Volume 77, No. 241A ©SS 2019 MIDEAST EDITION SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019 stripes.com Free to Deployed Areas

MILITARYDunford to meet with Google over AI work with China Page 3

NCAA TOURNAMENTBig Ten’s 5-0start yields rare 2nd-round matchup Back page

A U.S. Marine with 7th Engineer Support Battalion, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force 7, secures wire near the California-Mexico border at the Andrade Portof Entry in November . ASIA J. SORENSON/Courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps

BY AMIR SHAH

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — TwoAmerican servicemembers were killed during an operation inAfghanistan on Friday, the U.S.and NATO forces said, providingno other details on the combat deaths.

The fatalities, which bring to four the number of U.S. troops killed so far this year in Afghani-stan, underscore the difficulties in bringing peace to the war-wrecked country even as Wash-ington has stepped up efforts tofind a way to end the 17-year war,America’s longest.

The U.S. and NATO ResoluteSupport mission said the names of the servicemembers killed inaction were being withheld until after notification of the next of kin, in accordance with U.S. De-partment of Defense policy. Thestatement also did not specify thelocation of the combat or say who the troops were fighting.

“The incident is under investi-gation, and we have no additionalinformation to provide,” said Sgt.1st Class Debra Richardson, aResolute Support spokeswoman.

A Taliban statement later inthe day said insurgents engagedin heavy fighting with Afghanand U.S. forces overnight in thenorthern city of Kunduz. Zabihul-lah Mujahid, the Taliban spokes-man, said the fighting was still underway Friday; he claimed theinsurgents had killed as many asthree Americans and nine Af-ghan commandos.

The insurgents often exagger-ate their battlefield claims and it was impossible to confirm wheth-er the fighting Mujahid was re-ferring to was the same combat in which the two U.S. servicemem-bers were killed. SEE TROOPS ON PAGE 2

Officials: 2 US troops killed in Afghanistan

VIDEO GAMES ‘Division 2’ offers great gameplay and a robust catalog of contentPage 15

BY LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Unexpected costs, including major hurricane damage repairs and unplanned de-

ployments to the U.S.-Mexico border, are forcing the Marine Corps to cancel training exercises and will

degrade combat readiness, the top Marine general warned.Gen. Robert Neller said in a memo this week to the

Navy secretary that the Marines have pulled out of three military exercises and cut equipment maintenance. And he

warned that Marine participation in more than a dozen other exercises will also be canceled or reduced and other cuts will be

needed if the service doesn’t get budget help.The problem, said Neller, is “imposing unacceptable risk” to Marine

Corps combat readiness.“Marines rely on the hard, realistic training provided by these events to develop

the individual and collective skills necessary to prepare for high-end combat,” Neller said in the memo sent to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer. “Although some effects can be mitigated, the experience lost by these units at a critical time in their preparation cannot be recouped.”

In the memo, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, Neller asks Spencer for help getting funding freed up for the Marine priorities.

Neller lists nine unplanned factors that led to the problem, but the Marine Corps said that the most significant issue forcing the training cuts is the widespread hurricane damage.SEE MARINES ON PAGE 4

‘Unacceptable risk’Deployment to US-Mexico border,

storm repairs strain Marines, Neller says

information to provide.

‘ The incident is under investigation, and we have no additional

Sgt. 1st Class Debra Richardson’

White House: ISIS-held territory in Syria has been eliminated » Page 5

PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

American Roundup ............ 14Books .............................. 18Business .......................... 13Comics/Crossword ............ 22Health & Fitness ............... 17Opinion ............................ 20Sports .........................24-32Video Games ..................... 15Weather ........................... 13

T O D A YIN STRIPES

FROM FRONT PAGE

An Afghan lawmaker fromKunduz province, Abdul WodoodPayman, said there was heavyfighting overnight in the Kunduzneighborhood of Taluka, where jet fighters roared overhead andbombings could be heard. He hadno additional information.

There are about 14,000 U.S.forces in Afghanistan, supporting embattled Afghan forces as theystruggle on two fronts — facing aresurgent Taliban who now hold sway over almost half the country and also the Islamic State affili-ate, which has sought to expandits footprint in Afghanistan even as its self-proclaimed “caliphate”has crumbled in Syria and Iraq.

In 2001, after the Sept. 11 at-tacks on New York and Washing-ton, the U.S. invaded Afghanistanand ousted the ruling Taliban re-gime in a matter of weeks. But theTaliban subsequently regrouped while Washington shifted its at-tention to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein,and by 2009, the war had becomea stalemate.

The Pentagon has recentlybeen developing plans to with-draw up to half of the Americanforces still in the country while at the same time stepping up ef-forts and having the U.S. negoti-ate with the Taliban.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad,the Trump administration’s mainnegotiator with the Taliban, con-cluded earlier this month a 13-daymarathon session with leaders ofthe insurgent group.

Last year, 13 U.S. servicemem-bers were killed in Afghanistan.

BY CHAD GARLAND

Stars and Stripes

The parents of the first Ameri-can killed in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks are speaking out about the expected release in May of John Walker Lindh, dubbed the “American Taliban” after his battlefield cap-ture, who they hold responsible for their son’s death.

Speaking at the Alabama State House in Montgomery on Thurs-day, Gail Spann of Winfield, Ala., and mother of Johnny Micheal “Mike” Spann, said she opposed Lindh’s early release.

Her son, a CIA paramilitary of-ficer and Marine Corps veteran, was killed during an uprising of Taliban prisoners of war at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress in the north-ern city of Mazar-e-Sharif in No-vember 2001. He was 32.

Gail Spann addressed the legislature after the Alabama House and Senate passed a joint resolution honoring her son and condemning Lindh’s anticipated release about three years before the end of his 20-year sentence.

“I do not want him out,” she said, the Birmingham-based Ala-bama Media Group reported. “I would like for him to spend the rest of his life in prison, but that’s not possible.”

Earlier this week, Mike Spann’s father, Johnny Spann, told the Alabama outlet that Lindh’s im-pending release was “disturbing news” for the family.

“We never thought 20 years was a long enough sentence,” Johnny Spann said.

The Federal Bureau of Pris-ons inmate locator website shows Lindh, 38, is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution Terre Haute, a 1,300-inmate me-dium security prison in southern Indiana, and is set to be released May 23, based on the full term of his sentence minus time for good behavior. The Times of London reported that Lindh, a California native who gained Irish citizen-ship in 2013, planned to move to Ireland.

Mike Spann and Lindh crossed paths on Nov. 25, 2001, as the CIA officer and a colleague interro-gated captured Taliban fighters who had surrendered, including the then-20-year-old Lindh, who wouldn’t talk. Hours later, some of the about 400 detainees launched an attack inside the fortress that lasted three days.

Mike Spann and prison guards were shot shortly after the riot began, the CIA has said in official accounts of Spann’s death. His last act was to warn his CIA col-league of the imminent danger, the agency has said.

Lindh could have warned her son, Gail Spann said.

“John Walker Lindh had the opportunity to tell Mike right there, ‘You’re an American, I’m an American ... We’ve got weap-ons in this building and we’re going to overtake this fort,’ ” she said. “He chose not to because he was a Taliban. He’s a traitor to our country.”

Mike Spann, who served eight years in the Marine Corps and rose to the rank of captain be-fore joining the CIA in 1999,

left behind a wife a son — at the time an infant — and two young daughters.

After days of fighting at the for-tress, including U.S. airstrikes, Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum flooded the underground hideout and just 86 militants were recaptured, including Lindh.

The original government com-plaint filed against Lindh in-cluded a charge for conspiracy to commit murder of U.S. citizens, including Spann, the Alabama Media Group reported.

Lindh pleaded guilty in July 2002 to felony charges of aiding the Taliban and carrying explo-sives in commission of a felony. He told the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., that he carried a rifle and two grenades “know-ingly and willingly knowing that it was illegal,” The Associated Press reported at the time.

In 2011, writing in England’s Guardian newspaper, Lindh’s fa-ther said his son had converted to Islam at 16 and had traveled to Yemen when he was 17 to study, eventually going on to Pakistan and then crossing into Afghani-stan in 2001.

At his sentencing in 2002, Lindh said he had no role in Mike Spann’s death and that he would not have joined the Taliban if he’d known they were harboring terrorists.

But Johnny Spann holds Lindh “as much responsible for Mike’s death as the people who beat him and shot him,” he told the Alabama Media Group this week. The elder Spann also said he be-lieves Lindh will resume support

for terrorist organizations after his release.

In 2017, Foreign Policy maga-zine cited U.S. National Counter-terrorism Center documents that said, as of the prior year, Lindh “continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts.” The document said he told a television news producer he would “con-tinue to spread violent extremist Islam” after his release.

“He was a traitorous terrorist and supported terrorist groups,” Johnny Spann said. “He’s sending out messages of support to those groups. He’s never renounced his affiliation with al-Qaida.”

Mike Spann’s mother tries to live a “normal life” and the fam-ily has not sought publicity for her son, declining film and book rights requests, she said.

“The things that are impor-tant to me are the same things that were important to Mike,” she said. “America’s the greatest country in the world.”garland.chad@stripes.comTwitter: @chadgarland

WAR ON TERRORISM

AP

John Walker Lindh is set to be released from prison May 23.

Family of slain CIA officer distraught that Lindh will be out soon

Nearing release draws ire Troops: US deaths rise to 4 in 2019

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3Saturday, March 23, 2019

BY LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. military officer will meet with Google representa-tives next week amid growing concerns that American companies doing business in China are helping its military gain ground on the U.S.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that efforts like Google’s artificial intelligence venture in China allow the Chinese mili-tary to access and take advantage of U.S.-developed technology.

“This is not about me and Google,” Dun-ford told an audience at the Atlantic Coun-cil. “This is about us looking at the second and third order of effects of our business ventures in China, Chinese form of gov-ernment, and the impact it’s going to have on the United States’ ability to maintain a

competitive military advantage.”Google says its AI activities in China are

focused on “education, research on natu-ral language under-standing and market algorithms and the development of glob-ally available tools.”

In a statement last week, Google said it is not working with the Chinese military. The company also said it continues to work with the U.S. govern-ment, including the Defense Department,

in many areas, including cybersecurity, recruiting and health care.

Dunford’s comments reflect widespread U.S. government worries that any informa-tion or data an American company has or

uses as it does business in China is auto-matically available to the Chinese govern-ment and its military.

U.S. companies in China are required to have a cell of the communist party present, said Dunford, adding that “will lead to that intellectual property from that company finding its way to the Chinese military.”

Last week, he and acting Defense Sec-retary Pat Shanahan expressed similar concerns during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

“We watch with great concern when in-dustry partners work in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit,” Dun-ford said during the hearing. “And frankly, indirect may be not a full characterization of the way it really is. It’s more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.”

Shanahan noted that Google is stepping away from some Pentagon contracts.

Internal protests by workers at Google

led the tech company to say last year that it is dropping out of Project Maven, whichuses algorithms to interpret drone videoimages from conflict zones. Employeeshad complained that Google was helping with technology that could improve lethaltargeting.

Shanahan told senators that $5 trillionof China’s economy is state-owned enter-prises, “so the technology that is developedin the civilian world transfers to the mili-tary world. It’s a direct pipeline. Not only is there a transfer, there’s also systemic theft of U.S. technology that also facili-tates even faster development of emergingtechnology.”

As a result, Shanahan said, the U.S. mili-tary needs to continue to invest in artificialintelligence, adding that funding woulddouble in the proposed 2020 budget.

BY JOHN VANDIVER

Stars and Stripes

STUTTGART, Germany — U.S. Africa Command is aiding the buildup of a specialized com-mando brigade in Somalia that has emerged as a key force in the fight to reclaim territory held by al-Qaida-aligned insurgents.

During a visit to Somalia this week by AFRICOM’s Gen. Thom-as Waldhauser, talks with the country’s leadership centered on the progress of Somalia’s Danab (Lightning) Advanced Infantry Brigade, a military statement said.

“We’ve learned the importance of factoring in cultural and re-gion-specific considerations,” Waldhauser said in the state-ment. “We work closely with our Somali partners, ensuring the composition of specific Danab companies is appropriate for the security sector where they’ll be employed.”

When training of Danab com-mando units began several years ago, planners originally con-ceived a battalion-sized element. The effort has now expanded with a plan to build a 3,000-troop brigade spread out across six So-malia army sectors, according to AFRICOM.

A Danab brigade headquarters operates about 70 miles north of Mogadishu at Camp Baledogle, where the U.S. military is ex-panding an airfield for operations. AFRICOM declined to detail the current troop level of the Danab forces or a timeline for when the brigade would be at full strength, citing force protection concerns.

For AFRICOM, one of the chal-lenges in Somalia — a clan-based society without a history of a functioning central government — is ensuring the security forces it trains comprise appropriate clan groups.

“For example, it would be un-wise to take a force from Jubal-

and and send them to Puntland to conduct operations as they may be seen as outsiders, which would not maximize effectiveness,” said Maj. Karl Wiest, an AFRICOM spokesman.

Because AFRICOM’s Somali partners have prioritized “ensur-ing the right people are placed in the right sector, the Danab are largely perceived as effective and clan-neutral by the Somali peo-ple,” Wiest said.

During the past two years, the commandos have fought to re-take territory from al-Shabab, a militant group that for more than a decade has vied for control in Somalia. The Danab commandos, along with other parts of the So-mali military and an international force known as the African Union Mission in Somalia, “continue to

make incursions into territory previously held by al-Shabab,” AFRICOM said.

The U.S. says the military ef-fort is part of a broader approach focused on getting the Somali central government to more ef-fectively deliver services, but the strategy faces complications since Somalia consistently ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Security analysts also have long cautioned that Somali society has a history of resisting outside attempts to impose West-ern-style order.

Al-Shabab also has proven resilient. During the past three years, the U.S. has steadily in-tensified military operations in the country, with special opera-tions troops serving as combat advisers.

Somali forces have recently set up multiple combat outposts in the Lower Juba River Valley — a region that is frequently targeted by U.S. airstrikes — where they pushed al-Shabab fighters out of former strongholds. AFRICOM said about 1,000 previously dis-placed families have returned to their homes since 2017 as a result of the offensive.

“We have seen incremental progress in Somalia,” Waldhaus-er said. “Our partners must con-tinue to make progress in order to maintain positive momentum and maintain the hard-earned confi-dence of the Somali people.”

The Pentagon says the U.S. now has about 500 troops in Somalia, where the pace of airstrikes has been escalating. Since 2017, AF-RICOM has launched more than

100 airstrikes in Somalia, killingover 800 militants.

The U.S. offensive is drivenby concerns that if al-Shabab as-serts more control in Somalia, thecountry could become a hub for jihadis, and Western interests in the region might be threatened.Also, the African Union Missionin Somalia is scheduled to with-draw from the country next year.

The AU contingent has been in-strumental in keeping al-Shababat bay, and it is not yet clearwhether Somali forces will be able to hold on to battlefield gainsof recent years.

“Somalia is critical to the secu-rity situation and the long-termstability of East Africa,” Wald-hauser said.

However, the stepped-up mili-tary campaign is drawing morescrutiny and calling into question an AFRICOM assertion that no civilians have been killed in any of its airstrikes.

On Wednesday, Amnesty In-ternational released a report thatsaid AFRICOM’s claims are falseand that at least 14 civilians havedied in five strikes analyzed bythe watchdog group.

“Military operations by So-mali government, allied militia and foreign troops including [the African Union] and the U.S. mili-tary against al-Shabaab, continue to have a devastating effect on civilians,” Amnesty said in itsreport.

AFRICOM denied theallegations.

“It is in the interest of the terror-ist group al-Shabaab to untruth-fully claim civilian casualties,” AFRICOM said in response to the Amnesty report. “It is also in theinterest of al-Shabaab to coercecommunity members to makeuntrue claims.”vandiver.john@stripes.comTwitter: @john_vandiver

MILITARY

Dunford, Google to discuss China worries

US helps Somali force grow from battalion to brigade

Dunford

EVAN PARKER/Courtesy of the U.S. Navy

Somali national army soldiers stand in formation during a logistics course graduation ceremony in August 2018.

Top US military officer will meet with representatives to talk about major security concerns

PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

BY KIM GAMEL

Stars and Stripes

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea withdrew from a recently established li-aison office in the border city of Kaesong on Friday, the Unification Ministry said, in a blow to hopes that inter-Korean efforts would continue despite the failure of the U.S.-North Korean nuclear summit.

The liaison office opened in September to provide a venue to discuss exchanges and cooperation between the two Koreas stemming from the agreement reached by President Moon Jae-in and North Ko-rean leader Kim Jong Un during their first meeting last April.

The two sides began several cross-bor-

der initiatives and cultural exchanges, but reconciliation efforts have stalled along with the stalemate in talks between Washington and Pyongyang over efforts to persuade the North to give up its nuclear weapons.

North Korea notified the South during a meeting Friday morning that it was pull-ing out of the office “in accordance with in-structions from the superior authority,” the Unification Ministry said in a statement. The North said it didn’t care if the South Korean side stayed or left and promised to give notice about practical matters later, according to the ministry, which oversees inter-Korean affairs.

“The South Korean government regrets the decision … and urges the North to re-

turn soon so that the South-North joint li-aison office can resume normal operations as agreed by the two sides,” the ministry said.

North Korea didn’t give a reason for its decision, but the move comes a day after the U.S. administration slapped two Chi-nese firms with sanctions for doing busi-ness with Pyongyang — the first punishing measures to be issued since President Donald Trump and Kim failed to reach agreement during their Feb. 27-28 summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Kaesong is due north of the Demilita-rized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

Moon has vowed to try to get North

Korea and the United States back to the table, but the adversaries have appeared toharden their positions.

The North has demanded that sanctionsbe relaxed as a reward for steps it alreadyhas taken toward denuclearization, includ-ing the suspension of missile and nuclear tests, but the United States insists it will maintain pressure until more progress is made.

The North also warned earlier this monththat it was considering halting nuclear talks and lifting its missile-testing morato-rium, saying Kim would decide soon.Stars and Stripes reporter Yoo Kyong Chang con-tributed to this report.gamel.kim@stripes.comTwitter: @kimgamel

MILITARY

N. Korea withdraws from border liaison office

Marines: Memo targets Trump’s political priorities

ASIA J. SORENSON/Courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps

U.S. Marines secure concertina wire near the California-Mexico border at the Andrade Port of Entry in California in November.

Neller

BY MIKE DEBONIS

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON —The House will vote next week on a measure rejecting Presi-dent Donald Trump’s ban on transgen-der people serving openly in the military, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Thursday, setting up a likely new congres-sional rebuke for the White House.

The announcement comes a week after the Pentagon said it would begin enforc-ing the transgender troop ban for new applicants starting on April 12. Defense Department officials moved ahead with the change following a January Supreme Court ruling backing Trump’s authority

to roll back the previous policy established under President Barack Obama.

The House resolution expresses opposi-tion to the presidential order and urges the Pentagon “to maintain an inclusive policy allowing qualified transgender Americans to enlist and serve in the Armed Forces,” but it would not force the military to change its policy if passed. The measure, authored by Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., has 187 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

“By implementing a ban that ignores basic science, the sworn testimony of military leadership, and mountains of re-search, our President and his enablers will inject intolerance into our military, demean their sacrifice and cast doubt on our com-

mitment to that promise,” Kennedy said in a written statement. “This resolution says to the thousands of trans servicemembers keeping us safe and every other American that their government not only sees them, hears them, and fights with them, but that they count in this country.”

Hoyer, D-Md., said in a written state-ment, “I hope that all Members will come together next week to vote for it and send a resounding message to this Administration that this ban does not reflect our nation’s values and should not be reinstated.”

Opponents of the transgender service ban continue to fight in federal court, but the Trump administration has shown no indication of changing course on the policy

— first announced publicly in a July 2017tweet from the president.

“After consultations with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will notaccept or allow Transgender individualsto serve in any capacity in the U.S. Mili-tary,” Trump wrote. “Our military mustbe focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would en-tail. Thank you.”

The declaration surprised Trump’s de-fense secretary at the time, Jim Mattis,who was forced to devise a more detailed policy that was later challenged in court.

House to vote on measure opposing Trump transgender troop ban

FROM FRONT PAGE

About $3.5 billion in damages was done to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and surrounding facilities by Hurricanes Florence and Michael.

Neller said that earlier hopes that Congress might approve re-quests to move larger amounts of money around in the budget now appear unlikely. He called the situation in North Caro-lina critical, noting that hurricane season be-gins in June and Marines and sailors are working in “com-promised structures” that must be repaired quickly.

The Defense Department is seeking more than $2 billion in funding for hurricane damage in the 2020 fiscal year budget. But Neller said the Marine Corps needs more than $600 million in this current fiscal year to do those needed repairs and address other shortfalls.

The other shortfalls include the ripple effect of the ongoing debate

over President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the south-ern border.

Currently there are about 500 Marines deployed to the bor-der mission, where U.S. service members are helping in wall con-struction, transportation, surveil-lance and other tasks requested by the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition, the Pentagon is shifting funding from various de-partment budget accounts to pay for the wall construction costs.

Other cost issues, Neller said, include an unbudgeted civilian pay raise, unfunded increase in Marine deployment to Australia and unplanned cuts in funding for the Marine Reserve.

His memo got quick backing from a key Congress member.

“President Trump should stop treating the Pentagon as a piggy-bank for his misguided domestic policy aims,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “President Trump has ignored the facts, ig-nored the experts, and ignored a big bipartisan vote against his views on border security. I hope he doesn’t try to ignore this memo.”

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5

BY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

Water continues to recede at Offutt Air Force Base and the Nebraska National Guard base, Camp Ashland, in Nebraska, allowing work crews to enter and assess damage at buildings that flooded nearly a week ago when heavy rains and melting snow upstream overwhelmed levees and shorelines along the Missouri and Platte rivers.

Crews have entered 10 of the 30 build-ings at Offutt that flooded when water began rising March 15 at the base, which is home to U.S. Strategic Command and sits just west of the Missouri River near the city of Bellevue, said Ryan Hansen, spokesman for the 55th Wing, which over-sees operations at the base.

“It’s a very methodical process,” Han-sen said Friday. Personnel with expertise in bioenvironmental hazards and engi-neering entered the buildings first to make certain they were safe. Then people famil-iar with the facility came in to begin clean-ing. The wing’s maintenance facility on the edge of the flooded southeastern portion of the base was the first building entered. Be-tween its on- and off-base facilities, Offutt encompasses about 4,000 acres.

“It was pretty messy, with mud and all sorts of [debris] from the water,” Hansen said. “We are going through to see what is salvageable.”

Next, a contractor will come through to see what can be renovated and what should be replaced. It’s similar to the recovery process following the damage Hurricane Michael left in October at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, Hansen said.

Water still remains in about half of the buildings that were flooded, but with sun-

shine in the forecast, officials expect water to continue to recede.

By Wednesday, the flooded runway was cleared of water, and crews quickly cleaned it of debris. Before air traffic can resume, Hansen said, a team of inspectors needs to inspect the runway. That should happen in the coming days, he said.

Offutt has about 6,500 airmen, and the 55th Wing is the Air Force’s only unit to fly the RC-135, a fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft. At any given time, the wing has about 700 airmen deployed. The flooding at Offutt will not impact that mission, Han-sen said.

States along the Missouri River continue to deal with the aftermath of flooding fol-lowing historic amounts of snow in areas north. Heavy rains in recent weeks melted much of that snow, sending it downstream where it overwhelmed communities along the banks.

Along the Platte River, Camp Ashland was completely flooded. On Friday, water receded enough to allow crews to access the base and begin to assess damage.

The floodwaters left behind an “astound-ing” amount of sediment and silt that will take a significant cleanup, said Lt. Col. Kevin Hynes, a public affairs officer in the Nebraska National Guard.

Camp Ashland, which sits on the east and west sides of the river, is a primary training and education center for the state’s Guard, the region’s Army Reserveand active-duty servicemembers. Non-commissioned officer education makes up the bulk of classes offered at Ashland, buttruck drivers and future officers also at-tend classes on site. Prior to flooding, 225soldiers were evacuated and are continu-ing a noncommissioned officer course atan Omaha readiness center, Hynes said.

Going forward, training will shift to theGuard’s Greenlief Training Site in Hast-ings, Neb., he said.

Camp Ashland flooded about four yearsago, but Hynes said that was a differentsituation. A tremendous amount of rainfallsouth and west of Lincoln flowed througha creek watershed and very slowly flooded the base.

In last week’s flooding, the river simplyflowed over the levees. The buildings built on stilts, mostly school rooms, offices and barracks, seemed to have cleared floodwa-ters, Hynes said. However, older facilitiesalong the river flooded.

“It’s been an historic event for Nebras-kans across the state,” Hynes said.thayer.rose@stripes.comTwitter: @Rose_Lori

Saturday, March 23, 2019

MILITARY

BY DEB RIECHMANN AND LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Islamic State-held territory in Syria has been “100 percent” eliminated, the White House an-nounced Friday, though officials said sporadic fighting continues on the ground between coalition forces and the group’s holdouts.

The complete fall of the last ISIS stronghold in Baghouz, Syria, would mark the end of ISIS’ self-declared caliphate, which at its height stretched across large parts of Syria and Iraq. Control-ling territory gave the group

room to launch attacks around the world.

President Donald Trump said Friday “it’s about time” that the group no longer controlled territo-ry in the region, after a campaign by U.S. and coalition forces that spanned five years and two U.S. presidencies, unleashed more than 100,000 bombs and killed untold numbers of civilians.

U.S. officials familiar with the situation in Syria said again Fri-day that the Syrian Democratic Forces are still battling the last remaining ISIS fighters who are holed up in tunnels along the river cliffs in Baghouz and have

refused to surrender.Officials said the SDF has not

announced any declaration of vic-tory, and there was no announce-ment planned for Friday.

According to the officials, the SDF is moving slowly and care-fully and is willing to wait out the ISIS fighters who are out of food and low on water. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss mission details.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One that Trump was briefed about the develop-ment by acting Defense Secre-tary Pat Shanahan.

Trump showed reporters a map of Iraq and Syria that indi-cated the terrorism group no lon-ger controlled any territory in the region.

“Here’s ISIS on Election Day,” he said, linking the coalition prog-ress to his presidency. He pointed to a swath of red signifying the group’s previous territorial hold, and then to one without any red, “Here’s ISIS right now.”

Trump has been teasing the victory for days, most recently Wednesday when he said the milestone would be achieved by that night. But even after Baghouz’s fall, ISIS maintains a

scattered presence and sleepercells that threaten to continue itsinsurgency.

Secretary of State Mike Pom-peo, speaking in Jerusalem, saidThursday the U.S.-led coalitionhad achieved “amazing” results in Syria. But he added, “Thethreat from radical Islamic ter-rorism remains.”

If history is a guide, the re-conquering of ISIS-held terri-tory may prove a short-livedvictory unless Iraq and Syria fixthe problem that gave rise to the extremist movement in the firstplace: governments that pit oneethnic or sectarian group against another.

BY COREY DICKSTEIN

Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — The Air Force wants to demolish 5 per-cent of the infrastructure in place across its 180 bases worldwide as the service rethinks its approach to maintaining its buildings, runways and silos, among other structures, officials announced Friday.

The new infrastructure strat-egy would shift the Air Force from its approach of spending money to fix its structures in the worst shape to primarily invest-ing in preventative maintenance throughout a structure’s life cycle, said Jon W. Henderson, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environ-ment and energy.

Henderson told reporters at the Pentagon that the new strategy is

a “get well plan” for the service, which faces a $33 billion fund-ing shortfall for maintenance projects that it has delayed for years because of budget cuts and a focus on combat operations. The new strategy would begin in fiscal year 2020, if approved by Congress, and would help the service avoid a projected almost $100 billion price tag to maintain its infrastructure through the next 30 years if it continues with its current model.

“We were just planning for things to fail,” Henderson said, vowing the service would not con-tinue that approach.

The Air Force requested $2 bil-lion in new funds to jump-start the strategy in its fiscal year 2020 budget request. Included in the new strategy is a commitment to building new structures with “smart technology,” such as sen-

sors that incorporate a program like IBM’s Watson, which could inform officials before a part broke, Henderson said.

“Instead of waiting for the air condition to burn out and then burn out half the building — I get an indicator that there’s extra friction on a pulley,” he said. “I can then go in and replace a pul-ley for $25, as opposed to hav-ing to go and replace a $100,000 [heating and air conditioning system].

While Henderson said he be-lieved lawmakers would welcome the new approach, he signaled that major infrastructure needs at two key Air Force bases hit in the last year by natural disasters could impact funding for the new strategy.

Henderson said he is hopeful Congress will provide separate funding to repair Tyndall Air

Force Base in Florida, which sustained billions of dollars of in-frastructure damage from Hur-ricane Michael in October. This week, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska has faced severe dam-age from the flooding of the Mis-souri River, as waters reached 7 feet high in some areas of the base that houses U.S. Strategic Command.

Buildings at both bases are ex-pected to be among the 5 percent that the Air Force will cut, Hen-derson said.

