liberty herself, the statue museum or nearby Ellis Island.

The rest of the state is already in Phase 4, which typically per-mits opening malls and certain arts and entertainment centers. But Cuomo said this week that even in Phase 4, New York City can’t have “any additional indoor activity” in places like malls and museums because of coronavirus transmission risks.

California

SACRAMENTO — Most of California’s 6.7 million school kids will be learning from home when the new school year begins in a few weeks as the state strug-gles with soaring rates of corona-virus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday issued strict guidelines for 32 counties that are on a state watch list because of COVID-19 out-breaks. They effectively require distance learning in public and private K-12 schools until those counties see 14 days of declines in virus cases.

Rural counties in the central and northern parts of the state have seen little of the virus and can bring students and teach-

ers back to campus but those in grades three through 12 must wear masks.

Several large school districts have already said their schools will begin the new term virtu-ally, including Los Angeles and San Diego, the state’s two larg-est with a combined enrollment of 720,000 K-12 students. San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Long Beach, Santa Ana and San Bernardino are among the other districts opting not to immediate-ly return to classrooms.

Colorado

DENVER — Denver Public Schools is planning to delay the opening of fall semester by a week, starting with remote learn-ing Aug. 24 and gradually transi-tioning to in-person classes Sept. 8 at the earliest.

Starting the week of Aug. 17, teachers will begin reaching out to individual students to build re-lationships and gauge their tech-nology needs for remote learning, The Denver Post reported Friday. The district handed out laptops and internet hotspots in the spring to students who needed them and plans to expand that effort going into the fall.

Based on current models of coronavirus cases in Denver, schools Superintendent Susana Cordova said, “We have come to the determination that it would not be possible to open schools with the size of cohorts we’d been planning.”

District officials, the Board of Education and the teacher’s union met with local health experts be-fore making the decision.

Most classes will begin Aug. 24, although dates for charter and innovation schools may be different.

Michigan

DETROIT — A contract em-ployee for the state of Michigan has been charged in a scheme that saw the fraudulent disburse-ment of more than $2 million in unemployment insurance fund-ing intended to help people dur-ing the coronavirus pandemic.

Brandi Hawkins, 39, of Detroit, worked in the state’s Unemploy-ment Insurance Agency with duties that included reviewing, processing and verifying the legitimacy of unemployment insurance claims for the state, ac-cording to U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider’s office.

Starting in April, insider ac-cess was used to release federal and state funds on hundreds of fraudulent claims, his office said.

A search of Hawkins’ home later turned up more than $200,000 in cash. Authorities said some of the money was used to buy high-end handbags and other luxury items.

“Brandi Hawkins is charged with exploiting the current pan-demic to defraud the state of Michigan and United States for her own personal gain,” Sch-

neider said in a statement.Hawkins was charged in a

criminal complaint. The case remains under investigation. When completed, a determina-tion will be made on whether a felony indictment will be sought, Schneider’s office noted.

Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota hospitals asked Gov. Tim Walz to order people throughout the state to wear masks in public to slow the spread of the coronavirus — a step the governor said he has been considering.

In a letter released Friday, the Minnesota Hospital Association urged the governor to act quickly to protect the state from the type of surges in other states, many of which aggressively lifted virus restrictions to reopen their econ-omies despite warnings from health officials about doing so too soon.

“We have a narrow window of time to slow the spread of the virus, so we are asking you to mandate the wearing of face masks statewide as soon as pos-sible,” wrote Dr. Rahul Koranne, the association’s president and CEO.

Walz told Minnesota Pub-lic Radio on Friday that he still hadn’t made a decision. Although the Democratic governor said he would be willing to order a man-date “at some point in time,” he said he’d like to get Republican support rather than impose it unilaterally.

Montana

BILLINGS — Montana’s unem-ployment rate dropped sharply in June as many businesses re-opened, but the state’s economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic remained on shaky ground as confirmed infections jumped again Friday and new problems emerged with testing for the virus.

Led by hiring in the leisure and

hospitality sectors, the number of people employed increased by more than 20,000, driving a 2 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate to 7.1%, state officials said. That’s one of the lowest rates in the U.S. and well below the national rate of 11.1%.

But employment in Montana remains roughly 4% below pre-pandemic levels. That’s equal to about 21,000 fewer jobs.

Officials have said repeatedly that controlling the virus’s spread is key to getting the economy fully functioning.

Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City Council voted Friday to require faces to be cov-ered inside all public buildings in an effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

The council approved the or-dinance by a 6-3 vote at a special meeting. The ordinance requires persons age 11 and up, with few exceptions, to don face coverings or shields covering their noses and mouths in all indoor public spaces.

Among the exempt are those who work in offices with no face-to-face interactions, diners while eating and drinking, those en-gaged in sports or cardio exer-cise, and those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Oklahoma City joins Tulsa in mandating masks in public to limit the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. However, Oklahoma County commissioners have voted down a countywide mandate twice, most recently on Friday.

Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG — As Penn-sylvania approached 100,000 con-firmed cases of the coronavirus on Friday, restaurant and bar owners say they will fight back against Gov. Tom Wolf’s orders to fur-ther limit the number of patrons they’re allowed to serve at a time.

Wolf’s order this week to re-duce occupancy at bars and res-taurants from 50% to 25% willdrive them out of business or into debt, restaurant owners said Friday, asserting his administra-tion lacks the data to target themas the reason behind the spike in coronavirus cases in some partsof the state.

At a news conference outside a suburban Harrisburg restaurant,restaurant owners said they arelaying off staff and taking yet an-other hit, with barely any notice before the governor announced new restrictions Wednesday.

Texas

HOUSTON — A federal judge ruled Friday that Houston can’tban the Texas Republican Party from holding its conventionin-person, but it was not clearwhether the GOP would movefor a physical meetup or keep the event virtual as the coronaviruscontinues to surge.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes ruled verbally that thecity failed to make a case compel-ling enough to trump the party’sFirst Amendment right to meet, said Jared Woodfill, attorney for GOP party activist Dr. StevenHotze. A written order was to befiled later.

“He gave us everything weasked for,” Woodfill said. “This is a great victory for the FirstAmendment.”

Hughes ordered the city to ac-commodate the party convention this weekend or the following weekend, at the GOP’s choice,Woodfill said.

James Dickey, chairman of theRepublican Party of Texas, saidthe party is still on-track to trya virtual gathering this weekendbut said it’s good to know the op-tion for an in-person conventionexists. He hopes the ruling will set a precedent “for other stateand local Republican parties andorganizations who come against a bully Democrat mayor’s mali-cious shutdown,” he said.

CHRISTOPHER DOLAN, THE (SCRANTON, PA.) TIMES-TRIBUNE/AP

United States Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Malachy E. Mannion administers the citizenship oath to a new American citizen during a drive-up naturalization ceremony outside the William J. Nealon Federal Building and United States Courthouse on North Washington Avenue in downtown Scranton, Pa., on Friday .

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9Sunday, July 19, 2020

Associated Press

ATLANTA — John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beat-ing by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial seg-regation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, has died. He was 80.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed Lewis’ passing late Friday night, calling him “one of the greatest heroes of Ameri-can history.”

“All of us were humbled to call Congress-man Lewis a colleague, and are heartbro-ken by his passing,” Pelosi said. “May his memory be an inspiration that moves us all to, in the face of injustice, make ‘good trouble, necessary trouble.’ ”

The condolences for Lewis were bipar-tisan. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc-Connell said Lewis was “a pioneering civil rights leader who put his life on the line to fight racism, promote equal rights, and bring our nation into greater alignment with its founding principles.”

Lewis’s announcement in late December 2019 that he had been diagnosed with ad-vanced pancreatic cancer — “I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” he said — inspired tributes from both sides of the aisle, and an unstated accord that the likely passing of this Atlanta Democrat would represent the end of an era.

The announcement of his death came just hours after the passing of the Rev. C.T. Vivian, another civil rights leader who died early Friday at 95.

Lewis was the youngest and last survi-vor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had the greatest impact on the movement. He was best known for leading some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

At age 25 — walking at the head of the march with his hands tucked in the pockets of his tan overcoat — Lewis was knocked to the ground and beaten by police. His skull was fractured, and nationally televised images of the brutality forced the coun-try’s attention on racial oppression in the South.

Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyndon Johnson soon was pressing Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. The bill became law later that year, removing barriers that had barred Blacks from voting.

“He loved this country so much that he

risked his life and its blood so that it might live up to its promise,” President Barack Obama said after Lewis’ death. “Early on, he embraced the principles of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience as the means to bring about real change in this country.”

Lewis joined King and four other civil rights leaders in organizing the 1963 March on Washington. He spoke to the vast crowd just before King delivered his epochal “I Have a Dream” speech.

A 23-year-old firebrand, Lewis toned down his intended remarks at the insis-tence of others, dropping a reference to a

“scorched earth” march through the South and scaling back criticisms of President John Kennedy. It was a potent speech nonetheless, in which he vowed: “By the forces of our demands, our determination and our numbers, we shall splinter the seg-regated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in an image of God and democracy.”

It was almost immediately, and forever, overshadowed by the words of King, the man who had inspired him to activism.

Lewis was born on Feb. 21, 1940, outside the town of Troy, in Pike County, Ala. He grew up on his family’s farm and attended

segregated public schools.As a boy, he wanted to be a minister, and

practiced his oratory on the family chick-ens. Denied a library card because of thecolor of his skin, he became an avid reader,and could cite obscure historical dates anddetails even in his later years. He was ateenager when he first heard King preach-ing on the radio. They met when Lewis wasseeking support to become the first Blackstudent at Alabama’s segregated Troy State University.

He ultimately attended the American Baptist Theological Seminary and FiskUniversity in Nashville, Tenn. He beganorganizing sit-in demonstrations at whites-only lunch counters and volunteering as a Freedom Rider, enduring beatings and ar-rests while traveling around the South tochallenge segregation.

Lewis helped found the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and wasnamed its chairman in 1963, making himone of the Big Six at a tender age. Theothers, in addition to King, were Whitney Young of the National Urban League; A.Philip Randolph of the Negro AmericanLabor Council; James L. Farmer Jr., ofthe Congress of Racial Equality; and RoyWilkins of the NAACP. All six met at theRoosevelt Hotel in New York to plan and announce the March on Washington.

The huge demonstration galvanized the movement, but success didn’t comequickly. After extensive training in non-violent protest, Lewis and the Rev. HoseaWilliams led demonstrators on a planned march of more than 50 miles from Selma toMontgomery, Alabama’s capital, on March 7, 1965. A phalanx of police blocked theirexit from the Selma bridge.

Authorities shoved, then swung their truncheons, fired tear gas and charged onhorseback, sending many to the hospital and horrifying much of the nation. Kingreturned with thousands, completing the march to Montgomery before the end ofthe month.

Lewis turned to politics in 1981, when hewas elected to the Atlanta City Council.

He won his seat in Congress in 1986 and spent much of his career in the minority. After Democrats won control of the Housein 2006, Lewis became his party’s seniordeputy whip, a behind-the-scenes leader-ship post in which he helped keep the partyunified.

Lewis’ wife of four decades, LillianMiles, died in 2012. They had one son,John Miles Lewis.

Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — The mayor of Portland demanded Friday that Presi-dent Donald Trump remove milita-rized federal agents he deployed to the city after some detained people on streets far from federal property they were sent to protect.

“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said at a news conference.

Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said Trump is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere. It also serves as a distrac-tion from the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing spiking numbers of infections in Oregon and the nation.

Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle,

said Friday that arresting people with-out probable cause is “extraordinarily concerning and a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.”

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said she would file a law-suit in federal court against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Marshals Service, Customs and Border Protection and Federal Pro-tection Service alleging they have violated the civil rights of Oregonians by detaining them without probable cause. She will also seek a temporary restraining order against them.

The ACLU of Oregon said the fed-eral agents appear to be violating people’s rights, which “should concern everyone in the United States.”

“Usually when we see people in un-marked cars forcibly grab someone

off the street we call it kidnapping,” said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liber-ties Union of Oregon. “The actions of the militarized federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.”

Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, Oregon Pub-lic Broadcasting reported Thursday. Some have been detained by the fed-eral courthouse, which has been the scene of protests. But others were grabbed blocks away.

“This is part of the core media strat-egy out of Trump’s White House: to use federal troops to bolster his sag-ging polling data,” Wheeler said. “And it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.”

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saidFriday she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrenceof cancer, but has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

The 87-year-old Ginsburg, who has had four earlierbouts with cancer including pancreatic cancer last year,said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing le-sions on her liver and she will continue chemotherapysessions every two weeks “to keep my cancer at bay.”

“I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remainfully able to do that,” Ginsburg said in a statement is-sued by the court.

Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Bill Clin-ton in 1993, is the senior liberal justice on a court that leans conservative by a 5-4 margin. Her departure be-fore the election could give President Donald Trump the chance to shift the court further to the right.

NATION

John Lewis, civil rights icon, dies at 80

Justice Ginsburg says cancer has returned

Mayor of Portland seeks removal of troops

Above: civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is seen at the Capitol in Washington in December. Left: Lewis, far right, locks arms with others as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fourth from left, foreground, leads a march to the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala., in 1965.AP photos

PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

NATION

Biden warns of election prying after intel brief

Surging Democrats expand Senate election target to Republican states

Vice president casts Biden as socialist bent on ruining America

BY WILL WEISSERT

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden said Friday night that he’s begun receiving intelligence briefings as he warned that Russia, China and other adversaries were attempt-ing to undermine the upcoming U.S. election in November.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee wasn’t specific and offered no evidence while addressing a virtual fund-raiser with more than 200 at-tendees. But, in the process, he confirmed receiving classified briefings after saying as recently as late last month that he wasn’t getting them but might request one about reports of Russian bounties being offered on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“We know from before, and I guarantee you I know now be-cause now I get briefings again. The Russians are still engaged, trying to de-legitimize our elec-toral process. Fact,” Biden said Friday. “China and others are engaged as well in activities de-signed for us to lose confidence in the outcome.”

