US women fall to Canada in semifinalsSoccer, Page 23
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stripes.com
OLYMPICS
Biles says shewill compete inbalance beamGymnastics, Page 22
MILITARY
AFRICOM chief meetswith ‘Lightning Brigade’ incontested area of SomaliaPage 3
Exercise across 17 time zones to show US reach to Russia, China ›› Page 6
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —
The Taliban are ramping up pres-
sure on some of Afghanistan’s
largest cities, striking busy transit
hubs and pushing front lines deep
into urban areas for the first time
since the militants were over-
thrown nearly two decades ago.
Taliban fighters launched rock-
ets Saturday at airports in Kanda-
har and Herat, two of the coun-
try’s largest cities and busiest eco-
nomic centers. The attacks dis-
rupted commercial travel, though
flights in and out of Herat subse-
quently resumed.
“There was a large blast and the
whole room started shaking,” said
Massoud Ahmad Pashtun, the
chief of Kandahar airport, who
was present at the time of the at-
tack. He said three rockets landed
within seconds of each other and
damaged one of the runways.
The attacks mark a potential
turning point in the Afghan con-
flict. Previously, clashes were
largely confined to the country’s
rural areas or smaller cities con-
AFGHANISTAN
Taliban intomajor citiesfor first timein 20 years
BY SUSANNAH GEORGE
The Washington Post
RELATED■ US will allow moreAfghans to apply forasylum amid violence
■ Ghani seeks moreprotection for cities as Taliban advancePage 5
SEE TALIBAN ON PAGE 5
RITTERSDORF, Germany — The Nims
River flows through the heart of this village in
the rural Eifel region, skirting a moated castle
that has stood since medieval times.
On Saturday, the waterlogged stone fortress
was the meeting point for more than two dozen
U.S. military personnel, who volunteered to
help the town of about 1,400 clean up in the af-
termath of Europe’s severe flooding last
month.
Rittersdorf was spared the deaths and the
worst of the destruction caused by the floods,
which killed about 180 people in western Ger-
many and left thousands homeless.
But a water line above the castle’s first-floor
windows shows where the Nims crested at over
6 feet on July 14 and 15, pouring into the castle
and homes along the banks.
The river uprooted trees, fences, street signs
and anything else in its path in the worst flood-
ing longtime residents say they have ever seen.
Village leaders last week reached out to the
U.S. military community, asking for help in
cleaning up debris still scattered in the basin.
“We know that they are (our) friends in hard
times,” Otmar Koch, the deputy mayor of Rit-
tersdorf, said of the Americans. “We need a lot
of help here.”
JENNIFER H. SVAN/Stars and Stripes
Senior Airman Calixto Rodriguez, left, and Airman Kyle Koury try to break apart debris by the Nims River in Rittersdorf, Germany, on Saturday.More than two dozen airmen from Spangdahlem Air Base volunteered to help clean in the aftermath of severe flooding in western Germany.
‘I got lucky’
US airmen who survived catastrophic floods help German villages recover BY JENNIFER H. SVAN
AND MARCUS KLOECKNER
Stars and Stripes
EUROPE
SEE LUCKY ON PAGE 3
PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
BUSINESS/WEATHER
Bahrain99/93
Baghdad112/80
Doha114/91
Kuwait City111/88
Riyadh109/80
Kandahar98/67
Kabul92/57
Djibouti96/86
TUESDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Mildenhall/Lakenheath
68/53
Ramstein66/53
Stuttgart67/54
Lajes,Azores72/69
Rota79/62
Morón95/64 Sigonella
104/75
Naples83/69
Aviano/Vicenza73/58
Pápa76/58
Souda Bay87/80
Brussels65/57
Zagan68/57
DrawskoPomorskie
66/55
TUESDAY IN EUROPE
Misawa78/73
Guam84/81
Tokyo87/73
Okinawa84/81
Sasebo86/78
Iwakuni82/78
Seoul86/76
Osan89/75
Busan83/79
The weather is provided by the American Forces Network Weather Center,
2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.