Those disasters, as well as other environmental threats such as earthquakes in Alaska, have forced the Air Force to consider climate issues as it builds in the future. For example, as the Air Force rebuilds at Tyndall, it is implementing designs meant to better withstand hurricane-force winds.

The service has not yet identi-fied what structures it will de-molish or precisely how many itwould need to eliminate.

Henderson has instructed the Air Force’s bases to developplans for all of their infrastruc-ture, including identifying thosestructures that are in disrepairor unneeded and could be demol-ished. He said officials shouldnot expect a 5 percent reductionacross the board at all bases.Some bases might not see any de-molition, Henderson said. More so, the service is not consideringcutting any of its bases altogether, including Tyndall or Offutt.

“We’re not talking about clos-ing [any] base,” he said. “…I’m saying, we’re just talking about managing infrastructureresponsibly.”dickstein.corey@stripes.comTwitter: @CDicksteinDC

White House: ISIS ‘caliphate’ totally retaken

USAF seeks to demolish 5 percent of its infrastructure

RACHELLE BLAKE, COURTESY OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE/AP

Offutt Air Force Base and the surrounding areas affected by floodwaters are seen in Sarpy County, Neb. , last Sunday.

Neb. military bases finally able to assess flood damage

PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

NATION

BY NOMAAN MERCHANT

Associated Press

MCALLEN, Texas — A moth-er cradled a crying toddler as she waited in line with 20 other women to shower. Dozens of fa-thers quietly held their children’s hands in an enclosure made of chain-link fencing.

While these families were held at an overcrowded Border Patrol processing center, a fresh wave of migrants crossed the nearby river separating the U.S. and Mexico and waited for border agents to bring them to the same facility. One Honduran woman carried a feverish 7-month-old baby.

The cycle is repeated multiple times a day. Waves of desperate families are trying to cross the border almost hourly and enter-ing an overtaxed government de-tention system.

The Border Patrol has become so overwhelmed in feeding and caring for the migrants that it an-nounced plans this week to start releasing some families onto the street in the Rio Grande Valley to ease overcrowding in the pro-cessing center, providing the im-migrants with a notice to appear at an upcoming court date.

“We have an unprecedented crisis upon us,” Robert Perez, deputy commissioner of U.S. Cus-toms and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, said in an interview.

The Border Patrol says it made about 66,000 apprehensions of people crossing the border il-legally in February, including 36,000 parents and children, an all-time monthly high. Immigra-tion and Customs Enforcement,

meanwhile, said that since Dec. 21, it has released 107,000 family members while they await court dates.

Immigration authorities expect the number of parents and chil-dren to surpass 50,000 in March during the traditional spring spike in migration, and potential-ly reach 180,000 in May, accord-ing to two U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about internal documents.

The Border Patrol ordered ex-panded medical screenings after the December deaths of two chil-dren in its custody. The agency received $30 million to upgrade its South Texas processing center and additional funding to build a similar facility in El Paso.

The autopsy results for Jakelin Caal and Felipe Gomez Alonzo have not yet been released, but C BP has said both children were hospitalized after developing high fevers and nausea.

Children with fevers, colds and the flu arrive daily at the border with their parents and sometimes wait for hours for the Border Pa-trol to pick them up.

On a recent Thursday, Carmen Mejia’s son, Lian, 7 months, was feverish — one of four sick chil-dren in her group of 20. His moth-er had heard about Jakelin and Felipe before leaving her rural town in northern Honduras.

“It made me sad,” she said. “But imagine, I’m here also look-ing for a future for my son.”

Mejia said she hoped to find work to support Lian and two older children she had left behind with her mother.

While she spoke, two more waves of people arrived. The

group grew to about 50 before the Border Patrol could load every-one into vans and take them into detention.

Some migrants blamed extor-tion for forcing them to close small businesses. Others said gangs had killed close relatives and threatened to kill them.

President Donald Trump’s

administration says most adult border-crossers are economic migrants who count on being re-leased if they bring a child and seek asylum.

Immigration agency offi-cials have called for Congress to change laws that would allow them to detain more adults and children and deport people from

Central America quicker.Trump’s signature solution

— and the reason for his declara-tion of a national emergency — isa border wall, especially in SouthTexas, where there are compara-tively few barriers. But a borderwall would not stop families whoaren’t trying to evade immigra-tion authorities.

Asssociated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. judge in San Fran-cisco scrutinized the Trump administration’s policy of returning asylum-seekers to Mexico during a court hearing Friday to help him decide whether to block the practice.

Civil rights groups have asked Judge Richard Seeborg, in San Francisco, to put the asylum policy on hold while their lawsuit moves forward. Seeborg was not expected to rule immediately.

The policy began in January at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, marking an un-precedented change to the U.S. asylum system. Families seeking asylum are typically released in the U.S. with notices to appear in immigration court.

The administration later expanded the policy

to the Calexico port of entry, about 120 miles east of the San Ysidro crossing.

The lawsuit on behalf of 11 asylum-seekers from Central America and legal advocacy groups says the administration is violating U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate the dangers that migrants face in Mexico.

It also accuses Department of Homeland Se-curity and immigration officials of depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum by making it difficult or impossible to do so.

“Instead of being able to focus on preparing their cases, asylum-seekers forced to return to Mexico will have to focus on trying to survive,” according to the lawsuit, filed in February by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.

BY COLLIN BINKLEY

Associated Press

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thurs-day requiring U.S. colleges to protect free speech on their cam-puses or risk losing federal re-search funding.

The new order directs federal agencies to ensure that any col-lege or university receiving re-search grants agrees to promote free speech and the exchange of ideas and to follow federal rules guiding free expression.

“Even as universities have received billions and billions of dollars from taxpayers, many have become increasingly hos-tile to free speech and to the First Amendment,” Trump said

at a White House signing cer-emony. “These universities have tried to restrict free thought, im-pose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans.”

The order follows a growing chorus of complaints from con-servatives who say their voices have been stifled on campuses across the U.S. Joining Trump at the ceremony were students who said they were challenged by their schools while trying to ex-press views against abortion or in support of their faith.

Trump initially proposed the idea during a March 2 speech to conservative activists, highlight-ing the case of Hayden Williams, an activist who was punched in the face while recruiting for the

group Turning Point USA at the University of California, Berke-ley. He invoked the case again Thursday .

Under the order, colleges would need to agree to protect free speech in order to tap into more than $35 billion a year in research and educational grants.

For public universities, that means vowing to uphold the First Amendment, which they’re al-ready required to do.

Private universities, which have more flexibility in limit-ing speech, will be required to commit to their own institutional rules.

“We will not stand idly by to allow public institutions to vio-late their students’ constitutional rights,” Trump said.

ERIC GAY/AP

A Border Patrol agent talks with a group suspected of having entered the U.S. illegally near McAllen, Texas. While many adults crossing the border on their own in South Texas try to flee agents, most migrant parents and children wait to surrender so they can be processed and released into the U .S.

JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP

Polly Olson holds up a heart that says “Jesus Loves You” during a signing event Thursday with President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington. Olson said that while attending Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, the school restricted her from handing out Valentine’s Day cards with religious messages .

Border Patrol says migrant situation at border a ‘crisis’

Judge to scrutinize Trump policy of sending asylum-seekers to Mexico

President orders colleges to back free speech or lose federal research funds

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7

BY TOM HAYS

Associated Press

NEW YORK — As Anthony Comello sits in jail on murder charges, he may have more than legal problems to worry about — namely, whether the Mafia is going to get its hands on him.

The man he is accused of killing was the reputed boss of New York’s Gambino crime family, Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, and for that, Comello is almost certainly marked for death by the underworld. It makes no difference the slaying may have been unconnected to mob business and stemmed instead from a romantic dispute.

“Somebody’s going to try to get him,” predicted Selwyn Raab, author of “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resur-gence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires.” “It is part of the Mafia code.”

Comello, 24, has been behind bars in New Jersey since his arrest there last week on charges he gunned down Cali outside the mobster’s Staten Island home. He is expected to be brought to New York City for a court appearance on Monday under tighter-than-usual security measures that underscore the mob’s bloody track record for vengeance.

“We asked for protective custody, and he’s been given that,” said Comello’s at-torney, Robert Gottlieb. “The reason is obvious.”

New York City jail officials would not comment specifically on Comello. But inmates in danger of reprisals are typi-

cally housed separately and watched more closely.

“We review each case on an individual basis and take all necessary precautions,” New York City Department of Correction spokesman Jason Kersten said.

Authorities say Comello lured Cali out of his house on the evening of March 13 by smashing his truck into Cali’s parked car. After speaking calmly for a few moments,

Comello allegedly drew a 9 mm handgun and pumped several bullets into Cali in a scene captured by security cameras .

Unlike previous Gambino bosses, includ-ing the swaggering “Dapper Don” John Gotti, Cali, 53, was a deliberately low-pro-file gangster in an era of relative serenity for the city’s crime families.

That Comello could get close to Cali so easily “shows that things are pretty quiet these days,” said Howard Abadinsky, a criminal justice professor at St. John’s Uni-versity. “He wasn’t afraid to walk out of his house.”

Comello’s background is more obscure, but there has been no allegation he is connected to the mob. The motive for the shooting remains under investigation. News reports have said Comello told inves-tigators that Cali had warned him to stay away from a female relative of Cali’s he was interested in romantically.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

NATION

‘Heartbeat’ abortion law signed in Miss. BY EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. — Missis-sippi Gov. Phil Bryant on Thurs-day signed one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation — a measure that bans most abor-tions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy.

Bryant’s action came despite a federal judge’s ruling last year that struck down a less-restric-tive law limiting abortions in the state. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights called the new measure “cruel and clearly unconstitutional” and said it would sue Mississippi to try to block the law from taking effect on July 1.

After a bill signing ceremony at the state Capitol, Bryant told reporters that he’s not worried about lawsuits.

“They don’t have to sue us. It’s up to them,” Bryant said. “If they do not believe in the sanctity of life, these that are in organiza-tions like Planned Parenthood, we will have to fight that fight. But it is worth it.”

Mississippi is one of several states that have considered bills this year to ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is found. Abor-

tion opponents are emboldened by new conservatives on the Su-preme Court and are seekingcases to challenge Roe v. Wade,the court’s 1973 ruling that legal-ized abortion nationwide.

A federal judge in 2018 struck down a Mississippi law that wouldban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, saying it is uncon-stitutional. The ruling came in alawsuit filed by the only remain-ing abortion clinic in Mississippi.

“Lawmakers didn’t get themessage,” Hillary Schneller, staff attorney for the Center forReproductive Rights, said in a statement Thursday. “They aredetermined to rob Mississippi-ans of the right to abortion, and they are doing it at the expenseof women’s health and taxpayer money. This ban — just like the 15-week ban the governor signeda year ago — is cruel and clearlyunconstitutional.”

The law that Bryant signedThursday says a physician who performs an abortion after a fetalheartbeat is detected could facerevocation of his or her Missis-sippi medical license. It also saysabortions could be allowed aftera fetal heartbeat is found if apregnancy endangers a woman’s life or one of her major bodilyfunctions.

SARAH WARNOCK, THE CLARION-LEDGER/AP

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant hugs Mississippi state Sen. Angela on Thursday in Jackson after Bryant signed into law what is commonly known as the Heartbeat Bill in Mississippi. The new legislation bans abortion procedures in Mississippi following the detection of a fetal heartbeat.

SETH WENIG/AP

Anthony Comello is accused of killing the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family, Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali .

Suspect in mob slaying likely at risk

Study: 4 percent of women were pregnant when they were jailed

BY COLLEEN LONG

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — About 4 percent of women incarcerated in state prisons across the U.S. were pregnant when they werejailed, according to a new study releasedThursday that researchers hope will helplawmakers and prisons better consider the health of women behind bars.

The number of imprisoned women hasrisen dramatically over the past decades, growing even as the overall prison ratesdecline. But there had been a lack of dataon women’s health and no system for track-ing how frequently incarcerated womenwere pregnant or what happened to thepregnancies. The Bureau of Justice Statis-tics, for example, collects data on deaths incustody but not on births.

Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, of the Johns HopkinsUniversity School of Medicine, attemptedto fill the void by collecting data from 22 state prison systems and 26 federal prisonsduring a yearlong period in 2016 and 2017.She released her results in the AmericanJournal of Public Health .

“The fact that nobody had collected thisdata before signals just how much this pop-ulation is neglected,” Sufrin said.

There were 753 live births among the 56,262 women included in the study, withabout 10,000 in federal prisons but the ma-jority in state prison systems. There were 46 miscarriages, 11 abortions, four still-births and three newborn deaths, accord-ing to the study.

‘ We asked for protective custody, and he’s been given that. The reason is obvious. ’

Robert Gottliebattorney for suspect Anthony Comello

PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

NATION

BY HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH

The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergen-cy Thursday following flooding that left several people stranded and continues to cause damage and strain levees in several Midwest states.

Parson’s action will allow state agen-cies to work directly with local officials responding to flooding. Parson, along with the state’s Emergency Management Agen-cy director and other officials, planned to meet with local leaders and survey dam-age Thursday.

“The rising floodwaters are affecting more Missouri communities and farms, closing more roads and threatening levees, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure,” Parson said in a state-ment. “We will continue to work closely with our local partners to assess needs and provide resources to help as Missourians continue this flood fight and as we work to assist one another.”

The Missouri River has swelled follow-ing heavy rains and snowmelt earlier this month. The flooding has claimed three lives, damaged thousands of homes and busted about 20 levees in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.

President Donald Trump on Thursday approved Nebraska’s request for federal disaster assistance, which provides federal aid to supplement state, local and tribal recovery efforts. It also opens the door to grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help affected residents.

Missouri’s emergency declaration comes after state water-patrol troopers worked into the night Wednesday, pulling four people from homes and three others from a boat that ran out of gas around the small town of Craig. People stacked sand-

bags at a nearby water treatment plant in Forest City on Thursday, while another levee breach across the river from Atchi-son, Kan., threatened two towns that most residents had already left.

The flooding in Craig began after yet an-other levee breach, and several homes were inundated with water. A local ethanol plant was also shut down amid the flooding.

Scientists say climate change is respon-sible for more intense and more frequent

extreme weather such as storms, floods, droughts and fires, but without an exten-sive study, they cannot directly link a sin-gle weather event to the changing climate.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said water was also flowing over several other levees, including one near Missouri’s Bean Lake.

Deb Hooper, who lives near the lake, told KMBC-TV that she has been packing for a week and even removed the water heater,

but she hopes to hold out.“Last night, they came and told us it

was like 2 inches below the levee,” she said, adding that she was warned to leavebut declined. “I’m like, ‘No, there ain’t nowater yet.’ ”

In southwest Iowa, barriers protecting about 2,300 people and thousands of acres of farmland simply weren’t high enoughto withstand the river, said Pat Sheldon,president of the Benton-Washington LeveeDistrict.

Sheldon told television station KNCY on Wednesday that the river levee “per-formed brilliantly for what it was designed to do, but it just sent more water at us than we had height.” He said it took $150 millionto repair his district’s levees after floodingin 2011, but he estimates it could cost $500 million to do so after this year’s disaster.

In Missouri, the river was expected tocrest Friday in St. Joseph at the third-high-est flood level on record. Water was fillinga casino parking lot in the city, thoughonly about half a dozen homes in the cityaren’t protected by a federal levee. Mili-tary planes were evacuated last week from nearby Rosecrans Air National GuardBase.

The flooding has also taken a heavy toll on agriculture, inundating tens of thou-sands of acres, threatening stockpiledgrain and killing livestock.

Nebraska’s governor said his state hassuffered nearly $1.4 billion in estimatedlosses and damage, including $840 millionin crop and cattle losses. A damage esti-mate Thursday from the state’s emergencymanagement agency, which compiled fig-ures from county emergency managers, put the damage at more than $640 million.

Members of the Nebraska Army Nation-al Guard used a helicopter Wednesday todrop 10 round hay bales to stranded cattle in various spots near Richland, which isabout 80 miles west of Omaha.

BY AMY FORLITI AND JEFF BAENEN

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS — Bundled up against the icy cold and drifting snow, Don Olson has tended the trail of a popular cross-country ski race in Minnesota for years.

Fixing problem spots on the Vasaloppet’s route often meant braving the freezing tempera-tures and frigid winds that have always defined this state. But recently, things have changed: Instead of plodding through the snow, Olson and other volunteers had to start making it.

“We just simply don’t get con-sistent snow anymore,” Olson said. “In order to survive, we felt like we needed to do this.”

Winter just isn’t the same in Minnesota these days. And as the latest season ends, residents say their lifestyles are changing with it.

Minnesota is among the fast-est-warming states, and Minne-sota’s winters are warming faster than its other seasons. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmo-spheric Administration show that since 1970, Minnesota’s winters have warmed at an average rate

of 1.1 degree per decade — more than five times faster than the rate of winter warming in previ-ous years.

“We’ve lost some of our winter weather mojo,” said longtime me-teorologist Paul Douglas. “Maybe one in four winters now, today, are old-fashioned pioneer winters where we really get socked with cold and snow. The other 70, 75 percent of the winters are trend-ing milder.”

Longtime residents who enjoy winter sports and activities have done their best to adjust, but it’s not always easy.

During mild spells, some sled dog races have been shortened or canceled. Snowmobilers say they’ve traveled greater distanc-es to find good snow. Outdoor skating rinks and ponds have sometimes been too soft or slushy to use. And businesses that cater to ice anglers or other winter en-thusiasts can see a slowdown.

Even Minnesota’s beloved moose have felt the effects, with parasites that don’t die off in milder temperatures a leading cause of moose deaths, according to a state study.

Grousing about the weather is

regular conversation in the state, but plenty of Minnesotans actu-ally love winter and say it’s part of their identity. Many are con-cerned that the season is not what it used to be.

“We’d like to go back to the nos-talgia of just having cold weather. Grab a scarf and hot chocolate and enjoy it,” said Jim Dahline, of the U.S. Pond Hockey Champi-onships, an amateur tournament that in 2016 began starting two weeks later to increase its chanc-es for skateable ice.

To be sure, Minnesota still gets cold. Minneapolis-St. Paul just endured its snowiest February ever — 39 inches. The polar vor-tex in January and a similar event in 2014 brought the state some of its coldest weather in years.

But overall, winter is warming fast — by more than 5 degrees since 1970. Alaska and Vermont have also seen winters warm by more than 5 degrees, according to NOAA data.

Minnesota’s winter season has gotten shorter since 1970, too, with an average of 16 fewer days from the first frost to the last, and about 12 fewer days of ice cover on the state’s lakes.

BRENDAN SULLIVAN, THE (OMAHA, NEB.) WORLD-HERALD/AP

Lori Steinauer walks through her flooded kitchen Thursday in Ashland, Neb.

JEFF BAENEN/AP

Paul Riemer, of Eden Prairie, Minn., fishes through a hole in the ice of Lake Minnetonka in Wayzata, Minn., last month.

Mo. governor declares state of emergency

Minnesota’s famed winter not what it used to be

‘ The rising floodwaters are affecting more Missouri communities and farms, closing more roads and threatening levees, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure. ’

Mike ParsonMissouri governor

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9Saturday, March 23, 2019

NATION

Facebook leaves users’ passwordsreadable by staff

Texas residents worry about fire at chemical plant despite assurances

Carter becomes longest-living US president

BY BARBARA ORTUTAY AND FRANK BAJAK

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook left hundreds of millions of user passwords readable by its em-ployees for years, the company acknowledged Thursday after a security researcher exposed the lapse.

By storing passwords in read-able plain text, Facebook violated fundamental computer-security practices. Those call for organi-zations and websites to save pass-words in a scrambled form that makes it almost impossible to re-cover in the original text.

“There is no valid reason why anyone in an organization, espe-cially the size of Facebook, needs to have access to users’ passwords in plain text,” said cybersecurity expert Andrei Barysevich, of Re-corded Future.

Facebook said there is no evi-dence its employees abused ac-cess to this data. But thousands of employees could have searched them. The company said the passwords were stored on in-ternal company servers, where no outsiders could access them. Even so, some privacy experts suggested that users change their Facebook passwords.

The incident reveals yet an-other huge and basic oversight at a company that insists it is a responsible guardian for the per-sonal data of its 2.3 billion users worldwide.

The security blog KrebsOnSe-curity said Facebook may have left the passwords of some 600 million Facebook users vulner-able. In a blog post, Facebook said it will likely notify “hundreds of millions” of Facebook Lite users, millions of Facebook users and tens of thousands of Instagram users that their passwords were stored in plain text.

Facebook Lite is a version designed for people with older phones or low-speed internet con-nections. It is used primarily in developing countries.

Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted a new “privacy-focused vision “ for the social network that would empha-size private communication over public sharing. The company wants to encourage small groups of people to carry on encrypted conversations that neither Face-book nor any other outsider can read.

The fact that the company couldn’t manage to do something as simple as encrypting pass-words, however, raises questions about its ability to manage more complex encryption issues — such as in messaging — flawlessly.

Facebook said it discovered theproblem in January. But securityresearcher Brian Krebs wrote that in some cases, the passwords had been stored in plain text since2012. Facebook Lite launched in2015, and Facebook bought Insta-gram in 2012.

The problem, according toFacebook, wasn’t due to a singlebug. During a routine review inJanuary, it said, it found that theplain text passwords were unin-tentionally captured and storedin its internal storage systems.

This hap-pened ina variety of circum-stances — for ex-ample, when anapp crashedand theresulting crash log included acaptured password.

But AlexHolden, the found-er of HoldSecurity, said Face-book’s ex-planation is not anexcuse forsloppy se-

curity practices that allowed somany passwords to be exposed internally.

Recorded Future’s Barysevichsaid he could not recall any majorcompany caught leaving so many passwords exposed. He said he’sseen a number of instances where much smaller organizationsmade such information readilyavailable — not just to program-mers but also to customer support teams.

Security analyst Troy Hunt, who runs the “haveibeenpwned.com” data-breach website, said the situation may be embarrass-ing for Facebook but not danger-ous unless an adversary gained access to the passwords.

Facebook has had majorbreaches, most recently in Sep-tember, when attackers accessedsome 29 million accounts.

Jake Williams, president ofRendition Infosec, said storingpasswords in plain text is “unfor-tunately more common than most of the industry talks about” andtends to happen when develop-ers are trying to rid a system ofbugs.

He said the Facebook blog post suggests storing passwords inplain text may have been “a sanc-tioned practice.”

BY BILL BARROW

Associated Press

ATLANTA — Nearly four de-cades after voters unceremoni-ously rejected then-President Jimmy Carter’s bid for a second term, the 39th president has reached a milestone that elector-al math cannot dispute: He is now the longest-living chief executive in American history.

Friday is the 172nd day beyond Carter’s 94th birthday, exceeding by one day the lifespan of former President George H.W. Bush, who died Nov. 30 at the age of 94 years, 171 days. Both men were born in 1924: Bush on June 12, Carter on Oct. 1.

It’s yet another post-presidency distinction for Carter, whose leg-acy since leaving office has long overshadowed both his rocky White House tenure and the re-markable political rise that led him from his family peanut farm

and a state Senate seat to the gov-ernor’s mansion and his unlikely presidential victory in 1976.

The achievement also defies medical odds, coming more than three years after Carter announced he had mela-noma that had spread to his liver and brain. He under-went treat-

ment and has received a clean bill of health.

Seemingly downplaying his po-litical career, Carter has for years characterized The Carter Center, which Carter and his wife, Rosal-ynn, now 91, founded in Atlanta in 1982 to focus on global human rights issues , as his defining pro-fessional achievement.

“I spent four of my ninety years in the White House, and they were, of course, the pinnacle of my political life,” Carter wrote in a memoir published on his 90th birthday. “Those years, though, do not dominate my chain of memories, and there was never an orderly or planned path to get there during my early life.”

Rather, he continued, “Teach-ing, writing and helping The Carter Center evolve … seem to constitute the high points in my life.”

As for what’s next, Carter has at least one more accomplish-ment on his mind, pointing often to The Carter Center’s long-run-ning effort to eliminate Guinea worm disease.

“I’m hoping that I will live lon-ger than the last Guinea worm,” he said in a British television in-terview in 2016. “That’s one of my goals in life, and I think I have a good chance to succeed.”

Carter

GODOFREDO A. VASQUEZ, HOUSTON CHRONICLE/AP

People gather to watch as firefighters continue to battle the petrochemical fire at Intercontinental Terminals Company on Tuesday in Deer Park, Texas.

BY JUAN A. LOZANO AND DAVID WARREN

Associated Press

HOUSTON — Kristin Crump and her two kids put damp cloths over their mouths on Thursday for the short walk from their suburban Houston front door to their car, defying an order to re-main inside because of dangerous fumes coming from burned-out petrochemical tanks a couple of miles away.

For the second time in three days, they were heading to a rel-ative’s house, worried about what they’ve been breathing since a massive fire broke out Sunday at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, Texas, and not believing officials’ assur-ances that they were safe.

“I do not fully trust what they say,” said Crump, whose husband later met up with her and the kids, who are 6 and 13 years old. “I do believe what is in the air is very

harmful and it can have long-term effects such as cancer and things like that later down the line. I don’t think it’s worth risk-ing that for me or my kids to stay there and breathe in this stuff.”

Authorities lifted Thursday’s order to remain indoors after sev-eral hours, saying tests showed the elevated levels of benzene in the air had cleared. But that was little solace to residents who watched for three days as a giant plume of black smoke billowed from the plant, leading authori-ties to close neighborhoods and cancel classes at area schools.

“It’s pretty harrowing,” said Jeff Fountain, a chemist who lives with his wife and three children about 4 miles from the plant.

“I work with benzene. … Sci-ence has told us that it’s a well-known carcinogen,” he said Thursday, adding, “The plume is gone, but the benzene in the air is lingering.”

Several government agencies

will continue to monitor the air around the plant, where the tanks that caught fire contained com-ponents of gasoline and materials used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner. ITC said 11 of the 15 storage tanks in the area where the fire occurred were damaged.

Authorities haven’t revealed the cause of the blaze. They said Wednesday that the benzene lev-els near the facility didn’t pose a health concern, but they issued the shelter-in-place order early Thursday due to “reports of ben-zene or other volatile organic compounds” in Deer Park, which is about 15 miles southeast of Houston.

A unified command has been set up to coordinate the efforts of Deer Park city and Harris County workers, along with those of the Texas Commission on En-vironmental Quality, the U.S. En-vironmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard.

‘ There is no valid reason why anyone in an organization, especially the size of Facebook, needs to have access to users’ passwords in plain text. ’

Andrei Barysevich

Recorded Future

PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

NATION

Left: Olga Zemlyanaya, an interior design blogger, holds her 1-month-old daughter Eva in Hollywood, Fla., earlier this year.

At top: Denis Wolok, the father of 1-month-old Eva’s father, shows the child’s U.S. passport during an interview.PHOTOS BY IULIIA STASHEVSKA/AP

BY IULIA STASHEVSKA

Associated Press

MIAMI — Every year, hundreds of preg-nant Russian women travel to the United States to give birth so that their child can acquire all the privileges of American citizenship.

They pay anywhere from $20,000 to sometimes more than $50,000 to brokers who arrange their travel documents, ac-commodations and hospital stays, often in Florida.

While the cost is high, their children will be rewarded with opportunities and travel advantages not available to their Russian countrymen. The parents themselves may benefit someday as well.

And the decidedly un-Russian climate in South Florida and the posh treatment they receive in the maternity wards — unlike dismal clinics back home — can ease the financial sting and make the practice seem more like an extended vacation.

The Russians are part of a wave of “birth tourists” that includes sizable numbers of women from China and Nigeria.

President Donald Trump has spoken out against the provision in the U.S. Constitu-tion that allows “birthright citizenship” and has vowed to end it, although legal ex-perts are divided on whether he can actu-ally do that.

Although there have been scattered cases of authorities arresting operators of birth tourism agencies for visa fraud or tax evasion, coming to the U.S. to give birth is fundamentally legal. Russians interviewed by The Associated Press said they were honest about their intentions when apply-ing for visas and even showed signed con-tracts with doctors and hospitals.

There are no figures on how many for-eign women travel to the U.S. specifically to give birth. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for stricter immigration laws, estimated that in 2012, about 36,000 foreign-born women gave birth in the U.S., then left the country.

The Russian contingent is clearly large.

Anton Yachmenev of the Miami Care com-pany that arranges such trips, told the AP that about 150 Russian families a year use his service, and that there are about 30 such companies just in the area.

South Florida is popular among Rus-sians not only for its tropical weather but also because of the large Russian-speak-ing population. Sunny Isles Beach, a city just north of Miami, is even nicknamed “Little Moscow.”

“With $30,000, we would not be able to buy an apartment for our child or do any-thing, really. But we could give her free-dom. That’s actually really cool,” said Olga Zemlyanaya, who gave birth to a daughter in December and was staying in South Florida until her child got a U.S. passport.

An American passport confers many advantages. Once the child turns 21, he or she can apply for “green card” immigra-tion status for the parents.