The White House and National Security Council didn’t imme-diately respond to requests for comment on Biden’s statement. Reached by phone, a Biden spokesperson did not immediate-ly provide further details.

US intelligence agencies say Russia meddled in the 2016 elec-tion with the goal of swaying the contest toward Donald Trump, and officials have warned that there remains a threat of foreign interference in the 2020 contest.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has questioned the intel-ligence community’s findings about the 2016 Russian interfer-ence and called investigations into whether his campaign had any connection to the meddling a

“hoax.”Biden received intelligence

briefings while vice president but told reporters he wasn’t getting them as of June 30. He said then that President Donald Trump’s administration had not offered classified briefings, even though they are traditionally provided to major-party nominees once they win the primary. Biden won’t for-mally become the Democratic

presidential nominee until the party’s con-vention next month.

Biden has previously suggested that Presi-dent Don-ald Trump could hold

up emergency funding to help the Postal Service continue normal operations during the corona-virus, which has devastated the agency’s finances and contributed to a huge drop in mail volumes.

Trump has repeatedly said he opposes expanding mail-in bal-loting during the pandemic, sug-gesting without evidence that doing so could lead to widespread fraud — even though there is equally no evidence the president or White House will use Postal Service funding to do what Biden is suggesting.

Biden lobbed similar charges on Friday, saying Trump may try to “defund the post office so they can’t deliver mail-in ballots.”

“Frankly, this is the thing that keeps me up most at night,” Biden added. “Making sure everyone who wants to vote can vote, mak-ing sure that the vote is counted, making sure we’re all trusting in the integrity of the results of the election.”

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — It’s come to this for Republicans straining to defend their Senate majority in November’s elections: They’re air-dropping millions of dollars into races in Alabama, Kentucky and other red states where Donald Trump coasted during his 2016 presidential election triumph.

This year, challenged by Trump’s fumbled handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the crip-pled economy and his racially in-flammatory stances, Republicans face potentially competitive races they’d normally have locked down. Compounding their problems is strong fundraising by Democrat-ic candidates that’s kept them in contention in unlikely locations.

“The president’s weakening poll numbers over the last several months have made down-ballot races more competitive,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. While saying he believes Republicans will win many of the contested seats, Ayres added, “It’s fair to say the map is expanded.”

GOP fretting is being aggravat-ed by some polls showing Trump trailing nationally and in some battleground states against Joe Biden, the presumptive Demo-cratic presidential nominee.

And while it’s early and well-known senators can differentiate themselves from an unpopular president atop their ticket, Demo-crats are defending just 12 Senate seats this November to Republi-cans’ 23. The GOP controls the Senate 53-47.

“Donald Trump’s failed han-dling of the coronavirus crisis has changed everything,” said Demo-cratic pollster Geoffrey Garin. He said GOP senators are linked too closely to Trump, leaving him “pleased and surprised by the willingness of so many Republi-cans to go down with the ship.”

Democrats have at least a puncher’s chance of grabbing Republican-held seats in four states Trump won by double dig-its: Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky and South Carolina. They have an even shot at ousting GOP Sen. Steve Daines in Montana, which Trump carried by 20 percent-age points, and long-shot hopes of retaining their most endangered senator, Doug Jones of Alabama, where Trump won by 28 points.

Republican incumbents face le-gitimate challenges for two Sen-ate seats in Georgia and difficult fights in Arizona and North Caro-lina, all where Trump won nar-rowly. In two states Trump won by 9 points, Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst faces a tough Democratic opponent in businesswoman The-resa Greenfield, while Republi-can Sen. John Cornyn is on alert against a Texas upset.

Republicans say they’ll keep their majority, aided by Trump at-tacks on Biden that will close the overall gap by Election Day. They argue that Trump’s name on the ballot will give Senate candidates in Republican states a major edge and say they’re spending there because Democrats are raising sums that can’t be ignored.

“The left’s antipathy toward thepresident becomes an easy rally-ing cry” for Democratic fundrais-ing, said Steven Law, who leads a pair of outside groups aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

In early TV spots, the NationalRepublican Senatorial Commit-tee accuses Democratic Senatecandidate Jon Ossoff in Georgia of backing “policies so extremeonly Hollywood would want him.”One by the Democratic Senatori-al Campaign Committee accusesErnst, the GOP senator from Iowa, of protecting corporate in-terests, adding, “In tough timesit’s important to know who has your back.”

Although dollars don’t alwaystranslate into votes, campaign re-ports filed this week show surg-ing Democratic fundraising in solidly Republican terrain.

Jones’ $18 million haul in Ala-bama more than quadruples theamount raised by his Republicanopponent, Tommy Tuberville, aformer Auburn football coach.

Even in Kansas, which hasn’telected a Democratic senatorsince before World War II, a groupwith ties to state and national Re-publicans plans to spend $3 mil-lion to prevent the polarizing KrisKobach from winning the party’sSenate nomination. Top Repub-licans fear a Kobach nominationcould mean victory for DemocratBarbara Bollier, who’s collected more cash than the three GOPcontenders combined.

Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. — Vice President Mike Pence stepped up attacks on Joe Biden with an aggressive speech Friday in the birthplace of the Republican Party, cast-ing the election in under four months as a choice “between freedom and opportunity and socialism and decline.”

Pence, drawing sharp contrasts between President Donald Trump’s vision for the country and that of Biden and other Dem-ocrats, said the election will determine “whether America remains America. ... or whether we leave for our children and grandchildren a country that’s fundamen-tally transformed into something else.”

Pence’s message in Wisconsin reflects a broader effort from Trump’s reelection campaign and his allies to paint Novem-ber in the starkest terms, and it highlights the core message the president appears to have settled on for the closing months of the campaign.

The speech delivered on the campus of Ripon College in battleground Wisconsin comes as polls show Trump trailing Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a state that Trump won by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016. Winning Wisconsin is key to both Trump and Biden’s plans for victory.

Biden, for his part, also frames No-vember as a fundamental choice, with his campaign’s paid advertising and daily

arguments casting Trump as fundamen-tally unfit for the presidency. Biden points repeatedly to Trump downplaying the coronavirus pandemic and stoking racial tensions amid a national reckoning with police violence against Black Americans and centuries of systemic inequalities. Be-yond Republicans’ usual framing of Demo-crats as tax-and-spend liberals, Pence’s attack on Biden Friday was pegged in part to the Democrat’s sweeping economic pro-posals, from making a government health insurance plan available to all working-age Americans to a $2 trillion plan to over-haul the nation’s energy grid and reduce the carbon pollution driving the climate crisis.

Pence said that if Biden wins the elec-tion, the country will spin into economicdecline, be less safe and have open bor-ders and taxpayer-funded abortions. Heaccused Biden of having a “radical agen-da” that will “transform this country into something utterly unrecognizable.”

Pence said Trump, not Biden, supportslaw enforcement and will “stand with Af-rican American families and all minori-ties to improve our quality of life in our cities and towns.” He called a recent risein shootings and murders in some majorcities a “frightening preview of Joe Biden’sagenda in action.”

“The hard truth is you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Pence said.

Biden

PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after meeting with Senate Republicans at their weekly luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 19.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY NATALIE B. COMPTON

The Washington Post

It’s the lone suitcase riding the baggage claim car-ousel long after the rest have been collected. It’s the duffel bag checked into the abyss. It’s lost luggage, and it’s now available for you to buy online.

Fifty years ago, entrepreneur Doyle Owens started the Unclaimed Baggage Center by buying left-behind bags from transportation companies and selling the best fi ndings to customers at his brick-and-mortar store in Scottsboro, Ala.

Today, that operation has grown to become a 50,000-square-foot store that sells everything but the kitchen sink (except for that time they did sell a kitchen sink) to customers interested in the promise of great deals and interesting fi nds.

Before the pandemic, Unclaimed Baggage was pro-cessing some 7,000 items bought from airlines daily.

“We literally sit and unpack the items, and it’s a pretty extensive process,” said Brenda Cantrell, brand am-bassador for Unclaimed Baggage.

A third of the fi nds is donated to charity, a third is thrown away and a third is cleaned and put up for sale. This year, Unclaimed Baggage came on-line for the fi rst time, bringing the heavily discount-ed odds and ends to shoppers around the country who can’t make the trip to the warehouse personally.

A quick spin around the Unclaimed Baggage web-site shows that you can never guess what someone is traveling with in their suitcase.

“We’ve always said if these bags could talk, they’d have a story to tell,” Cantrell said.

The Unclaimed Baggage staff has found items including a bear pelt packed in salt, an Egyptian burial mask packed in a Gucci suitcase and a live rattle-snake, to name a few standout discoveries. However, Cantrell says the store’s strong suit is sell-ing everyday items for 20% to 80% off the suggested retail price.

Here are some of the best deals and conver-sation starters we found on the site, beyond clothes.

LuggageAt the risk of stating the obvious, yes, the Unclaimed

Baggage store sells a lot of suitcases and other travel es-sentials such as neck pillows and passport holders.

Bag types include, but are not limited to: toiletry, golf-shoe holder, duffel, laptop, crossbody, garment, foldable, wheeled, soft, leather, hip and more.

Electronics and accessoriesElectronics are aplenty on the Unclaimed Baggage site.“We’re not a Best Buy and we’re not an Apple store, but

we have all of those items,” Cantrell said.You can fi nd unlocked iPhones and iPads, plus cases,

chargers and AirPods.Other electronics highlights include fi tness trackers,

camera lenses and noise-canceling headphones.

Carom lizard leather embossed pool cuePicture this: You’re having friends over for game night

and someone motions to your pool table.“Hey, that’s an interesting cue you have there,” your

friend asks.You pick up your carom lizard leather embossed pool

cue. “Oh this old thing?” you reply. “That’s my carom lizard leather embossed pool cue.”

This Unclaimed Baggage fi nd is the ultimate ice breaker, well worth the $590.99 (a $589.01 discount, by the way).

14-karat diamond tennis braceletNot your everyday purchase, this diamond tennis

bracelet is one of those pieces of jewelry you (or the loved one you give it to as a gift) will have for the rest of your life. This like-new, 14-karat gold and diamond fi nd

is poised to become a new family heirloom, one you hopefully keep track of better than its former owner who abandoned it in their luggage.

Beauty products and toiletriesForget duty free. Unclaimed Baggage’s

Health & Beauty collection has everything from makeup to shampoo to essential oils to stock your toiletry bag before your next trip. Most of these items are “new in box.”

Nick Fouquet felt hatJustin Bieber. Lady Gaga. Bob Dylan. Maybe you next?

These are the people who have enjoyed Nick Fouquet hats. The Venice, Calif., hat maker draws in celebrity clients with his high-end dome apparel with price tags running upward of $1,000.One unlucky traveler left his

or her gently used Nick Fouquet mauve felt hat behind at the airport, and it’s up for grabs on Unclaimed Baggage. It’s available online for $335.99, just over 70% off its sug-gested retail price of $1,135.

Sporting goodsBy now you’ve already pur-

chased that lizard leather pool cue, but know there are plenty other sporting goods up for grabs on the

Unclaimed Baggage site. There are practical items such as bike

wheel sets and running shoes for your standard physical

activities. Then there are items that may inspire new hobbies, like

a fl y-fi shing rod or wet suit.

Recovered from the abyssUnclaimed Baggage Center sells the treasures travelers leave behind

TRAVEL

iStock

PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY KRISTIN M. HALL

Associated Press

The Dixie Chicks are no more. Breaking their ties to the South, The Chicks are stepping into a new chapter in their storied career with their first new music in 14 years.

The Texas trio of Emily Strayer, Martie Ma-guire and Natalie Maines have been teasing new music for a year, and “Gaslighter” finally

drops on Friday with the nation embroiled in divisive politics, cancel culture and reckoning with inequality. The timing is right for their voices to be heard again.

“It just seemed like a good reflection on our times,” Maines said. “In 20 years, we’ll look back at that album cover and title and remember exactly what was going on in the country right then.”

“Gaslighter” is a slang term, inspired by a 1944 Ingrid Bergman film, to describe a psychological abuser who manip-ulates the truth to make a person feel crazy. In recent years, it’s been used to describe powerful men like Harvey Wein-stein or Donald Trump.

“I think most everybody has a gaslighter in their lives some-where,” Strayer said. “But, yeah, it was so weird how it echoes our current administration.”

As the best-selling female group in RIAA history, The Chicks appealed to a generation of country fans that saw themselves in the band’s stories, whether it was “Wide Open Spaces” or “Cowboy Take Me Away.” After three independent albums, their first major-label record in 1998 sold 13 million copies in the U.S. alone.

With Maguire on fiddle and Strayer on banjo, they were all steeped in bluegrass and classic country, but indulged in fun country-pop on crossover songs like “Goodbye Earl.” They were country music’s next big thing until suddenly the door was slammed on them.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

MUSIC

CHICKS AT A CROSSROADS

Natalie Maines self-portrait

With new name and album, band’s voices ring loud at another key juncture in US history

Emily Strayer self-portrait

Martie MaguireLaura Morsman

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13Sunday, July 19, 2020

MUSIC

When The Chicks decided to drop the word “Dixie” from the band’s name, it was the culmina-tion of years of internal discussions and attempts to distance themselves from negative connotations with the word.

The 13-time Grammy-winning trio made the switch last month, just weeks before the release of their first new music in 14 years.

The band was formed in Dallas in the late 1980s by sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer with Laura Lynch and Robin Lynn Macy as a bluegrass band.

“We were totally working the kitschy cowgirl clothes and everything at that stage in our career, big hair, you know,” Strayer said. “And so we had, like, cowboy hats on playing down on street corners.”

But they started getting requests for bookings and they needed a name. “That Little Feat song, ‘Dixie Chicken,’ came on the radio. And so we were the Dixie Chickens for like maybe six months,” Strayer said.

Maguire, though, hated being called a chicken, Strayer said. So it got shortened to just chicks.