WEDNESDAY IN THE PACIFIC
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TODAYIN STRIPES
American Roundup ...... 11Classified .................... 13Comics .........................15Crossword ................... 15Faces .......................... 14Opinion ........................ 16Sports .................... 17-24
Military rates
Euro costs (Aug. 3) $1.16Dollar buys (Aug. 3) 0.8200British pound (Aug. 3) $1.36Japanese yen (Aug. 3) 107.00South Korean won (Aug. 3) 1,124.00
Commercial rates
Bahrain (Dinar) 0.3770Britain (Pound) 1.3914Canada (Dollar) 1.2458China (Yuan) 6.4614Denmark (Krone) 6.2590Egypt (Pound) 15.7033Euro 0.8414Hong Kong (Dollar) 7.7730Hungary (Forint) 299.99Israel (Shekel) 3.2246Japan (Yen) 109.41Kuwait (Dinar) 0.3004
Norway (Krone) 8.7851
Philippines (Peso) 49.83Poland (Zloty) 3.83Saudi Arabia (Riyal) 3.7501Singapore (Dollar) 1.3520
South Korea (Won) 1,151.41Switzerland (Franc) 0.9046Thailand (Baht) 32.94Turkey (New Lira) �8.3540
(Military exchange rates are those availableto customers at military banking facilities in thecountry of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check withyour local military banking facility. Commercialrates are interbank rates provided for referencewhen buying currency. All figures are foreigncurrencies to one dollar, except for the Britishpound, which is represented in dollarstopound, and the euro, which is dollarstoeuro.)
INTEREST RATES
Prime rate 3.25Interest Rates Discount �rate 0.75Federal funds market rate �0.093month bill 0.0630year bond 1.89
EXCHANGE RATES
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West
Virginia pharmaceutical plant that
employed nearly 1,500 people has
been idled despite a last-ditch at-
tempt by labor and advocacy
groups to keep it open.
Time ran out Saturday for work-
ers at the former Mylan pharma-
ceuticals plant in Morgantown, the
Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
Drugmaker Viatris Inc. an-
nounced in December that it would
lay off workers at the end of July.
The plant was formerly operated by
the generic drug company Mylan,
which merged with Upjohn last
year to form the new company. Via-
tris, which announced it would
slash 20% of its workforce world-
wide, is now one of the world’s dom-
inant manufacturers in the generics
industry.
The moves left workers scram-
bling to find new jobs as the major
employer left West Virginia, a state
that is often trying to lure new com-
panies to uplift its stagnant econo-
my.
Dozens of labor and advocacy
groups called on President Joe Bi-
den on July 21 to intervene in the
company’s plan. A new campaign
led by Our Revolution, a political
nonprofit organization founded by
Bernie Sanders, had urged Biden to
use the Defense Production Act to
stop the closure and convene a task
force to determine how the plant
might continue producing pharma-
ceutical or medical goods.
The White House has not respon-
ded publicly to the closure or the
group’s letter, the Gazette-Mail re-
ported.
Pharmaceutical plant idled, costing 1.5K jobsAssociated Press
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3
MILITARY
No one in the village was hurt,
but Koch said about two dozen
families in the area lost their
homes.
About 25 people at Spangdah-
lem Air Base answered the call for
help, base officials said, as did a
few airmen from Ramstein Air
Base. About 20 military families at
Spangdahlem living off base were
displaced by the floods, base offi-
cials have said.
“I got lucky. I had a stream of
water going through my base-
ment,” said Rachael Kohlwey, a
civilian aircraft mechanic at
Spangdahlem. “But my neighbors
were dealing with a meter and a
half, 2 meters of water and they’ve
lost everything. It makes you want
to cry.
“These are our neighbors, our
friends, we’re embedded in these
communities,” Kohlwey said, “so
when you see a catastrophe like
this, you can’t help but want to
help.”
Senior Airman Calixto Rodri-
guez, 24, an aircraft maintainer
with the 52nd Aircraft Mainte-
nance Squadron, said he helped
clean up last month in Ehrang, a
village near Trier that was flooded
by the Kyll River.
“It was bad,” he said. “After I
went there, I told everybody that I
knew, the people there are strug-
gling. All the streets were just cov-
ered in filth and glass and dirt. I
wanted to come back and help
out.”
The mud along the Nims’ banks
had dried by Saturday. Airmen
sorted the debris into wood, metal
and other garbage, piles which the
Germans loaded into trailers
hitched to tractors to be dumped
or burned.
“I’ve just been jumping in wher-
ever I’m needed, moving stuff,
loading up trailers,” said Airman
Kyle Koury of the 52nd Health
Care Operations Squadron at
Spangdahlem. “It always feels like
a good day’s work when it’s need-
ed.”
Many residents were also out
cleaning up Saturday. The Amer-
icans’ help allowed them more
time to work on their yards and
their homes, some of which were
still full of mud and debris, they
said.
The flood came quickly, re-
called Pascal Schoenhofen, who
lives near the Nims. Sandbags
couldn’t hold back the water,
which started pouring into his
house from two sides.
“Then it was too late,” he said.
“Even the firefighters were help-
less at this point.”