A U.S. passport also gives the holder more travel opportunities than a Russian one; Americans can make short-term trips to more than 180 countries without a visa, while Russians can go visa-free only to about 80.

Traveling to the U.S. on a Russian pass-port often requires a laborious interview process for a visa. Just getting an appoint-ment for the interview can take months.

Some Russians fear that travel opportu-nities could diminish as tensions grow be-tween Moscow and the West, or that Russia might even revert to stricter Soviet-era rules for leaving the country.

“Seeing the conflict growing makes peo-

ple want to take precautions because the country might well close its borders. And if that happens, one would at least have a passport of a different country and be able to leave,” said Ilya Zhegulev, a journalist for the Latvia-based Russian website Meduza that is sharply critical of the Kremlin.

Last year, Zhegulev sold two cars to fi-nance a trip to California for him and his wife so she could give birth to their son.

Trump denounced birthright citizenship before the U.S. midterm election, amid ramped up rhetoric on his hard-line immi-gration policies. The president generally focuses his ire on the U.S.-Mexico border. But last fall he mentioned he was consid-ering executive action to revoke citizen-ship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil. No executive action has been taken.

The American Civil Liberties Union, other legal groups and even former House Speaker Paul Ryan, typically a supporter of Trump’s proposals, said the practice couldn’t be ended with an order.

But others, like the Center for Immigra-tion Studies, which advocates for less im-migration, said the practice is harmful.

“We should definitely do everything we can to end it, because it makes a mockery of citizenship,” said Mark Krikorian, exec-utive director of the Center for Immigra-tion Studies.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an outspoken Russian lawmaker, said the country can’t forbid women from giving birth abroad, and many of them also travel to Germany and Israel.

“Trump is doing everything right, be-cause this law is used as a ploy. People who have nothing to do with the U.S. use it to become citizens,” Zhirinovsky said.

Floridians have shown no problem withthe influx of expectant mothers from Russia.

Yachmenev, the agency manager, sayshe believes it’s good for the state because itbrings in sizable revenue.

Svetlana Mokerova and her husband went all out, renting an apartment with a sweeping view. She relished the tropicalvibe, filling her Instagram account withselfies backed by palm trees and oceanvistas.

“We did not have a very clear under-standing about all the benefits” of a U.S. passport, she said.

“We just knew that it was something awe-some,” added Mokerova, who gave birth toa daughter after she was interviewed.

Zemlyanaya said that even her two nightsin the hospital were a treat, like “a stay in a good hotel.”

In contrast to the few amenities of a Rus-sian clinic, she said she was impressed when an American nurse gave her choicesfrom a menu for her meals.

“And then when she said they had choc-olate cake for dessert, I realized I was inparadise,” Zemlyanaya added.

She even enjoyed how nurses referred to patients as “mommies,” as opposed to “rozhenitsa,” or “birth-giver” — the “un-pleasant words they use in Russian birthclinics.”

Zemlyanaya said she was able to work re-motely during her stay via the internet, aswere the husbands of other women, keep-ing their income flowing. Yachmenev saidhis agency doesn’t allow any of the costs tobe paid by insurance.

Most of the families his agency serveshave monthly incomes of about 300,000 rubles ($4,500) — middling by U.S. stan-dards but nearly 10 times the average Rus-sian salary.

Yachmenev said he expects that birth tourism among Russians will only grow.

Business declined in 2015 when theruble lost about half its value, but “now we are coming back to the good numbers of 2013-14,” he said.

Mother RussiaSouth Florida seeing a boom in ‘birth tourism’

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11Saturday, March 23, 2019

WORLD

Hezbollah, US support on Pompeo’s agenda

Iraqis protest after deadly ferry sinking

US vet recounts contractors’ arrests in unusual Haiti case

BY ZEINA KARAM AND MATHEW LEE

Associated Press

BEIRUT — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlighted U.S. concerns about Hezbollah’s “de-stabilizing activities” in Leba-non and the region in talks with Lebanese leaders on Friday, amid strong regional condemnation of President Donald Trump’s dec-laration that it’s time the U.S. recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The abrupt pronouncement was likely to cloud Pompeo’s two-day visit during which he met with top officials, including some who are aligned with the Iran- and Syria-allied militant Hezbollah group.

Also Friday, the Trump ad-

ministration hit Iran with new sanctions while Pompeo was de-nouncing Iran’s growing influ-ence on a visit to Lebanon.

The Treasury Department said the sanctions target 31 Iranian scientists, technicians and com-panies affiliated with Iran’s Or-ganization for Defense Innovation and Research, which had been at the forefront of the country’s for-mer nuclear weapons program. Officials said those targeted con-tinue to work in Iran’s defense sector and form a core of experts who could reconstitute that pro-gram. Fourteen people, including the head of the organization, and 17 subsidiary operations are cov-ered by the sanctions.

Pompeo’s visit is the last leg of a Mideast tour that took him to Kuwait and Israel, where he

lauded warm ties with Israel, met with Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu on at least three separate occasions and promised to step up pressure on Iran.

In his Lebanon visit, Pompeo hoped to step up pressure on the Shiite Hezbollah group, but could face resistance even from America’s local allies, who fear that pushing too hard could spark a backlash and endanger the tiny country’s fragile peace.

Hezbollah wields more power than ever in parliament and the government. Pompeo was meet-ing Friday politicians who are Hezbollah allies.

“We’ll spend a lot of time talk-ing with the Lebanese govern-ment about how we can help them disconnect from the threat that Iran and Hezbollah present,”

Pompeo told reporters earlier this week.

“Hezbollah is a terrorist or-ganization. You ask how tough I am going to be? It is a terrorist organization. Period. Full stop,” Pompeo said in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Speaking to Russian journalists ahead of a visit to Moscow later this month, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said that the sanc-tions imposed on Hezbollah, Iran and Syria are negatively impact-ing the already fragile Lebanese economy.

“The negative effect of the sanctions on Hezbollah is hitting all Lebanese people as well as Lebanese banks,” he said in re-marks released late.

Trump’s statement about the Golan Heights on Thursday is a

major shift in American policy.For some time, the administra-tion has been considering recog-nizing Israel’s sovereignty overthe strategic highlands, which Is-rael captured from Syria in 1967. In a tweet that appeared to catch many by surprise, Trump saidthe time had come for the UnitedStates to take the step.

The U.S. will be the first coun-try to recognize Israeli sover-eignty over the Golan, which therest of the international commu-nity regards as territory occupiedby Israel whose status should bedetermined by negotiations be-tween Israel and Syria.

Syria, Iran and Turkey on Fri-day strongly denounced Trump’s statement.

BY FARID ABDULWAHED AND QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

Associated Press

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi resi-dents of the northern city of Mosul, angry over the sinking of a ferry in the Tigris River that killed 95 people, blocked a road where Iraq’s presidential convoy was passing on Friday, chanting “no to corruption” and pelting the provincial governor’s car with stones in protest.

The visit to Mosul by President Barham Saleh came as search teams were still trying to find more bodies after the ferry, over-loaded with holidaymakers cele-brating both Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and also Mother’s Day, capsized on Thursday near the city with dozens on board, includ-ing families with children. The death toll on Friday rose to 95 after another body was found.

The protesters did not harm Saleh but shortly afterward, pelted the SUV of the governor of Nineveh province, Nofal al-Akoub, with bottles and stones,

demanding that he be sacked from the post.

The spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shia majority Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for account-ability for those responsible for the sinking and urged officials whose ministries were linked to the tragedy to resign. Al-Sistani’s message was delivered by his representative Ahmed al-Safi in the Shia holy city of Karbala.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi ordered an inves-tigation and also briefly visited Mosul, where he declared three days of national mourning.

Iraqi judicial authorities or-dered the arrest of nine workers operating the ferry. The men were detained and an arrest warrant is out for the owner of the tourist is-land where it was headed.

Pope Francis sent a telegram of condolences to Iraqi authori-ties, expressing his “prayerful solidarity” with all those who lost loved ones. He wrote that he was praying for the whole Iraqi nation “the divine blessings of healing, strength and consolation.”

BY DANICA COTO AND MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An American security contractor at the center of a mysterious case roiling Haitian politics says that he and a group of fellow veterans were sent to Haiti on a mission to protect a businessman signing a more than $50 million contract at the country’s central bank.

Chris Osman, a 44-year-old retired Navy SEAL, told The As-sociated Press that he and six fel-low contractors were arrested by Haitian police during what was supposed to be a simple Sunday afternoon reconnaissance of the route their client would take to the bank the following day, Feb. 18.

“It went bad for us,” he said in the first on-the-record interview by any of the arrested men. “I don’t know what the real truth is.”

Osman said he and his fellow contractors — carrying a dozen semi-automatic rifles and pistols, along with satellite phones and other gear — had pulled away from the bank when they were stopped by police and detained for three days before they were set free by Haiti’s Justice Minis-try and allowed to fly home to the U.S., where they were released without charges.

The contractors’ unexplained release and the still-murky na-ture of their mission have helped fuel political chaos in Haiti, where President Jovenel Moise has faced months of protests over his government’s failure to pros-ecute the theft and mismanage-ment of $2 billion in subsidized oil aid from Venezuela under the administration of his predeces-sor and political patron, Michel Martelly.

Neither Moise’s administration nor the American ambassador in

Haiti, Michele Sison, has offered any explanation of the U.S. con-tractors’ mission in Haiti or the reason for their release, which appeared to violate Haitian crim-inal procedure. Moise’s allies in the lower house of Parliament dissolved the Haitian govern-ment by dismissing Prime Minis-ter Jean-Henry Ceant on Monday hours before he was due to testify in the Senate about the American contractors’ case.

Communications Minister Jean-Michel Lapin was being named interim prime minister Thursday, but there seemed little likelihood that the government would be able to bring stability to a country gripped by rising infla-tion, energy shortages and popu-lar discontent.

News site The Intercept report-ed Wednesday, citing anonymous sources, that one of the contrac-tors, 52-year-old Marine veteran Kent Kroeker, had been told the mission was to escort presiden-tial aide Fritz Jean-Louis to the Haitian central bank, who would electronically transfer $80 mil-lion from the government’s Vene-zuela oil fund to a second account controlled solely by the president in order to give Moise greater power over the government’s lim-ited funds.

Osman said that report did not match his experience in several key ways.

Osman said he received a call from Hawkstorm Global, a se-curity company based in Dallas, Texas, about a job in Haiti to pro-vide private security for a client of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti for $1,000 a day. He said he didn’t

know the client until he arrivedin Haiti on a commercial flighton Feb. 16 and was introduced toJosue Leconte, a Haitian-Ameri-can businessman with ties to theMoise administration.

The contractors were told thatthey would be escorting Lecontefrom his Port-au-Prince home to the central bank to sign an infra-structure deal with Moise’s ad-ministration, Osman said.

“We were all told that it was ahuge contract with (Leconte’s) company ... and that his company provides engineering contracts for the government of Haiti andthat they were really close friends with the president and that themoney was for infrastructure andrebuilding Haiti,” Osman said.

On the day they were arrested, the group of four Americans, twoSerbian nationals and two Haitian drivers got into two cars owned byJean-Louis for a reconnaissancemission and to swing by the bankso some team members could talkto people there and let them know what they were doing, he said.

“The actual job didn’t even start until the next day,” Osmansaid, adding that he never met or saw Jean-Louis during his time in Haiti and that the only timehe heard the name was when po-lice asked if he knew Jean-Louiswhile he was in jail.

The group was released Feb. 20. Osman said a police officersimply opened the cell doors, ledthem to diplomatic vehicles thattook them to the airport. He said he didn’t know who ordered theirrelease or authorized it.

MOHAMMED ISSAM/AP

Boats trying to rescue people in the Tigris River after a overloaded ferry sank on Thursday near Mosul, Iraq.

‘ It went bad for us. I don’t know what the real truth is. ’

Chris Osmanretired Navy SEAL

PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

WORLD

BY CARA ANNA AND FARAI MUTSAKA

Associated Press

BEIRA, Mozambique — Even as flood-waters began to recede in parts of Mozam-bique on Friday, fears rose that the death toll could soar as bodies are revealed.

The number of deaths could be beyond the 1,000 predicted by the country’s presi-dent earlier this week, said Elhadj As Sy, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In addition to worries about the number of dead, As Sy told The Associated Press that the humanitarian needs are great.

“They are nowhere near the scale and magnitude of the problem,” As Sy said. “And I fear we will be seeing more in the weeks and months ahead, and we should brace ourselves.”

Thousands of people were making a grim voyage toward the city of Beira, which al-though 90 percent destroyed, has become a center for frantic rescue efforts through-out the region.

Some walked along roads carved away by the raging waters a week ago. Others, hundreds of them, were ferried in an ex-traordinary makeshift effort by local fish-ermen who plucked stranded people from small islands.

Helicopters set off into the rain for an-other day of efforts to find people clinging to rooftops and trees.

For those who reach Beira with their few remaining possessions, life is grim. Water-borne diseases are a growing concern as water and sanitation systems were largely destroyed.

“The situation is simply horrendous. There is no other way to describe it,” As Sy said after touring transit camps for the growing number of displaced. “Three thousand people … are living in a school

that has 15 classrooms and six — only six — toilets. You can imagine how much we are sitting on a water and sanitation tick-ing bomb.” What moved him the most, he said, was the number of children without their parents, separated in the chaos or newly orphaned.

“Yesterday, [we] did a reconnaissance and we found another (inland) lake. So we are still very early in the phase of identi-fying what the scope of this is, for who is affected and how many are lost,” Emma Batey, coordinator for the consortium of Oxfam, CARE and Save the Children, said.

Luckily, the area is a national park and less densely populated, she said. Still, “there were devastatingly small amounts of people.”

She estimated that another 100 people would be airlifted out on Friday: “We’re only picking up those in absolute dire need.” No one is still clinging to roofs and trees, she said.

Pedro Matos, emergency coordinator for the World Food Program, said that what rescuers are seeing now is “sometimes it’s just a hut completely surrounded by water.”

“If islands are big enough, we can even see smoke coming out, meaning that they’re cooking,” he said, adding that it re-mains “super difficult” to estimate a death toll or even the number of missing.

For residents of Beira, life staggered on. People salvaged the metal strips of roofs that had been peeled away like the skin of a fruit. Downed trees littered the streets, and yet there were flashes of life as it used to be. For example, white wedding dresses stood pristine behind a shop window that hadn’t shattered.

Zimbabwe was also affected by the cy-clone, and as roads began to clear and some basic communications were set up, a fuller picture of the extent of the damage

there is beginning to emerge.The victims are diverse: a mother buried

in the same grave with her child, headmas-ters missing together with dozens of school students, illegal gold and diamond miners swept away by raging rivers and police of-ficers washed away with their prisoners.

The Ministry of Information said 30 pu-pils, two headmasters and a teacher are missing. Zimbabwean President Emmer-son Mnangagwa said Thursday that offi-cers and prisoners were washed way.

In Mutare, fear gripped residents even though they are more than 85 miles from Chimanimani, the worst-hit part of Zimbabwe.

Maina Chisiriirwa, a city resident, said she buried her son-in-law, who had left the city to go to the Chiadzwa diamond fields to mine illegally.

“There are no jobs, and all he wanted was to feed his family. He was with his col-leagues. They thought it would be easier to mine since the rains would keep the guards and the police away from patrolling,” Chi-siriirwa said. His colleagues survived, but her son-in-law was swept away, she said.

BY LORNE COOK AND SAMUEL PETREQUIN

Associated Press

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders took back control of the Brexit process from Brit-ish Prime Minister Theresa May, saying Friday they believe the risks were too great and that ac-tion was needed to protect the smooth running of the world’s biggest trading bloc.

May’s mantra since the Brexit

referendum in 2016 has always been about “taking back control” of U.K. affairs from the EU. But leaders from the bloc showed at a Brussels summit that they, too, have a big say in how Brexit ends up, as the political tussle resumes in the British Parliament over how to proceed.

In a move that underlined their loss of confidence in May as she battles for her political survival, the leaders set two deadlines for

Britain to leave or to take an en-tirely new path in considering its EU future.

At marathon late-night talks in Brussels, they rejected May’s re-quest to extend the Brexit dead-line from March 29 — just one week away — until June 30.

Instead, the leaders agreed to extend the date until May 22, on the eve of EU elections, if she can persuade the British Parliament to endorse the Brexit deal. Fail-

ing that, May would have until April 12 to choose a new path.

“British politicians are inca-pable of implementing what the people asked them,” French Pres-ident Emmanuel Macron told re-porters. “This crisis is British. In no way must we (the EU) become stuck in this situation, so that is why we have given two deadlines. We are organized.”

The aim of the EU move is to ensure that Britain doesn’t take part in the May 23-26 elections if

it is leaving. Candidates for the Europe-wide polls, being heldamid deep concern that main-stream parties could lose seatsto anti-immigrant groups andpopulists, must be enrolled byApril 12.

“The U.K. government will stillhave a choice of a deal, no deal,a long extension or revoking Ar-ticle 50. The 12th of April is akey date,” said European Coun-cil President Donald Tusk, who chaired the summit.

BY NINIEK KARMINI

Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia — In a blow for Boeing, Indonesia’s flag carrier is seeking the cancella-tion of a multibillion-dollar order for 49 of the manufacturer’s 737 Max 8 jets, citing a loss of con-fidence after two crashes in the

past six months.It is the first announcement

of a cancellation since Boeing’s new model aircraft were ground-ed following fatal crashes in In-donesia and Ethiopia.

PT Garuda Indonesia, which had ordered 50 Max 8 jets in 2014 and had received just one plane last year, sent a letter to Boeing

last week requesting to cancel the order, worth $4.9 billion, the company’s spokesman, Ikhsan Rosan, said Friday. The carrier has so far paid Boeing about $26 million for the order.

Garuda joined other airlines worldwide in grounding its one Max 8 jet after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight this

month that killed all 157 people aboard.

It came less than five months after 189 people died in the Oct. 29 crash of another Max 8, oper-ated by Indonesian private car-rier Lion Air.

“Passengers always ask what type of plane they will fly as they have lost trust and confidence in

the Max 8 jet,” Rosan told TheAssociated Press .

He said Garuda plans to meetwith Boeing representatives next week in Jakarta to discuss details of canceling the order.

“We don’t want to use Maxjets … but maybe will considerswitching it with another Boeingmodel of plane,” Rosan said.

Cyclone death toll could exceed predicted 1,000

DENIS ONYODI, COURTESY OF THE RED CROSS RED CRESCENT CLIMATE CENTRE/AP

Survivors of Cyclone Idai sit after arriving by rescue boat in Beira, Mozambique, on Thursday .

THEMBA HADEBE/AP

A woman carrying her child stands in line to receive food from the World Food Programme in Nhamatanda, Mozambique, on Thursday.

EU shows united front on Brexit, loses confidence in May

Indonesian airline seeks to cancel order for 49 Boeing Max 8s

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13

Associated Press

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The World Video Game Hall of Fame fielded thousands of nominations for the Class of 2019 from more than 100 countries, hall officials said Thursday after narrowing the field to 12.

“Will ‘Centipede’ devour the competition? Can ‘Mortal Kom-bat’ fight its way to victory? Will ‘Microsoft Windows Solitaire’ play its cards correctly?” the Hall of Fame said in a news release revealing this year’s 12 finalists. “Can ‘Super Mario Kart’ speed past the finish line? Is ‘NBA 2K’ a slam dunk?”

The other contenders are: “Candy Crush,” “Colossal Cave Adventure,” “Dance Dance Revo-lution,” “Half-Life,” “Myst,” “Sid Meier’s Civilization” and “Super Smash Bros. Melee.”

An expert committee will choose which finalists will be in-ducted May 2. Gamers can weigh in with an online ballot through March 28.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame, housed at The Strong mu-seum in Rochester, N.Y., recog-nizes individual electronic games of all types — arcade, console, computer, hand-held and mobile. Those deemed worthy of the hall have left a mark on the video game industry or pop culture and been popular over time and across countries.

Last year, “John Madden Foot-

ball,” “Spacewar!” “Tomb Raid-er” and “Final Fantasy VII” were honored. The Class of 2019 will be the fifth group to go into the hall since it was established in 2015.

Newzoo analysts estimated the video game market at nearly $140 billion in 2018, with more than 2.3 billion active gamers.

The 12 finalists span decades, gaming platforms and countries of origin, but all have had an im-

pact, Jon-Paul Dyson, director of The Strong’s International Cen-ter for the History of Electronic Games, said in the news release.

“Whether it’s a true pioneer like ‘Colossal Cave Adventure,’ a mobile gaming phenomenon like ‘Candy Crush’ that’s been played by hundreds of millions or a game like ‘Mortal Kombat’ that pushed boundaries and changed the landscape of the gaming indus-try,” Dyson said, “they’re among the most influential games of all time.”

Saturday, March 23, 2019

WEATHER OUTLOOK

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

50/46

Ramstein55/36

Stuttgart57/36

Lajes,Azores56/53

Rota66/52

Morón70/50 Sigonella

61/48

Naples64/46

Aviano/Vicenza63/42

Pápa59/38

Souda Bay58/55

SATURDAY IN EUROPE

Brussels52/42

Bahrain70/66

Baghdad70/52

Doha77/66

KuwaitCity

75/61

Riyadh81/58

Djibouti85/75

Kandahar69/55

Kabul61/43

SATURDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST SUNDAY IN THE PACIFIC

Misawa34/30

Guam80/79

Tokyo52/31

Okinawa64/59

Sasebo49/42

Iwakuni49/44

Seoul45/26

Osan48/29 Busan

48/33

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

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

MARKET WATCH

Military ratesEuro costs (March 25) ..................... $1.1624Dollar buys (March 25) ....................€0.8603British pound (March 25) .................... $1.35Japanese yen (March 25) .................109.00South Korean won (March 25) .....1,101.00

Commercial ratesBahrain(Dinar) ....................................0.3770Britain (Pound) .................................$1.3184Canada (Dollar) ..................................1.3405China(Yuan) ........................................6.7130Denmark (Krone) ............................... 6.6011Egypt (Pound) ................................... 17.2557Euro .......................................$1.1304/0.8846Hong Kong (Dollar) ............................7.8465Hungary (Forint) ................................ 279.72Israel (Shekel) .................................... 3.6113Japan (Yen) .......................................... 110.05Kuwait(Dinar) .....................................0.3034Norway (Krone) ..................................8.5418Philippines (Peso) ................................52.50Poland (Zloty) ......................................... 3.80Saudi Arab (Riyal) .............................. 3.7519Singapore (Dollar) ............................. 1.3514South Korea (Won) ..........................1135.65Switzerland (Franc) ...........................0.9941Thailand (Baht) .................................... 31.67Turkey (NewLira) ...............................5.6243(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 ................................................ 5.50Discount rate .......................................... 3.00Federal funds market rate ................... 2.403-month bill ............................................. 2.4130-year bond ........................................... 2.96

BUSINESS/WEATHER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday sanctioned two Chinese shipping companies suspected of helping North Korea evade sanctions — the first targeted actions taken against Pyongyang since its nu-clear negotiations with the U.S. in Hanoi last month ended without agreement.

“The maritime industry must do more to stop North Korea’s illicit shipping practices,” Presi-dent Donald Trump’s national

security adviser John Bolton tweeted. “Everyone should take notice and review their own ac-tivities to ensure they are not in-volved in North Korea’s sanctions evasion.”

The White House says the sanctions are evidence that the U.S. is maintaining pressure on North Korea in an effort to coax its leader, Kim Jong Un, to give up his nuclear weapons program.

The Treasury Department sanctioned Dalian Haibo Inter-national Freight Co. Ltd. and Liaoning Danxing International

Forwarding Co. Ltd. for using deceptive methods to circumvent international and U.S. sanctions and the U.S. commitment to im-plementing existing U.N. Secu-rity Council resolutions.

Calls to the two companies rang without response Friday or were answered by people who im-mediately hung up the phone.

Treasury, in coordination with the State Department and the U.S. Coast Guard, also updated a North Korea shipping advisory, adding dozens of vessels thought

to be doing ship-to-ship transfers with North Korean tankers or ex-ported North Korean coal in vio-lation of sanctions.

Two senior administration offi-cials, who briefed reporters only on condition of anonymity to dis-cuss U.S. policy on North Korea, said illegal ship-to-ship transfers that violate U.S. and international sanctions have increased, and not all countries, including China, are implementing the restrictions. They said the deceptive practices include disabling or manipulat-

ing ship identification systems,repainting the names on vesselsand falsifying cargo documents.

Treasury Secretary StevenMnuchin said in a statement that fully implementing the U.N. reso-lutions is key to getting Kim to giveup his nuclear weapons program.“Treasury will continue to enforceour sanctions, and we are makingit explicitly clear that shipping companies employing deceptivetactics to mask illicit trade withNorth Korea expose themselvesto great risk,” Mnuchin said.

Chinese firms targeted for aiding N. Korea

12 finalists vying for Video Game Hall of Fame induction

VICTORIA GRAY, THE STRONG MUSEUM/AP

Packaging for the 12 finalists for induction into the World Video Game Hall of Fame sit on display in Rochester, N.Y.

PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

From wire reports

AMERICAN ROUNDUP

28Officers catch children dropped from window

IA DES MOINES — Four Des Moines police offi-

cers are being hailed for catching children dropped by their mother from a third-story window during an apartment fire.

The officers had been dis-patched around 3:15 a.m. Tuesday to help firefighters at the complex in northern Des Moines. Officials said the officers arrived before firefighters and quickly arrayed themselves on the ground to help the mother save the three young children.

On a video released by Des Moines police, one officer can be heard yelling over the sound of si-rens, “I got ’em, yup. Drop ’em!”

Fire Lt. Rick Thomas said none of the children, firefighters or of-ficers was injured. The fire cause is being investigated.

The Police Department posted on its Facebook page praise for officers Cole Johnson, Tyler Kel-ley, Casey Sanders and Craig Vasquez.

Winner announced for best beard contest

VT BURLINGTON — A Bristol man’s whiskers

have won him the title of having the best beard in Vermont.

The Burlington Free Press re-ported Steve Reilly won the top prize at the third-annual Vermont Beardies contest Saturday.

The event benefits Make-A-Wish Vermont, which helps grant wishes to children with life-threatening conditions.

This year’s contest had 105 entrants and raised more than $50,000. Winners receive a gift card for beard care products and bragging rights.

More military, police monuments vandalized

MA BOSTON — Boston police are investigat-

ing more cases of vandalism to military and police memorials.

Police said Tuesday memori-als to veterans of several wars as well as fallen police officers in city-owned Mount Hope Cem-etery in Mattapan were splashed with a dark liquid.

State police reported Monday that someone had thrown an oily liquid at a World War II memorial at Castle Island in South Boston.

Police Commissioner Wil-liam Gross called the vandal-ism “incredibly distasteful and disheartening.”

Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement said the vandalism “will not be tolerated in our city.”

A police spokesman said it’s too early to said whether the South Boston and Mattapan incidents are connected.

Man assaulting girl hit by mom with sword

GA MACON — A man has been arrested in Geor-

gia after a woman told sheriff’s deputies she hit her boyfriend with a sword after she found him molesting her 5-year-old daughter.

THE CENSUS

The Twiggs County Sheriff’s Office said officers were called about midnight March 14 about an unwanted person at a home.

News outlets reported the woman said she cut the man as he tried to leave the home.

John Lawarren Williams, 25, of Twiggs County turned himself in to Sheriff Darren Mitchum about 6 a.m. last Friday. Williams was treated for a minor cut and has been charged with aggravated child molestation and two counts of cruelty to children.

The woman and child were taken to a Macon hospital to be checked.

Dozens of snakes found underneath man’s home

TX ALBANY — A Texas homeowner who re-

ported seeing “a few” snakes under his home actually had doz-ens of rattlesnakes living beneath his house.

That’s according to Big Country Snake Removal, whose workers pulled 45 rattlesnakes from un-derneath the home near Albany, about 150 miles west of Dallas.

The company said on its Face-book page that the homeowner had crawled underneath his home after high winds disrupted his cable television service. The

homeowner saw a few snakes, quickly crawled out and contact-ed the snake removal company, which removed the rattlesnakes last week.

Snakes will begin emerging from underneath Texas homes as the weather warms up, increas-ing the risk of snakebites. Offi-cials said that on average, one to two people die in Texas each year from a venomous snake bite.

Man is charged forcausing panic at mall

CA LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors have

charged a Missouri man they said caused a panic at a Los An-geles mall last week.

The Los Angeles County Dis-trict Attorney’s Office said Nich-olas Oates pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including burglary, arson and assault with a firearm.

The panic occurred Friday when a man entered a store at Westfield Century City mall, took books from shelves and began to ignite them.

Police said an employee at-tempted to stop the man but he pulled a handgun, causing the employee to evacuate the store.

People fled the mall, and social media was flooded with errone-

ous reports of an active shooter.A car left at the mall led police

to identify Oates, who was arrest-ed Saturday.

Police corral runaway calf on expressway

NY NEW YORK — A run-away calf got loose in

the Bronx, snarling traffic on the Major Deegan Expressway be-fore being corralled and hogtied by dozens of police officers.