They released three independent albums before Natalie Maines became the lead singer. The band

signed a seven-record deal with Sony and again, they questioned whether to continue as The Dixie Chicks. Strayer even wondered if the word “chicks” was too derogatory to women, but ultimately felt it was empowering.

“When we signed to Sony, we thought about it again and (the label was) like, ‘No, it’s alliterative, it’s catchy, it’s you. There’s history here,’ ” Strayer said.

As the years progressed, they kept trying to distance themselves from the word. They started calling themselves The Chicks on merchandise, and on their last tours they referred to themselves as DCX.

“It means different things for different people,” Strayer said. “But if it does make a statement that is derogatory to certain people, us included, we were just like, ‘This doesn’t feel right anymore.’ ”

But in 2020, the band saw how the death of George Floyd was leading many to re-evaluate as-sociations with racist symbols, like the Confederate flag, sometimes called the rebel flag or the Dixie flag.

“I think the sort of now moment for me was when NASCAR banned the Dixie flag,” Maines said. “It just struck me as, ‘OK, we’re doing this now. No

more overthinking. No more hesitation. Now is the time.’ ”

But it’s not as easy as just changing a name, as evidenced by the legal conflict that came out of country group Lady A’s decision to drop the word “Antebellum“ only to find out that a Black woman had been performing as Lady A for years. The Chicks did some research and found a female duo in New Zealand had been using the name The Chicks for decades.

The two parties now have a co-existence agree-ment for both of them to continue using the same name.

“They’re being very gracious,” Strayer said. “They’re the national treasure of New Zealand, so we hear. And so we wanted to be very respectful of that.”

Now they have new merchandise with their new name for sale, although some first pressings of their upcoming record “Gaslighter” on vinyl still have the old name.

For the band, they feel like a weight has been lifted with the new name.

“I think one of the words we kept using was relieved,“ Maguire said.

— Kristin M. Hall / AP

Behind the music: The Chicks’ decision to drop ‘Dixie’

REVIEW

The ChicksGaslighter (Columbia)

The newly minted The Chicks pull a phoenix-like move with their eighth studio album, “Gaslighter.”

The Dixie Chicks have died, long live The Chicks. In a stunning act of double re-invention, the country-pop trio have changed their name and re-emerged from a 14-year hiatus and personal turmoil with their new album — one that feels so private it’s almost as if you are there, nose-pressed, at steaming lead singer Natalie Maines’ windows. The artist — who worked through her feelings about her divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar creatively — commits an act of immolation of her marriage so radical, it bursts through every lyric on the record.

The Chicks’ two singles from the album, the title track and “March March,” envelop one in their up-tempo; the former with its boppy, almost playful drums, and the latter with its dramatic, synth-y wa-terdrop effect that makes one forget its call to arms intent. They burst through with vigor and the promise of an energiz-ing re-invention.

Instead, the 12 tracks are a deconstruction and recon-struction of emotions that sometimes drag with its quiet, ballad-heavy set.

It will save many broken hearts along the way, taking this country theme to a new, almost quantum level. The Jack Antonoff-produced re-cord’s low-key instrumentals — lots of strings in “Tights on My Boat,” “Young Man” and “Set Me Free,” banjos in “Sleep at Night,” the touch of the violin in “Julianna Calm Down,” a dash of church organ in “My Best Friend’s Weddings” — and stripped- down vocals make for a curious Schroedinger’s cat of a record. For the most part, the feelings of the lyrics are tampered down by the music: the anger is there but it’s not there, the sadness is there but it’s not there. The Chicks have worn their heart on the sleeve, but they’re afraid to move on and have fun.

After all, they’ve all been burned before.

— Cristina JaleruAssociated Press

From left: Emily Robison, Natalie Maines and Martie Maguire pose with their awards for song of the year, record of the year, album of the year, best country album and for best country performance at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 11, 2007, in Los Angeles.

AP

FROM PAGE 12

In 2003, as then-President George Bush was preparing to invade Iraq, the trio were playing a show in London when Maines announced they were ashamed that the president was from Texas.

The fallout became country music lore, a warning to stay away from political talk, es-pecially of the liberal kind. They were booed on awards shows, radio stations pulled their music off the air and fans destroyed their CDs. Maguire only recently showed her daughters the 2006 documentary called “Shut Up and Sing” that showed how the backlash affected them behind the scenes.

“I was putting off showing them because I have one that’s 11 and I just thought she was a little young,” Maguire said. “I thought she might be upset by just the death threat stuff.”

Instead, her daughters, living in a social media generation when everyone is afforded an opinion, were confused by the reaction to Maines’ tame comments compared to the vitriolic criticism lobbed by politicians and pundits every day.

“And it was just funny hearing 16- and 11-year-olds going, ‘Why? What? Wait. She said that? And people got so mad?’ ” Maguire said.

The trio are all now parents of teenagers when youth activists are taking the lead on gun control, climate change and racial in-equality. Their song “March March,” which was released the same day they announced they were dropping the word Dixie from their name, was inspired by student-led demonstrations over gun control in 2018.

“We were all at March for Our Lives with Emma Gonzalez leading that charge,” Strayer said. “We were in the hundreds of thousands of people in that march. And it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced some-thing like that. And it was very powerful.”

On “Juliana Calm Down,” their daugh-ters and nieces are name-checked in a song that encourages young women to keep their heads held high when struggling through life’s obstacles. Maines is speaking to her two teenage boys on “Young Man,” a song for divorced parents who feel like they’ve let down their kids.

Fans have been quick to try to associ-ate very specific lyrics from “Gaslighter” to Maines’ contentious divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar. Between the three women, they’ve had five divorces, so they said people shouldn’t read too literally into the words.

“I think people had it in their minds that this album is about one thing and one thing only, and it’s not,“ said Maines. “People are jumping to conclusions.”

Hit pop songwriter Justin Tranter, who has penned hits for Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Imagine Dragons, helped The Chicks co-write some of the album’s most raw, vulnerable breakup songs, including “Sleep at Night.”

“Some of those pre-choruses are not songs,” Tranter said. “Natalie was just talk-ing and I was literally writing down what she was saying and then I found a way to put it to a melody.”

“Gaslighter” was recorded and co-written with Jack Antonoff, the Grammy-winning producer-artist known for recording with pop’s female elite: Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Sia. Antonoff pushed them to use their core strength, the three-part harmonies backed by fiddle and banjo, in new ways.

Maguire’s fiddle playing is rhythmic on “Texas Man” backed by electric guitar from Grammy-winner St. Vincent. Strayer’s banjo leads a chorus of electronic melodies, cello and double drums on “Sleep at Night.” Their voices, strong, sharp and haunting, blend and build in cinematic ways.

Their last album, 2006’s “Taking the Long Way,” earned five Grammys, includ-ing album, record and song of the year, and won over masses of fans who never listened to them before. But it’s unlikely that the fans who turned their back on The Chicks 17 years ago are going to feel any different about the band’s return.

When The Chicks and Beyonce performed at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016, a vocal minority unleashed their anger on social media at the idea that both artists would be invited to perform.

The Chicks knew the high-profile awards show performance would get some criti-cism, but they were upset after the CMA briefly removed promo videos online of the performance. The CMA later said the clips

were not approved, so they were removed before the broadcast.

“The CMAs were absolutely wrong to cower to that racism,” Maines said. “It was disgusting. It’s good that they put it back up, but it should have never come down.”

“When you invite (Beyonce) knowing that she’s going to bring that elevation to the show and those eyeballs and then you diss her like that, it’s twisting the knife,” Strayer said.

Although their fallout occurred before Twitter or Facebook, The Chicks have a unique viewpoint on the rise of cancel cul-ture, when prominent people are attacked online in an almost mob mentality.

“On one hand, you know, it’s freeing now. People just are way more vocal,” Maines said. “But then the downside is one slipup, one major slipup, and no publicist can make that go away.”

Maines said for movements like #MeToo, those speaking out online held people ac-countable. “And you can’t silence or quiet them when you’ve got so many women com-ing forward,” Maines said.

The phrase “shut up and sing” is still used as a weapon against women, minorities and anyone straying from their musical lane. But The Chicks think younger music fans don’t adhere to that idea.

“There’s not a whole lot of respect anymore if you’re just going to smile and entertain,” Maines said. “They want you to have a point of view.”

Strayer added, “My 15-year-old won’t even let me use a filter on my phone! They want real.”

While the break between albums was longer than any of them anticipated, they re-alized they still had important things to say.

“We have to say things when the time is right to say them, and we’ve been quiet for 10 years, so get ready,” Strayer said with a laugh.

PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

The Gauls are comingComic hero Asterix plans friendly assault on America

through new English-language series of graphic novels BY MARK KENNEDY

Associated Press

Americans have long adored things from France, like its bread, cheese and wine. But they’ve been stubbornly resistant to one of France’s biggest exports: Asterix.

The bite-sized, brawling hero of a series of treasured comic books is as invisible in America as the Eurovision Song Contest is big in Europe. One U.S. publisher hopes to change that.

Papercutz, which specializes in graphic novels for all ages, is republishing “Asterix” collections this summer with a new English translation — one specifi cally geared to American readers.

“Compared to the great success it is worldwide, we have a lot of potential here to explore,” said Terry Nantier, CEO and publisher of Papercutz, who spent his teen-age years in France. “We’re just looking to make this as appealing to an American audi-ence as possible.”

Enter Joe Johnson, a professor of French and Spanish at Clayton State University in Georgia who has translated hundreds of graphic novels and comics. He ignored the existing translation for the United Kingdom and went directly to the original French source.

“My driving thing is, ‘What do I think a kid will under-stand?’ ” Johnson said. “That’s in the back of my mind as I translate it. But still keeping to the spirit of the original.”

Created by comic-strip artist Alberto Uderzo and writer Rene Goscinny in 1959, “Asterix” books have been translated into 111 languages, sold some 380 million col-lections worldwide and spawned multiple fi lms.

They’re set in 50 B.C. in a region of Western Europe almost entirely conquered by the Romans. One small vil-lage of Gauls manages to resist, thanks to a special magic formula. The heroes are the wily and tough Asterix and his best friend Obelix, a red-haired giant prone to prat-falls and drinking too much.

Johnson’s translations are more streamlined and accessible than its predecessors. In the old books, the Roman camps were “entrenched.” Now, they are “forti-fi ed.” In the old, the village leader announced: “And now I declare the revels open!” In the new, he says: “Let the party begin!”

One very American change can be detected just a few panels into the fi rst volume, when Obelisk warns his pal that the Romans will be mad because he keeps beating them up. “Huh!” Asterix replied in the old translation. “Whatever,” he says in the new.

Goscinny died in 1977 and Uderzo, who died in March, took on both the writing and illustrating for many years. The last three editions of Asterix were written by Jean-Yves Ferri and drawn by Didier Conrad. The latest is “The Chieftain’s Daughter,” released in October 2019.

So far, America seems immune to the series’ Gaulish charms, perhaps due to a history of being untouched by the Roman Empire or its citizens not forced to confront Latin, as they do in Europe.

Nantier thinks there is one good reason American kids might enjoy the series: A feisty group of quirky underdogs making an entire empire look foolish. Sound familiar? That’s the story of the American colonies’ fi ght for independence from England.

“It is French history, but it’s incredibly successful in Germany and England and many other countries, and in hundreds of languages. It has a universal appeal,” he said.

The books contain slapstick for the kids and parody for adults. Asterix and Obelisk travel to Egypt, India, Rome and the Olympics, among other places, often mocking the nationalities they meet: The Brits drink warm beer, the Spanish take any opportunity to dance.

Much of the humor is based on French puns of a bygone era, which don’t travel well across borders. The solution has been to tailor each book for different coun-tries, hence the creation of such English character names as Ginantonicus and Crismus Bonus.

The books contain sly send-ups of popular fi gures, such as Sean Connery as Agent Dubbelosix in “Asterisk and the Black Gold” and Elvis Preslix in “Asterix and the Normans.”

When Asterix visits Cleopatra, adults will chuckle at her resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor, who starred in a 1963 fi lm epic about the Ancient Egyptian leader. (Obe-lisk, it turns out, is the reason the Sphinx’s nose has been lost. It was an accident.)

Johnson’s task was of the toughest he’s faced: “Asterix” is very textually driven and pun-heavy, sometimes re-quiring him to come up with a similar joke to the original or even a new song to replace an outdated one.

“Fundamentally, the stories are about friendship. That’s the story that we’re always interested in talking about as human beings,” Johnson said. “It’s a winning formula, I think.”

The series seems less dated than its contemporary “Tintin,” which often depicted people of color in racist ways. While the world of “Asterix” is not immune, the new U.S. volumes stick to the original notion that no one people are better than any other.

“Nobody looks pretty in there. It’s all raucous. The Gauls themselves are portrayed as a brawling lot that can’t get together,” Nantier said. “So nobody comes out of it unscathed. Everybody is skewered happily.”

BOOKS

Niece talks about growing up Trump in ‘Too Much and Never Enough’ BY CARLOS LOZADA

The Washington Post

When discussing his father in his memoir “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” Donald Trump stresses the business savvy he

gleaned from the late Fred C. Trump. “I learned about toughness in a very tough business, I learned about motivating people, and I learned about competence and effi ciency.”

In “Too Much and Never Enough,” Mary L. Trump, the president’s niece, de-scribes those lessons somewhat different-ly. In her telling, her wealthy grandfather was a suffocating and destructive infl u-ence: emotionally unavailable, cruel and controlling. Fred Trump both instilled and fortifi ed his middle son’s worst quali-ties — Donald’s bullying, disrespect, lack of empathy, insecurity and relentless self-aggrandizement — while lavishing on him every opportunity and fi nancing every mistake, to the point that both men came to believe the myths they had created.

In the wreckage of this relationship, Mary Trump writes, is a “malignantly dysfunctional family” that engages in “casual dehumanization” around the din-ner table, a family in which privilege and anxiety go together, in which money is the only value, in which lies are just fi ne and apologies are just weak.