Patrick Aubart, who lives close
to Schoenhofen, said the water
first came through the yard.
“More and more water came,” he
said. “Then we realized that we
had to get out.”
The state will provide $3,000 in
direct help, “but that is nothing
compared to the damage,” he said.
From a bridge overlooking the
Nims, Doris and her son, Kilian,
surveyed the damage to a former
mill that has been in the family for
400 years, and a house they rent to
Americans.
The house was built in 1934 at a
height thought safe from flooding,
they said.
The river crested the bridge and
water filled the house’s first floor,
said Doris, who asked that only
her first name be used. The origi-
nal kitchen tiles and wood flooring
were destroyed.
The day of the flood was the first
night in the house for her Ameri-
can tenants, a military family
from Spangdahlem, she said.
“We have to renovate every-
thing,” she said. “Hopefully the
family wants to come back.”
MARCUS KLOECKNER/Stars and Stripes
A group of volunteers help clean up the town of Rittersdorf, Germany, on Saturday.
Lucky: Service members assist neighboringGerman communities clean up after floods
[email protected]@stripes.comTwitter: @stripesktown
FROM PAGE 1
STUTTGART, Germany — The
U.S. military’s top commander for
Africa made a quiet visit to a re-
mote base in Somalia on a recent
tour through the region, meeting
with commandos in a contested
area where American special op-
erators once came under fire.
U.S. Africa Command con-
firmed that Gen. Stephen Towns-
end was at the Baledogle Military
Airfield last week to meet with So-
malia’s advanced infantry unit,
known as the Danab “Lightning
Brigade,” which the United States
has focused on developing over
the past several years.
The visit came as U.S. forces re-
new airstrikes against al-Shabab
militants after a six-month pause.
On Sunday, the U.S. launched
its third airstrike in two weeks, in
support of Danab and other Soma-
li troops that had come under at-
tack, Voice of America reported.
AFRICOM did not elaborate on
the purpose of Townsend’s visit to
Baledogle, home to the Danab bri-
gade’s headquarters, but it is a po-
tentially risky stopping point giv-
en the security situation in south-
ern Somalia.
In 2019, the U.S. was forced to
launch airstrikes against militants
after U.S. and Somali troops were
attacked at the Baledogle com-
plex, which is in a desert about 60
miles northwest of the capital of
Mogadishu.
The U.S. military had been
making improvements to the base,
including expanding the airfield.
The U.S. had maintained a regu-
lar presence at Baledogle until Ja-
nuary, when former President
Donald Trump ordered American
forces out of the country.
Since then, the U.S. has sent
troops to Somalia on a rotational
basis.
AFRICOM on Friday issued a
statement highlighting Towns-
end’s tour through East Africa,
but made no public mention of the
Baledogle meeting with Danab
troops, which was highlighted on
social media by Somalia’s mili-
tary.
Townsend, whose five-day trip
ended Friday, said AFRICOM re-
mains committed to battling mil-
itants and working with regional
partners such as Kenya.
“In East Africa, we work along-
side Kenyan forces to fight al-Sha-
baab, maintain awareness in the
western Indian Ocean and assure
regional security,” Townsend said
in a statement.
“We are grateful for our rela-
tionship with Kenya, which will
only continue to grow as we move
forward together.”
In addition to his Baledogle vis-
it, Townsend held talks in Mogad-
ishu and in Kenya, Tanzania and
Djibouti.
AFRICOM headquietly visitsSomalia base
BY JOHN VANDIVER
Stars and Stripes
U.S. Africa Command’s Gen. Stephen Townsend last week visited aSomali military base 60 miles outside of Mogadishu in Baledogle, asite where U.S. forces came under attack in 2019.
[email protected]: @john_vandiver
PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
PACIFIC
TOKYO — Few people are per-
mitted to mingle with Olympians in
Japan, but volunteers from U.S. mil-
itary bases are among those fortu-
nate enough to get close to the pan-
demic-affected games.
Service members, Department of
Defense civilians and military fam-
ilies from Camp Zama and Yokota
Air Base have been volunteering at
cycling, baseball and aquatic
events.
In 2018, the International Olym-
pic Committee asked that service
members be included in the pool of
volunteers, a spokesman for U.S.
Army Garrison Japan, Tim Flack,
told Stars and Stripes by email
Wednesday.
Sagamihara, where the men and
women’s cycling events were held,
is a sister city of Camp Zama, head-
quarters for U.S. Army Japan.
Olympic officials invited the garri-
son to send volunteers “as a way to
include the Army community to
help celebrate their long-standing
friendship and various community
exchanges,” Flack said.