The 8-month-old calf was first spotted around 11:30 a.m. Tues-day heading toward the George Washington Bridge.

It wasn’t clear where the bo-vine came from, but there is a happy ending.

The calf, now named Major Deegan, is being put to pasture at the Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue in Wantage, N. J .

Skylands founder Mike Stura told Pix11 it’s “as good as it gets.”

Man drives into store after falling asleep

FL MIAMI — Authorities said a Florida man fell

asleep while driving and crashed into a store.

The Miami Herald reported that the crash occurred Tuesday morning at a shopping plaza.

Miami police said the manwas driving home after workingan overnight shift when his carjumped a curb and slammed intodd’s Discounts.

Officials said the store wasn’topen yet, so no customers were injured. The driver was taken to anearby hospital as a precaution.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the driver would be cited for the crash.

Wallaby escapes owners and goes on walkabout

TX DALLAS — A wal-laby who apparently

escaped his owners went ona walkabout in an east Dallasneighborhood before being re-captured. Tim Tiernan said heand his wife were taking a morn-ing walk Wednesday when theysaw what they first thought was a dog. The wallaby hopped into thecouple’s driveway and up to their back door.

Dallas Animal Services offi-cers eventually caught the marsu-pial in the couple’s backyard. Theanimal was identified as Muggsyand picked up by his owner.

Officials didn’t release theowner’s name or how the wallabyescaped. The agency said the wal-laby is kept on a country ranch.

In the swing of things

The number of consecutive years that Labrador retrievers have topped the list of popular dog breeds, according to new American Kennel Club data released Wednesday. Labs topped the list, followed by Ger-man shepherds, golden retrievers, French bulldogs and bulldogs. Rounding out the top 10 are beagles, poodles, Rottweilers, German shorthaired pointers and Yorkshire terriers.

Abby Lykins, center, and Westley Rudd, right, work on moves during a swing dancing class with Tyler Swing Thing at the University of Texas at Tyler on Tuesday .

CHELSEA PURGAHN, TYLER MORNING TELEGRAPH/AP

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15Saturday, March 23, 2019

nication are vital. There are generally so many threats and so much action that lack of communication generally proves fatal to the team.

The game does a good job of scal-ing encounters based on the number and level of the players involved. The strength of the enemies is keyed to the highest-level player in the party, and low-level players are given a boost so they stand a chance against these tough foes. This allows all players to partici-pate on relatively equal footing.

“Division 2” offers a wide variety of content beyond the main set of missions — addressing a major complaint against “Anthem.”

The most signifi cant is the “end game” content. As soon as you’ve tamed the Hyenas, Outcasts and True Sons, a new threat emerges to upend your progress. The Black Tusks show up with futuristic fi ghting drones and heavy weaponry to knock back the Division. The battle resumes with increased intensity, which means you’ll need increased fi repower. At this point, you can select a signa-ture weapon — sniper rifl e, crossbow or grenade launcher

— and accompanying skills.For those seeking player vs. player

action, “Division 2” brings back the contaminated Dark Zone, where loot is more valuable and fellow gamers can “go rogue” to steal the bounty from its fi nders. This time, there are three Dark Zones and each contains a different type of contamination and setting. And the mechanics have been tweaked to reduce the amount of griefi ng that appeared in the original game. For example, all players entering the Dark Zone are equalized in level and gear so everyone can compete on a level fi eld. And going rogue has been turned into a deliberate process instead of an impulsive crime of opportunity.

Outside the Dark Zones, the game of-fers two more-traditional styles of PVP action — a team death match and an objective-based battle.

In coming months, developers will be releasing additional zones with new mis-sions and eight-player raids.

The links between the game and Washington go far deeper than a few events in missions. Developers did an exceptionally good job of re-creating almost everything about D.C. They rebuilt the city’s buildings and monu-ments — and not just the famous ones — on a one-to-one scale. Everything is the right size, the right shape and in the right place — even the taco shops and burger joints, though they have all been rebranded for legal reasons. Developers also managed to capture the vibe of dif-ferent areas within the city.

The game earns its mature rating be-cause of violence and occasional cursing.

When it became apparent that two cooperative shooters were going to be launching within weeks of each other, most people bet that the fl ashy “Anthem” would come out on top. However, great gameplay and a robust catalog of content made “Division 2” the real winner.

Bottom line: APlatforms: PlayStation 4 (reviewed),

Xbox One, PCOnline: tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.

comUbisoft provided a copy of the game

for review purposes.

supplied foes drop plenty of goodies. Although most of the bounty can be sold for funds or broken down for crafting materials, it’s rare to go long without picking up a prize that will add to your fi repower, defenses or abilities.

The game’s weaponry comes in the usual varieties — sniper rifl es, shotguns, assault rifl es, pistols, machine guns and more. These are well-balanced and satisfying at the beginning and only get better as you fi nd more advanced ver-sions and add attachments to enhance their characteristics.

In addition to weapons, special tech enhances the experience by offering drones, turrets and other gear that allow you to heal, extend fi repower, immobilize

enemies with foam or emit chemical clouds with a num-ber of properties. Used well, these items can turn the tide in a fi ght.

The basic game-play and rhythms are pretty similar to the original title. You enter a zone

of the city, fi nd a survivors’ settlement, overcome the local thugs, and under-take various side missions that enable to settlement to thrive.

As with the previous edition, it’s wise to be wary when walking the streets — especially when fi ghting solo. En-emies are relatively smart and use cover and fl anking maneuvers to good effect. Also, each area has an ideal level range, and it’s wise to keep that in mind. A fi refi ght against foes of comparable level is going to require taking cover and possibly the use of high-tech gadgets to ensure victory. A battle against enemies two levels higher than your agent is going to be tough, and the outcome far from certain. If the difference in levels is much more than that, you’d better decide where you’d like to respawn before you even pull the trigger.

There are several basic types of missions and tasks. Most can be accom-plished solo, but the game is designed for cooperative play, so most tend to go more

BY BRIAN BOWERS

Stars and Stripes

Rarely has a video game been more about hope.

“Tom Clancy’s The Division 2” is about bringing hope to a

plague-stricken metropolis beset by war-ring gangs and paramilitary forces.

It’s also about bringing hope to gam-ers who have experienced some recent disappointments with cooperative shoot-ers. “Anthem” is a rocket-powered sci-fi adventure that’s going down in fl ames, and “Fallout 76” turned into a postapoc-alyptic disaster.

Fortunately, “The Division 2” — de-veloped by Massive Entertainment for Ubisoft — avoids the pitfalls of its pre-decessors and delivers plenty to enjoy in both solo and cooperative play.

The game is the sequel to a 2016 game in which a biological attack overwhelms New York City. You play as an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division, a secret organization designed to maintain order in just such a cataclysmic situation.

As the new game starts, you’re an agent trying to bring order to another city seven months after the onset of the plague. Suddenly, your high-tech gear goes dark and you receive a distress call from Washington. You have a new assignment.

When you reach D.C., you discover that the Division’s base of operations — the White House — is under siege by a group of rogues known as the Hyenas. It doesn’t take too long to fi ght your way to the base, where you learn that the Divi-sion is on the ropes. You need to resolve the issues that caused the failure of the Division’s network, and you need to bolster the civilian settlements scattered across the city.

This might be the setting and motiva-tion, but “Division” is a loot shooter at its core. Acquiring bigger, better and more powerful arms, armor and gadgets is the point of the game for most players. They want loot in ever-increasing quantities and quality, and “Division 2” delivers just that. Hidden nooks and obscure passageways contain crates with armor or cases with guns. And, of course, well-

VIDEO GAMESPlayers use the White House as a base of operations as they try to retake the capital in “Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.” PHOTOS COURTESY OF UBISOFT/TNS

smoothly with help.In each zone, there are control points

to capture, hidden tech to recover, public executions to interrupt and propaganda broadcasts to shut down. These minor events help keep the action moving, but they are also essential to stabilizing the local area. As a zone becomes more stable, the local settlement becomes stronger and eventually can provide direct assistance to the Division head-quarters at the White House.

Main story missions make major strides in reaching the goal of bringing stability to D.C. However, calling the string of events that weaves through the game a “story” is stretching the word’s meaning. There isn’t a sense of narrative so much as a feeling of progress.

Side missions advance the cause, but tend to be much more diffi cult to accom-plish in solo play — especially at higher levels. In some areas, side missions are incredibly diffi cult with anything less than a full team of four players. However, this makes them exciting and emotionally rewarding.

While many main and side missions could be set anywhere — dealing with attackers’ bases, foiling evil plans and restoring vital services — there are a few that take advantage of Washington’s unique status. In one mission, a milita-ristic gang known as the True Sons is cannibalizing exhibits in the National Air and Space Museum to build mis-siles. In another, you need to recover the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives.

The individual missions are very well conceived. Each offers a series of en-counters in a well-designed battle space that builds to a climactic fi ght against a tough boss and his or her hench-men. Along the way, you might need to activate some sort of gizmo or destroy a gadget, but the core of each mission is combat. A mix of tactics and weapons is required in almost every setting, which keeps the action fresh and engaging.

When tackling a mission in a four-player team, coordination and commu-

Plenty to shoot, plenty to love in ‘Division 2’

Overall grade: A

PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

MOVIES

UNIVERSAL PICTURES/AP

Writer, producer and director Jordan Peele hopes to replicate the success of “Get Out” with his new film, “Us,” in theaters Friday.

BY LINDSEY BAHR � Associated Press

Jordan Peele’s sweet spot as a fi lmmaker are the “pit in your stomach” moments. That thing that happens when you real-ize the woman stirring the tea isn’t just there for conversa-tion. When you notice that the help is a little off. Or, as in his

new fi lm “Us,” when you see that the family of four standing in your driveway late at night looks exactly like you.

Peele knows how to get under your skin and stay there, and it’s what made him the must-see horror fi lmmaker of the moment. “Us” is only his second, and yet it’s been an event in the making ever since it was announced. That’s what happens when your debut is “Get Out.”

“Get Out” wasn’t even fi nished when the former sketch-come-dian started cooking up the idea for his follow-up about doppel-gangers, loosely inspired by the “Twilight Zone” episode “Mirror Image.” Then the wild success of “Get Out” — four Oscars nomi-nations, one win (Peele for origi-nal screenplay), more than $255 million in tickets sold against a $4.5 million budget, and general cultural impact — put Peele on another level. So by the time Universal Pictures agreed to make “Us,” not only did he have a budget more than fi ve times higher than his fi rst, but he had his pick of collaborators, too.

“Because of ‘Get Out,’ I was privileged enough to be able to tap the best talent in the indus-try,” Peele said recently.

That goes for stars Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, who play dual roles as the nuclear American family, the Wilsons, and the terrifying , scissor-wield-ing Red and Abraham, as well as the below-the-line talent: Production designer Ruth De Jong (“Twin Peaks”); cinema-tographer Mike Gioulakis (“It Follows”); and costume designer Kym Barrett (“The Matrix”) among them.

“I had an amazing team on ‘Get Out,’ ” Peele said. “But this group sort of allowed me to stretch a little bit more.”

Duke was impressed by his calm. He knew there were “sophomore pressures” — he had his own set following his breakout role in “Black Panther” — but said Peele never brought any of that to set.

“Day One, (Peele) said, ‘Before we do anything I just want to let you guys know that I’m here for you. I won’t stop until we get the shot. When I say cut, we got the shot. So trust me, believe in me,’ ” Duke said. “And I was like, that’s all I need.”

Duke and Nyong’o already had a shorthand working together. Yes, they had just both been in “Black Panther,” but they were also Yale Drama School gradu-ates and have seen one another do everything from clown work to Chekhov.

“It was great to be able to per-form with someone who I value as much more than a friend — I value her as a cohort. I value her as an ally. I went to work every day trying to make sure we could create a space where she could excel. I thought that was my duty,” Duke said. “We had a

female lead and in our climate in Hollywood we were doing the work and leading by example.”

Peele put them both through the wringer. The days on set as the Wilsons were full of laughter and fun. But the days as the mur-derous doppelgangers known as The Tethered, Peele said, felt like “a morgue.”

“The air getting sucked out of the room is an understatement. But it was kind of cool,” Peele said. The actors went “pretty method” on those days.

Nyong’o had it especially hard. She’d chosen to affect a strained vocal condition — spasmodic dysphonia — to make Red even more haunting. And she had to do Red’s fi rst big monologue 11 times with that raspy, painful- sounding voice.

“Us” is chock full of pop cul-ture references, subtle and overt: A “Jaws” T-shirt here, a C.H.U.D.VHS there. And every reference works “on two different levels and hopefully more,” Peele said. But don’t stress if you don’t catch or decipher them all.

“There are many of these things that only I will ever know,” Peele revealed.

Although one thing is not re-ally up for interpretation: The genre. He tweeted recently that “ ‘Us’ is a horror movie.”

“I can see the debate already beginning and people are calling it different things. I have a little bit of fun with the big genre conversation,” he said. “But I saw enough little pieces of like ‘horror-thriller,’ ‘horror-comedy,’ ‘social-thriller,’ out there that I just want to make it nice, clean and defi ned: It’s a horror movie.”

Peele hasn’t tired of explaining that “Us” isn’t about race, either. Though he understands why people might think it would be, considering “Get Out.”

“I know the way we are, the lack of representation in the industry and genre has led us to this point where it’s almost impossible to not see race in a movie with a black family in the center. And I wanted people to be ready to expand their expec-tations,” Peele said. “My fear was if I didn’t say anything that people would take away that this was a movie about black-on-black violence, which was not my intention.”

As for whether Peele has felt internal or external pressures to match “Get Out’s” magic?

“There are, but it’s OK,” he laughed. “It’s just movies.”

In Peele we trust Following his massively successful debut, ‘Get Out,’ director gets the budget and talent he wants for ‘Us’

AP

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17Saturday, March 23, 2019

somnia on perfor-mance.

“These are the people who, when

they track their sleep, fi nd that they do better

than they think,” he says. “They might struggle four

nights out of 30, but it’s the four nights that they focus on.”

‘Optimizing sleep’Smith sees plenty of players who don’t get enough

sleep. “I don’t know that there are many players who don’t have some sleep issue,” he says. “You’ve got a fast-wired, driven group and after a game or practice, they need to shut it down and sleep. That can be hard.”

One study also found that team-sport athletes are “par-ticularly susceptible to reductions in both sleep quality and sleep duration after night competition and periods of heavy training

Like many regular people, elite athletes multiply their issues by spending too much time on devices. “The blue light damages their circadian rhythms,” says Smith, meaning that their body’s natural sleep-wake cycle can get out of whack. “We’ve given them blue-light blocking glasses and ask them to take a break from their devices before bed.”

The Wizards take other steps to improve sleep, as well, including scheduling travel for away games across time zones “to optimize sleep,” Smith says. “We’ve also added sensory deprivation tanks, education, and staff members who send reminders about sleep. We’ve thrown every-thing at it, both high-tech and low-tech.”

One thing the athletes generally do not do is use sleep aids, either over-the-counter ones, such as melatonin, or prescription pills such as Ambien. “Instead of handing them a pill, which doesn’t solve their long-term prob-lems, we like to give them tools to deal with their issues,” Winter says.

It’s not hard, says Smith, to predict which athletes will be in the NBA for the long haul. Like Brady in the NFL, they’re the ones who take sleep seriously. “The guys who have a sleep routine and appreciate the value of it are the ones who will make it,” he says. “If they don’t, given equal talent, they will have a shorter career.”

As a performance coach, sleep is the one issue Smith wishes all his athletes took seriously. “It’s the magic pill,” he says. “For an athlete, it simply cures most ills.”

A good night’s rest is ‘the magic pill’ for athletes

seeking dominance, longevity

ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA VILLARIStars and Stripes

HEALTH & FITNESS

BY AMANDA LOUDIN

Special to The Washington Post

Tom Brady, the NFL’s oldest quarterback, and his high-tech pajamas, early bedtime and prefer-ence for a cold, cavelike bedroom have provided plenty of fodder for American sports fans.

But for elite athletes, sleep is no joke. And these days, coaches, trainers and athletes are focusing on shut-eye like never before.

“There’s a 100 percent correlation in quality of sleep to performance on the fi eld,” says Steve Smith, senior direc-tor of health, wellness and performance for the Wash-ington Wizards. “Acutely and chronically, sleep impacts reaction time, alertness and the ability to play to talent level.” Studies have shown that getting a good night’s sleep may help reduce the risk of injury and illness in athletes.

Sleep and its relationship to performance is a relatively new focus for many athletes, says Chris Winter, author of “The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It,” and consultant to the Wizards. “As the fi eld of sports performance has evolved, we’ve covered most of the bases,” including training, nutrition and hydration, “and sleep is the last to fall into place. It really wasn’t until 2005 that research started delving into it.”

Winter has led some of the most infl uential research on the connection between sleep and athletic performance. A 2013 study, for instance, piggybacked on early Major League Baseball research to look into the relationship be-tween fatigue and career longevity in the league. It found that the more tired players were — on a self-reported sleepiness scale — the less likely they were to still be in the league at the three-year follow-up point.

“If you’re an athlete who has a long season — like MLB or NBA players — the season catches up to you, particu-larly if you’re not sleeping well,” Winter says. “Sleep impacts everything.”

For some athletes, checking sleep hygiene boxes a la Brady pays off. For others, however, restorative sleep can be hard to get.

‘Best year yet’Becky Wade, 29, is among the country’s top female

marathoners — the runner will be lining up at next year’s Olympic trials for the fourth time. When in heavy train-ing, Wade, who lives in Boulder, Colo., logs 100-plus miles per week. She knows all the right things to do to keep her body healthy, such as eating well and balancing her train-ing, and is diligent about them. She fi nds a good night’s

sleep elusive, however.“It became problematic in high school,” Wade says.

“The pressures of school, training and my goals all began to escalate. I had a hard time both getting to sleep and staying asleep.” And she felt it then — and now — in her training. “I can get through an easy day, but if it’s a tough workout, I defi nitely struggle.”

Wade is well aware of the science behind sleep and performance and admits that, sometimes, that’s part of the problem. “It is stress inducing,” she says. “I feel like because I don’t get the sleep I need, I’m skimping on maximal training.”

Natasha Cloud, a 26-year-old point guard with the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, says she’s always been a poor sleeper but she really noticed its impact when she got to the WNBA. “I really struggled my fi rst three years in the league as a result,” she says. “It’s tough to recover after a bad night’s sleep. On the court, I was drowsy, slow and had poor reaction times.”

After a consult with Winter, Cloud made changes to her routine, including limiting late-night use of her cellphone and other devices, and dedicated herself to getting the rest she needed. It paid off.

“This has been my best year yet,” she says. “I’ve es-tablished a bedtime routine that helps my body signal it is time to sleep. I’ve learned to stay off my phone at night and aim for an early bedtime whenever possible.”

Winter says that the vicious cycle of needing sleep, worrying about it and then getting even less, like Wade de-scribed, is common among top athletes. “You’ve got hyper-focused athletes who want to do everything right,” he says. “But that can be a liability when it comes to sleep.”

Wade says she has explored many avenues to improve the quality of her sleep. Over time, she says she has developed workarounds to help offset the detrimental impact of lost sleep.

“I do all the right things with regards to sleep hygiene, and that helps to some extent,” she says. “I also take naps when I can because I’m better at napping than sleeping through the night.”

This napping approach may actually mean Wade, and others like her, get more sleep than they realize, says Winter, mitigating the negative effects of nighttime in-

PAGE 18 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

BY KAMRUN NESA

Special to The Washington Post

Romance readers are no strangers to wedding bells; happily ever after is practically preor-

dained. Lately, however, there’s a common twist on the marriage trope: depictions of arranged marriage within South Asian and Muslim cultures.

Written by women with inti-mate knowledge of this particu-lar happy ending, these books offer a corrective to misconcep-tions about the tradition.

For starters: “There is a differ-ence between forced marriages and arranged marriages, and I think a lot of people get those two things confused,” author Nisha Sharma said during a recent interview. Sharma, a fi rst-gen-eration Indian American and the author of “The Takeover Effect” — who was in a semi-ar-ranged marriage after seeing the success of her parents’ union — argues that love and arranged marriage are not mutually exclusive and that books can offer “texture” to readers outside the culture who might want to understand it more.

Arranged marriages have been a staple in romance novels for a long time — even if they weren’t always depicted in par-ticularly nuanced ways.

“I think readers like marriag-es of convenience and arranged marriage plots because they effectively and quickly pair the protagonists together in a way that is sure to generate confl ict,”

said Elle Keck, an associate edi-tor at Avon and William Morrow Books. “The sparks can fl y and, in a romance novel, turn into a terrifi c love story.”

A new crop of books keeps the sparks while also dismantling stereotypes and inviting critical discussion about the traditions themselves.

Sonali Dev’s 2014 debut, “A Bollywood Affair,” is actually about undoing an arranged mar-riage — a child marriage, to be specifi c — that the protagonist had no say in, while trying to fi nd herself (and love!) outside of its scope. Dev fi nds the old-fash-ioned portrayal of arranged mar-riage problematic because it so often involves coercing protago-nists into marriage and forcing love. To her, that sounds “regres-sive” compared with what many modern-day arranged marriages typically entail.

While Dev, also the author of the upcoming “Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors,” acknowl-edges how complex the tradition is, at least in the urban, educated Indian culture, she sees merit in writing romances about ar-ranged marriage as long as the relationship is mutually consen-sual and, “as long as the story-telling is authentic and sensitive without exotifying or vilifying a tradition.”

The new romances that focus on the tradition are part of a larger push for inclusivity within the genre, celebrating writers from diverse backgrounds with various kinds of stories to tell.

“There’s a demand for nar-

ratives with characters that accurately represent the real-life struggles of people from all back-grounds,” said Bianca Flores, assistant publicist at William Morrow Books.

She’s currently working with author Zara Raheem on “The Marriage Clock,” which comes out in July. Raheem’s novel fol-lows Leila, a Muslim-American woman whose parents give her a three-month ultimatum to fi nd the right husband before they take matters into their own hands. Leila goes through a series of dates to fi nd “the one,” even though her identity and views on love are at constant odds with parental pressures to settle down. After giving into her mother’s requests about match-making, Leila thinks to herself: “It might at least buy me some time to discover love on my own while my parents scoured the western region for a husband for me. Just because I had agreed to an arrangement doesn’t mean I actually had to go through with it.”

“The Marriage Clock” joins a number of other South Asian novels out this year, including Sharma’s “The Takeover Effect”; a modern-day Pakistani adapta-tion of “Pride and Prejudice” called “Unmarriageable,” by Soniah Kamal; “Ayesha at Last,” by Uzma Jalaluddin — an-other modern-day “Pride and Prejudice” adaptation; and “The Matchmaker’s List,” by Sonya Lalli. All richly diverse and complex, many of them analyze gender stereotypes, tradition and

double standards through the lens of young women pressured by their family and culture to get married.

In “The Matchmaker’s List,” for example, a woman named Raina fends off her grandmoth-er’s matchmaking — and that of the Canadian Indian community they’re part of.

“I think arranged marriage is important to talk about because the idea that a family or com-munity member might set us up with someone we share values with isn’t inherently a bad idea,” Lalli said. “It’s the execution that can oppress women.”

In the novel, Raina calls out the misconceptions people have about modern arranged mar-riages. “I am often bombarded with questions by coworkers or middle-aged women sitting next to me on long-haul fl ights after they’ve picked up on the fact that I’m half Indian,” she laments. “They want to know more about this whole ‘arranged marriage’ thing, whether soon I, too, might be enlisted. But the protocol of today’s arranged marriage in my community is less glamorous

than they might anticipate.”Lalli points out that, while

arranged marriage and match-making have endured in the South Asian subcontinent, they transcend cultural and religious boundaries — and just about everyone can relate to feeling the pressure to pair off. “Raina, who is 30 and hasn’t settled down, is viewed as being at fault for being single and not yet fi nding a husband,” Lalli said. “This is an incredibly pervasive double standard affecting women every-where.”

For Lalli, writing about this trope felt personal, and she wanted her experiences to be more represented in the publish-ing industry and in culture. “As a woman living in the South Asian diaspora, it was important for me to write a book that refl ected my own experiences and those of women like me. Both my grand-mothers had arranged mar-riages, and both had very long, supportive and loving marriages. So even as a modern woman, with that sort of example, I never ruled out the idea that I might one day too.”

BOOKS

Arranging a marriage plot

New obsession helps author cope in ‘Running Home’ BY CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN

Special to The Washington Post

Grief has a way of reawakening us to our own bodies. When Katie Arnold’s father was diagnosed with cancer, she turned to run-

ning — not for speed or for fi tness but “to get out of the house and escape the dread,” she writes in her memoir, “Run-ning Home.” She ran “to feel normal again, and just a little bit alive.”

As she moves, Arnold works through her problems. The soothing power of physical activity in the outdoors is a recurring theme in this poignant and ultimately uplifting book. After her father’s death in 2010, Arnold became obsessed with a fear of dying that turned every ache and twinge of pain into a fatal disease. To cope with her anxiety, Arnold, now 47, consulted nearly every therapist, muse and wacky alternative medicine provider in Santa Fe, N.M., where she lives. But ultimately it was her weekly hik-ing partner, the Buddhist writer Natalie Goldberg, who guided her away from her terror. “We joke that our hiking will save the world,” she writes of their regular jaunts up Picacho Peak, “but I know it’s saving me from myself, from my obses-sive fears and imaginary ailments.”

Arnold became a runner at the age of 7, “by accident.” She was visiting her father in Virginia when he suggested that Arnold and her older sister enter a local 10k race. “The distance was so audacious that it meant absolutely nothing to me. I had

never run a race, never a single mile, let alone six, all in a row,” she writes. The siblings agreed to run while their father, a National Geographic photog-rapher, documented the event. Somehow, though, he missed the fi nish, so the two girls had to reenact it several times,

once triumphant, another time crawling on hands and knees. “Look like you’re really in pain,” he told them; later Arnold wonders, “Did he not realize we really were in pain?”

Arnold’s complicated relationship with her father forms the heart of this story. As a young child, Arnold accidentally bumped into her father’s bass violin, knocking it to the ground and snapping its delicate neck. The incident fi lls her with shame. “I had broken his beautiful instru-

ment, which he loved almost as much as us, and some days maybe even more,” she writes.

Some of the most moving sections of the book explore how the narratives we tell ourselves can shape our relationships and identities. When her parents’ marriage unraveled, young Arnold imagined that she was “somehow responsible” and that it was up to her to make things right. When she discovered her mother sobbing, face down on the fl oor, she vowed to never do anything that might make her cry again. For years, Arnold also believed that her father’s pain over the divorce was of her own making. When she later learns new details that overturn this long-held belief, Arnold was shaken: “The story on which I’d built my childhood, maybe my very self, has been inverted.”

Not long after her father died, Arnold signed up for a 31-mile ultramarathon, and soon she was running in 50- and even 100-mile events. She writes with candor about the strain her running sometimes put on her marriage. Arnold, a contribut-ing editor and former managing editor at Outside Magazine, is frank in her por-trayal of the quiet negotiations that take place in a relationship as each party seeks to balance self-care and training with the work required to make relationships and

households run smoothly. Although she sometimes feels twinges of guilt about leaving her two daughters to exercise, Arnold also notes that running helps her be more present with her kids when they are together.

Arnold’s training, race reports and new-found ambitions for athletic success after she won her fi rst ultramarathon come to form a central thread in the book — one that could have easily grown tedious and boring, even to a lifelong runner like me. Instead, Arnold has written about run-ning in a way that perfectly captures its essence. For her, running is a way of “being awake in the world.” Long distance running, she writes, is really “about slow-ing down. In the quiet of prolonged effort, time stretches, elongates.” It can simulta-neously draw one’s attention inward and outward, connecting the inner self to the surrounding world.

Arnold’s running endeavors are not di-versions, they are how she makes her own way after losing a parent. The story she shares in “Running Home” will resonate with anyone who has ever run, anyone who has lost a parent, and anyone who has struggled to make peace with a beloved but enigmatic parent — in other words, just about everyone.

New books tackle stereotypes, cultural traditions

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19Saturday, March 23, 2019

LIFESTYLE

BY LINDSEY M. ROBERTS

Special to The Washington Post

Since my son got his fi rst pair of glasses when he was 2 years old, we’ve had some interesting, and at times harrowing, adventures. There were the metal frames that bent sideways, the lost acetate

frames, and, oh, did you know that if your child wrestles with his dad while wearing thick lenses that stick out of the frames a smidgen, he could slice open his eyebrow and need stitches? Yeah, me neither.

My son is 6 years old now, and we’ve come a long way in this department. To help other parents navigate the world of glasses with young children, I spoke with sev-eral experts. Here are their suggestions for a smoother ride.

1. Get a vision check early. Children should be examined between the ages of 6 and 12 months, says Stacy Hill, a clinical adjunct faculty mem-ber at Pacifi c University College of Optometry

in Forest Grove, Ore. “If the doctor fi nds no concerns at that visit, then the child should be reexamined at three years and again before entering school,” she says. If the visit isn’t covered by insurance, the InfantSEE program provides free eye examinations to children up to 12 months old, checking for nearsightedness, farsighted-ness, astigmatism, eye movement problems and eye health problems. While eye charts don’t work on babies, fl ashlights and small toys help the doctor see how well the eyes are working.