“Too Much and Never Enough” is a

deftly written account of cross-genera-tional trauma, but it is also suffused by an almost desperate sadness — sadness in the stories it tells and sadness in the telling, too. Mary Trump brings to this account the insider perspective of a family

member, the observa-tional and analytical abilities of a clinical psychologist and the writing talent of a former graduate stu-dent in comparative literature.

But she also brings the grudges of estrangement. Mary Trump writes that

her own father, Freddy, the oldest child of the Trump family, was robbed of his birthright and happiness for committing the unforgivable sin of failing to meet Fred’s demands and expectations. Freddy was supposed to take over the family busi-ness, was supposed to be a “killer,” which in the Trump family means being utterly invulnerable. But he preferred to become a commercial airline pilot, an ambition his father constantly mocked.

“Freddy simply wasn’t who he wanted him to be,” Mary Trump writes. “Fred dismantled his oldest son by devaluing and degrading every aspect of his per-sonality and his natural abilities until all that was left was self-recrimination and

a desperate need to please a man who had no use for him.” Instead, Donald was elevated while Freddy, suffering from alcoholism and heart ailments, was cast aside, his entire family line “effectively erased,” Mary explains, written out of wills, eulogies and simple kindnesses.

The Trump family, perhaps fearing shame or worse, tried hard to quash this book, based on the terms of a settlement in a long-ago lawsuit. They failed, and Mary Trump does offer some embar-rassing, even silly, stories about growing up Trump: that Donald paid a friend to take the SATs for him; that, for all their riches, Trump and his wives skimped on Christmas presents, regifting old food baskets and used designer handbags; that Maryanne, a former appeals court judge, described her younger brother Donald as “a clown” with “no principles.”

More memorable are this book’s in-sights and declarations. Mary describes her grandfather as a “high-functioning sociopath,” a condition that can include abusiveness, ease with deceit and indiffer-ence to right and wrong. Couple that with a mother who was often absent because of health problems, and young Donald began to develop “powerful but primitive” coping mechanisms, Mary Trump writes, including hostility, aggression and indif-ference to the neglect he experienced. Unable to have his emotional needs met, “he became too adept at acting as though

he didn’t have any.”Books and essays have been written

speculating on the mental health of the 45th president; to the frequent armchair diagnoses of “narcissistic personal-ity disorder,” Mary Trump might add “antisocial personality disorder” (chronic criminality, arrogance, disregard for oth-ers) and “dependent personality disorder” (inability to make decisions or take re-sponsibility, discomfort with being alone). She even suggests that Trump suffers a “long undiagnosed learning disability” that hinders his processing of informa-tion. She provides little specifi c evidence or context for this assertion — a habit that recurs throughout the book, as the author makes defi nitive pronouncements about her uncle’s state of mind.

And she contends that Trump has been “institutionalized” for most of his adult life, in that he has been shielded from his shortcomings — whether by his father bailing him out of terrible investments or by a federal government now deployed to protect his ego. “Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accu-rate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for,” Mary Trump concludes.

A lesson for the Trump family: Keep your friends close, but your nieces with doctorates in psychology closer.

AP

Obelix, left, and Asterix wave to children at the Asterix theme park in 1995 in Ermenonville, France, north of Paris. Though popular in Europe, the heroes of Gaul are practically unknown in America.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15Sunday, July 19, 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

TO-DO LISTBY LAURA TAYLOR KINNEL / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

ACROSS

1 1/48 of a cup: Abbr.

4 Ad Council offerings, for short

8 Home of the Kaaba

13 Spartan

17 ‘‘The Problem With ____’’ (2017 documentary)

18 Orator’s platform

19 ‘‘Never meet your ____’’ (maxim)

20 Less wild

21 Done working: Abbr.

22 About which you might always say, ‘‘Bee prepared’’?

23 They take the form of self-flying paper airplanes in the Harry Potter books

24 Topping for a 25-Across

25 Piece of cake, say

27 Improv-class exercises

29 Kids

30 Without aim

31 Mob

33 Fish whose males bear the young

35 Evening gala37 Note-taking spot?38 Sustained period of

luck, as with dice39 Litter critter40 Floor-plan unit42 Restless desire

46 What Franklin famously asked for

49 Floor-plan spec50 Blog-feed inits.52 Debtor’s letters53 Email holder54 Something lent to a

friend55 Set of skills,

metaphorically57 Father of Scout, in ‘‘To

Kill a Mockingbird’’ 59 Declare61 Best-actor winner

Malek63 Normandy battle site65 Wads66 Last dance?69 Managed an

unmanageable group, figuratively

72 Wonder Woman accessory

73 Aware of75 Playroom chest76 Downwind77 They’re worn on

heads with tails79 Store81 Was first83 Ka ____

(southernmost point on Hawaii)

84 Prefix with -graph85 Run on86 Singer Brickell87 Believed something

without question89 Commercial lead-in

to land91 Elizabeth Warren vis-

à-vis former chief justice Earl Warren, e.g.

95 It’s frequently under fire

96 Prepare to bathe98 Olivia Benson’s

division on TV: Abbr.99 Conditional word102 Expressively

creative104 First of the

metalloids106 Border107 Flight recorder108 ____ complex111 A much greater

quantity113 Lead-in to fit or

active114 ____ New Guinea115 Foreword117 Org. that kicked off

again in 2020 after a 19-year hiatus

118 Studio behind ‘‘Platoon’’ and ‘‘Amadeus’’

119 Salary negotiator120 Adversary121 Embodiment of

slipperiness122 Word before or after

short123 One of the six simple

machines124 State pair: Abbr.125 Mrs., in Mexico

DOWN

1 Transportation for the Doctor on ‘‘Doctor Who’’

2 Small suit3 Tries to make the

unappealing attractive

4 Eeyore-ish sentiment5 Stocking stuffer6 Donkey Kong, e.g.7 Imbroglios8 Play charades9 Setting for a Sistine

Chapel painting10 Results from11 Near12 ‘‘Methought I was

enamour’d of an ____’’ : Titania

13 Brand of rum14 Improper15 Best-actress winner

Zellweger16 Tiny fractions of

joules18 ‘‘____ Would Be

King,’’ 2018 novel by Wayétu Moore

20 Attach, in a way26 Stack topper28 Iconic Chevy29 ‘‘You nailed it!’’ 32 ____ page34 Spanish ‘‘now’’ 36 Olympic pentathlete’s

need38 Well-being40 Purse part41 Flying Clouds and

Royales43 Be fully qualified

. . . or a hint to this puzzle’s theme

44 Author of ‘‘The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure’’

45 Czech reformer Jan46 Coastal inlets47 It might get a licking

48 Combination meant to change behavior

51 Starter earring56 Play piano, informally58 Machu Picchu builder60 Something frequently

made with the eyes shut

62 X-ray alternative, maybe

64 Spanish treasure67 Anthem starter68 Businesses with a

portmanteau name

70 ‘‘It Ain’t Me Babe’’ songwriter

71 Percolate

74 Zip

77 No. in a directory

78 Wimbledon wear, perhaps

80 Chooses not to act

82 Academia figure

88 It follows the Hijri calendar

90 Protruding bit of bedrock

92 Form a new mental picture of

93 Got away

94 Sharing word

97 Canon competitor

99 Leaves weaponless

100 One participating in a new Summer Olympics sport in 2021

101 Fashion designer McCartney

102 Heads-up

103 Two to one, say

105 Time and again

107 Warner ____

109 Like the Liberty Bell in 1846, for the last time

110 Big name in British art

112 Hall-of-Fame catcher Campanella

114 Print maker

116 Tulsa-to-Des Moines dir.

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

02918171

42322212

9282726252

4333231303

83736353

54443424140493

25150594847464

857565554535

59 60 61 62 63 64 65

170796867666

6757473727

38281808978777

8878685848

59493929190998

10100199897969

601501401301201

211111011901801701

711611511411311

121021911811

521421321221

Laura Taylor Kinnel, of Newtown, Pa., teaches math and is the director of studies at a Friends boarding school near Philadelphia. Since her last puzzle appeared in March, she has spent lots of time with colleagues developing best methods and new processes for remote learning. Laura remarks that she was sitting and conducting classes from home in the same spot where she normally makes crosswords! — W.S.

PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY JASON NARK

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Big Valley is a living postcard of Pennsylvania. Jet-black buggies hug the shoulders of its long, straight roads and knobby-kneed

foals prance in fi elds so green they look electrifi ed. Most signs there urge motor-ists to repent and rejoice, or to buy fresh strawberries from the Amish children sitting in the shade.

But one Pennsylvania tradition also plagued residents who live in this sweep-ing landscape: slow, unreliable and expensive internet service. The govern-ment couldn’t help. Private suppliers have long said improved speeds were too costly to provide for such a sparsely populated area. So a group of mostly retirees banded together and took a frontier approach to a modern problem. They built their own wireless network, using radio signals instead of expensive cable.

“We just wanted better internet service up our valley. It was pretty simple as that,” said Kevin Diven, a founding mem-ber of the Rural Broadband Cooperative.

The nonprofi t RBC services anyone who can see the 120-foot, former HAM radio tower its founders bought and erected on a patch of land they lease from an Amish man at around 1,900 feet on Stone Moun-tain, on the border of Miffl in and Hunting-don counties, 180 miles from Philadelphia. Users pay an initial set-up fee of about $300, and monthly costs for the service are approximately $40 to $75, depending on the speeds you choose, ranging from 5 to 25 megabits per second.

The RBC has just under 40 paying customers.

“We love living out here,” said customer Helena Kotala, of Jackson Corner, Hunt-ingdon County. “It’s just that the internet totally sucked.”

A Pennsylvania State University re-search project conducted in 2018 found that internet speeds in the state were dismal. Counties such as Sullivan and Wyoming in the northeast, along with vast

areas in and near the Allegheny National Forest in the northwest, had the slowest speeds. Some were as dismal as 0 to 3 megabits per second, far below the FCC’s 25 mbps benchmark for “high speed.” A 2016 Federal Communications Commis-sion report estimated that 39% of rural Americans, about 23 million people, had no access to 25 mbps. In Pennsylvania, the number of people without access to high-speed internet is 803,645, about 6% of the state’s total population.

The Philadelphia suburbs had the high-est speeds.

The areas of Miffl in and Huntingdon counties that the RBC serves often had speeds less than 2 mbps, Diven said. He was served by Verizon and said he was frequently in touch with the company about improving speeds. Verizon repre-sentatives often attended local meetings about the issue. Comcast, he said, wanted $80,000 to lay high-speed internet for ap-proximately eight miles.

“I tried the FCC and the PUC (Penn-sylvania’s Public Utility Commission) and got nowhere,” said Diven, who had hoped they would intervene with the private providers.

The issue of slow internet speeds isn’t something that anyone rages on about, but it’s a consistent problem from coast to coast, made even more noticeable during the pandemic. In some parts of Pennsyl-vania, online learning was not possible for school districts. Kotala, 30, works as the mapping coordinator for the Penn-sylvania Environmental Council and has to download large fi les to her computer daily. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, she left her offi ce in State College and started working from home, where downloads screeched to a halt.

After one month of quarantine, she bought into the RBC and loves the service.

“I had already gotten rid of Netfl ix because watching any movie online was a nightmare,” she said. “I would have to sit there and wait for stuff to download or up-load and just go do something for a while.”

The RBC’s members did all the work

starting in 2017, saving money by divvy-ing up talents and livelihoods. Approxi-mately 25 people kicked in $60,000 for the project. Some worked in construction, others in engineering. One was a former genomics professor at Penn State, another retired from the U.S. Army. Brandon Beck, the RBC’s president, was a profes-sional musician in the Tampa Bay area, playing the French horn. They pooled their money to clear the land, buy the tower and equipment, and pour concrete for the bunker that houses the electron-ics, which includes two banks of batteries used to propel Nissan’s electric car, the Leaf.

“They were available,” Beck said, ex-plaining the batteries.

Power is supplied through solar panels, with a back-up wind generator.

The signal went live in 2019. Unlike tra-ditional DSL or satellite-based wireless, the RBC taps into an existing fi ber line it turns into a radio signal that bounces off a dish fastened to a three-pump gas

station in Allensville. The signal races across Big Valley, then up the mountain past buzzards and ravens. The signal can be bounced off other dishes and relayed to other homes, much like a laser off mir-rors. Each home has its own small dish to receive the wireless signal from the tower.

The signal can service a 15-mile radius. Fixed wireless systems are “line of sight,” meaning users have to be able to see the tower from their residences in order to connect. Sometimes, trees block it.

“Leaves are the enemy,” Beck said.Tom Bracken, an RBC board member,

said pines are the worst. “If you’re going to try to shoot through pines,” Bracken said, “just hang it up and go home.”

Bracken, retired from the U.S. Army, said fi xed wireless systems exist all over the world and rural communities can emulate what the RBC did.

“You have to tap into the skills of your community,” he said. “You never know who your neighbor is and what they can do.”

BY GREGG ELLMAN

Tribune News Service

To the list of all the home improvements people have generated in the past few months, add

an easy setup of extending the range of some of your home Wi-Fi smart products. It’s a great thing to do, and a company called Lutron makes it a do-it-yourself easy project with a new Caseta Wireless Repeater and Motion Sensor.

If you’re not familiar with Lu-tron, you need to be. They design and manufacture automated light and shade controls for homes and commercial applications.

It’s been common over the past few years to put the main controls for Wi-Fi, smart home products and Lutron systems in a central location in your home.

That’s the best idea so the signal is strong enough for your TV as well as computers and scattered smart home devices.

At times the signal is still not enough; some new Lutron products help solve the problem so the signal reaches areas like a back closet tucked in the corner of a house or a unique layout of your home, which has a restroom buried in another corner.

Lutron’s Caseta Repeater ($74.95) placed in your dead zones will extent your existing Lutron system range by 60 feet when placed within 60 feet of a Lutron Caseta Smart Bridge. The Smart Bridge is the central point of the system.