2. Vision is more than 20/20. “If your child is seeing well but is struggling in school or has at-tention/behavioral problems,” Hill says, “there is a strong chance that there is a visual skill

defi cit that needs to be addressed with glasses or vision therapy.” These defi cits could include focusing issues, double vision, strabismus, “lazy eye” and visual-motor problems such as clumsiness. Vision therapy is like physical therapy, using lenses, prisms, fi lters and other tools under the supervision of a doctor to improve visual skills. For an evaluation, look for a local developmental and pediatric optometrist at COVD.org. “If there isn’t a vision skill issue, the doctor may be able to help connect parents to other professionals who may be able to help,” she adds.

3. Think about replacement and repair policies. Accept the fact that your kids will lose or break their glasses, and you will need to have a plan for when that happens. Zenni Optical sells

replacement frames for glasses if you purchased them there originally — I paid about $7 to have a new pair shipped when ours broke. (Wrestling the lenses into the new frames caused me to break into a sweat, so brace yourself.) Jonas Paul Eyewear will provide a one-time replacement pair of frames for half-off. Inexpensive glasses might be easier to replace, while higher-priced glasses might come with better replacement and repair policies — but not always. Check all policies to make sure you’re comfortable with them before you buy. Hav-ing a backup pair is also nice, if money allows.

4. Frame material options. When it comes to the material for the frame, “pick your poison,” says Richard Golden, a pediatric ophthalmologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Colum-

bus, Ohio. Letting your child have a voice in the fi nal decision will mean better care for and use of his or her glasses. “Metal frames are more adjustable and they’re lighter. The downside is that they can bend — but they don’t break as easily. Plastic frames don’t get bent out of shape as easily, but the hinges on them are less fl exible so that they can break.” For much younger kids, Golden recommends frames that are made out of a molded nylon material. “They don’t have an actual hinge on them so they’re completely fl exible,” he says. “You could tie them in a pretzel, and they won’t break.” Mirafl ex, Dilli Dalli and Flexon are some of the brands that offer these frames.

5. Know when to wear the glasses. “I think ev-eryone assumes you need to wear them all the time, and it really just depends on the prescrip-tion,” says Megan E. Collins, assistant profes-

sor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “Some kids are nearsighted, and glasses are just for seeing things far away; some kids are farsighted, and they need them just to read.” Kids with strong prescriptions may need to wear them all the time, especially if they’re helping to correct for strabismus, or eye misalignment. Specifi c glasses for specifi c times also means that if your child plays a competitive sport, sports glasses, such as Rec Specs — even for prescription goggles — are a nice option. For outdoor activities, transition lenses, which automatically tint to block the sun’s rays, are helpful for kids who are super sensitive to light. Otherwise, Collins says, they aren’t necessary. You can trade their regular glasses out for fun sunglasses, or use a hat to shield their eyes.

What parents need to know about kids and glasses

Back in 1983, I showed up for my SAT test with two No. 2 pencils and a pack of gum. The night before, I talked to my best friend on the phone for two hours, but never cracked a book. I don’t

think there were test prep books back in those days. Besides, we fi gured SATs were aptitude tests. You were smart, or you weren’t. Not much you could do about it.

When my score came back, I hadn’t broken a thou-sand, so I took the test again. That time, I got a 1070, and thought, “Well, I guess that’s it, then.”

I picked schools from one of those three-inch-thick catalogues listing all the colleges and universities, sent off application packets, and got accepted to Miami Uni-versity in Oxford, Ohio. Miami cost my parents $12,000 per year, a small fortune for them.

When it came time for each of my three children to go through the college application process, I learned quickly that times have drastically changed. With my SAT score, mediocre grades and no recruitable skills, I would have never been accepted to Miami of Ohio today.

Not to mention the staggering cost of college in the 21st century, which has nearly quadrupled since the 1980s. And then there’s the application process, which is now like entering a College Admissions Thunderdome. Every applicant for themselves, in a cutthroat, competitive rat race. Featherweight kids are thrown into the ring, wide-eyed and naive. Their parents act as cornermen, urging them to fi ght and applying adrenaline to stop the bleeding.

Rather than allow their high school students to shoot hoops with friends after school, parents sign them up for admissions test prep courses starting in 10th grade. Piles of thick test prep books adorn students’ bedroom fl oors. The least expensive online courses cost several hundred dollars, but many parents shell out big bucks for one-on-one tutoring to the tune of hundreds of dollars per hour.

Kids are told that they won’t stand a chance if their college applications don’t show evidence of leadership, advanced academics and community service, so they found obscure clubs, suffer through AP courses and stage lame fundraisers.

If their kids have the slightest glimmer of athletic abil-ity, parents sign them up for teams, camps, lessons, tour-naments and showcases, in hopes that college coaches will take notice. They dip into their thinning wallets to pay sports video companies to create recruitment fi lms of their kids running on soccer fi elds and returning ground-strokes to jazzy music.

Students begin writing college essays a year in ad-vance. Original drafts are funneled through teachers, tutors, parents and counselors who offer “editing advice.” The end product is unrecognizable, but everyone hopes the essay is improved enough to get the student into col-lege, or maybe earn him the Pulitzer Prize.

Applications are sent in, but that’s only Round One. Blood, sweat and tears are shed as parents and students brace themselves for the painful uppercuts of rejection. Having been through the College Application Thunderdo-me with my own children, I fully understand the agony of waiting for that fi nal bell to ring. Hoping you did all you could. Hoping your kid will get what they want.

And as if this hellish process weren’t competitive enough, we fi nd out that some wealthy parents have been using bribery to get their kids accepted. While the rest of us are feeling guilty that we helped our kids change a few words in their college essays, rich lawyers, wealthy CEOs, Hollywood actresses, famous fashion designers and other elites are paying many thousands of dollars to bribe college coaches and admissions test proctors to cheat the system.

But the real losers in this process aren’t kids who got rejected from their favorite schools or even necessarily the scammers facing 20 years in prison; it’s any parent — criminal or not — who makes his or her kid feel not good enough to get into college on his own merit.

That’s the real sucker punch.Read more of Lisa Smith Molinari’s columns at : themeatandpotatoesoflife.com Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@googlemail.com

Thunderdome awaits college-seeking kids

THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF LIFELisa Smith Molinari

iStock photo

FRAMEof reference

Saturday, March 23, 2019PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •

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BY JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN

Special to The Washington Post

On one of the first foreign trips I took with John McCain, he hand-ed me his comb and asked me to straighten out his hair. He could

not raise his arms above his shoulders to comb his own hair, a lifelong consequence — and not the only one — of the abuse he suffered during his more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison.

Years later, I traveled to Hanoi with Mc-Cain and visited that prison, which is now a museum. A group of Vietnamese high school students came through and when they recognized him, they began chanting his name, cheering, clapping and asking for pictures and autographs. McCain had become a hero to the Vietnamese people because he had sponsored the legislation that normalized U.S. relations with Viet-nam, the country that had treated him so inhumanely.

Somehow, he had found it within his soul to put the past behind him and lead the way forward in U.S.-Vietnam relations because that was in the best interests of the United States. McCain was a passionate person, and he had a temper, but he rarely stayed angry at anyone. He liked people gener-ally, but I also think he concluded that it wasn’t worth staying angry, particularly at those you needed to work with to get things done. He was always looking forward, not backward.

That is a powerful example for all of us, including President Donald Trump, who has continued to attack McCain seven months after his death.

McCain’s life on Earth has ended. His legacy as a great American patriot, hero and exemplary public servant is beyond

revision. The person who suffers most from the strange, posthumous attacks by the president is the president himself. Re-spectfully, the president should let McCain rest in peace and give his family the peace they deserve during this difficult time after his death.

The two main grievances Trump seems to have against McCain are not well-found-ed. If he were alive now, he would probably not answer the president. But I feel a re-sponsibility as his friend to do so.

First, when McCain turned over a con-troversial dossier involving Trump to the FBI in 2016, it was exactly what he should have done, what I would have done and what every senator I served with did in similar circumstances. Serious allegations were made in that file, so McCain turned it over to the FBI to investigate. Giving the file to anyone else or throwing it away would have been a dereliction of duty and improper in our rule-of-law country.

Second, I know the president and many other Republicans were angry that McCain came back to Washington in July 2017 after his first operation to remove cancer from his brain and surprised everyone by voting against the repeal of Obamacare. But I can tell you, because I talked to him about it, that he didn’t vote that way to spite Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., or anyone else. People who heard his speech on the Senate floor that day or have read it since know that McCain cast that vote not against repeal of Obamacare but against the partisanship that had taken over the Senate and made it into a feckless, gridlocked, divided place.

After his brain cancer diagnosis, Mc-Cain understood he might not have long to live and that the vote might have been

one of the last, best times he would have tomake the points he needed to make. So he made them — and he did so brilliantly. As he said in his speech in the Senate: “Ourdeliberations … are more partisan, moretribal more of the time than any other timeI remember. … We’ve been spinning ourwheels on too many important issues be-cause we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.”

He continued: “The Obama admin-istration and congressional Democratsshouldn’t have forced through Congress without any opposition support a socialand economic change as massive as Obam-acare. And we shouldn’t do the same withours. … What have we to lose by trying towork together to find those solutions? We’renot getting much done apart. … The timeswhen I was involved even in a modest way with working out a bipartisan response to a national problem or threat are the proud-est moments of my career, and by far themost satisfying.”

That is the lesson Trump and every mem-ber of Congress should take away from Mc-Cain’s acts and words in the U.S. Senate onthat long day in July 2017. Trump, because he is president, has the greatest capacity to move our government in the direction Mc-Cain appealed for that day and that mostAmericans clearly want.

I pray Trump will follow McCain’s ad-vice and give Democrats in Congress an opportunity to work with him to solve some of our most pressing national problems and threats. And I also pray Democrats respond to Trump in good faith and withthe national interest as their guiding light, which it consistently was for McCain.Joseph I. Lieberman represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2013.

BY DAVID IGNATIUS

Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON

When the debris settles after special counsel Robert Mueller completes his inves-tigation into Russian hacking

of the 2016 presidential election, America will still be left with the underlying prob-lem that triggered the probe — the threat of malicious cyberattacks against political parties, corporations, and anybody else who uses the internet.

Here’s a disturbing fact: Even after all the uproar that has surrounded Mueller’s inquiry, the U.S. government can’t do much to protect most private citizens or or-ganizations against attacks. There’s better security now for election systems and criti-cal infrastructure, but that doesn’t help the banks, hedge funds, law firms and other companies with sensitive data — which are basically on their own.

Mueller’s findings about President Donald Trump will have their own fiery afterlife on Capitol Hill, which nobody can predict. But Congress should also be thinking about the less-sexy fallout from the investigation, which highlighted the vulnerability of all data to foreign spies, meddlers and information pirates.

U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency have already gone on the offensive against Moscow. Last fall, their joint “Russia Small Group” secretly “hacked back,” in effect, against Russia’s Internet Research Agency, briefly shut-ting down some of its computers. The aim was to deter meddling in the 2018 midterm elections, and it seems to have worked.

Private companies are going on the of-fensive in cyberspace, too — even though the legal terrain is murky and there’s a big

risk of triggering a tit-for-tat melee.“Some organizations are conducting ac-

tive cyber-defense ‘hacking back,’ but in my experience this will amplify the global cyber-arms race,” warns Milan Patel, a prominent former FBI cyber expert who’s now with BlueVoyant, a cyber-security firm. “Rather than hacking back, which will only bring a short-term sense of re-lief, companies need to do a better job at education and training.” He says the latest industry reports estimate that 92 percent of attacks originate from spear-phishing, where employees unwittingly click on ma-licious malware.

American history offers an unlikely lesson in how cyber-offense might be en-hanced and also regulated, as explained by Michael Chertoff, former secretary of homeland security, in his recent book “Exploding Data.” At the very beginning of our nation, when America and France were fighting an undeclared war, the U.S. Navy was too weak to protect American vessels from attack. The high seas were an 18th-century version of cyberspace, with attackers lurking everywhere. So, as Chertoff notes, the U.S. Constitution man-dated that: “Congress shall have Power ... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.”

Today, argues Chertoff, the government could grant the equivalent of letters of marque to private cyber-defense compa-nies. “To bolster its capacity to defend and deter cyberattacks, the government should train and license ‘privateers’ for certain specific operations ... to assist in deterring attacks against U.S. companies and infra-structure,” he writes.

But Chertoff cautions in an interview: “Don’t try this at home!” Meaning, com-panies should avoid any retaliatory action

that might be illegal under U.S. or foreignlaw, or that would trigger counter-reprisalsthat would make the problem even worse.

In the real-world marketplace, cyber consultants are selling “active defense” tools that push the envelope. Illusive Net-works specializes in what its website calls“deception-based cybersecurity.” The ideais to create what intelligence organizationscall “honeypots” that lure attackers andallow defenders to observe and manipulatethem. “To catch an attacker, you must think like one,” says the company’s website.

Another cyber-deception specialist isAttivo Networks. Its website explains: “De-ception changes the asymmetry againstattackers with attractive traps and luresdesigned to deceive and detect attackers.” A third prominent player in the active-de-fense market, Endgame, promises on itswebsite that its software can hunt and stopexploits, phishing, malware, ransomware and other attacks. Social-media platformssuch as Facebook have become increasing-ly active, too, in defending their networks.

Cyber experts warn that active defenseis a slippery slope. A honeypot can iden-tify invaders. But it can also lure them to gobble malicious software that disables theattackers’ network, or to steal false docu-ments that deliberately mislead the attack-ers. And because attackers hide in serversthat aren’t their own, a reprisal meant totarget malicious hackers could take downa hospital or university.

The Mueller investigation has galva-nized efforts to protect U.S. elections fromfuture meddling. But the larger Americanvulnerability to cyberattack remains, andit deserves more attention.

As U.S. companies move to protect their secrets, sometimes using tools once re-served for intelligence agencies, they needbetter guidance from Washington.

For McCain, anger didn’t trump progress

Pitfalls in the age of cyberattack ‘hack back’

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21Saturday, March 23, 2019

PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23Saturday, March 23, 2019

PAGE 24 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

SCOREBOARD

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

Sports on AFN

College basketball

Men’s NITFirst Round

Tuesday, March 19UNC-Greensboro 84, Campbell 69Lipscomb 89, Davidson 81N.C. State 84, Hofstra 78Indiana 89, St. Francis (Pa.) 72Clemson 75, Wright State 69Memphis 74, San Diego 60Arkansas 84, Providence 72Texas 79, South Dakota State 73Creighton 70, Loyola of Chicago 61Colorado 78, Dayton 73

Wednesday, March 20Wichita State 76, Furman 70Harvard 71, Georgetown 68Norfolk State 80, Alabama 79, OTXavier 78, Toledo 64TCU 82, Sam Houston State 69Nebraska 80, Butler 76

Second RoundSaturday, March 23

Arkansas (18-15) at Indiana (18-15)Sunday, March 24

Harvard (19-11) at N.C. State (23-11)Wichita State (20-14) at Clemson (20-13)

March 23-25Lipscomb (26-7) at UNC-Greensboro

(29-6)Norfolk State (22-13) at Colorado (22-12)Xavier (19-15) vs. Texas (17-16)Memphis (22-13) at Creighton (19-14)TCU (21-13) vs. Nebraska (19-16)

CBIFirst Round

Tuesday, March 19Utah Valley 92, CS Northridge 84

Wednesday, March 20West Virginia 77, Grand Canyon 63Coastal Carolina 81, Howard 72South Florida 82, Stony Brook 79, OTLongwood 90, Southern Mississippi 68DePaul 100, Central Michigan 86Brown 83, UAB 78Loyola Marymount 56, Cal Baptist 55

QuarterfinalsMonday, March 25

West Virginia (15-20) vs. Coastal Caro-lina (16-16)

South Florida (20-13) vs. Utah Valley (24-9)

DePaul (16-15) vs. Longwood (16-17)Loyola Marymount (21-11) vs. Brown

(20-11)

CITFirst Round

Monday, March 18NJIT 92, Quinnipiac 81

Tuesday, March 19Robert Morris 98, Cornell 89, OTMarshall 76, IUPUI 73

Wednesday, March 20Green Bay 102, ETSU 94Texas Southern 95, New Orleans 89, OTTexas Rio Grande Valley 74, Grambling

State 73Presbyterian 73, Seattle 68

Thursday, March 21Hampton 81, Saint Francis 72Charleston Southern 68, FAU 66Louisiana-Monroe 87, Kent State 77CSU Bakersfield 66, Cal State Fullerton 58

Friday, March 22Drake (24-9) at Southern Utah (16-16)

Saturday, March 23FIU (19-13) at Texas State (24-10)Note: Top 4 seeds will get a bye after

first round

Men’s NCAA Division IITournamentQuarterfinals

At Evansville, Ind.Wednesday, March 27

Mercyhurst vs. Northwest Missouri StateSaint Anselm vs. Southern IndianaNova Southeastern vs. Queens (NC)West Texas A&M vs. Point Loma

SemifinalsThursday, March 28

Nova Southeastern-Saint Anselm win-ner vs. Mercyhurst-Northwest Missouri State winner

West Texas A&M-Southern Indiana win-ner vs. Queens (NC)-Point Loma winner

NAIA Men’s TournamentAt Kansas City, Mo.

First RoundWednesday, March 20

Bethel (Tenn.) 77, John Brown 57Lewis-Clark State 71, Campbellsville 70LSU Shreveport 83, William Jessup 65LSU-Alexandria 81, Central Baptist 74Georgetown (Ky.) 77, Rocky Mountain 57William Penn 69, Vanguard 53Loyola (NO) 68, Missouri Baptist 67Arizona Christian 81, Wayland Baptist 73

Thursday, March 21Pikeville 69, Talladega 65Wiley 68, Cumberlands (Ky.) 56Carroll (Mont.) 71, St. Thomas (Texas) 65Oklahoma City 101, Stillman 84Mid-America Christian 73, Tougaloo 64William Carey 95, Peru State 89Benedictine (Kan.) 90, Westmont 85Sciences & Arts 77, The Masters 75

Second RoundFriday, March 22

Carroll (Mont.) vs. Oklahoma CityBethel (Tenn.) vs. LSU-AlexandriaLSU Shreveport vs. Georgetown (Ky.)Lewis-Clark State vs. William PennLoyola (NO) vs. Arizona ChristianMid-America Christian vs. William CareyBenedictine (Kan.) vs. PikevilleWiley vs. Sciences & Arts

Women’s NCAA TournamentGREENSBORO REGIONAL

First RoundFriday, March 22At Charlotte, N.C.

South Carolina (21-9) vs. Belmont (26-6)Florida State (23-8) vs. Bucknell (28-5)

At Iowa CityIowa (26-6) vs. Mercer (25-7)Missouri (23-10) vs. Drake (27-6)

Saturday, March 23At Waco, Texas

California (19-12) vs. North Carolina (18-14)

Baylor (31-1) vs. Abilene Christian (23-9)At Raleigh, N.C.

Kentucky (24-7) vs. Princeton (22-9)NC State (26-5) vs. Maine (25-7)

PORTLAND REGIONALFirst Round

Friday, March 22At Starkville, Miss.

South Dakota (28-5) vs. Clemson (19-12)Mississippi State (30-2) vs. Southern

U. (20-12)At Coral Gables, Fla.

Arizona State (20-10) vs. UCF (26-6)Miami (24-8) vs. Florida Gulf Coast (28-4)

At Eugene, Ore.Texas (23-9) vs. Indiana (20-12)Oregon (29-4) vs. Portland State (25-7)

Saturday, March 23At Syracuse, N.Y.

South Dakota State (26-6) vs. Quinni-piac (26-6)

Syracuse (24-8) vs. Fordham (24-8) CHICAGO REGIONAL

First RoundFriday, March 22

At College Station, TexasMarquette (26-7) vs. Rice (28-3)Texas A&M (24-7) vs. Wright State (27-6)

Saturday, March 23At Notre Dame, Ind.

Notre Dame (30-3) vs. Bethune-Cook-man (21-10)

Central Michigan (25-7) vs. Michigan State (20-11)

At Ames, IowaDePaul (26-7) vs. Missouri State (22-9)Iowa State (25-8) vs. New Mexico State

(25-6)At Stanford, Calif.

BYU (25-6) vs. Auburn (22-9)Stanford (28-4) vs. UC Davis (24-6)

ALBANY REGIONALFirst Round

Friday, March 22At Louisville, Ky.

Louisville (29-3) vs. Robert Morris (22-10)Michigan (21-11) vs. Kansas State (21-11)

At Storrs, Conn.Rutgers (22-9) vs. Buffalo (23-9)UConn (31-2) vs. Towson (20-12)

Saturday, March 23At Corvallis, Ore.

Gonzaga (28-4) vs. Little Rock (21-10)Oregon State (24-7) vs. Boise State (28-4)

At College Park, Md.Maryland (28-4) vs. Radford (26-6)UCLA (20-12) vs. Tennessee (19-12)

WNITFirst Round

Wednesday, March 20Morehead State 71, Ohio State 61Pepperdine 91, Cal Baptist 79Pacific 77, Fresno State 72

Thursday, March 21VCU 65, Charlotte 52Arkansas 88, Houston 80, OTUAB 93, Troy 89Kent State 64, Green Bay 59Butler 89, Northeastern 72Cincinnati 76, Youngstown State 62West Virginia 83, Rider 43Toledo 71, Seton Hall 65Western Kentucky 67, Miami 63Ohio 81, High Point 74South Florida 84, Stetson 50Virginia Tech 92, Furman 65Providence 71, Hartford 54Middle Tennessee 59, IUPUI 47TCU 72, Prairie View A&M 41Northwestern 74, Dayton 51Texas-Arlington 60, Stephen F. Austin 54Wyoming 68, Northern Colorado 60Denver 83, New Mexico 75Arizona 66, Idaho State 56Idaho 79, Loyola Marymount 64

Friday, March 22Old Dominion (21-10) at Villanova (18-12)NC A&T (20-11) at James Madison (25-5)Drexel (24-8) at Harvard (16-12)Sacred Heart (19-12) at Georgetown

(16-15)American (22-10) at Pennsylvania (23-6)Northern Iowa (20-12) at Minnesota (20-10)South Alabama (24-10) at Lamar (24-6)Hawaii (25-16) at Saint Mary’s (20-11)

WBIFirst Round

Wednesday, March 20Appalachian State 57, UNC Ashville 55Marshall 67, Davidson 64North Texas 56, Texas Rio Grande Val-

ley 42Utah State 68, UC Riverside 60Thursday, March 21Campbell 58, Coastal Carolina 54Southern Mississippi 77, Nicholls 71North Alabama 64, Georgia State 57Tennessee Tech 73, Akron 59

QuarterfinalsMonday, March 25 or Tuesday, March 26

Utah State vs. North TexasSouthern Mississippi vs. North AlabamaTennessee Tech vs. CampbellAppalachian State vs. Marshall

Women’s NCAA Division IITournamentQuarterfinals

At Columbus, OhioTuesday, March 26

Indiana (Pa.) vs. Southwestern Okla-homa State

Saint Anselm vs. DruryNova Southeastern vs. North GeorgiaLubbock Christian vs. Azusa Pacific

SemifinalsWednesday, March 27

Indiana (Pa.)-Azusa Pacific winner vs. Saint Anselm-Southwestern Oklahoma State winner

Nova Southeastern-Drury winner vs. Lubbock Christian-North Georgia winner

College hockey

Conference tournamentsATLANTIC HOCKEY ASSOCIATION

At Buffalo, N.Y.Semifinals

Friday, March 22American International vs. Robert MorrisRIT vs. Niagara

ChampionshipSaturday, March 23

Semifinal winnersBIG TEN CONFERENCE

ChampionshipSaturday, March 23

Penn State at Notre DameECAC

At Lake Placid, N.Y.Semifinals

Friday, March 22Brown vs. CornellHarvard vs. Clarkson

ChampionshipSaturday, March 23

Semifinal winnersHOCKEY EAST

At BostonSemifinals

Friday, March 22Boston University vs. NortheasternUMass vs. Boston College

ChampionshipSaturday, March 23

Semifinal winnersNCHC

At Saint Paul, Minn.Semifinals

Friday, March 22St. Cloud State vs. Colorado CollegeMinnesota Duluth vs. Denver

ChampionshipSaturday, March 23

Semifinal winners WCHA

ChampionshipSaturday, March 23At Mankato, Minn.

Bowling Green at Minnesota State

Tennis

Miami OpenThursday

Hard Rock StadiumMiami Gardens, FloridaSurface: Hard-Outdoor

SinglesMen

First RoundLeonardo Mayer, Argentina, def. Mi-

kael Ymer, Sweden, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.Robin Haase, Netherlands, def. Lukas

Lacko, Slovakia, 6-2, 6-4.Jordan Thompson, Australia, def.

Cameron Norrie, Britain, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3.Lorenzo Sonego, Italy, def. Martin Kli-

zan, Slovakia, 6-4, 6-3.Alexander Bublik, Kazakhstan, def.

Tennys Sandgren, United States, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Ilya Ivashka, Belarus, def. Thomas Fabbiano, Italy, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.

Dusan Lajovic, Serbia, def. Pablo Cue-vas, Uruguay, 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3.

Damir Dzumhur, Bosnia-Herzegovina, def. Christopher Eubanks, United States, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Jeremy Chardy, France, def. Nicolas Jarry, Chile, 6-7 (1), 6-2, 7-6 (5).

Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Spain, def. Marius Copil, Romania, 6-4, 6-2.

Felix Auger-Aliassime, Canada, def. Casper Ruud, Norway, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Maxi Marterer, Germany, def. Taylor Fritz, United States, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

Radu Albot, Moldova, def. Matthew Ebden, Australia, 6-0, 3-2 retired.

Bernard Tomic, Australia, def. Thiago Monteiro, Brazil, 6-4, 6-1.

Andrey Rublev, Russia, def. Taro Dan-iel, Japan, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Jaume Munar, Spain, def. Prajnesh Gunneswaran, India, 7-6 (3), 6-4.

Feliciano Lopez, Spain, def. Benoit Paire, France, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.

Filip Krajinovic, Serbia, def. Pierre-Hu-gues Herbert, France, 6-4, 6-4.

Joao Sousa, Portugal, def. Tseng Chun Hsin, Taiwan, 6-4, 7-5.

Reilly Opelka, United States, def. Jan-Lennard Struff, Germany, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Dan Evans, Britain, def. Malek Jaziri, Tunisia, 6-2, 6-0.

Pablo Andujar, Spain, def. Ivo Karlovic, Croatia, 7-6 (2), 6-4.

Mackenzie McDonald, United States, def. Ugo Humbert, France, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4).

Adrian Mannarino, France, def. Aljaz Bedene, Slovenia, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.

Miomir Kecmanovic, Serbia, def. Er-nests Gulbis, Latvia, 6-2, 7-5.

David Ferrer, Spain, def. Sam Querrey, United States, 6-3, 6-2.

WomenFirst Round

Alison Riske, United States, def. Kaia Kanepi, Estonia, 6-2, 6-2.

Yanina Wickmayer, Belgium, def. Sa-chia Vickery, United States, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Misaki Doi, Japan, def. Wang Xinyu, China, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3.

Venus Williams, United States, def. Dalila Jakupovic, Slovenia, 7-5, 6-3.

Whitney Osuigwe, United States, def. Mari Osaka, Japan, 6-2, 6-4.

Taylor Townsend, United States, def. Johanna Larsson, Sweden, 6-1, 6-2.

Cori Gauff, United States, def. Cath-erine McNally, United States, 6-3, 6-4.

Petra Martic, Croatia, def. Zhang Sh-uai, China, 6-2, 6-1.

Wang Yafan, China, def. Kristina Mlad-enovic, France, 6-3, 6-3.

Ajla Tomljanovic, Australia, def. Anna-Lena Friedsam, Germany, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.

Viktoria Kuzmova, Slovakia, def. Daria Gavrilova, Australia, 6-4, 6-2.

Rebecca Peterson, Sweden, def. Laura Siegemund, Germany, 6-1, 5-7, 7-5.

Alize Cornet, France, def. Vera Lapko, Belarus, 7-5, 6-7 (7), 6-1.

Bianca Andreescu, Canada, def. Irina-Camelia Begu, Romania, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2.

Ons Jabeur, Tunisia, def. Alison Van Uytvanck, Belgium, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Aliaksandra Sasnovich, Belarus, def. Viktorija Golubic, Switzerland, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Tatjana Maria, Germany, def. Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, Slovakia, 6-4, 6-1.

Johanna Konta, Britain, def. Jessica Pegula, United States, 6-1, 6-4.

Karolina Muchova, Czech Republic, def. Nao Hibino, Japan, 6-3, 6-3.

Monica Niculescu, Romania, def. Ta-mara Zidansek, Slovenia, 6-1, 6-2.

Second RoundPetra Kvitova (3), Czech Republic, def.

Maria Sakkari, Greece, 6-1, 6-4.Caroline Garcia (19), France, def. Vic-

toria Azarenka, Belarus, 6-3, 6-4.Kiki Bertens (7), Netherlands, def.

Wang Xiyu, China, 6-4, 6-1.Donna Vekic (26), Croatia, def. Sara

Sorribes Tormo, Spain, 6-3, 6-3.Ashleigh Barty (12), Australia, def.

Dayana Yastremska, Ukraine, 6-4, 6-1.Julia Goerges (15), Germany, def. Mag-

dalena Rybarikova, Slovakia, 6-4, 7-5.Sam Stosur, Australia, def. Madison

Keys (17), United States, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.Doubles

MenFirst Round

Wesley Koolhof, Netherlands, and Stefanos Tsitsipas, Greece, def. Karen Khachanov and Daniil Medvedev, Russia, 6-1, 6-4.

Marcel Granollers, Spain, and Nikola Mektic (7), Croatia, def. Steve Johnson, United States, and Dominic Thiem, Aus-tria, 7-6 (4), 7-5.

Maximo Gonzalez and Horacio Zebal-los, Argentina, def. Alexander and Mis-cha Zverev, Germany, 6-4, 6-2.

WomenFirst Round

Elise Mertens, Belgium, and Aryna Sabalenka, Belarus, def. Danielle Collins, United States, and Jelena Ostepenko, Latvia, 6-3, 6-0.

Belinda Bencic, Switzerland, and Daria Kasatkina, Russia, def. Nicole Melichar, United States, and Kveta Peschke (4), Czech Republic, 4-6, 6-4, 10-8.

Deals

Thursday’s transactionsBASEBALL

American LeagueBALTIMORE ORIOLES — Released SS

Alcides Escobar and RHPs Omar Benco-mo and Bo Schultz. Reassigned RHP JoshLucas and INF Jack Reinheimer to minor league camp.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX — Released RHP Randall Delgado and 3B Chris Johnson.Optioned LHP Josh Osich and RHP Thya-go Vieira to Charlotte (IL). Reassigned C Nate Nolan to minor league camp.

HOUSTON ASTROS — Optioned RHP Dean Deetz to minor league camp.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS — Assigned 3BKaleb Cowart outright to Salt Lake (PCL). Released OF DJ Jenkins.

NEW YORK YANKEES — ReassignedOFs Billy Burns and Matt Lipka and C Ryan Lavarnway to minor league camp.

SEATTLE MARINERS — OF Ichiro Suzu-ki announced his retirement. PromotedLisa Winsby to senior vice president/people and culture, Cory Carbary to vicepresident of ticket sales and service, Greg Greene to vice president of market-ing and Malcolm Rogel to vice president of ticket and event services.

TAMPA BAY RAYS — Agreed to terms with LHP Blake Snell on a five-year con-tract.

TEXAS RANGERS — Optioned RHP Ariel Jurado to Nashville (PCL) and LHP Brett Martin to Frisco (TL).

National LeagueARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS — Released

2B Adam Walton.ATLANTA BRAVES — Optioned RHP

Mike Soroka to Gwinnett (IL). Signed RHP Josh Tomlin to a minor league contract.

CHICAGO CUBS — Released RHP Chris-tian Bergman.

MIAMI MARLINS — Optioned OF AustinDean to New Orleans (PCL). Selected the contract of OF Curtis Granderson fromNew Orleans.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES — OptionedRHPs Clay Holmes and Michael Feliz toIndianapolis (IL).

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — ReassignedOF Anthony Garcia to minor league camp. Signed OF Matt Joyce to a minor league contract. Acquired INF/OF Connor Joe from the Cincinnati Reds for RHP Jordan Johnson and cash considerations.

BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association

NBA — Fined Boston G Marcus Smart$50,000 for forcefully shoving Philadel-phia C Joel Embiid to the floor and re-peated acts of unsportsmanlike conductduring games.

LOS ANGELES LAKERS — Signed G Scott Machado to a 10-day contract.

Women’s NBANEW YORK LIBERTY — Signed G Ma-

rine Johannes.FOOTBALL

National Football LeagueARIZONA CARDINALS — Signed DL

Darius Philon to a two-year contract andTE Ricky Seals-Jones to a one-year con-tract.

ATLANTA FALCONS — Agreed to terms with WR Justin Hardy on a one-year con-tract.

BALTIMORE RAVENS — Agreed toterms with QB Robert Griffin III on a two-year contract.

CINCINNATI BENGALS — Re-signed DTJosh Tupou to a one-year contract.

DENVER BRONCOS — Re-signed QBKevin Hogan to a one-year contract.

DETROIT LIONS — Signed TE LoganThomas.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS — Signed DE Justin Houston.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS — Re-signed TE James O’Shaughnessy.

MIAMI DOLPHINS — Agreed to terms with LB Mike Hull on a one-year con-tract.

OAKLAND RAIDERS — Signed CB NevinLawson and OL Jordan Devey.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES — Signed DE Vinny Curry to a one-year contract.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

NHL — Fined San Jose F Timo Meier $2,000 for diving/embellishment). Sus-pended Ottawa F Jean-Gabriel Pageauone game for boarding.

CAROLINA HURRICANES — Signed F Stelio Mattheos to a three-year, entry-level contract and assigned him to Char-lotte (AHL).

NEW JERSEY DEVILS — Recalled D JoshJacobs from Binghamton (AHL).

NEW YORK ISLANDERS — Signed D Grant Hutton to a one-year, entry-level contract.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — Recalled G Connor Ingram from Orlando (ECHL) toSyracuse (AHL).

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS — Signed F Nic Petan to a two-year contract exten-sion.

SOCCERMajor League Soccer

DALLAS — Loaned D Moises Hernan-dez to San Antonio (USL Championship).

NEW YORK CITY — Acquired F Heber from Rijeka (HT Prva-Croatia).

TORONTO — Signed M Richie Laryea.OLYMPIC SPORTS

USA WRESTLING — Named JessicaMedina national women’s developmen-tal coach.

COLLEGEGEORGE WASHINGTON — Named Ja-

mion Christian men’s basketball coach.WASHINGTON — Agreed to terms with

men’s basketball coach Mike Hopkins on a contract extension through the 2025 season.

SEE SCOREBOARD ON PAGE 25

College baseball

Thursday’s scoresEAST

Allegheny 22, Grinnell 2SOUTH

Bradley 6, Dartmouth 3 MIDWEST

Augustana (S.D.) 9, Minn.-Duluth 3Clarke at Waldorf, 2, ccd.Cleary at Indiana Wesleyan, ppd.Marian (Wis.) 2-0, Augsburg 0-3Minot St. 6-2, Concordia (St.P) 0-4Park 7, Williams Baptist 2St. Cloud St. 17, Winona St. 6St. Francis (Ind.) 3, Siena Heights 1

SOUTHWESTScience & Arts 7, MidAm Christian 0Texas College 5, Texas A&M Texarkana 4

Pro soccer

MLSEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GAD.C. United 2 0 1 7 7 0Columbus 2 0 1 7 4 1Toronto FC 2 0 0 6 6 3Montreal 2 1 0 6 6 4New York 1 0 1 4 5 2Cincinnati 1 1 1 4 5 5New York City FC 0 0 3 3 4 4Orlando City 0 1 2 2 4 6Atlanta 0 1 2 2 2 4Chicago 0 2 1 1 4 7New England 0 2 1 1 3 6Philadelphia 0 2 1 1 2 6

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GASeattle 3 0 0 9 10 3Los Angeles FC 2 0 1 7 8 4Houston 2 0 1 7 6 4Minnesota United 2 1 0 6 8 5LA Galaxy 2 1 0 6 5 5Sporting KC 1 1 1 4 4 3FC Dallas 1 1 1 4 3 2Real Salt Lake 1 1 1 4 2 6Colorado 0 1 2 2 4 6Portland 0 2 1 1 4 10Vancouver 0 3 0 0 4 7San Jose 0 3 0 0 2 9

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

Saturday’s gamesColorado at FC DallasColumbus at PhiladelphiaOrlando City at New YorkReal Salt Lake at Los Angeles FC

Sunday’s gameCincinnati at New England

Friday, March 29New York City FC at Toronto FC

Saturday, March 30New York at ChicagoMinnesota United at New EnglandMontreal at Sporting Kansas CityLos Angeles FC at San JoseAtlanta at ColumbusPhiladelphia at CincinnatiFC Dallas at Real Salt LakeHouston at ColoradoSeattle at Vancouver

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 25Saturday, March 23, 2019

SCOREBOARD/SPORTS BRIEFSFROM PAGE 24

Golf

Valspar ChampionshipPGA TourThursday

At Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead)Palm Harbor, Fla.Purse: $6.7 million

Yardage: 7,340; Par 71 (36-35)First Round

Joel Dahmen 33-33—66 -5Sepp Straka 33-33—66 -5Russell Knox 38-29—67 -4Kevin Kisner 34-33—67 -4Luke Donald 33-34—67 -4Brian Stuard 33-35—68 -3Keegan Bradley 36-32—68 -3Denny McCarthy 35-33—68 -3Roberto Castro 36-32—68 -3Shawn Stefani 35-33—68 -3Peter Malnati 35-34—69 -2Tyrrell Hatton 34-35—69 -2Harold Varner III 34-35—69 -2Russell Henley 35-34—69 -2Charley Hoffman 33-36—69 -2Joaquin Niemann 35-34—69 -2Jason Kokrak 33-36—69 -2Kelly Kraft 36-33—69 -2Sam Burns 35-34—69 -2Hank Lebioda 36-33—69 -2Julian Etulain 35-34—69 -2Scott Stallings 33-36—69 -2Dustin Johnson 34-35—69 -2Bubba Watson 35-34—69 -2Jim Furyk 35-34—69 -2Austin Cook 35-34—69 -2Danny Willett 36-33—69 -2Roberto Diaz 36-33—69 -2Rory Sabbatini 36-34—70 -1Bud Cauley 35-35—70 -1Ollie Schniederjans 36-34—70 -1Ryan Armour 37-33—70 -1Henrik Stenson 35-35—70 -1Curtis Luck 35-35—70 -1Stewart Cink 36-34—70 -1Satoshi Kodaira 37-33—70 -1Anirban Lahiri 36-34—70 -1Roger Sloan 38-32—70 -1Sungjae Im 35-35—70 -1Louis Oosthuizen 37-33—70 -1Paul Casey 36-34—70 -1Brandt Snedeker 37-33—70 -1Patton Kizzire 36-34—70 -1Mackenzie Hughes 35-35—70 -1Michael Kim 35-35—70 -1

Founders CupLPGA TourThursday

At Wildfire GC at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa

PhoenixPurse: $1.5 million

Yardage: 6,666; Par 72 (36-36)First Round

Celine Boutier 32-32—64 -8Nanna Koerstz Madsen 34-31—65 -7Alana Uriell 32-33—65 -7Jin Young Ko 34-31—65 -7Na Yeon Choi 33-32—65 -7Charlotte Thomas 34-31—65 -7Sung Hyun Park 34-32—66 -6Pornanong Phatlum 32-34—66 -6Cheyenne Knight 32-34—66 -6Carlota Ciganda 33-33—66 -6Jenny Shin 32-34—66 -6Lydia Ko 33-34—67 -5Brooke M. Henderson 34-33—67 -5Angel Yin 35-32—67 -5Sarah Schmelzel 33-34—67 -5Daniela Darquea 33-34—67 -5Mirim Lee 34-33—67 -5Marina Alex 32-36—68 -4Amy Yang 33-35—68 -4Mi Jung Hur 33-35—68 -4Yu Liu 35-33—68 -4Clariss Guce 35-33—68 -4Nelly Korda 34-34—68 -4Katherine Kirk 34-34—68 -4Jing Yan 32-37—69 -3Sei Young Kim 35-34—69 -3Cristie Kerr 34-35—69 -3Hyo Joo Kim 34-35—69 -3Ally McDonald 34-35—69 -3Chella Choi 36-33—69 -3Su Oh 34-35—69 -3Peiyun Chien 33-36—69 -3Hannah Green 35-34—69 -3Brittany Altomare 34-35—69 -3Haeji Kang 35-34—69 -3Georgia Hall 34-35—69 -3Lizette Salas 34-35—69 -3Moriya Jutanugarn 36-33—69 -3Inbee Park 35-34—69 -3Jessica Korda 33-36—69 -3Linnea Strom 33-36—69 -3Bronte Law 34-35—69 -3

Pro baseball

MLBAMERICAN LEAGUE

East Division W L Pct GBBaltimore 0 0 .000 —Boston 0 0 .000 —New York 0 0 .000 —Tampa Bay 0 0 .000 —Toronto 0 0 .000 —

Central DivisionChicago 0 0 .000 —Cleveland 0 0 .000 —Detroit 0 0 .000 —Kansas City 0 0 .000 —Minnesota 0 0 .000 —

West DivisionSeattle 2 0 1.000 —Houston 0 0 .000 1Los Angeles 0 0 .000 1Texas 0 0 .000 1Oakland 0 2 .000 2

NATIONAL LEAGUEEast Division

W L Pct GBAtlanta 0 0 .000 —Miami 0 0 .000 —New York 0 0 .000 —Philadelphia 0 0 .000 —Washington 0 0 .000 —

Central DivisionChicago 0 0 .000 —Cincinnati 0 0 .000 —Milwaukee 0 0 .000 —Pittsburgh 0 0 .000 —St. Louis 0 0 .000 —

West DivisionArizona 0 0 .000 —Colorado 0 0 .000 —Los Angeles 0 0 .000 —San Diego 0 0 .000 —San Francisco 0 0 .000 —

Wednesday’s gameSeattle 9, Oakland 7

Thursday’s gameSeattle 5, Oakland 4, 12 innings

Thursday, March 28Baltimore (Cobb 0-0) at N.Y. Yankees

(Tanaka 0-0)Detroit (TBD) at Toronto (Stroman 0-0)Houston (Verlander 0-0) at Tampa Bay

(Snell 0-0)L.A. Angels (Cahill 0-0) at Oakland

(TBD)Cleveland (TBD) at Minnesota (Berrios

0-0)Chicago White Sox (Rodon 0-0) at Kan-

sas City (Keller 0-0)Boston (TBD) at Seattle (TBD)N.Y. Mets (deGrom 0-0) at Washington

(Scherzer 0-0)St. Louis (Mikolas 0-0) at Milwaukee

(Chacin 0-0)Atlanta (Teheran 0-0) at Philadelphia

(Nola 0-0)Chicago Cubs (Lester 0-0) at Texas

(Minor 0-0)Arizona (Greinke 0-0) at L.A. Dodgers

(TBD)Colorado (TBD) at Miami (Urena 0-0)Pittsburgh (Taillon 0-0) at Cincinnati

(TBD)San Francisco (TBD) at San Diego (TBD)

Friday, March 29Detroit (TBD) at Toronto (TBD)Houston (Cole 0-0) at Tampa Bay (TBD)L.A. Angels (TBD) at Oakland (TBD)Boston (TBD) at Seattle (TBD)Colorado (TBD) at Miami (TBD)St. Louis (TBD) at Milwaukee (TBD)Arizona (TBD) at L.A. Dodgers (TBD)San Francisco (TBD) at San Diego (TBD)

Spring training Friday’s games

Pittsburgh vs. Tampa Bay at Port Charlotte, Fla.

St. Louis vs. N.Y. Mets (ss) at Port St. Lucie, Fla.

Arizona vs. L.A. Dodgers at Glendale, Ariz.Texas vs. Chicago Cubs (ss) at Mesa,

Ariz.Cincinnati vs. Milwaukee at PhoenixChicago White Sox vs. L.A. Angels (ss)

at Tempe, Ariz.Detroit vs. Atlanta at Kissimmee, Fla.Boston vs. Minnesota at Fort Myers, Fla.N.Y. Mets (ss) vs. Houston at West

Palm Beach, Fla.Baltimore vs. Toronto at Dunedin, Fla.Philadelphia vs. N.Y. Yankees at Tam-

pa, Fla.Washington vs. Miami at Jupiter, Fla.San Francisco (ss) vs. Kansas City at

Surprise, Ariz.Chicago Cubs (ss) vs. Cleveland at

Goodyear, Ariz.San Diego vs. Colorado (ss) at Scott-

sdale, Ariz.L.A. Angels (ss) vs. Seattle at Peoria,

Ariz.Colorado (ss) vs. San Francisco (ss) at

Scottsdale, Ariz.Saturday’s games

St. Louis vs. Washington at West Palm Beach, Fla.

Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh (ss) at Bradenton, Fla.

N.Y. Mets vs. Atlanta at Kissimmee, Fla.Tampa Bay vs. Detroit at Lakeland, Fla.Toronto (ss) vs. N.Y. Yankees at Tam-

pa, Fla.Pittsburgh (ss) vs. Boston at Fort My-

ers, Fla.Canada Jr. vs. Toronto (ss) at Dunedin,

Fla.Milwaukee (ss) vs. Texas at Surprise,

Ariz.Chicago White Sox vs. L.A. Dodgers at

Glendale, Ariz.Cincinnati vs. Cleveland at Goodyear,

Ariz.Arizona vs. San Francisco at Scotts-

dale, Ariz.Kansas City vs. Milwaukee (ss) at

PhoenixL.A. Angels vs. San Diego at Peoria, Ariz.Minnesota vs. Baltimore at Sarasota, Fla.Houston vs. Miami at Jupiter, Fla.Chicago Cubs vs. Colorado at Scotts-

dale, Ariz.

Pro football

AAFEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pct PF PAOrlando 5 1 0 .833 166 99Birmingham 4 2 0 .667 123 93Atlanta 2 4 0 .333 73 160Memphis 1 5 0 .167 90 135

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pct PF PASan Antonio 4 2 0 .667 133 116San Diego 3 3 0 .500 140 121Arizona 3 3 0 .500 131 123Salt Lake 2 4 0 .333 112 121

Saturday’s gamesOrlando at AtlantaSalt Lake at San Antonio

Sunday’s gamesSan Diego at ArizonaBirmingham at Memphis

Saturday, March 30Orlando at MemphisSan Diego at Salt Lake

Sunday, March 31Atlanta at BirminghamArizona at San Antonio

Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The worst season in the history of Vanderbilt men’s basketball has cost coach Bryce Drew his job.

Vanderbilt went 9-23 and was the first team in 65 years to go winless in the Southeastern Conference. Drew had a 40-59 record in three seasons with the Commodores.

The announcement Friday by new athletic director Malcolm Turner comes a week after the Commodores’ season ended.

“Vanderbilt is committed to competing at the highest levels on and off the court. After careful consideration, we’ve decided to make a change to the leadership of our men’s basketball program,” Turner said in a statement. “Bryce has represented Vander-bilt in exceptional fashion in his time here. I appreciate all of the contributions Bryce has made over the past three seasons to Vanderbilt, and we wish him all the best.”

Vanderbilt said Turner will head a coaching search with sup-port from Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos.

Drew came into this season with big expectations after sign-ing the highest-rated recruiting class ever at Vanderbilt. Then five-star point guard and poten-tial NBA lottery pick Darius Gar-land hurt his knee Nov. 23 in a home loss to Kent State.

Vanderbilt went 0-18 in SEC competition during the regular season before losing 69-52 to Texas A&M in the first round of the SEC Tournament.

In other college basketball news:

� Danny Manning will return for a sixth season at Wake Forest despite his third 20-loss season in five years.

Retiring athletic director Ron Wellman announced the decision Friday, 10 days after the Demon Deacons ended an 11-20 season with a loss to Miami in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Con-ference tournament.

The 52-year-old former Kansas star and No. 1 NBA Draft pick is 65-93 with one NCAA Tourna-ment appearance in five seasons with the Demon Deacons.

Source: Cards nearing deal with Goldschmidt

A person familiar with the ne-gotiations tells The Associated Press the St. Louis Cardinals and slugging first baseman Paul Gold-schmidt are nearing completion of a $130 million, five-year deal that would make him the highest-paid player in club history.

The person spoke on condi-tion of anonymity because Gold-schmidt must still pass a physical, which was expected to take place Friday. An announcement could come Saturday.

The Athletic was first to report that a deal was close.

The Cardinals acquired the 31-year-old Goldschmidt in a trade with Arizona, a move that club president John Mozeliak hoped would put the club over the top. Goldschmidt had just one year left on his contract, though, and his new deal would keep him with St. Louis through 2024.

Raiders’ Coliseum lease gets final approval

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Raid-ers have gotten final approval fortheir lease to remain in Oaklandfor at least one more season.

The Oakland City Council votedThursday to approve the lease for 2019 with an option for 2020.

The Raiders will pay $7.5 mil-lion in rent for the Coliseum and the practice facility in Alamedain 2019 and have a $10.5 millionoption for 2020 in case their new $1.8 billion, 65,000-seat stadiumin Las Vegas isn’t ready by then.

This season likely will be theRaiders’ final season in Oaklandafter moving back from Los An-geles in 1995. The Raiders beganplaying at the Coliseum in 1966and were there through the 1981season before going to South-ern California. The team plans to start the 2020 season at the65,000-seat stadium being built west of the Las Vegas Strip.

Vols DB arrested forallegedly punching cop

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Ten-nessee defensive back Kenneth George Jr. has been arrested for allegedly punching a police offi-cer on the side of the head.

The 22-year-old George is fac-ing felony charges of battery on an officer and resisting an officerwith violence and misdemeanorcharges of resisting an officerwithout violence and disorderlyconduct, according to police inMiami Beach, Fla. George wasarrested just before 3:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Vanderbilt fired coach Bryce Drewon Friday after the worst season

in Commodores men’s basketball history. Vanderbilt went 9-23and was the first team in 65

years to go winless in the SEC. MARK HUMPHREY/AP

Vandy fires head coach Drewafter winless SEC campaign

Briefl y

PAGE 26 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

Eastern ConferenceAtlantic Division

W L Pct GBx-Toronto 51 21 .708 —x-Philadelphia 47 25 .653 4Boston 43 29 .597 8Brooklyn 37 36 .507 14½New York 14 58 .194 37

Southeast DivisionMiami 35 36 .493 —Orlando 34 38 .472 1½Charlotte 32 39 .451 3Washington 30 43 .411 6Atlanta 25 48 .342 11

Central Divisiony-Milwaukee 53 19 .736 —Indiana 44 29 .603 9½Detroit 37 34 .521 15½Chicago 21 52 .288 32½Cleveland 19 53 .264 34

Western ConferenceSouthwest Division

W L Pct GBHouston 45 27 .625 —San Antonio 42 30 .583 3New Orleans 31 43 .419 15Memphis 29 42 .408 15½Dallas 28 44 .389 17

Northwest Divisionx-Denver 48 22 .686 —Portland 44 27 .620 4½Oklahoma City 42 30 .583 7Utah 42 30 .583 7Minnesota 32 40 .444 17

Pacific Divisionx-Golden State 49 22 .690 —L.A. Clippers 42 30 .583 7½Sacramento 35 36 .493 14L.A. Lakers 31 40 .437 18Phoenix 17 56 .233 33

x-clinched playoff spoty-clinched division

Thursday’s gamesCharlotte 113, Minnesota 106Denver 113, Washington 108Atlanta 117, Utah 114Detroit 118, Phoenix 98Sacramento 116, Dallas 100Golden State 112, Indiana 89

Friday’s gamesMemphis at OrlandoDenver at New YorkL.A. Clippers at ClevelandOklahoma City at TorontoSan Antonio at HoustonMiami at MilwaukeeBrooklyn at L.A. Lakers

Saturday’s gamesBoston at CharlotteMiami at WashingtonPhiladelphia at AtlantaMinnesota at MemphisUtah at ChicagoDallas at Golden StateDetroit at PortlandPhoenix at Sacramento

Sunday’s gamesL.A. Clippers at New YorkCleveland at MilwaukeeDenver at IndianaCharlotte at TorontoHouston at New OrleansSan Antonio at BostonDetroit at Golden StateSacramento at L.A. Lakers

Monday’s gamesPhiladelphia at OrlandoOklahoma City at MemphisPhoenix at UtahBrooklyn at Portland

ThursdayNuggets 113, Wizards 108DENVER — Barton 5-10 2-2 13, Millsap

6-8 1-2 15, Jokic 6-12 1-1 15, Murray 7-14 0-0 15, Harris 6-15 2-4 15, Craig 6-11 0-0 15, Plumlee 2-3 0-0 4, Morris 4-5 1-2 11, Beasley 4-9 0-0 10. Totals 46-87 7-11 113.

WASHINGTON — Brown Jr. 6-10 1-1 13, Portis 6-11 3-3 18, Bryant 9-11 4-5 22, Sa-toransky 5-7 4-4 16, Beal 10-19 3-3 25, Park-er 3-11 0-0 6, Green 1-6 2-2 5, Johnson 0-1 3-3 3, Randle 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 40-79 20-21 108.

Denver 33 28 24 28—113Washington 30 23 32 23—108Three-Point Goals—Denver 14-30

(Craig 3-6, Millsap 2-2, Morris 2-2, Jokic 2-4, Beasley 2-5, Barton 1-3, Harris 1-4, Mur-ray 1-4), Washington 8-28 (Portis 3-6, Sa-toransky 2-3, Beal 2-7, Green 1-4, Bryant 0-1, Randle 0-2, Brown Jr. 0-2, Parker 0-3). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Denver 40 (Plumlee 11), Washington 38 (Parker, Por-tis, Bryant 8). Assists—Denver 30 (Jokic 11), Washington 25 (Satoransky 10). Total Fouls—Denver 20, Washington 15. Techni-cals—Washington coach Wizards (Defen-sive three second). A—15,986 (20,356).

Hawks 117, Jazz 114UTAH — Ingles 5-8 0-0 13, Favors 6-10

3-3 15, Gobert 4-6 4-8 12, Rubio 6-10 3-3 17, Mitchell 15-32 2-3 34, O’Neale 3-7 3-3 10, Crowder 0-6 2-2 2, Sefolosha 0-2 0-0 0, Neto 2-6 0-0 5, Korver 2-7 1-4 6. Totals 43-94 18-26 114.

ATLANTA — Prince 5-8 0-0 13, Collins 4-10 0-0 9, Dedmon 6-8 3-4 18, Young 8-22 6-9 23, Huerter 6-12 0-0 14, Bembry 0-1 0-0 0, Len 4-10 3-4 12, Adams 0-0 0-0 0, Ander-son 2-3 0-0 6, Carter 2-4 4-6 10, Bazemore 4-9 0-0 12. Totals 41-87 16-23 117.

Utah 28 26 37 23—114Atlanta 29 36 21 31—117Three-Point Goals—Utah 10-32 (Ingles

3-5, Rubio 2-3, Mitchell 2-6, Neto 1-3, O’Neale 1-3, Korver 1-5, Sefolosha 0-2, Crowder 0-5), Atlanta 19-40 (Bazemore 4-6, Dedmon 3-3, Prince 3-4, Anderson 2-2, Carter 2-4, Huerter 2-6, Collins 1-4, Len 1-5, Young 1-6). Fouled Out—Collins. Re-bounds—Utah 49 (Favors 15), Atlanta 43 (Dedmon 9). Assists—Utah 25 (Ingles, Ru-bio 7), Atlanta 26 (Young 11). Total Fouls—Utah 24, Atlanta 23. A—15,569 (18,118).

Pistons 118, Suns 98DETROIT — Brown 1-2 0-0 3, Griffin 4-17

7-10 17, Drummond 7-18 2-3 16, R.Jackson 5-11 1-1 14, Ellington 7-11 3-5 23, Maker 2-4 5-6 10, Pachulia 0-1 0-0 0, Smith 5-9 1-2 11, Galloway 2-6 2-3 8, Kennard 5-11 4-4 16, Robinson III 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 38-90 25-34 118.

PHOENIX — Bridges 5-12 1-1 13, Bend-er 1-4 0-0 2, Ayton 9-12 2-3 20, Booker 8-17 8-10 26, J.Jackson 1-7 1-1 3, Spalding 1-2 0-0 2, Holmes 2-4 6-8 10, Melton 3-4 0-0 7, Crawford 2-5 3-3 8, Daniels 3-6 0-0 7. To-tals 35-73 21-26 98.

Detroit 29 29 29 31—118Phoenix 32 28 20 18— 98Three-Point Goals—Detroit 17-42 (El-

lington 6-10, R.Jackson 3-7, Galloway 2-4, Kennard 2-7, Griffin 2-11, Brown 1-1, Maker 1-2), Phoenix 7-26 (Booker 2-5, Bridges 2-8, Melton 1-2, Crawford 1-3, Daniels 1-3, Bender 0-2, J.Jackson 0-3). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Detroit 46 (Drummond 19), Phoenix 35 (Ayton 8). Assists—Detroit 23 (Griffin 8), Phoenix 22 (Bridges 7). Total Fouls—Detroit 26, Phoenix 27. Technicals—Kennard, Griffin, Booker. A—16,066 (18,422).