Setup is easy. There’s no ether-net connection, and the Repeater just plugs into any home outlet as long as it’s in range of the sys-

tem. Then add it to an existing system through the Caseta App, and you’re done. Once installed, scheduling, scenes, Smart Away and more are at your fi ngertips without the use of Wi-Fi.

The Caseta Smart Motion Sensor ($49.95) is perfect for a room needing hands-free control for lights.

It can be as easy as placing it in a room where you want the lights to turn on as you enter or leave a room. That one sensor can control Caseta shades, lights, fan controls or anything within 60 feet.

Think of those critical hid-den rooms, hallways, garages or anywhere. With the sensor you get a 180-degree fi eld of view, so it sees you coming.

Lutron also offers the wireless fan speed control ($60).

Once installed, you have now turned your simple existing ceiling fan into a wireless smart home-controlled device with speed controls and programma-ble schedules. It also syncs with

other smart home products.The Lutron smart lighting con-

trol system connects with smart home devices like Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant.

Online: lutron.com

GADGETS & TECHNOLOGY

GADGET WATCHWi-Fi that fills every nook and cranny

Bringing wireless dead zones to lifeRural Pennsylvania solves its slow internet problem

LUTRON/TNS

Lutron’s Caseta Repeater will extend your existing Lutron system range by 60 feet when placed near a Lutron Caseta Smart Bridge.

TIM TAI, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/TNS

From left, Rural Broadband Cooperative board members Deborah Grove and Tom Bracken, president Brandon Beck and Ken Diven, one of the founding members, at the cooperative’s wireless internet tower in Mill Creek, Penn.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17Sunday, July 19, 2020

were recovered and relocated by marine biologists, officials said.

Firefighters battle blaze engulfing train car

NE NORTH PLATTE — Fire crews battled

a blaze that consumed a rail car loaded with automobiles at Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, officials there said.

Arriving firefighters found the car fully engulfed in flames. It took several hours for fire crews from several surrounding depart-ments, as well as Union Pacific employees, to extinguish the fire.

No one was injured, but all of the vehicles loaded on the rail car were destroyed. Officials are in-vestigating the cause of the fire.

Lifeguards rescue deer stuck in ocean

NJ LONG BRANCH — Emergency responders

on land and in the water helped rescue a deer that got stuck in the ocean off a New Jersey beach.

The deer was spotted in the water near Rooney’s Oceanfront Restaurant, Long Branch police wrote on Facebook.

Two members of the city’s beach rescue team on personal water craft and two lifeguards on paddle boards headed into the surf, while police officers and an animal control supervisor on land helped coordinate the rescue.

The rescuers helped guide the young deer to shore at Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park.

“We are happy to report that

the deer survived his swim un-harmed,” police wrote.

Police wrote it’s “a great re-minder to only swim when a life-guard is present!”

Bass Harbor Head Light now part of national park

ME BAR HARBOR — The Bass Harbor

Head Light Station is now part of Acadia National Park.

The National Park Service announced that the property, including the lighthouse con-structed in 1858, was transferred by the U.S. General Services Administration.

“Bass Harbor Head Light Sta-tion is an iconic part of the Acadia National Park landscape and will now be enjoyed by generations of visitors to come,” said Chris-topher Averill, regional adminis-trator for the GSA.

The acquisition includes five historic buildings on two acres of land. The Bass Harbor Head Light Station becomes one of three light stations in Acadia Na-tional Park along with Baker Is-land and Bear Island lights.

State reaches record high in marijuana sales

CO DENVER — Canna-bis sales in Colorado

set a new monthly record in May, reaching their highest level since broad legalization in 2014.

Dispensaries sold over $192 million worth of cannabis prod-ucts that month, according to data from the state Department of Revenue’s Marijuana Enforce-ment Division compiled by The Denver Post. That figure is up about 29% from April and 32% from May 2019.

In all, the cannabis industry has sold more than $779 million in products this year and paid more than $167 million in taxes and fees to the state.

Wedge wolf pack attacks 7 more cattle

OR SALEM — The Wedge wolf pack in northeast

Washington attacked seven more cattle, bringing the number of depredations by the pack to near-ly a dozen since May 11.

The Washington Departmentof Fish and Wildlife investigated and confirmed the depredations at a private ranch, a department spokeswoman told The CapitalPress. All the cattle suffered in-juries, she said.

The pack crossed the thresholdfor the department to consider le-thal removal with four earlier at-tacks. The department opted notto cull the pack.

The department has not made a decision on how to respond tothe depredations confirmed , thespokeswoman said.

Fish and Wildlife and wolf ad-vocates are waiting for a Seattle judge to rule on whether the de-partment’s lethal-removal proto-col is legal.

Virgin Mary statue at church scorched

MA BOSTON — Boston police are investigat-

ing vandalism to a statue of the Virgin Mary outside a RomanCatholic church in the city.

Officers responded to St. Pe-ter’s parish in the city’s Dorches-ter neighborhood , according to a post on the department’s website.

Fire investigators at the scene told police that someone had setfire to plastic flowers, which werein the hands of the statue, caus-ing the face and upper body of thestatue to be burned and marred with scorch marks.

No arrests were announced.Police are asking members of thepublic with information about the vandalism to come forward.

AMERICAN ROUNDUP

The number of years a fugitive had been on the run before surren-dering to the FBI in Miami. Jonathan Cifuentes, who was wanted in a 2015 double shooting in Doral, flew to Miami in federal custody and was arrested on the federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecu-tion, the FBI announced. The FBI then took Cifuentes, 29, to jail, where

he’s being held on two counts of attempted premeditated murder and one count of discharging a firearm in public. The charges stem from an incident at a Doral club on April 5, 2015, when police say he shot two people after being asked to leave, according to court records.

Man charged in threat to use gun at hospital

MO JEFFERSON CITY — A man was charged

after allegedly threatening to use a gun at St. Mary’s Hospital in Jefferson City.

Clinton Miller, 49, of Mokane was charged with first-degree making a terrorist threat, The Jefferson City News-Tribune reported.

Officers were called to the hos-pital after Miller allegedly told emergency room staff he had a gun and would use it if he could not see his ex-wife and daughter, who had come to the hospital .

Hospital officials locked down the facility, affecting more than 150 patients and staff, according to police.

Officers responding to the hospital found Miller sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot, and ar-rested him without incident. Of-ficers did not find a firearm and Miller reportedly told police he did not have a gun.

Woman charged with helping inmates escape

VA BON AIR — A woman who worked at a Vir-

ginia juvenile correctional facil-ity was arrested and accused of helping two inmates escape, au-thorities said.

Destiny L. Harris, 23, was charged with two counts of aid-ing with the escape of a juvenile, news outlets reported. Harris worked at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center.

It’s unclear what role Harris may have had in the escape.

The Virginia Department of Ju-venile Justice said Jabar A. Tay-lor, 20, and Rashad E. Williams, 18, escaped from the Bon Air cen-ter through a hole that was cut in the perimeter fence.

Officials said Taylor and Wil-liams used a cord to choke a se-curity staff member unconscious. Officials said the inmates took the staff member’s keys, exited the unit and escaped through the hole.

Taylor was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and aggravated malicious assault. Williams was convicted of mali-cious wounding and robbery.

Men charged with theft of protected eggs

FL WEST PALM BEACH — Two Florida men

were charged with stealing 93 protected sea turtle eggs.

Federal prosecutors in West Palm Beach announced charges against Carl Lawrence Cobb, 63, and Bruce Wayne Bivins, 63. They each face three felony counts, including violating the Endangered Species Act, and up to 15 years in prison.

According to the criminal complaint, Cobb dropped Bivins off at the Singer Island Beach, just north of Palm Beach . Bivins found a sea turtle nest, removed 93 eggs and then called Cobb for a pick-up, officials said. Officers with the Florida Fish and Wild-life Conservation Commission reported seeing the poaching and stopped Cobb’s truck. The eggs

THE CENSUS

Paddling ruff waters

5

KELSEY BRUNNER, THE ASPEN (COLO.) TIMES/AP

From wire reports

Jeremy Parker, left, paddles his daughter, Presley Parker, 3, and dog, Derby, through the Northstar Nature Preserve in Aspen . Paddlers said that although the water level seemed low compared to earlier in the summer, there was still a good flow.

Sunday, July 19, 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

leonard.terry@stripes.com

Robert H. Reid, Senior Managing Editorreid.robert@stripes.com

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Joe Gromelski, Managing Editor for Digitalgromelski.joe@stripes.com

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BY RAMESH PONNURU

Bloomberg Opinion

Down double digits in some polls with less than four months until the election, President Donald Trump has decided that it’s time

to launch an attack against ... his own ad-viser. Who’s much more popular than he is. Trump has rewritten the political rulebook over the last four years, but this revision seems unlikely to stick.

White House aides have been distribut-ing a memo criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci, and one went so far as to write an op-ed column slamming him. Trump himself has shared criticisms of Fauci on Twit-ter and made his own in interviews. But he has also chided the aide who wrote the anti-Fauci op-ed piece, economic adviser Peter Navarro, since this White House is incapable of sticking to one story.

All of this is perverse as a matter of po-litical strategy and government manage-ment. Like a lot of what the president does, it seems to be based on paying too much attention to what he sees on television. The best result of this one-sided feud might be for both he, and we, to see less of Fauci.

The doctor has played several distinct roles during the coronavirus pandemic. The debate over him dwells on two of them: adviser to the president and explainer of public-health policies to the public. A third has gotten much less attention. As direc-tor of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the Na-tional Institutes of Health, Fauci leads and coordinates the development of treatment and vaccine protocols to fight the corona-virus. This role is more important than the other two. The consensus among informed

observers is that Fauci has performed it exceptionally well.

Because Fauci has civil-service protec-tions, Trump can’t keep him from doing this vital work. If he thinks Fauci gives bad advice, he has an easy solution available: He doesn’t have to take it. Trump can listen to other people he trusts more. If Trump thinks Fauci has done a poor job as a com-municator, he can have his administration authorize fewer interviews.

Fauci’s TV appearances have brought him public acclaim. They have done less to advance the public interest. While the crit-icism leveled at him is frequently overdone — his record of public statements on the pandemic certainly looks a lot better than Trump’s — he has made serious missteps. In early March, he told viewers of “60 Min-utes” that “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” Masks, he said, were not “providing the perfect protection that people think” and could backfire by caus-ing wearers to touch their faces more often. He also cited the need to reserve masks for medical providers and sick people.

By June, he was saying that Americans should wear masks and that the earlier advice discouraging it was a response to “short supply.” More recently, he has got-ten testy when asked about the shift in his message. Fauci was in line with the public-health community generally in downplay-ing the benefits of masks early in the crisis. But that’s the problem. The public-health community, including Fauci, wasn’t being candid.

Treating Americans as competent adults would have meant saying something like: “While the precise effectiveness of masks in protecting against the spread of corona-virus in different situations is not known,

they are likely to be somewhat useful inmany. Since supplies are low at the mo-ment, it would be best if people showed restraint in getting medical-grade masks.”The choices Fauci and others actuallymade, on the other hand, depleted publictrust. If many people “just don’t believescience and they don’t believe authority,” as Fauci has lamented, it’s in part becausethey have been given reasons for doubt.

The insistence that citizens and public officials should “believe” or “follow” sci-ence during the pandemic has been thor-oughly unhelpful. Science hasn’t been able to tell us to what extent and for how long to suspend normal life, or where the nextviral hot spots will be — or even, as noted,how effective masks are.

That’s an indictment of a way of lookingat science, not of science itself. Science is not a comprehensive set of answers to ourproblems, and its practitioners are not apriestly caste with privileged access tothose answers. What science is, amongother things, is a valuable method of get-ting answers we don’t already have.

The backlash to Fauci, which in its wild-er manifestations assumes that he is con-spiring to wreck our economy, partakes ofthese same outsized expectations of whatscience can tell us: If listening to him isn’tsolving our problems, there must be somesinister explanation.

The sniping at Fauci from the WhiteHouse is yet another example of this ad-ministration’s dysfunction. But it’s alsoa symptom of our political culture’s con-fused relationship with science.Bloomberg Opinion columnist Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and contribu-tor to CBS News.

BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO

Miami Herald

Thank you, universe, for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top in-fectious disease specialist.

Where would we be in poorly led, COVID-ravaged Florida without Fau-ci’s consistent advice to take the highly infectious virus seriously? We all would be swimming in the petri dish of ignorance and denial that our mediocre local, state and federal leaders have cultivated by downplaying the dire facts.

But Fauci and our own dynamic duo of infectious disease experts, Drs. Aileen Marty and Lilian Abbo, are filling in for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and — in the coronavirus hot spot of Miami-Dade, for Mayor Carlos Gimenez — with clarity and truth-telling.

“Miami is now the epicenter of the pan-demic,” Abbo said during a virtual press conference Monday. Meanwhile, DeSantis and Gimenez were engaged in more of the mixed and dismissive messaging that has characterized their mandates. Sure, it’s bad, but it’s because we’re testing more, said the governor.

“In Florida, we’ve tested more in one day than some countries,” DeSantis boasted as Floridians wait in hourslong lines and wait several days for test results.

Sure, it’s bad, but it’s the house parties and vacation rentals, said Gimenez, ignor-ing other reasons, including his prema-ture opening and confusing flip-flops on guidelines.

On the side of truth and reality, there was Abbo, who leads the infectious disease team at the Jackson Health System. She went straight to the heart of the matter.

“What we were seeing in Wuhan six months ago, now we are there,” Abbo said,

evoking the first images of sick and dying people that many are reticent to relate to Florida, the new epicenter of the coronavi-rus pandemic.

But that’s who we are now, Wuhan redux. Unnecessarily, so. It should blow your mind.

Thank you, universe, for Dr. Lilian Abbo.

Do you now get the urgency to wear masks, to social distance, to wash your hands, deniers? If the constant bad news out of Florida doesn’t jolt you out of com-placency, then you’re probably emotionally unavailable to receive any advice.