Hornets 113, T-wolves 106MINNESOTA — Wiggins 8-15 3-7 20,

Saric 5-10 3-4 15, Towns 7-17 5-6 21, Jones 6-15 1-1 14, Okogie 5-11 0-2 10, Bates-Diop 1-2 0-0 2, Tolliver 2-5 0-0 6, Dieng 2-5 6-9 10, Bayless 1-4 0-0 2, Reynolds 2-4 0-0 6. Totals 39-88 18-29 106.

CHARLOTTE — Bridges 5-8 0-0 11, M.Williams 5-6 0-0 13, Biyombo 4-6 0-0 8, Walker 10-22 10-12 31, Bacon 1-8 2-2 4, Kaminsky 0-6 2-2 2, Hernangomez 5-6 0-1 10, Graham 1-3 3-6 5, Monk 5-10 0-0 14, Lamb 6-20 1-1 13, Batum 1-5 0-0 2. Totals 43-100 18-24 113.

Minnesota 25 26 27 28—106Charlotte 25 29 27 32—113Three-Point Goals—Minnesota 10-

28 (Saric 2-3, Towns 2-4, Reynolds 2-4, Tolliver 2-5, Jones 1-3, Wiggins 1-3, Bay-less 0-1, Bates-Diop 0-1, Okogie 0-4), Charlotte 9-29 (Monk 4-7, M.Williams 3-4, Bridges 1-1, Walker 1-8, Graham 0-1, Hernangomez 0-1, Kaminsky 0-2, Lamb 0-2, Batum 0-3). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Minnesota 49 (Towns 16), Charlotte 55 (Bridges 12). Assists—Min-nesota 23 (Jones 7), Charlotte 26 (Walker 6). Total Fouls—Minnesota 21, Charlotte 24. Technicals—Charlotte coach Hornets (Defensive three second). A—15,576 (19,077).

Warriors 112, Pacers 89INDIANA — Bogdanovic 3-10 3-4 9,

Young 7-13 2-2 18, Turner 2-10 0-0 4, Jo-seph 1-7 0-0 2, Matthews 1-9 1-1 3, Mc-Dermott 5-9 1-1 11, Leaf 1-2 0-2 2, Sabonis 2-9 1-2 5, O’Quinn 1-1 0-0 2, Holiday 4-4 2-2 13, T.Evans 8-17 3-3 20. Totals 35-91 13-17 89.

GOLDEN STATE — Durant 6-9 2-2 15, Green 4-5 1-1 10, Cousins 8-12 3-5 19, Curry 5-15 0-0 15, Thompson 7-18 3-3 18, McKinnie 2-2 0-0 6, Looney 0-0 0-0 0, Bell 1-2 0-0 2, Jerebko 2-3 0-2 6, Bogut 1-8 2-2 4, Livingston 2-2 0-1 4, Cook 1-6 0-0 2, Iguodala 5-7 0-0 11. Totals 44-89 11-16 112.

Indiana 19 24 19 27— 89Golden State 19 34 35 24—112Three-Point Goals—Indiana 6-23 (Holi-

day 3-3, Young 2-3, T.Evans 1-3, McDer-mott 0-2, Joseph 0-2, Bogdanovic 0-3, Turner 0-3, Matthews 0-4), Golden State 13-36 (Curry 5-12, McKinnie 2-2, Jerebko 2-3, Green 1-1, Iguodala 1-3, Durant 1-4, Thompson 1-6, Cousins 0-1, Cook 0-4). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Indiana 47 (Sabonis 12), Golden State 50 (Cous-ins 11). Assists—Indiana 17 (O’Quinn 4), Golden State 32 (Curry 7). Total Fouls—Indiana 18, Golden State 19. A—19,596 (19,596).

Kings 116, Mavericks 100DALLAS — Jackson 9-16 0-1 19, Kleber

2-5 0-0 5, Powell 4-6 5-6 14, Doncic 4-19 3-5 13, Brunson 5-12 0-2 10, Finney-Smith 0-4 2-2 2, Nowitzki 1-5 0-0 3, Mejri 1-2 0-0 2, Harris 1-3 5-5 8, Burke 4-12 0-0 9, Lee 1-2 0-0 2, Broekhoff 4-6 1-2 13. Totals 36-92 16-23 100.

SACRAMENTO — Barnes 5-10 6-8 16, Bjelica 2-3 2-2 6, Cauley-Stein 5-8 0-1 10, Fox 6-13 2-4 15, Hield 10-21 2-2 29, Brewer 0-1 2-2 2, Bagley III 8-16 3-5 22, Giles III 0-0 0-0 0, Ferrell 2-6 4-4 9, Bogdanovic 3-9 0-0 7. Totals 41-87 21-28 116.

Dallas 29 22 25 24—100Sacramento 27 26 31 32—116Three-Point Goals—Dallas 12-40

(Broekhoff 4-6, Doncic 2-10, Powell 1-1, Harris 1-2, Nowitzki 1-2, Kleber 1-3, Burke 1-4, Jackson 1-6, Finney-Smith 0-2, Brunson 0-4), Sacramento 13-35 (Hield 7-13, Bagley III 3-5, Bogdanovic 1-4, Fox 1-4, Ferrell 1-4, Bjelica 0-1, Brewer 0-1, Barnes 0-3). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Dallas 43 (Doncic 10), Sac-ramento 58 (Cauley-Stein 18). Assists—Dallas 23 (Powell 5), Sacramento 24 (Fox 9). Total Fouls—Dallas 22, Sacramento 18. Technicals—Cauley-Stein. A—17,583 (17,608).

CalendarApril 10 — Regular season ends.April 13 — Playoffs begin.May 14 — Draft lottery, Chicago.May 14-19 — Draft combine, Chicago.May 30 — NBA Finals begin.June 16 — NBA Finals latest possible

date.June 20 — NBA draft.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Nikola Jokic had 15 points and 11 assists, and the Denver Nuggets beat the fad-ing Washington Wizards 113-108 on Thursday night for their fifth straight victory.

Paul Millsap, Gary Harris, Jamal Murray and Torrey Craig also added 15 points for the Nug-gets, who were playing for the first time since clinching their first playoff berth in six years with Monday’s win in Boston.

Eight players reached double figures for Denver, which is a half-game behind Western Con-ference leader Golden State. The Warriors played later Thursday.

Bradley Beal scored 25 points and Tomas Satoransky had 16 points and 10 assists for Washing-ton, which lost its third straight.

Warriors 112, Pacers 89: Kevin Durant had 15 points, six assists and three blocked shots after losing a close friend earlier in the day, and Golden State ran away from visiting Indiana.

Durant led a balanced War-riors attack, playing the same day childhood friend Cliff Dixon was shot to death in Atlanta. Warriors guard Quinn Cook also was close with Dixon as they’re all from the Washington D.C./Maryland area.

Stephen Curry scored 12 of his 15 points with four three-point-ers during the Warriors’ 35-point third quarter in which they held Indiana to 19.

Tyreke Evans scored 20 points off the bench and Thaddeus Young added 18 points for the Pacers.

Hawks 117, Jazz 114: Trae Young scored 23 points, including a go-ahead three-point play, and host Atlanta ended Utah’s five-game winning streak.

Donovan Mitchell led the Jazz with 34 points.

It was a costly loss. The Jazz entered the game fifth in the Western Conference but only a half-game ahead of a pack of three teams tied for sixth.

Pistons 118, Suns 98: Wayne Ellington scored 23 points and vis-iting Detroit made 17 three-point-ers in a victory over Phoenix.

Andre Drummond finished with 16 points and 19 rebounds. Blake Griffin, who was rested for Detroit’s loss at Cleveland on Monday, returned and struggled

with his shot, going just 4 of 17.But he finished with 17 points,eight rebounds and seven assists.

Devin Booker scored 20 of his26 points in the first half for theSuns, who have lost four of five. Deandre Ayton added 20 points.

Hornets 113, Timberwolves106: Kemba Walker scored 31points, rookie Miles Bridges had 11 points and 12 rebounds for his first career double-double on his 21st birthday, and host Char-lotte handed Minnesota its fifth straight loss.

Kings 116, Mavericks 100: Marvin Bagley III had 22 pointsand 12 rebounds in his first game against fellow rookie star LukaDoncic, and host Sacramento beat Dallas.

NBAScoreboard

Roundup

Nuggets top Wiz, win fifth straight

NICK WASS/AP

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) passes the ball as Wizards guard Tomas Satoransky defends during the second half of Thursday’s game in Washington. The Nuggets won 113-108.

JOHN AMIS/AP

Hawks guard Trae Young passes as Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2)and guard Ricky Rubio, right, look on during the first half in Atlanta. Young scored 23 points in the Hawks’ 117-114 win.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 27

BY TIM REYNOLDS

Associated Press

In case more proof was needed that the game of basketball has changed wildly in the last few years, check out the starting center for the team with the best record in the NBA — he is often nowhere near the basket.

It’s by design.Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez

hardly ever took three-pointers in high school, or college, or his first eight seasons in the NBA. He’s a 7-footer, and 7-footers were told forever to go to the low post and wait to see if someone throws you the ball. Those days are largely gone and perhaps no NBA big man has seen his job description change more than Lopez.

He’s taken more three-pointers this season — 461 and counting — than any 7-footer in any NBA season. And that comes after he was 3-for-31, total, from beyond the arc in his first eight seasons as a pro, with many of those heaves coming in end-of-game or end-of-shot-clock situations.

“In our practice facility we have boxes out deep beyond the three-point line, from areas we know we can get reps at,” Lopez said. “Eventually, you just get the con-fidence to take them in games.”

Clearly, he’s not lacking for confidence.

Per the data that the NBA tracks, Lopez is 6-for-15 from 30 feet or deeper this season. In 63 of his 72 games with the Bucks, he’s taken more three-pointers than he has two-pointers.

This is an age where everyone is shooting the three ball, and the NBA record for three-pointers made will soon fall for a seventh consecutive season, but the big-gest guys on the floor represent the biggest demographic in the newfound commitment to shoot-ing from deep — with veterans like Lopez, Detroit’s Blake Grif-fin and Toronto’s Marc Gasol, who have gone from rarely shoot-ing them to having the three in their everyday repertoire in re-cent years.

“We analyze four-point shoot-ers. That’s what we call them,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst said. “To be a four-point shooter, you have to shoot above the break. You have to shoot from 30-plus feet. You’re not shooting that from the corner or the side. You’re shooting above the break and in our style of play ... being able to shoot above the break is a real benefit to our team.”

The above-the-break three — it basically means any shot not taken from the corners or low on the sidelines — has been Lopez’s forte this season. He’s tried near-ly 400 of those.

It is a dramatic change from his early days. In his first 490 NBA regular-season games, Lopez made four three-pointers. In game No. 491, he made four in that one alone. The switch in his game looks like it started over-night, but the fact is that the out-side shot was always something Lopez felt comfortable taking. He just needed an invitation.

Enter Brooklyn coach Kenny At-kinson. When Lopez played there in 2016-17, Atkinson gave him the green light to take threes.

Lopez hasn’t stopped taking them since. And when Milwau-kee coach Mike Budenholzer sat down to figure out the best ideas for his first season with the Bucks, taking advantage of Lopez’s skills from deep quickly became an im-portant part of the plan.

“There was no making peace with it,” Budenholzer said. “Brook obviously had done a lot of three-point shooting in Brook-lyn with Kenny and that was a big part of the vision in bringing him to Milwaukee. Some of them that are super-deep, I kind of wonder and I’m not sure that was the vi-sion. But I’m beyond comfortable and beyond appreciative of what Brook does. ”

That’s clearly the case. Lopez was 0-for-12 from three-point range in a two-point loss to Phoe-nix back in November. The very next night against San Antonio, Milwaukee ran its first play of the game for Lopez — who tried a 27-footer.

Swish.“When that happens, you’ve got

to keep shooting,” Lopez said. For the Bucks, Lopez has been

a perfect fit. Not only has the three-pointer been a weapon — he shoots 37 percent from dis-tance, part of the reason why he’s embraced the “Splash Mountain” nickname that became popular earlier this season — but it has also been most valuable in creat-ing lanes for Milwaukee star and MVP candidate Giannis Antetok-ounmpo to do his thing in the lane and around the basket.

Without Lopez down there, and without whoever the opposing big is guarding him down there, the Bucks create tons of space where Antetokounmpo and others can be creative.

“It just helps space the floor and gets everyone easier looks and easier shots,” Lopez said. “We’re all out here just trying to play the system as best we can.”

Saturday, March 23, 2019

BY ARNIE STAPLETON

Associated Press

DENVER — In no sport but the NFL do players, fans, coaches and general managers annually debate the rules of the game, ad-vocating ways to make pro foot-ball better, safer, fairer.

Officiating is especially a hot topic around the league after a blown call late in the NFC cham-pionship game pretty much cost the New Orleans Saints a trip to the Super Bowl.

That capped a season which began with the long-awaited clarification of what constitutes a catch and then was marred by widespread confusion over what exactly is a legal takedown of the quarterback. While defend-ers learned new ways to tackle to avoid flags for even glancing blows to the helmet, they com-plained about O-linemen illegally blocking too far downfield in the run-pass option craze that has successfully seeped in from the college game.

Giants owner John Mara hears the cries to change the NFL’s re-play review system after officials failed to flag the blatant pass interference penalty and a hel-met-first hit by the Rams’ Nickell Robey-Coleman deep in Los An-geles territory in the NFC cham-pionship match. The non-calls helped Los Angeles force over-time and eventually win the game to reach the Super Bowl, leading to widespread displeasure with the current system regarding coaches’ challenges.

Mara said last month at the NFL combine that the powerful competition committee isn’t in a rush to change the replay system.

“I just don’t sense a lot of sup-port to use replay to call penalties. I don’t sense a lot of support for the expansion of it, either,” Mara said. “We’re early on, so that might change, but that’s my sense of where we are right now. ”

The Canadian Football League

has allowed pass interference, ei-ther called or uncalled, to be re-viewed for the last five years. Butthe NFL has long been reluctantto expand replays for officiating because it would slow games evenfurther.

Other major moves will be con-sidered by the 32 owners at theleague meetings in Phoenix be-ginning Sunday.

Several teams are proposing big changes to replay and over-time after a season of consistentcriticism of officiating and whichplays can be challenged or auto-matically reviewed. Any changerequires a 24-vote threshold topass.

Just like the USFL did with thetwo-point conversion and other innovations back in the 1980s, theAlliance of American Football’sdebut this spring has broughtnovel ideas, some of which couldfind their way into the NFL rulebook. Baltimore Ravens coachJohn Harbaugh, a staunch advo-cate for adding more replay re-views to the NFL, is a big fan of the AAF’s “sky judge,” an officialwatching from the press box levelwho can help call penalties from a bird’s-eye view.

“Look how tough it is for theseofficials, all right. I know as acoach, what’s the worst spot towatch the game from? Sideline.You see the least amount fromthe sideline. That’s why you putcoaches in the box,” Harbaughsaid. “OK. So we’ve got all thistechnology and the fans actuallyhave a better view of the gamefrom an officiating standpointthan the officials do. ”

Harbaugh said the league would save face by fixing a sys-tem everyone knows is flawed.

“Because at the end of the day it’s about the credibility of the sport, and we can’t have the otherleagues outpacing us in terms ofuse of technology to make sure games are fair and well-offici-ated,” Harbaugh said.

NBA/NFL

TONY DEJAK/AP

The Bucks’ Brook Lopez, left, drives against the Cavaliers’ Collin Sexton on Wednesday in Cleveland. After taking just 31 three-pointers in the first eight years of his careeer, Lopez has taken more three-pointers this season — 461 and counting — than any 7-footer in NBA history.

Bucks C Lopez one ofleague’s most unlikelythree-point weapons

Splash mountain

New rules likely coming, but notto instant replay

GERALD HERBERT/AP

The Los Angeles Rams’ Nickell Robey-Coleman, right, breaks up a pass intended for the New Orleans Saints’ Tommylee Lewis in January during the NFC championship game in New Orleans.

PAGE 28 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

NHLScoreboard

Eastern Conference GP W L OT Pts GF GAz-Tampa Bay 75 58 13 4 120 298 198Boston 74 45 20 9 99 226 186Washington 74 43 23 8 94 256 231Toronto 74 44 25 5 93 263 221N.Y. Islanders 74 42 25 7 91 206 182Pittsburgh 75 40 24 11 91 253 224Carolina 73 40 26 7 87 218 204Montreal 74 39 28 7 85 219 213

Columbus 74 40 30 4 84 223 218Philadelphia 74 36 30 8 80 226 245Florida 74 33 29 12 78 240 248Buffalo 73 31 33 9 71 202 237N.Y. Rangers 73 28 32 13 69 204 244New Jersey 75 27 39 9 63 206 258Detroit 74 26 38 10 62 200 254Ottawa 74 25 43 6 56 218 275

Western Conference GP W L OT Pts GF GAx-Calgary 74 46 21 7 99 265 209x-San Jose 74 43 23 8 94 263 233Winnipeg 74 44 26 4 92 249 218Nashville 75 42 27 6 90 223 197Vegas 74 42 27 5 89 232 203St. Louis 74 39 27 8 86 219 202Dallas 74 38 30 6 82 186 183Arizona 74 36 32 6 78 198 208

Colorado 74 33 29 12 78 235 225Minnesota 74 34 31 9 77 200 217Chicago 73 32 31 10 74 244 266Vancouver 74 32 32 10 74 206 229Edmonton 74 33 34 7 73 210 245Anaheim 75 30 36 9 69 173 230Los Angeles 73 26 39 8 60 174 232

Note: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss. Top three teams in each division and two wild cards per conference advance to playoffs.

x-clinched playoff spotz-clinched conference

Wednesday’s gamesToronto 4, Buffalo 2Tampa Bay 5, Washington 4, OTVancouver 7, Ottawa 4Winnipeg 3, Anaheim 0

Thursday’s gamesTampa Bay 6, Carolina 3Boston 5, New Jersey 1Florida 4, Arizona 2Montreal 4, N.Y. Islanders 0St. Louis 5, Detroit 2Pittsburgh 2, Nashville 1, SOColorado 3, Dallas 1Philadelphia 3, Chicago 1Edmonton 4, Columbus 1Calgary 5, Ottawa 1Vegas 5, Winnipeg 0Los Angeles 4, San Jose 2

Friday’s gamesMinnesota at WashingtonSan Jose at Anaheim

Saturday’s gamesArizona at New JerseyN.Y. Islanders at PhiladelphiaChicago at ColoradoOttawa at EdmontonN.Y. Rangers at TorontoBoston at FloridaMinnesota at CarolinaNashville at WinnipegBuffalo at MontrealPittsburgh at DallasTampa Bay at St. LouisCalgary at VancouverDetroit at VegasAnaheim at Los Angeles

Sunday’s gamesPhiladelphia at WashingtonArizona vs. N.Y. Islanders at Nassau

Veterans Memorial ColiseumMontreal at CarolinaColorado at ChicagoColumbus at Vancouver

ThursdayBruins 5, Devils 1

Boston 1 1 3—5New Jersey 0 1 0—1

First Period—1, Boston, Bergeron 29 (Pastrnak, Marchand), 18:34.

Second Period—2, Boston, Pastrnak 32 (Marchand, Bergeron), 12:58. 3, New Jer-sey, Stafford 3 (Zacha), 14:51.

Third Period—4, Boston, Heinen 10 (Kuraly), 0:29. 5, Boston, Bergeron 30 (Marchand, Krejci), 18:42. 6, Boston, Backes 6 (Acciari), 19:38.

Shots on Goal—Boston 7-9-11—27. New Jersey 7-8-7—22.

Power-play opportunities—Boston 0 of 3; New Jersey 0 of 1.

Goalies—Boston, Rask 26-10-5 (22 shots-21 saves). New Jersey, Schneider 5-12-3 (26-22).

A—14,649 (16,514). T—2:27.

Lightning 6, Hurricanes 3Tampa Bay 2 0 4—6Carolina 2 1 0—3

First Period—1, Tampa Bay, Stamkos 38 (Hedman, Point), 3:20 (pp). 2, Carolina, Niederreiter 21 (Aho), 9:51. 3, Carolina, Hamilton 14 (Staal, Svechnikov), 11:32. 4, Tampa Bay, Johnson 27 (McDonagh, Kucherov), 19:34.

Second Period—5, Carolina, Staal 8 (Pesce, Teravainen), 6:34.

Third Period—6, Tampa Bay, Cirelli 17 (Stamkos, Hedman), 3:35. 7, Tampa Bay, Callahan 7 (Miller, Hedman), 10:09. 8, Tampa Bay, Point 39 (Miller, Stamkos), 16:36 (pp). 9, Tampa Bay, McDonagh 9, 18:55.

Shots on Goal—Tampa Bay 7-10-15—32. Carolina 13-6-9—28.

Power-play opportunities—Tampa Bay 2 of 5; Carolina 0 of 3.

Goalies—Tampa Bay, Domingue 21-5-0 (28 shots-25 saves). Carolina, McElhin-ney 18-9-2 (31-26).

A—13,785 (18,680). T—2:33.

Canadiens 4, Islanders 0N.Y. Islanders 0 0 0—0Montreal 1 3 0—4

First Period—1, Montreal, Armia 11 (Drouin, Weal), 19:53 (pp).

Second Period—2, Montreal, Weber 13, 1:03. 3, Montreal, Drouin 18 (Kotkaniemi, Armia), 6:00. 4, Montreal, Weal 6 (Benn, Thompson), 8:19.

Shots on Goal—N.Y. Islanders 10-10-8—28. Montreal 13-13-8—34.

Power-play opportunities—N.Y. Is-landers 0 of 3; Montreal 1 of 2.

Goalies—N.Y. Islanders, Lehner 20-12-5 (12 shots-12 saves), Greiss 22-13-2 (22-18). Montreal, Price 31-22-5 (28-28).

A—21,302 (21,288). T—2:22.

Panthers 4, Coyotes 2Arizona 1 0 1—2Florida 1 1 2—4

First Period—1, Arizona, Grabner 9 (Richardson), 7:45 (sh). 2, Florida, Barkov 33 (Huberdeau, Dadonov), 19:45.

Second Period—3, Florida, Hoffman 34 (Yandle, Huberdeau), 10:55 (pp).

Third Period—4, Florida, Weegar 4 (Dadonov, Huberdeau), 5:09. 5, Arizona, Richardson 17, 17:34. 6, Florida, Barkov 34 (Vatrano), 19:10.

Shots on Goal—Arizona 12-6-16—34. Florida 9-6-7—22.

Power-play opportunities—Arizona 0 of 2; Florida 1 of 3.

Goalies—Arizona, Kuemper 24-18-6 (21 shots-18 saves). Florida, Luongo 15-15-4 (34-32).

A—12,576 (19,250). T—2:31.

Penguins 2, Predators 1 (SO)Pittsburgh 0 1 0 0—2Nashville 0 0 1 0—1

Pittsburgh won shootout 1-0Second Period—1, Pittsburgh, Rust 18

(Letang), 5:57.Third Period—2, Nashville, Ellis 7,

16:59.Shootout—Pittsburgh 1 (Kessel NG,

Crosby G), Nashville 0 (Johansen NG, El-lis NG, Boyle NG).

Shots on Goal—Pittsburgh 12-8-12-1—33. Nashville 8-7-13-1—29.

Power-play opportunities—Pittsburgh 0 of 2; Nashville 0 of 3.

Goalies—Pittsburgh, Murray 25-12-5 (29 shots-28 saves). Nashville, Rinne 26-18-4 (33-32).

A—17,729 (17,113). T—2:38.

Blues 5, Red Wings 2Detroit 1 0 1—2St. Louis 1 2 2—5

First Period—1, Detroit, Vanek 15 (Nielsen, Hirose), 2:05. 2, St. Louis, Sun-dqvist 14 (Perron, Del Zotto), 11:46.

Second Period—3, St. Louis, Barba-shev 10 (Steen, Dunn), 3:22. 4, St. Louis, Barbashev 11 (Steen), 8:16.

Third Period—5, Detroit, Vanek 16 (Kro-nwall, Bowey), 8:48. 6, St. Louis, Maroon 9 (Bozak, Thomas), 10:19. 7, St. Louis, Bar-bashev 12 (Steen, Sanford), 19:11.

Shots on Goal—Detroit 7-8-7—22. St. Louis 8-6-10—24.

Power-play opportunities—Detroit 0 of 1; St. Louis 0 of 2.

Goalies—Detroit, Bernier 7-18-5 (23 shots-19 saves). St. Louis, Binnington 19-4-1 (22-20).

A—18,272 (19,150). T—2:15.

Avalanche 3, Stars 1Colorado 0 1 2—3Dallas 0 0 1—1

Second Period—1, Colorado, Johnson 6 (Wilson, Girard), 17:20.

Third Period—2, Colorado, Barrie 11 (Girard), 5:19. 3, Dallas, Seguin 28 (Heis-kanen, Klingberg), 14:59. 4, Colorado, So-derberg 22, 19:11.

Shots on Goal—Colorado 13-8-11—32. Dallas 9-12-24—45.

Power-play opportunities—Colorado 0 of 3; Dallas 0 of 2.

Goalies—Colorado, Grubauer 14-9-3 (45 shots-44 saves). Dallas, Bishop 25-15-2 (31-29).

A—17,543 (18,532). T—2:26.

Flyers 3, Blackhawks 1Philadelphia 1 0 2—3Chicago 1 0 0—1

First Period—1, Chicago, Gustafsson15 (Forsling, Toews), 10:39. 2, Philadel-phia, Knight 1 (Gudas, Bailey), 15:43.

Third Period—3, Philadelphia, vanRiemsdyk 26 (Voracek, Couturier), 9:50.4, Philadelphia, Couturier 31 (Giroux,Lindblom), 18:46.

Shots on Goal—Philadelphia 16-7-5—28. Chicago 14-16-11—41.

Power-play opportunities—Philadel-phia 0 of 1; Chicago 0 of 2.

Goalies—Philadelphia, Hart 15-10-1 (41 shots-40 saves). Chicago, Crawford 12-16-3 (27-25).

A—21,484 (19,717). T—2:25.

Flames 5, Senators 1Ottawa 1 0 0—1Calgary 2 1 2—5

First Period—1, Ottawa, DeMelo 4 (Gibbons, Duclair), 4:30. 2, Calgary, Gior-dano 15, 8:54 (sh). 3, Calgary, Hathaway 9(Mangiapane, D.Ryan), 11:15.

Second Period—4, Calgary, Mangiapa-ne 6 (Hathaway, D.Ryan), 9:00.

Third Period—5, Calgary, Backlund20 (Frolik, M.Tkachuk), 11:23. 6, Calgary, M.Tkachuk 34 (Andersson, Frolik), 18:33.

Shots on Goal—Ottawa 5-9-5—19. Cal-gary 11-10-15—36.

Power-play opportunities—Ottawa 0 of 3; Calgary 0 of 2.

Goalies—Ottawa, Anderson 14-25-4 (36 shots-31 saves). Calgary, M.Smith 20-14-2 (19-18).

A—18,793 (19,289). T—2:19.

Oilers 4, Blue Jackets 1Columbus 0 1 0—1Edmonton 0 1 3—4

Second Period—1, Columbus, Savard 6(Dzingel, Nutivaara), 11:35. 2, Edmonton, Brodziak 6 (Currie, Gambardella), 13:17.

Third Period—3, Edmonton, Kassian 14 (Draisaitl, McDavid), 0:45. 4, Edmonton, McDavid 37 (Draisaitl, Nurse), 14:02. 5, Edmonton, Nugent-Hopkins 25 (Sekera,Draisaitl), 16:15 (pp).

Shots on Goal—Columbus 5-8-7—20.Edmonton 2-8-12—22.

Power-play opportunities—Columbus0 of 0; Edmonton 1 of 1.

Goalies—Columbus, Korpisalo 9-7-3(22 shots-18 saves). Edmonton, Koskinen 23-18-4 (20-19).

A—18,347 (18,641). T—2:25.

Golden Knights 5, Jets 0Winnipeg 0 0 0—0Vegas 2 3 0—5

First Period—1, Vegas, Karlsson 21 (Holden, Merrill), 1:24. 2, Vegas, Smith 16 (Stastny), 8:26.

Second Period—3, Vegas, Nosek 8 (Stastny, Holden), 6:00 (sh). 4, Vegas,Smith 17 (Marchessault, Karlsson), 17:56. 5, Vegas, Karlsson 22, 18:20.

Shots on Goal—Winnipeg 10-6-4—20. Vegas 16-11-11—38.

Power-play opportunities—Winnipeg 0 of 2; Vegas 0 of 2.

Goalies—Winnipeg, Brossoit 13-6-2 (18 shots-15 saves), Hellebuyck 31-20-2 (20-18). Vegas, Subban 7-7-0 (20-20).

A—18,430 (17,367). T—2:24.

Kings 4, Sharks 2San Jose 1 1 0—2Los Angeles 1 0 3—4

First Period—1, Los Angeles, Brown 20 (Kempe, Walker), 5:19. 2, San Jose, Good-row 7 (Donskoi, Vlasic), 17:33.