Last Sunday, the state saw the high-est daily spike in confirmed coronavirus cases any state has experienced during the pandemic. At 15,300 cases, we broke the record set in New York.

“Extremely grave,” Florida Interna-tional University epidemiologist Dr. Aileen Marty called our predicament, pointing out that the public isn’t taking the virus se-riously enough.

People are ignoring rules against taking part in large gatherings, on proper social distancing and wearing masks in public places, said Marty, who has lent her exper-tise around the world. Before the corona-virus, she spent a month working with the World Health Organization on the Ebola epidemic in Nigeria.

As a result, hospitals and health care workers are strained again in Miami-Dade, this time even worse than during the first go-around in spring. COVID-19 patients are occupying 98% of ICU beds, and the National Guard has been recalled to oper-ate, where necessary, a field hospital at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Thank you, universe, for medical pros who tell it like it is, like Dr. Aileen Marty.

We need these experts. They should bethe ones driving policy, not politicos turn-ing a deadly disease that can leave organdamage for life into a contest of politicalpreferences.

We should all be in this one together,Florida, but we’re not — and on Tuesdaywe broke another grim record, adding 132deaths to bring the statewide death toll to4,409. The total of confirmed coronaviruscases almost reached 300,000.

As of this writing , Miami-Dade had69,803 confirmed cases and 1,175 deaths.The Chinese province of Wuhan reported50,000 cases and 3,800 deaths before num-bers began to flatten in April.

There’s something wrong at the top inFlorida when experts have to shake people— and politicians by the lapels — by mea-suring our suffering against that of thebirthplace of COVID-19.

There’s something wrong when the pres-ident sidelines Fauci, director of the Na-tional Institute of Allergy and InfectiousDiseases and a veteran of the war on HIV,and launches an underhanded campaign to smear his reputation.

There’s something wrong when thosewho lead keep seeking the limelight, hold-ing press conferences and solving nothing.

“Shame on you!” activist Thomas Ken-nedy shouted at DeSantis, who was ineptlymanaging the crisis via another public-re-lations effort at Jackson Memorial, which needs more personnel and funding, notmere words.

So, stand up, put down your phone andgive a standing ovation to those who tell us the truth, come what may, the nation’stop doctors. In Fauci, we trust — and in top Miami-Dade Drs. Marty and Abbo, too.Listen to them, now more than ever.Fabiola Santiago is a Miami Herald columnist .

Trump’s war on Fauci may bring both down

In Fauci, we trust – and these top Miami doctors

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

SCOREBOARD/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 transactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

BOSTON RED SOX — Signed 3B Blaze Jordan and LHP Shane Drohan to minor league contracts.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS — Placed LHP Daniel TIllo and C Nick Dini on the 10-day IL.

NEW YORK YANKEES — Released RHP Adam Warren.

TAMPA BAY RAYS — Placed OF Austin Meadows on the 10-day IL. Selected the contract of LHP Aaron Loup from Dur-ham (IL).

National LeagueCHICAGO CUBS — Selected the con-

tract of INF Jason Kipnis from Triple-A Iowa.

CINCINNATI REDS — Agreed to terms with OF Jacob Hurtubise on a minor league contract.

COLORADO ROCKIES — Released LHP Jake McGee and RHP Bryan Shaw.

MILWAUKEE BREWERS — Signed IF Drew Smith and LHP’s Brandon Knarr and Jason Munsch to minor league con-tracts.

SAN DIEGO PADRES — Released OF Juan Lagares and RHPs Kyle Barraclough and Seth Frankoff.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS — Released LHP Fernando Abad.

BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association

WASHINGTON WIZARDS — Signed F Jarrod Uthoff.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

ARIZONA CARDINALS — Signed OL Kel-vin Beachum to a one-year contract.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — Signed D Sean Day to a one-year, two-way con-tract.

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

COLUMBUS CREW — Named Corey Wray as Assistant General Manager.

Golf

The MemorialPGA Tour

FridayAt Muirfield Village Golf Club

Dublin, OhioPurse: $9.3 million

Yardage: 7,456; Par: 72Second Round

Ryan Palmer 67-68—135 -9Tony Finau 66-69—135 -9Jon Rahm 69-67—136 -8Gary Woodland 68-70—138 -6Chez Reavie 71-67—138 -6Luke List 70-68—138 -6Jason Day 73-66—139 -5Mackenzie Hughes 74-66—140 -4

Henrik Norlander 74-66—140 -4Steve Stricker 73-67—140 -4Jim Furyk 72-68—140 -4Danny Willett 74-66—140 -4Jordan Spieth 70-70—140 -4Viktor Hovland 74-66—140 -4Patrick Cantlay 70-70—140 -4Lucas Glover 69-72—141 -3C. Bezuidenhout 72-69—141 -3Dylan Frittelli 73-68—141 -3Matthew Fitzpatrick 75-66—141 -3Justin Thomas 74-67—141 -3Jimmy Walker 70-72—142 -2Rory McIlroy 70-72—142 -2Matt Wallace 72-70—142 -2Patrick Rodgers 70-72—142 -2Bo Hoag 75-67—142 -2

Auto racing

Iowa Speedway Race 1IndyCar Series

FridayAt Iowa Speedway

Newton, IALap length: 0.894 miles

(Start position in parentheses)1. (23) Simon Pagenaud, Dallara-Chev-

rolet, 250 laps, Running.2. (17) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 250,

Running.3. (14) Oliver Askew, Dallara-Chevro-

let, 250, Running.4. (8) Pato O’Ward, Dallara-Chevrolet,

250, Running.5. (2) Josef Newgarden, Dallara-Chev-

rolet, 250, Running.6. (5) Alexander Rossi, Dallara-Honda,

250, Running.7. (9) Jack Harvey, Dallara-Honda, 250,

Running.8. (1) Conor Daly, Dallara-Chevrolet,

250, Running.9. (10) Marcus Ericsson, Dallara-Hon-

da, 250, Running.10. (6) Takuma Sato, Dallara-Honda,

249, Running.11. (18) Alex Palou, Dallara-Honda,

249, Running.12. (21) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda,

248, Running.13. (11) Santino Ferrucci, Dallara-Hon-

da, 247, Running.14. (7) Felix Rosenqvist, Dallara-Hon-

da, 247, Running.15. (16) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Chevro-

let, 247, Running.16. (12) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-

Honda, 247, Running.17. (15) Charlie Kimball, Dallara-Chev-

rolet, 245, Running.18. (19) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Chevro-

let, 213, Did not finish.19. (4) Colton Herta, Dallara-Honda,

156, Did not finish.20. (13) Rinus Veekay, Dallara-Chevro-

let, 156, Did not finish.21. (3) Will Power, Dallara-Chevrolet,

142, Did not finish.22. (20) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Hon-

da, 128, Did not finish.23. (22) Zach Veach, Dallara-Honda,

95, Did not finish.Race statistics

Average speed of race winner: 132.220 mph.

Time of race: 01:41:25.2939.Margin of victory: 0.4954 seconds.Cautions: 1 for 26 laps.Lead changes: 7 among 6 drivers.Lap leaders: Daly 1-14, Newgarden

14-70, Rosenqvist 71-77, Sato 78-126, Newgarden 127-137, Pagenaud 138-147, O’Ward 148-177, Pagenaud 178.

Points: Dixon 213, Pagenaud 163, O ward 143, Newgarden 137, Herta 130, Ericsson 115, Rahal 106, Rosenqvist 105, Ferrucci 104, Power 101.

O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 lineupMonster Energy NASCAR Cup Series

Sunday, July 19At Texas Motor Speedway

Fort Worth, TexasLap length: 1.44 miles

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

Pro soccer

MLS is Back tournamentGROUP A (EASTERN CONFERENCE)

W D L GF GA PtsOrlando City 2 0 0 5 2 6Philadelphia 2 0 0 3 1 6Miami 0 0 2 2 4 0New York City FC 0 0 2 1 4 0

Wednesday, July 8Orlando City 2, Miami 1

Thursday, July 9Philadelphia 1, New York City FC 0

Tuesday, July 14Orlando City 3, New York City FC 1Philadelphia 2, Miami 1

Monday, July 20New York City FC at MiamiOrlando City at PhiladelphiaGROUP B (WESTERN CONFERENCE)

W D L GF GA PtsSan Jose 1 1 0 4 3 4Chicago 1 0 0 2 1 3Seattle 0 1 1 1 2 1Vancouver 0 0 1 3 4 0

Friday, July 10San Jose 0, Seattle 0, tie

Tuesday, July 14Chicago 2, Seattle 1

Wednesday, July 15San Jose 4 Vancouver 3

Sunday, July 19San Jose at ChicagoVancouver at Seattle

Thursday, July 23Vancouver at ChicagoGROUP C (EASTERN CONFERENCE)

W D L GF GA PtsToronto FC 1 1 0 6 5 4New England 1 1 0 2 1 4D.C. United 0 2 0 3 3 2Montreal 0 0 2 3 5 0

Thursday, July 9New England 1, Montreal 0

Monday, July 13D.C. United 2, Toronto FC 2, tie

Thursday, July 16Toronto FC 4, Montreal 3

Friday, July 17New England 1, D.C. United 1, tie

Tuesday, July 21New England at Toronto FCD.C. United at MontrealGROUP D (WESTERN CONFERENCE)

W D L GF GA PtsReal Salt Lake 1 1 0 2 0 4Minnesota 1 1 0 2 1 4Sporting KC 1 0 1 4 4 3Colorado 0 0 2 2 5 0

Sunday, July 12Minnesota 2, Sporting Kansas City 1Real Salt Lake 2, Colorado 0

Friday, July 17Sporting Kansas City 3, Colorado 2Minnesota 0, Real Salt Lake 0, tie

Wednesday, July 22Sporting Kansas City at Real Salt LakeMinnesota at ColoradoGROUP E (EASTERN CONFERENCE)

W D L GF GA PtsColumbus 2 0 0 6 0 6New York 1 0 1 1 2 3Cincinnati 1 0 1 1 4 3Atlanta 0 0 2 0 2 0

Saturday, July 11New York 1, Atlanta 0Columbus 4, Cincinnati 0

Thursday, July 16Cincinnati 1, Atlanta 0Columbus 2, New York 0

Tuesday, July 21Columbus at Atlanta

Wednesday, July 22New York at CincinnatiGROUP F (WESTERN CONFERENCE)

W D L GF GA PtsPortland 1 0 0 2 1 3Houston 0 1 0 3 3 1Los Angeles FC 0 1 0 3 3 1LA Galaxy 0 0 1 1 2 0

Monday, July 13Houston 3, Los Angeles FC 3, tiePortland 2, LA Galaxy 1

Saturday, July 18Houston at PortlandLA Galaxy at Los Angeles FC

Thursday, July 23Houston at LA GalaxyPortland at Los Angeles FC

NWSL Challenge CupAt Herriman, Utah

QuarterfinalsFriday, July 17

North Carolina 0, Portland 1Houston 1, Utah 0 (3-2 PK)

Saturday, July 18Washington vs. Sky BlueOL Reign vs. Chicago

SemifinalsWednesday, July 22

Quarterfinal winnersChampionshipSunday, July 26

Semifinal winners

Pro basketball

NBA Restart scheduleAll games in Orlando, Fla.

Thursday, July 30Utah vs. New OrleansL.A. Clippers vs. L.A. Lakers

Friday, July 31Orlando vs. BrooklynMemphis vs. PortlandPhoenix vs. WashingtonBoston vs. MilwaukeeSacramento vs. San AntonioHouston vs. Dallas

Saturday, Aug. 1Miami vs. DenverUtah vs. Oklahoma CityNew Orleans vs. L.A. ClippersPhiladelphia vs. IndianapolisL.A. Lakers vs. Toronto

Sunday, Aug. 2Washington vs. BrooklynPortland vs. BostonSan Antonio vs. MemphisSacramento vs. OrlandoMilwaukee vs. HoustonDallas vs. Phoenix

Monday, Aug. 3Toronto vs. MiamiDenver vs. Oklahoma CityIndianapolis vs. WashingtonMemphis vs. New OrleansSan Antonio vs. PhiladelphiaL.A. Lakers vs. Utah

Tuesday, Aug. 4Brooklyn vs. MilwaukeeDallas vs. SacramentoPhoenix vs. L.A. ClippersOrlando vs. IndianapolisBoston vs. MiamiHouston vs. Portland

Wednesday, Aug. 5Memphis vs. UtahPhiladelphia vs. WashingtonDenver vs. San AntonioOklahoma City vs. L.A. LakersToronto vs. OrlandoBrooklyn vs. Boston

Thursday, Aug. 6New Orleans vs. SacramentoMiami vs. MilwaukeeIndianapolis vs. PhoenixL.A. Clippers vs. DallasPortland vs. DenverL.A. Lakers vs. Houston

Friday, Aug. 7Utah vs. San AntonioOklahoma City vs. MemphisSacramento vs. BrooklynOrlando vs. PhiladelphiaWashington vs. New OrleansBoston vs. Toronto

Saturday, Aug. 8L.A. Clippers vs. PortlandUtah vs. DenverL.A. Lakers vs. IndianapolisPhoenix vs. MiamiMilwaukee vs. Dallas

Briefl y

Finau, Palmer tiedfor Memorial lead

Associated Press

DUBLIN, Ohio — Tony Finau figured he was on the right track when he shot 59 at Victory Ranch last week in Utah.

That kind of score isn’t happen-ing at Muirfield Village, where the greens are getting firmer by the hour. Finau still took enough confidence from playing with his kids at home during a week off, and it translated into 14 birdies over two days and a share of the 36-hole lead at the Memorial.

Finau recovered from two bo-geys after three holes of his sec-ond round Friday, making birdie on the rest of the par 5s and fin-ishing with a wedge to 2 feet for birdie and a 3-under 69.

That put him at 9-under 135 with Ryan Palmer (68), who had only one bogey over two rounds. The way Muirfield Village is playing, both are impressive.

They were a shot in front of Jon Rahm (67), who has another chance to reach No. 1 in the world this week for the first time in his career. U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland had a 70 and was two behind.

For Tiger Woods, it was a mat-ter of making it to the weekend. Woods said his back felt stiff while warming up, and missing a pair of 3-footers didn’t make him feel any better. He managed two birdies and a 7-foot par save on his final three holes for a 76 that allowed him to make the cut on the number at 3-over 147, match-ing his highest 36-hole score at the Memorial.

“Not very good,” Woods said. “I three-putted two holes early, and whatever kind of momentum I was going to create, I stifled that early and fought it the rest of the day.”

Edmonton CFL club to drop ‘Eskimos’ name

EDMONTON, Alberta — The Edmonton Eskimos of the Ca-nadian Football League report-edly will change their name. The team would not confirm the two reports.

TSN and Postmedia said Friday the team will make a switch fol-lowing a decision to do the same by Washington’s NFL team.

Teams across sports have been under increasing pressure to drop racist or stereotypical names. Critics say the Edmonton team’s name is a derogatory, colonial-era term for Inuit.

In February, the club said it was keeping the name following year-long research that involved Inuit leaders and community members across Canada. The club said it received “no consensus.”

The CFL in June postponed the start of its 2020 season because of the pandemic, and there is no guarantee the league will play this year.

Bucks guard Bledsoe tests positive for virus

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.— Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer confirmedEric Bledsoe tested positive forCOVID-19, but remains cautious-ly optimistic the veteran pointguard will be ready for the start of the season’s resumption.

“With the virus you’re neversure,” Budenholzer said Friday.“There are certainly things thatyou have to kind of clear andcover, but the opener, if it’s twoweeks away, then I think most medical, most things and re-search would say he is going to beavailable.”

Budenholzer’s comment camea day after multiple reports indi-cated Bledsoe said he had testedpositive but was asymptomatic.

MLS delays expansion due to pandemic

NEW YORK — Major LeagueSoccer delayed the first seasonsof expansion teams in Charlotte,N.C.; St. Louis; and Sacramento,Calif., by one year each becauseof the coronavirus pandemic.

Charlotte will start play in2022, and St. Louis and Sacra-mento will take the field in 2023,the league said Friday.

Austin, Texas, remains on trackto begin next year, when MLS will have 27 teams.

Bengals WR Green signs 1-year franchise deal

CINCINNATI — Receiver A.J. Green signed his one-year, $17.9million contract Friday after thedeadline passed for agreeing to a long-term deal with the Cincin-nati Bengals.

The club used its franchise tagon Green, who missed all last sea-son with an ankle injury. Greenwanted a multiyear deal to stay in Cincinnati but said he wouldn’thold out if the club used the tag to keep him around for another year.

Oilers’ arena deemed sound after storm

Edmonton’s mayor says apreliminary assessment showsstorm damage to Rogers Place isnot structural and the arena will be able to hold upcoming NHLgames.

Don Iveson says photos ofThursday night’s flooding anddamage to the arena’s roof are concerning.

“The damage is cosmetic and is to the roof’s surface, as opposed to any structural damage,” Iveson told a news conference Friday. “Itdoesn’t look good but ... the build-ing is sound.”

PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •

FROM BACK PAGE

COVID-19 pandemic, players opt-ing out will be a sure bet.

For those who choose to side-line themselves with a medically approved high-risk condition, will they continue to receive their salary and benefits and accrue a season toward free agency eligi-

bility? Who will sign off on the categories and the diagnosis?

As with the rest of society in the fight against this unseen, fierce and unprec-edented foe,

the list of questions is far longer than the answer key.

“I just pray that everybody can be safe. A lot of people have fami-lies. People have kids,” Tennes-see Titans running back Derrick Henry said.

With the targeted July 28 start for training camp for most teams fast approaching, the owners and the players have a lot of health-related protocols to establish so this precarious season can even kick off. Testing frequency is at the top of the list. The practice schedule and necessity of exhibi-tion games are also major points of negotiation. Then there’s the issue of opt-out clauses.

One potential point of lingering contention between the league and the NFL Players Associa-tion is whether COVID-19 will be categorized as a “non-football injury.” Players on the reserve non-football injury list are not re-quired to be paid.

In baseball, high-risk individu-als were allowed to opt out with pay. San Francisco Giants catch-er Buster Posey, however, will not receive a salary because his rea-soning for not playing was spe-cific to him and his wife adopting identical twin girls.

For an NFL player who makes a similar decision, the NFLPA will push for at least service time accrual and benefits eligibility, even if salary is withheld.

To date, NFLPA executive di-

rector DeMaurice Smith said Friday no players have formally decided to skip the 2020 season out of virus concern.

“Are there some things that are incredibly important to our play-ers about being able to opt out? Yes. We don’t want players un-fairly punished by it, in the same way that we wouldn’t want our players unfairly punished ... be-cause of testing positive,” Smith said.

He added: “If that was your son, what options would you want him or her to have, as they made a decision about engaging in this work? I know it sounds a little ut-terly altruistic. It is. That’s how we try to make these decisions.”

Tampa Bay Buccaneers left tackle Donovan Smith said re-cently on social media that playing this season during the pandemic “does not seem like a risk worth taking” for him and his family’s health.

New York Giants left tackle Nate Solder was more blunt last week on Twitter: “If the NFL doesn’t do their part to keep play-ers healthy,” he posted, “there is no football in 2020. It’s that simple.”

The culture of the sport, from the natural aggression that un-folds on the field to the short ca-reers made more urgent by the lack of guaranteed contracts, could well prompt a fringe player to ignore a heightened personal or family risk out of fear of losing his spot on the roster or his place in the league. Unlike baseball, pro football has a smaller amount of players secure enough to skip a season without worrying about the ramifications.

“You’re putting them in a re-ally difficult position, not that much different than the essential worker that’s got to make a deci-sion, ‘Do I go drive the bus and potentially risk my own health and my family’s health in order to pay the rent?’ I’m not comparing $18 per hour to $610,000 a year, but the guy making $610,000, the seventh-round rookie, he hasn’t made the team yet. He doesn’t have any money,” said agent Blake Baratz, of The Institute for Athletes.

Sunday, July 19, 2020

NFL

Protocols: Still morequestions than answers

Smith

STEVE LUCIANO/AP

New York Giants offensive tackle Nate Solder, right, has said he won’t play if the NFL doesn’t do its part to keep players healthy.

BY ROB MAADDI

Associated Press

The NFL Players Association wants players tested daily for coronavirus, one of the outstanding points in discussions with the NFL over health and safety protocols as the start of training camp draws near.

“We believe daily testing is important, especially given some of these hot spots,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said Friday, referring to states with increasing numbers of coronavirus cases. “We don’t right now plan on changing that position.”

The league and the union already finalized pro-tocols regarding team travel, media, and treatment response, and updated the facilities protocol to specifically address training camp based on rec-ommendations from a joint committee of doctors, trainers and strength coaches formed by the league and players’ union. The committee recommended testing every other day.

NFLPA president JC Tretter, a center for the Cleveland Browns, called an “emergency” meeting Thursday night with head team doctors from clubs in hot spot cities to discuss whether it’s safe to start camp. Rookies for Houston and Kansas City are set to report on Monday. Players from all teams report by July 28.

“They gave their medical opinion it was safe to open training camp, and that’s where we are,” Smith said.

If the league and union fail to reach an agreement, the NFL can implement its proposed rules, accord-ing to the CBA. The NFLPA could file a grievance to argue the league isn’t providing a safe work en-vironment under rules of the collective bargaining agreement.

“The league is management,” Smith said. “They have the exclusive right, just like somebody who owns a plant, regarding when it opens and when it closes. They want training camps to open on time. The role of the union is to hold them accountable about whether it’s safe to open now. ... We are all try-ing to get to the right decision more so than getting to the fast decision.”

An acclimation period for players is another main

sticking point. The union wants 45 days per thejoint committee’s recommendation. The breakdownwould be 21 days strength and conditioning, 10 days of non-padded practices, then 14 days of contact toget ready for games. Also, the union doesn’t wantto play any preseason games while the NFL had planned to cut the exhibition schedule from fourgames to two.

Union wants daily testingonce training camps open

JOE CAVARETTA, SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL/AP

New York Jets running back Frank Gore works out at Autonation Field in Davie, Fla., on Thursday.

Washington NFL owner Dan Snyder said Friday he’s committed to improving the culture inside the team after allegations of sexual harassment, while the league will wait for a law firm’s review before taking action.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that 15 female former employees said they were sexually ha-rassed during their time with the team. Snyder said the behavior described in the story “has no place in our franchise or society.”

He hired District of Columbia law firm Wilkinson and Walsh to conduct an independent review of team policies, culture and allegations of workplace miscon-duct. The league said in a statement it will meet with lawyers after the investigation is complete and will act based on the findings.

Snyder also pledged to make organizational changes.

“Beth Wilkinson and her firm are empowered to do a full, unbiased investigation and make any and all requisite recommendations,” Snyder said. “Upon completion of her work, we will institute new policies and procedures and strengthen our human resources infrastructure to not only avoid these issues in the fu-ture but most importantly create a team culture that is respectful and inclusive of all.”

He said the commitment to establishing a new cul-ture and higher standard began with the hiring of Ron Rivera as coach this year. Rivera told The Athletic he was brought in to change the culture and “create an environment of inclusion.”

— Stephen Whyno, Associated Press

Snyder vows culture change

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY RALPH D. RUSSO

Associated Press

If there is a college football season, Wednes-days could be busy for medical staffs around the country.

The NCAA’s latest guidance for playing col-lege sports during the coronavirus pandemic recommends testing players once a week within 72 hours of competition. For typical Saturday football games, that means Wednes-day would be the soonest athletes would be tested.

Is that enough for a team of about 100 ath-letes playing a contact sport to get through a season without major disruptions? Especially considering simply being exposed to someone who tests positive can land a player in quaran-tine for two weeks?

“Seventy-two hours leaves open a big win-dow for somebody to test negative on Wednes-day, become infectious on Thursday or Friday or Saturday morning and then go onto the field and spread it around,” said Zachary Binney, an epidemiologist at Emory University. “Not only (to) their team but their opponents, who then travel back where they came from.”

The NCAA released updated recommenda-tions on Thursday but also warned if national trends in the pandemic don’t change there will be no football and other fall sports. Already, more than 300 Division I football games have been canceled or postponed.

There was more bad news Friday as the Co-lonial Athletic Conference became the fourth Championship Subdivision league to call off its fall football season, but with a twist. The CAA is allowing its members to compete in football on their own. Powerhouse James Madison and Elon are among those that plan to try.

The Atlantic 10 and America East, neither of which sponsors football, announced they are postponing fall sports, hoping to make them up in the second semester. Indiana became the latest major-college football program to suspend workouts after six participants tested positive.

All of this has happened while the U.S. sees a surge in reported COVID-19 cases.

The Nebraska athletic department, as is the case with many schools affiliated with hos-pitals, has been working with its academic health center to test athletes since they arrived on campus for voluntary workouts at team fa-cilities in June. The hospital also serves the community.

“While it is a resource that’s being lever-aged by athletics, there are also competing interests for those resources that have to be taken into account,” said Dr. Chris Kratoch-vil, who heads the Big Ten’s Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and is execu-tive director of the Global Center for Health Security at University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The NCAA’s recommendations say any in-dividual with a high-risk exposure to some-one is required to quarantine for 14 days, per guidance from the Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention.

That includes an individual who was within 6 feet of someone with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes while not wearing a mask. The NCAA recommends teams segment their play-ers into “functional units” of five to 10 players. But it takes 22 on the field to play football and public health guidance that works well for grocery stores doesn’t always translate per-fectly to sports.

The surge in COVID-19 cases in many areas of the country where big-time college football is played increases the need for more frequent testing and quick delivery of results, Binney said.

“I would be a lot more comfortable with this plan for the Ivy League than the Big 12,” Binney said. “This feels like a plan that might work decently in areas without a lot of commu-nity cases. In areas with more cases and more community spread I think there is a very real likelihood of somebody being missed by this testing protocol and getting on the field .”

The Power Fives conference are finaliz-ing their own guidelines that are similar to the NCAA’s. In that document, obtained by The Associated Press, they add to high-risk exposures “anyone participating in face-to-face or contact drills against each other or using equipment that has not been adequately cleaned.”

Associated Press

NEWTON, Iowa — SimonPagenaud’s worst-to-first runcapped a wild opening night toIndyCar’s doubleheader at Iowa Speedway.

The former series champion, who was unable to qualify because of a fuel pressure issue, managed to stretch his tires and take ad-vantage of a unique pit strat-egy — and a little bit of luck — to get to the lead. Pagenaud then held off series leader Scott Dixon through the final laps Friday night to end Chip Ganassi Racing’sfour-race winning streak.

“I can’t believe it. I have to rewatch the race. How did I getthere?” asked Pagenaud, who alsogave team owner Roger Penskehis first IndyCar victory sincepurchasing the series late lastyear. “I don’t know. The last 50laps, a lot of tension. When Dixonis chasing you, you’d better hit your marks.”

Pagenaud went from 23rd tofirst, but Dixon was just as im-pressive. He started 17th before finishing second.

“That was an awesome race,” he said. “I’m sure Simon is happyafter the mess-up they had in qualifying.”

Pagenaud won for the 15th time in the series, and first since To-ronto last season. The 36-year-oldFrenchman gave Team Penske its third Iowa win in four races.

Oliver Askew and Pato O’Wardwere third and fourth for ArrowMcLaren SP with Josef Newgar-den rounding out the top five.

Newgarden spent much of the night racing for the lead beforethe back-to-back cautions shuf-fled up the field.

“The caution was certainly the nail in the coffin. Without sound-ing too over-confident, we had thecar to beat tonight, hands-down,” he said. “To be honest, I’m angry about how this all transpired. Some of it’s just bad luck. The yel-low coming out when it came out,I can’t fault my guys. They did a great job. I had a rocket ship.”