Second Period—3, San Jose, Hertl 32 (Burns), 3:45.

Third Period—4, Los Angeles, Roy 1(Kopitar, Iafallo), 9:28. 5, Los Angeles,Kopitar 21 (Iafallo, Brown), 11:45. 6, LosAngeles, Carter 11, 18:43 (sh).

Shots on Goal—San Jose 7-11-7—25.Los Angeles 15-11-9—35.

Power-play opportunities—San Jose 0 of 2; Los Angeles 0 of 0.

Goalies—San Jose, Jones 34-16-5 (34 shots-31 saves). Los Angeles, Quick 14-21-6 (25-23).

A—18,230 (18,230). T—2:28.

Roundup

Knights’ Subbangets 1st shutout

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Malcolm Sub-ban stopped 20 shots for his first NHL shutout, William Karlsson and Reilly Smith each scored twice, and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Winnipeg Jets 5-0 on Thursday night.

Tomas Nosek also scored for Vegas, which is 10-1 since losing to Winnipeg 6-3 in its final game before acquiring Mark Stone at the trade deadline.

Subban, whose shutout came in his 35th career start, has won two straight and seven of his last nine starts. He’s also nearly unbeat-able at T-Mobile Arena with a 13-1-0 record in two seasons.

Winnipeg dropped to 5-3-0 in the second game of back-to-backs this season.

Laurent Brossoit started in net for the Jets, but was pulled after allowing three goals. Connor Hellebuyck, who entered with 14 minutes left in the second period, allowed two goals and made 18 saves.

Lightning 6, Hurricanes 3: Ryan Callahan scored the tie-breaking goal midway through the third period, and visiting Tampa Bay picked up its seventh straight win.

Canadiens 4, Islanders 0: Carey Price stopped 27 shots for his fourth shutout of the season and host Montreal beat New York to remain in the hunt for an East-ern Conference playoff spot.

Kings 4, Sharks 2: Anze Ko-pitar had a goal and an assist, Matt Roy scored his first career goal and host Los Angeles used a three-goal third period to top San Jose.

Flyers 3, Blackhawks 1: Cart-

er Hart made 40 saves and James van Reimsdyk snapped a tie in the third period, helping visiting Philadelphia beat Chicago.

Avalanche 3, Stars 1: Philipp Grubauer made a season-high 44 saves, including 23 in the third period, defensemen Erik John-son and Tyson Barrie scored and visiting Colorado beat Dallas to make the Western Conference playoff race even tighter.

Bruins 5, Devils 1: Patrice Bergeron scored twice and reached the 30-goal mark for the fifth time and streaking Boston beat injury-ravaged host New Jer-sey to open a six-point lead over Toronto in the race for second place in the Atlantic Division.

Panthers 4, Coyotes 2: Alek-sander Barkov scored two goals and Jonathan Huberdeau had three assists as host Florida won for the first time in three games.

Blues 5, Red Wings 2: Ivan Barbashev recorded his first ca-reer NHL hat trick to lead host St. Louis past Detroit.

Penguins 2, Predators 1 (SO): Sidney Crosby’s goal in the shoot-out gave visiting Pittsburgh a win over Nashville to end a three-game losing streak.

Flames 5, Senators 1: Andrew Mangiapane, Garnet Hathaway and Matthew Tkachuk each had a goal and an assist as host Calgary topped Ottawa in a game that matched the top team in the West against the team with the worst record in the East.

Oilers 4, Blue Jackets 1: Con-nor McDavid had a goal and an assist and Leon Draisaitl had three assists as host Edmonton snapped a two-game skid with a win over Columbus.

JOHN LOCHER/AP

Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore, left, celebrates with goaltender Malcolm Subban after Thursday’s 5-0 victory over the Winnipeg Jets in Las Vegas. It was Subban’s first career shutout.

MARK HUMPHREY/AP

Predators forward Wayne Simmonds, center, jumps out of the way of a shot as the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Jack Johnson, right, defends during the second period of Thursday’s game in Nashville, Tenn.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 29

FROM BACK PAGE

Gophers visited the Spartans on Feb. 9 in their only meeting of the season. There’s no foe with bet-ter insight about how to beat a team than one from the same league.

“Definitely feels good to be advancing, you know?” Michigan State point guard Cassius Winston said after the 76-65 win over the resilient Braves on

Thursday. “I think coach said at the end of the game, ‘Even after all that, we’re still one of the last 32 stand-ing right now.’ ”

After sending eight teams to the tournament, the most of any league in the field this year and the most in Big Ten history, the oldest of the major conferences produced a perfect 5-0 re-cord in the first half of the first round. Iowa, Ohio State and Wisconsin are on deck on Friday.

Minnesota defeated Lou-isville, Maryland hung on to beat Belmont, Michi-gan blew out Montana and Purdue took down Old Do-minion. Commissioner Jim Delany is getting a nice little retirement gift.

The Big Ten wasn’t alone with its strong start. Thanks to wins by Auburn, Florida, Kentucky and LSU,

the Southeastern Conference is 4-0 with Mississip-pi, Mississippi State and Tennessee left to play on Friday.

By Saturday, though, at least one Big Ten team is guaranteed to be knocked out because of the brack-eting that lined Michigan State up with Minnesota. What’s more: The winner would face Maryland in the Sweet 16, in Washington, D.C., no less, if the Ter-rapins beat LSU.

The Minnesota-Michigan State matchup in the second round will be the earliest two Big Ten teams have ever met in the NCAA Tournament and only the eighth in history. The only time two Big Ten teams have played before the regional finals was in 1980, when Purdue beat Indiana in the round of 16.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Scoreboard

NCAA TOURNAMENT

FIRST FOURAt Dayton, Ohio

Tuesday, March 19Fairleigh Dickinson 82, Prairie View

A&M 76Belmont 81, Temple 70

Wednesday, March 20North Dakota State 78, N.C. Central 74Arizona State 74, St. John’s 65

EAST REGIONALFirst Round

Thursday, March 21At Jacksonville, Fla.

LSU 79, Yale 74Maryland 79, Belmont 77

At Des Moines, IowaMinnesota 86, Louisville 76Michigan State 76, Bradley 65

Friday, March 22At Columbia, S.C.

Duke (29-5) vs. North Dakota State (19-15)

VCU (25-7) vs. UCF (23-8)At SAP CenterSan Jose, Calif.

Mississippi State (23-10) vs. Liberty (28-6)

Virginia Tech (24-8) vs. Saint Louis (23-12)

Second RoundSaturday, March 23At Jacksonville, Fla.

LSU (27-6) vs. Maryland (23-10)At Des Moines, Iowa

Michigan State (29-6) vs. Minnesota (22-13)

Sunday, March 24At Columbia, S.C.

Duke-North Dakota State winner vs. VCU-UCF winner

At San Jose, Calif.Virginia Tech-Saint Louis winner vs.

Mississippi State-Liberty winnerAt Washington

Regional SemifinalsFriday, March 29

Duke-North Dakota State—VCU-UCF winner vs. Virginia Tech-Saint Louis—Mississippi State-Liberty winner

Michigan State-Minnesota winner vs. LSU-Maryland winner

Regional ChampionshipSunday, March 31

Semifinal winnersSOUTH REGIONAL

First RoundThursday, March 21At Hartford, Conn.

Villanova 61, Saint Mary’s 57Purdue 61, Old Dominion 48

Friday, March 22At Columbia, S.C.

Mississippi (20-12) vs. Oklahoma (19-13)Virginia (29-3) vs. Gardner-Webb (23-11)

At Columbus, OhioCincinnati (28-6) vs. Iowa (22-11)Tennessee (29-5) vs. Colgate (24-10)

At San Jose, Calif.Kansas State (25-8) vs. UC Irvine (30-5)Wisconsin (23-10) vs. Oregon (23-12)

Second RoundSaturday, March 23At Hartford, Conn.

Purdue (24-9) vs. Villanova (26-9)Sunday, March 24At Columbia, S.C.

Virginia-Gardner-Webb winner vs. Mississippi-Oklahoma winner

At Columbus, OhioTennessee-Colgate winner vs. Cincin-

nati-Iowa winnerAt San Jose, Calif.

Kansas State-UC Irvine winner vs. Wisconsin-Oregon winner

At Louisville, Ky.Regional SemifinalsThursday, March 28

Virginia-Gardner-Webb—Mississippi-Oklahoma winner vs. Kansas State-UC Irvine—Wisconsin-Oregon winner

Tennessee-Colgate—Cincinnati-Iowa winner vs. Purdue—Villanova winner

Regional ChampionshipSaturday, March 30

Semifinal winners

MIDWEST REGIONALFirst Round

Thursday, March 21At Jacksonville, Fla.

Kentucky 79, Abilene Christian 44Wofford 84, Seton Hall 68

At Salt Lake CityAuburn 78, New Mexico State 77Kansas 87, Northeastern 53

Friday, March 22At Columbus, Ohio

Utah State (28-6) vs. Washington (26-8)North Carolina (27-6) vs. Iona (17-15)

At Tulsa, Okla.Houston (31-3) vs. Georgia State (24-9)Iowa State (23-11) vs. Ohio State (19-14)

Second RoundSaturday, March 23At Jacksonville, Fla.

Kentucky (28-6) vs. Wofford (30-4)At Salt Lake City

Kansas (26-9) vs. Auburn (27-9)Sunday, March 24At Columbus, Ohio

North Carolina-Iona winner vs. Utah State-Washington winner

At Tulsa, Okla.Houston-Georgia State winner vs.

Iowa State-Ohio State winnerAt Kansas City, Mo.Regional Semifinals

Friday, March 29North Carolina-Iona—Utah State-

Washington winner vs. Kansas-Auburn winner

Kentucky—Woffordl winner vs. Hous-ton-Georgia State—Iowa State-Ohio State winner

Regional ChampionshipSunday, March 31

Semifinal winnersWEST REGIONAL

First RoundThursday, March 21At Hartford, Conn.

Florida State 76, Vermont 69Murray State 83, Marquette 64

At Des Moines, IowaFlorida 70, Nevada 61Michigan 74, Montana 55

At Salt Lake CityGonzaga 87, Fairleigh Dickinson 49Baylor 78, Syracuse 69

Friday, March 22At Tulsa, Okla.

Texas Tech (26-6) vs. Northern Ken-tucky (26-8)

Buffalo (31-3) vs. Arizona State (23-10)Second Round

Saturday, March 23At Hartford, Conn.

Florida State (28-7) vs. Murray State (28-4)

At Des Moines, IowaMichigan (29-6) vs. Florida (20-15)

At Salt Lake CityGonzaga (31-3) vs. Baylor (20-13)

Sunday, March 24At Tulsa, Okla.

Texas Tech-Northern Kentucky winner vs. Buffalo-Arizona State winner

At Anaheim, Calif.Regional SemifinalsThursday, March 28

Gonzaga-Baylor winner vs. Florida State-Murray State winner

Michigan-Florida winner vs. Texas Tech-Northern Kentucky—Buffalo-Ari-zona State winner

Regional ChampionshipSaturday, March 30

Semifinal winnersFINAL FOUR

At MinneapolisNational Semifinals

Saturday, April 6East champion vs. West championSouth champion vs. Midwest champion

National ChampionshipMonday, April 8

Semifinal winners

Strong: Minnesota-Michigan State 2nd-round matchupearliest two Big Ten teams have ever met in Tournament

JOHN RAOUX/AP

Belmont’s Dylan Windler, left, tries to steal the ball from Maryland’s Jalen Smith during the second half of their first-round NCAA Tournament matchup in Jacksonville, Fla., on Thursday. The Terps won 79-77.

‘ Defi nitely feels good to be advancing, you know? I think coach said at the end of the game, “Even after all that, we’re still one of the last 32 standing right now.”’

Cassius Winston Michigan State PG, after the Spartans’ 76-65 victory overthe Bradley Braves

JOHN RAOUX/AP

Kentucky’s Tyler Herro, right, drives past Abilene Christian’s Tobias Cameron during their first-round NCAA Tournament game on Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla. Thanks to wins by Auburn, Florida, Kentucky and LSU, the SEC is 4-0 with Mississippi, Mississippi State and Tennessee left to play on Friday.

There hasn’t been an all-Big Ten matchup in anyround since Michigan State beat Wisconsin in the Final Four in 2000. That came a few days after Wis-consin’s win over Purdue in the regional finals.

The other NCAA Tournament games involving Big Ten teams were Michigan’s win over Ohio Statein the 1992 regional finals, Michigan’s win over Illi-nois in the 1989 Final Four, Purdue’s win over Iowain the 1980 third-place game and Indiana’s win over Michigan in the 1976 national championship game.

According to NCAA director of media coordi-nation and statistics David Worlock, the selectioncommittee tries to avoid these earlier-round pair-ings between teams from the same conference, if possible.

The selection principles state that if the teams only played once during the season, including the conference tournament, they can play as early as the second round. Minnesota and Michigan Statemet only once this season in the Big Ten’s 20-gameschedule. If teams play twice, they can’t face each other until the Sweet 16, and if they play three timesthey can’t face each other until the regional finals.

There were actually two second-round intra-con-ference games in the NCAA Tournament in 2011,when the Big East sent a record 11 teams to the fieldand saw Cincinnati-Connecticut and Marquette-Syracuse matchups on the first weekend.

Perhaps seeing a matchup like the Gophers and Spartans on Saturday could become less of a rar-ity in the future, given the committee’s recent de-emphasis of conference records when picking thefield. More than ever, the at-large teams are being selected in as much of a vacuum as possible, withno maximums or minimums in mind for any of theleagues.

The Spartans, considered the strongest of the No. 2 seeds, were widely seen as getting the raw-est deal in the bracket reveal on Sunday when theywere placed in No. 1 overall seed Duke’s region. Asusual, Izzo had plenty of commentary on the pro-cess, expressing a belief that the committee looks too closely at proximity to venues when seeding andplacing teams.

“The emphasis shouldn’t be placed on geography,but it should be placed on rewarding teams thathave performed and what their performance is,”Izzo said. “We’re splitting hairs over what we can beover 10 more minutes in a plane, 100 more miles. Sothank God, there seems to be a lot more people thanme upset about it.”

PAGE 30 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, March 23, 2019

NCAA TOURNAMENT

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — Villa-nova got off to a slow start in de-fense of its NCAA championship against a determined, defensive-minded Saint Mary’s team that came in confident after a season-defining win.

But the Wildcats, a No. 6 seed in this NCAA Tournament after an up-and-down season, have one thing no team in the field of 64 has: a pair of leaders who have won two national titles.

Phil Booth scored 20 points, fellow senior Eric Paschell added 14 and Villanova held off 11th-seeded Saint Mary’s 61-57 on Thursday night.

“We’re growing, our young guys are growing, but we have two seniors who do everything for us, on and off the court,” coach Jay Wright said. “We’re just so lucky to have them.”

Sophomore Jermaine Sameuls added 12 points for the Wildcats

(26-9), who led for almost 33 min-utes, but never by more than eight points.

“The tempo was excruciating,” Wright said. “We felt going in we were going to have to grind with them.”

The Gaels used the same slow pace to upset Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Tournament, and it gave them a chance against Villanova (26-9) in a tense open-ing-round matchup.

Jordan Ford and Malik Fitts each had 13 points for Saint Mary’s (22-12). Ford’s basket in the lane after a few nifty moves got the Gaels within six points at 61-55 with 34 seconds left.

After Paschell missed a foul shot on the other end, Fitts cut the deficit to four points with a leaner in the lane. The Gaels had two more chances in the final seconds, but Fitts hit the rim on a three-point attempt and Villa-nova freshman Saddiq Bey stole the ball from Ford in the final

seconds to seal the win.“We had a few games this year

where we put the press on and were able to get back in the game,” said Ford. “And if we get a few of those loose balls, or maybe make a three when we were down four, I think it’s a different game.”

Purdue 61, Old Dominion 48: At Hartford, Conn., Carsen Ed-wards scored 26 points and the third-seeded Boilermakers coast-ed past the Monarchs.

Purdue (24-9) will play reign-ing NCAA champion Villanova, the sixth-seed in the South Re-gion, on Saturday.

Edwards, the Big Ten’s lead-ing scorer, has been slumping recently and dealing with a sore back that he insisted was fine on Wednesday. The junior guard had shot 32 percent in his last 11 games, and was 7-for-33 from three-point range in his last three games.

Ahmad Caver scored 19 pointsand B.J. Stith had 14 for Old Do-minion (26-9). The Monarchs shot 27 percent from the field in their first NCAA appearancesince 2011.

The Boilermakers scored the last 11 points of the second half as ODU went stone cold. The Mon-archs missed their last 11 shots of the half and went scoreless for6:17 as Purdue took a control andled 32-19 at the break.

South Region roundup

ELISE AMENDOLA/AP

Villanova’s Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, right, blocks a shot by Saint Mary’s Jordan Ford during the first half of their first-round game in the South Region of the NCAA Tournament in Hartford, Conn.

Villanova pullsaway in openerDefending champions start slowly

West Region roundup

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — The game was in hand for Murray State and sensational point guard Ja Morant, who dominated Marquette in every way. With a chance to make some NCAA Tournament history, Morant’s coach told him to hit the boards and grab the rebound that would push him to an elusive triple-double.

Morant went up for a missed shot, snatched the ball away from an eager teammate, and that was it. Murray State fans began chanting “Tri-ple dou-ble!” to celebrate an upset in the first round of the West Region.

Morant seized the moment on college basketball’s big stage, slicing through Marquette with 16 assists, 17 points and 11 rebounds as Murray State trounced the fifth-seeded Golden Eagles 83-64 on Thursday.

The triple-double was the ninth in the tournament since the NCAA started track-ing them in 1987 and first since 2012. Mur-ray State (28-4) continued a trend of 12 seeds beating 5s in March. It has happened every year but three since 2001, but this looked nothing like an upset. The Racers have won 12 consecutive games, including the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.

Florida State 76, Vermont 69: At Hart-ford, Conn., Mfiondu Kabengele had 21 points and 10 rebounds, and the Seminoles held off a barrage of three-pointers from the 13th-seeded Catamounts.

Terance Mann added 19 points for fourth-seeded Florida State (28-7), which

was tied with Vermont at halftime but pulled away late.

Anthony Lamb had 16 points to lead a balanced, long-range attack for Vermont (27-7), which lost for the first time in seven games. Three Catamounts finished with 15 points.

The America East champions went small — no starter stood over 6-foot-6 — and stayed close by hitting 16 of 32 three-point attempts. The Seminoles countered by wearing out Vermont down low, outscoring the Catamounts 30-14 in the paint.

Florida 70, Nevada 61: At Des Moines, Iowa, the Gators nearly squandered a dou-ble-digit lead before finally stopping a Wolf Pack comeback and pulling off the upset.

Kevarrius Hayes scored 16 points, Jalen Hudson added 15 and 10th-seeded Florida won its tournament opener for the third straight year.

Andrew Nembhard, whose last-second shot beat LSU in the Southeastern Confer-ence Tournament last week, drove to the basket for a layup with 1 ½ minutes left and Florida scored the last seven points after seventh-seeded Nevada had rallied from down 18 to cut the deficit to just two points.

The Gators (20-15) were the third dou-ble-digit seed to win on Thursday.

Michigan 74, Montana 55: At Des Moines, Iowa, Charles Matthews had 22 points and 10 rebounds in his best perfor-mance since coming back from injury, and the second-seeded Wolverines put away the Grizzlies early.

Ignas Brazdeikis added 14 points and

seven rebounds, and Jon Teske had 11 points and nine boards for Michigan, which led by as many as 27 points in thesecond half.

The Wolverines (29-6) are in the roundof 32 for the third straight year. They’ll play Florida on Saturday.

Sayeed Pridgett led Montana (26-9) with17 points.

Gonzaga 87, Fairleigh Dickinson 49: AtSalt Lake City, the Bulldogs crushed anythought of a top seed getting knocked off on the first day with a wire-to-wire thump-ing of the Knights.

Rui Hachimura led the Zags (31-3) with21 points and eight rebounds, and thisgame looked every bit as lopsided as most of the 1-vs.-16 contests since 1985, whenthe bracket was expanded to 64 teams.

Gonzaga led by 10 after the first 4:12, by 20 after 10:25 and by the score of 53-17 athalftime.

Baylor 78, Syracuse 69: At Salt Lake City, Makai Mason scored 22 points andthe Bears set a school NCAA Tournament record with 16 three-pointers to beat the Orange.

Ninth-seeded Baylor (20-13) found gapsin Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, mostly by getting the ball into the high post or driving andkicking out. Baylor nearly matched theschool tournament record of 11 three-pointers in the first half (10) and made 16of 34 overall.

Baylor shot 54 percent and slowed Syr-acuse’s three-point barrage in the secondhalf to earn a shot at top-seeded Gonzagaon Saturday.

Morant leads Murray State to upset of Marquette

ELISE AMENDOLA/AP

Murray State’s Ja Morant had a triple-double during his team’s first-round game against Marquette in the West Region of the NCAA Tournament in Hartford, Conn.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 31Saturday, March 23, 2019

NCAA TOURNAMENT

Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — Minne-sota found its elusive three-point stroke just in time to give coach Richard Pitino the NCAA Tour-nament win he’d been seeking for years.

The 10th-seeded Gophers won their first NCAA Tourna-ment game in six seasons behind 24 points from freshman Gabe Kalscheur, who helped Minneso-ta roll past Louisville 86-76 in the opening round of the East Region on Thursday.

The win for Pitino came against the school that fired his father. Rick Pitino coached the Cardinals for 16 seasons before his 2017 dismissal.

“This wasn’t about getting the win for coach Pitino. It was about getting the win for us in general and advancing to the next round,” said Minnesota’s Jordan Murphy, who scored 18 points. “That’s what makes him happy, and that’s what makes us happy.”

Amir Coffey also had 18 points for Minnesota (22-13), which knocked down 11 threes de-spite entering play ranked 344th nationally in made threes per game.

Five of those triples came from Kalscheur, who finished a point shy of his career high for points.

LSU 79, Yale 74: At Jackson-ville, Fla., Skylar Mays hit four free throws in the final 15 seconds to help the embattled Tigers slip past the 14th-seeded Bulldogs.

Mays scored 19 points but sealed the game from the char-ity stripe, and LSU (27-6) needed each one of his free throws.

Yale (22-8) hit four three-point-ers in the final minute and whit-tled an 18-point deficit to three in the closing seconds. Most of those on hand at the Jackson-ville Veterans Memorial Arena started cheering for the underdog Bulldogs.

With the lead on the line, Mays calmly stepped to the line and sank all his free throws.

Maryland 79, Belmont 77: At Jacksonville, Fla., the Terra-pins’ Darryl Morsell made a cru-cial defensive stop as the Bruins went for a last-second upset in the NCAA Tournament, allowing them to escape.

Playing its second tournament game in less than 48 hours, 11th-seeded Belmont left no doubt it belonged after receiving one of

the selection committee’s final at-large bids.

But the mid-major powerhouse from Nashville, Tenn., couldn’t knock off No. 6-seeded Maryland (23-10) from the Big Ten, despite a 35-point performance by Dylan Windler.

The Terrapins were clinging to a one-point lead and the shot clock was off as the Bruins (26-6)

had a chance to win it at the buzz-er. Belmont didn’t bother callinga timeout to set up a play; it knew what it wanted to do — a backdoorpass to Windler that had been one of its bread-and-butter calls all afternoon.

But Morsell anticipated thepass from freshman GraysonMurphy and stepped in front of Windler to pick off the ball whilethe Belmont star tumbled to thecourt. Morsell was fouled with2.5 seconds to go, sending him to the other end of the court for apair of free throws. He made thefirst and missed the second, and Windler heaved an unsuccessful desperation shot from midcourt.

Michigan State 76, Bradley 65: At Des Moines, Iowa, CassiusWinston scored 26 points and thesecond-seeded Spartans held off the Braves.

Xavier Tillman had 16 pointswith 11 boards for Michigan State (29-6), which will face Big Tenrival, 10th-seeded Minnesota, on Saturday in search of its firsttrip to the Sweet Sixteen in four years. The Spartans throttled theGophers 79-55 in East Lansingback on Feb. 9.

Bradley gave the Big Ten champions all they could handle,though.

It was a one-possession game until Matt McQuaid drilled a cru-cial three to put Michigan Stateahead 61-55 with 3:31 left. AaronHenry followed with a layup tocap a 9-0 run, but Darrell Brownhit a three for Bradley to make it 65-60.

The Spartans iced the game atthe line, where they hit their first 20 and finished 25-for-26.

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — A.J. Harris had an easy layup for the tie. He wanted a win for New Mexico State.

It didn’t work out, but boy-oh-boy, what a way for the Aggies to go down swinging Thursday against fifth-seeded Auburn in the NCAA Tournament.

With the clock ticking down, Harris passed on an open layup and kicked out to wide-open teammate Terrell Brown, who was spotted up for the game-win-ner behind the arc. Brown was fouled as he took the shot, but missed two of three free throws with 1.1 seconds left, and New Mexico State fell 78-77.

It’s hard to call the 12th-seeded Aggies losers after their showing in the opening round of the Midwest Region, though.

“I can sit up here and second guess,” said New Mexico State coach Chris Jans, “but if he makes the three, or makes all three free throws, it’s an Ali-Frazier moment.”

Harris said he knew the Aggies were trailing by two as he took the inbounds pass with 6 seconds left, darted up the left side of the court, sped past J’Von McCor-mick, and then got a step on Auburn for-ward Chuma Okeke.

There was nothing but air between the 5-foot-9 guard and the basket as he made his way through the key.

“Yes, I did, I had an open shot,” Harris said. “But I felt Terrell Brown was going to hit the three.”

Kentucky 79, Abilene Christian 44: At Jacksonville, Fla., with PJ Washington watching from the bench in a cast, the sec-ond-seeded Wildcats romped past Abilene Christian.

Keldon Johnson scored 25 points in a huge mismatch that was over by halftime. Kentucky shot 60 percent in the opening period, held Abilene Christian to 5-for-26 from the field and went to the locker room with a 39-13 lead.

Even without Washington, who sprained his left foot in the Southeastern Confer-ence Tournament, the Wildcats had far too many weapons for the Southland Confer-ence representative, a No. 15 seed. Reid Travis added 18 points and Tyler Herro 14.

Wofford 84, Seton Hall 68: At Jackson-ville, Fla., Fletcher Magee set the Division I career record for three-pointers, poured in 24 points and led the seventh-seeded Terriers past the Pirates.

Magee hit seven three-pointers against

No. 10 seed Seton Hall to help Wofford to its first tournament win in five tries. TheTerriers also won their 21st consecutivegame overall.

Magee now has 509 three-pointers in four seasons, breaking the career mark setby Oakland’s Travis Bader in 2014. Duke’sJ.J. Redick (457), Tennessee’s Chris Lof-ton (431) and Davidson’s Stephen Curry(414) also rank in the top 10.

Kansas 87, Northeastern 53: At SaltLake City, Dedric Lawson had 25 pointsand 11 rebounds, and the Jayhawks domi-nated inside for a rout of the Huskies.

Fourth-seeded Kansas (26-9) had a no-table size advantage inside and used it,outscoring Northeastern 50-16 in the paint while grabbing 17 more rebounds.

Kansas shot 56 percent and advancedto Saturday’s second round against fifth-seeded Auburn.

The best shot for the 13th-seeded Hus-kies (23-11) was to make their three-pointtries.

They didn’t.The Colonial Athletic Association cham-

pions went 6-for-28 from the arc after fin-ishing the regular season 17th in Division Iat 38.6 percent.

Kalscheur, Gophers knock off LouisvilleEast Region roundup

NATI HARNIK/AP

Minnesota’s Gabe Kalscheur, top, goes for a layup against Louisville during the second half of their first-round game Thursday in the East Regional of the NCAA Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa.

Midwest Region roundup

Auburn survives New Mexico State

JEFF SWINGER/AP

Auburn guard Bryce Brown, left, fouls New Mexico State guard Terrell Brown as he shoots a three-pointer Thursday during the second half of their first-round game in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament in Salt Lake City.

SPORTS

BY DAVE CAMPBELL

Associated Press

lready appearing drained by Michigan State’s difficult victory over the upset seekers from Bradley, coach Tom Izzo winced a little more in his postgame interview on the court when the subject turned to the next opponent for the Spartans in the East Region.

Sure, Minnesota is the No. 10 seed that had a los-ing record in conference play, but a Big Ten team is not what Izzo wanted or expected to see on the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

Never mind the 79-55 margin when the SEE STRONG ON PAGE 29

S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S Saturday, March 23, 2019

Vandy fires Drew after worst season in program history » Page 25

Big Ten opens 5-0 to yield rare 2nd-round NCAA Tourney matchup

Above: Michigan’s Charles Matthews

dunks against Montana in Des

Moines, Iowa, on Thursday.

Left: Michigan State head

coach Tom Izzodirects his team against Bradley.

AP photos

More opening-round tournament coverage inside:� Defending champion Villanova survives scare, Page 30

Bucks’ secret weaponMilwaukee big man Lopez anunlikely sharpshooter » Page 27