So did Will Power, who was jockeying for the lead with New-garden when another head-shak-ing incident on pit road ruined hisnight. It appeared his left-front tire changer failed to secure his wheel during a stop, and when itcame loose Power went careeninginto the outside wall. His tire flew over him and bounced throughthe first and second turns.

“The front took off straight intothe wall,” Power said. “Unbeliev-able. I don’t know what I need todo. So, so frustrating.”

BY DAVID BRANDT

Associated Press

PHOENIX — Major League Baseball’s COVID-19 testing sweep appears to be having some success even as large swaths of the United States continue to struggle with containing the fast-spreading virus.

MLB and the players’ union re-leased statistics Friday saying six of 10,548 samples were new posi-tives in the week ending Thurs-day, a rate of 0.05%. In addition to five players, one staff member tested positive.

That’s fairly good news for a sport that’s trying to begin its ab-breviated 60-game schedule next week. But players and coaches are also aware that the optics of baseball’s relative testing success — especially in hard-hit states like Arizona, California, Texas and Florida — might not be ideal considering demand for tests has sometimes been higher than the supply for the average person.

“If they’ve deemed that players being tested is necessary to pro-vide jobs, opportunity, entertain-ment, TV, all that’s going on — if they think that’s really valuable — then they’ve weighed it’s impor-tant for us to be tested this often

for the season to happen,” Mar-lins pitcher Adam Conley said. “But it makes me sad if someone is desiring or needing to be tested and doesn’t have the means to get that. It’s heartbreaking.”

MLB is trying to ensure its nearly 10,000 weekly tests don’t strain public resources by using private facilities. The avalanche of tests has allowed the sport to keep on top of potential outbreaks.

On Friday, Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco and free agent outfielder Yaisel Puig both tested positive for COVID-19 while New York Yankees infielder

DJ LeMahieu and Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman both returned to the field after missing time with the virus.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior schol-ar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said it was possible baseball’s rigorous test-ing could create conflicts over re-sources in test-strapped regions, but he also thinks MLB’s invest-ment might spur much-needed innovation and boost production in testing.

“The solution here is really to make sure that we expand test-ing,” Adalja told The Associated

Press. “And maybe because MLB will be putting resources into trying to buy all these tests, that might actually be a way to expand capacity. I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, but we want to be in a place where testing can be done as quickly and as eas-ily as possible for all purposes.”

MLB’s approach to its return has been different than the NBA and NHL, which both opted for a bubble-like atmosphere in hub cities. The NBA has 22 teams in Orlando, Fla., while the NHL’s teams will play in Toronto and Edmonton, Alberta.

‘Big window’: Rigor of NCAA plan questioned

MLB/COLLEGE FOOTBALL/AUTO RACING

Test sweep successful

Pagenaud win snaps Ganassi streak

Pagenaud

‘ Seventy-two hours leaves open a big window for somebody to test negative on Wednesday, become infectious on Thursday or Friday or Saturday morning and then go onto the field and spread it around. ’

Zachary BinneyEmory University epidemiologist

Baseball’s promising news comes as nation struggles

NATHAN DENETTE, THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP

Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, right, talks behind home plate during an intrasquad game in Toronto on Friday. MLB is set to begin its abbreviated 60-game schedule next week.

PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, July 19, 2020

BY STEVE MEGARGEE

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE — Baseball has its answer to penalty kicks, over-times and shootouts, and it fig-ures to stir just as much debate as all those other tiebreakers.

Major League Baseball will start each extra inning in this abbreviated, 60-game season by putting a runner on second base. The rule has been used since 2018 in the minor leagues, where it created more action and settled games sooner.

“It’s like ‘arena baseball,’ ” said Scott Thorman, who managed the Kansas City Royals’ Single-A Carolina League affiliate in Wilmington, Del., last season.

Those words may cause tradi-tionalists to shudder.

“I haven’t met anyone so far that likes it,” Washington Nation-als manager Dave Martinez said.

Dave Martinez, meet Christian Yelich.

“I think it’s great,” said Yelich, the Brewers outfielder and 2018 National League MVP. “As a player, there’s nothing worse than extra innings. Especially in a sea-son like this, where you literally can’t take on that 15- or 16-in-ning game with just how rosters are constructed and pitchers not being built up to where they usu-ally are and not really having the option to draw from this minor league talent pool.”

Indeed, MLB is experimenting with the rule this year in part to prevent marathon games from causing long-term damage to pitching staffs.

Brady Williams, who manages the Tampa Bay Rays’ Triple-A affiliate in Durham, N.C., said he initially considered the extra-inning format “Mickey Mouse baseball” but eventually appreci-ated how it reduced his bullpen’s workload.

According to minor league data, 71% of extra-inning games ended after one or two more innings in 2016 and it was about the same in 2017 (74%). With the new rule in place, that number climbed to 93% each of the past two seasons.

Brewers general manager David Stearns, who backs the change, noted a game that lasts at least 15 innings “can impact you for weeks after that if they are compounded by other challeng-ing games.”

“I think it makes sense in terms of trying to bring some finality to the game in this short season,” Chicago White Sox general man-ager Rick Hahn said. “And, frank-ly, in a year where we’re playing 60 games, why not try something different? Why not experiment a little bit?”

There will be experimentation in dugouts as baseball adjusts to the change.

Will road teams try to bunt that runner over to third or play for the big inning? How often will pitchers walk the leadoff batter to set up a double play? How fre-quently will teams pinch-run for the guy on second?

“It’s a whole different realm strategy-wise,” Arizona Dia-mondbacks general manager Mike Hazen said.

Minor league managers al-ready know that.

Thorman used to make sure he saved at least one or two reliev-ers in case a game ended up last-ing 14-plus innings. He said he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore because games rarely last that long.

Matt Erickson, who manages the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers of the Single-A Midwest League, said the cold weather had road teams often bunting and playing for one run early in the first sea-son under the new rule.

“But as the summer went on, you find out you’re not really playing for a run as the visiting team,” Erickson said. “You’re pretty much playing for multiple runs if you’re on the road, trying to get a big inning.”

Williams believes road teams have an advantage because the runner on second scores so often, putting immediate pressure on the home team.

“As the season went on, I was talking to my coaches and I’d say that I wish you had a rule where if you’re the home team, you had the option of hitting first or pitch-ing first (in extra innings),” Wil-liams said.

The other side of it is that when a road team doesn’t score, the home team can win the game without another batter even reaching base safely.

Home teams won minor-league extra-inning games 50.5% of the time in 2019 and 51% of the time in 2018. That’s down from 52% in

2016 and 53.8% in 2017 — the two years before the rule change.

Some players wonder if all these tactical decisions could

defeat the purpose of the formatchange by lengthening time be-tween pitches.

“I think you’ve all seen, with a runner on second base these days, we have to be pretty complicatedwith our sequences,” Minnesota Twins closer Taylor Rogers said.“I don’t see that speeding up the game. In fact, I see that slowingit down.”

That hasn’t been the case in theminors.

Extra-inning games in the mi-nors lasted 29.3 minutes longerthan an average nine-inning gamein 2018 and 29.7 minutes longerlast year. That’s down from a 45-minute difference in 2016 and a43-minute margin in 2017.

Skeptics of this format may needto get used to it even though MLB has indicated this is a one-yeardeal put in place because of this season’s unusual circumstances.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say Isupport it or don’t moving for-ward,” New York Yankees manag-er Aaron Boone said. “In the shortterm, I’m OK with it. I do thinkthere’s some tactical advantagesto be taken advantage of there if you can be smart about it.”AP sports writers David Brandt, Dave Campbell, Jake Seiner, Andrew Seligman and Dave Skretta contributed to this report.

MLB

29.750.593The percentage of games in the minor leagues

that ended after one or two extra

innings since the rule was implemented.

Percentage of minor league

games won by home team in

2019, the second year the rule was in effect. In 2017

it was 53.8%.

Average number of minutes longer an extra-inning game lasted

than a 9-inning game in 2019. It was 43 minutes longer in 2017.

By the numbers

SOURCE: Associated Press

Baseball’s answer to shootouts, PKs aims to prevent long games

Extra-inningformat stirsmuch debate

AARON GASH/AP

Fans cheer as the Milwaukee Brewers’ Christian Yelich walks off the field after driving in the winning run with a double during the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs last season. Yelich likes the new rule in which games will start each extra inning this season by putting a runner on second base. “I think it’s great,” the 2018 National League MVP said.

NICK WASS/AP

Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez, left, said he doesn’t know anyone who likes the new rule this season that will have major league games starting each extra inning by putting a runner on second base. This rule has been used since 2018 in the minor leagues, where it created more action and settled games sooner.

‘ I haven’t met anyone so far that likes it. ’

Dave MartinezNationals manager

‘ As a player, there’s nothing worse than extra innings. ’

Christian YelichBrewers OF and 2018 MVP

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23Sunday, July 19, 2020

MLB

BY DAVID BRANDT

Associated Press

PHOENIX

The Cincinnati Reds hope their long-running search for a consistent leadoff hitter comes to

an end with Shogo Akiyama.The first Japanese-born play-

er in franchise history signed a three-year, $21 million deal dur-ing the offseason and is part of the team’s extensive overhaul. Mike Moustakas, Nick Castella-nos, Wade Miley and Pedro Strop were also added to end a streak of six straight losing seasons.

But it’s the 32-year-old Aki-yama who might be the most in-triguing. He was a consistent star in Nippon Professional Baseball over the past five seasons, hitting over .300 four times while flash-ing consistent power and provid-ing stellar defense.

If he can do something similar in Cincinnati, the Reds will be thrilled.

“There’s only 60 games and obviously the goal is to make the playoffs,” Akiyama said through an interpreter. “My personal goal

is to play in every game so I just want to compete in every single game I play. That’s what I want to bring.”

Here’s a look at 10 players to watch for the upcoming season. This week’s focus is on the NL and AL Central Divisions.

AL CentralChicago White Sox: RHP

Lucas Giolito. The former first-round pick developed into an All-Star last season, finishing with a 14-9 record, 3.41 ERA and 228 strikeouts in 176 innings. He’s still young — turning 26 on Tues-day — and part of the White Sox’s young nucleus that the franchise hopes can lead a turnaround.

Cleveland Indians: SS Francis-co Lindor. The 26-year-old short-stop is an established star and had another great year in 2019, batting .284 with 32 homers, 22 stolen bases and winning a Gold Glove. The problem for the Indi-ans is they probably can’t afford to keep him when he hits the free agency market following the 2021 season. A blockbuster trade could happen sooner rather than later.

Detroit Tigers: RHP Michael Fulmer. The 27-year-old righty is trying to come back from Tommy John surgery, which cost him the entire 2019 season. He was one of the game’s intriguing young pitchers just a few years ago, win-ning Rookie of the Year in 2016 and making the All-Star team in 2017.

Kansas City Royals: C Sal-vador Perez. One of the game’s best catchers was sidelined all of last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. The 30-year-old is also dealing with COVID-19, though he’s said he’s asymptomatic. He’s a six-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove winner.

Minnesota Twins: OF Byron Buxton. The 26-year-old has been considered a future star for the better part of a decade, but hasn’t quite been able to deliver on his potential. He’s had a few good moments — especially in 2017 when he won a Gold Glove — but the Twins hope he can avoid in-juries and provide consistent production.

NL CentralChicago Cubs: OF/DH Kyle

Schwarber. The National League has decided to use the DH dur-ing this abbreviated season and one of the obvious candidates for the Cubs would be Schwarber. The 27-year-old has never been a great fielder, but there’s no doubt he can provide punch with his bat. He hit a career-high 38 hom-ers last season.

Milwaukee Brewers: C Omar Narvaez. He’s the clear-cut start-ing catcher after the Brewers lost All-Star Yasmani Grandal to the White Sox in free agency. The 28-year-old had a breakout season with the Mariners last season,

batting .278 with 22 homers. His bat isn’t a question but his defen-sive work behind the plate will be closely watched.

Pittsburgh Pirates: OF Greg-ory Polanco. The Pirates hope that the 28-year-old’s surgically repaired left shoulder is ready to go. He was limited to just 42 games last season because of lin-gering soreness. Back in 2018, he was one of the team’s best hitters, finishing with a .254 average, 32 doubles and 23 homers.

St Louis Cardinals: IF/OF Tommy Edman. The 25-year-oldcame out of nowhere to becomea crucial piece for the Cardinals during their playoff push lastyear. He’s a versatile defenderwho can play in the infield or outfield and was good with thebat in 2019, finishing with a .304 average, 11 homers and 15 stolen bases in a little more than half ofa season.AP sports writers Steve Megargee, Joe Kay, Dave Campbell and Dave Skretta contributed to this story.

10 players to watch

AARON DOSTER/AP

The Reds signed Nippon League star Shogo Akiyama to a $21-million, three-year deal this offseason.

Reds hope they’ve foundleadoff hitter in Akiyama

The search

DAVID DERMER/AP

Cleveland Indians’ Francisco Lindor runs the bases during a simulated game at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Lindor is due to be a free agent after the season, which means he may be traded.

ELAINE THOMPSON/AP

The Royals’ Salvador Perez is one of the best catchers in baseball but missed last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S Sunday, July 19, 2020

SPORTS A win for PenskePagenaud’s IndyCar victory

snaps Ganassi’s streak » Page 21

BY DAVE CAMPBELL

Associated Press

The 60-game mini-season Major League Baseball assembled this summer was still long enough that a dozen or so health-con-

cerned players, even a few stars, decided to sit it out.

The NFL’s player pool is more than twice as big as MLB’s, groomed for fundamen-tal extreme-contact activities of blocking, tackling and covering that are as inher-ently ripe for virus spread as any in sports. If the 2020 season can get off the ground this fall amid the global paralysis of the

SEE PROTOCOLS ON PAGE 20

What are the protocols?League, unionstill undecidedon virus issues