Over the course of the cycling
event July 24 and 25, about 50 ser-
vice members from Camp Zama
volunteered to set up barriers and
keep the 18 miles of roadway clear
and safe, he said.
Sgt. Jennifer Jackson, president
of Camp Zama’s chapter of Better
Opportunities for Single Soldiers,
an Army morale program geared
toward junior enlisted service
members, said she was honored to
volunteer at such a historic Olym-
pics and feel the excitement as the
competing cyclists roared by.
“Many of the young soldiers in
BOSS are away from home for the
first time, and being somewhere as
different and far away as Japan can
be difficult,” she told Stars and
Stripes by phone Wednesday. “Op-
portunities like this can help alle-
viate homesickness and give them a
sense of pride and stories to tell fu-
ture generations.”
Jackson said she will also cherish
the memory of being involved in the
Olympic committee stakeholders’
meetings as president of the sol-
diers’ program. Seventeen of the 50
Army volunteers are from the pro-
gram, she said.
The Olympics also need volun-
teer translators like mother-son duo
Shinobu and Robert Hanson, of Yo-
kota. Shinobu Hanson, who works
part time translating for the base’s
medical group, has been doing the
same for the U.S. baseball team.
She said she has become like a
“team mom” for the Olympians.
“I help them with translating ev-
erything from batting practice to
any requests they may have, which
has given me an opportunity to get a
little close to the players,” she told
Stars and Stripes by phone Thurs-
day. “Since people cannot go to the
games, no one is there applauding,
and for the players that can be a
bummer, but I get to cheer them on
and share some laughs with them.”
Her son Robert Hanson, 20, a
translator for the Israeli baseball
team, is the youngest volunteer
translator in this year’s games. He
said translating nuances from Japa-
nese to English for a team that
speaks English as a second lan-
guage can be difficult, but the expe-
rience is rewarding.
“It is an honor to help out interna-
tional players,” he said in an email to
Stars and Stripes on Saturday. “Be-
ing able to use my talent speaking
two languages and translating ev-
erything is a new thing for me. It is
very challenging, but I’m having
fun.”
Volunteer Toshi Kato, an ac-
counting technician at Yokota who
volunteers for the Olympics base-
ball media operations, said he hopes
Americans in Japan cheer for both
the United States and their host na-
tion Japan at this year’s games.
Kato, formerly an assistant for
one of Japan’s professional baseball
teams, the Seibu Lions, said he con-
siders volunteering at the games to
be an experience of a lifetime.
“My mother passed away a long
time ago, but if she were still here, I
would like to share everything from
my experience with her,” he told
Stars and Stripes by phone Thurs-
day. “I am really appreciative and
want to enjoy this experience and
share this memory.”
Kato also volunteers at Yokota as
a softball and baseball coach
through the force support squad-
ron.
The gold medal game for baseball
is scheduled for Saturday. In wom-
en’s softball, Japan took gold and
the U.S. took silver.
For some military-affiliated vol-
unteers, this year is not their first
time assisting with the games.
Hitomi Morioka, an English
teacher near Yokota and a U.S. mil-
itary spouse, is volunteering in the
media operations center for aquat-
ics sports this year and worked for
NBC during the 1998 games in Na-
gano.
She said the Olympics, especially
this year’s Games surrounded by
hardships related to the coronavi-
rus, is an opportunity to strengthen
bonds among nations.
“A lot of my elementary-aged stu-
dents are not very open to meeting
foreigners,” Morioka told Stars and
Stripes in a phone interview Friday.
“I want to teach them that moments
like this are opportunities to make
more friends in the world.”
So far, the U.S., Australia and
France have all claimed gold med-
als in swimming events. These in-
clude American stars Caeleb Dres-
sel in the men’s 100 butterfly and
Katie Ledecky in the women’s 800
freestyle.
Morioka said her favorite part of
volunteering as a media liaison at
the aquatics center is being so close
to the action during an Olympics
with no audience.
“There is all this excitement and
happiness, and some of the athletes
are so overcome by it all that they
are in tears,” she said. “I’m glad to
be part of it and watching their
dreams come true.”
U.S. Army
Over the course of the Olympics cycling event from July 2425, about 50 service members from CampZama volunteered to set up barriers and keep the 18 miles of roadway clear and safe.
Volunteers from US military communityrevel in experience of Tokyo Olympics
BY ERICA EARL
Stars and Stripes
[email protected]: @ThisEarlGirl
TOKYO — Japan’s capital city,
hosting the delayed 2020 Olympic
Games, surpassed its one-day re-
cord for new coronavirus cases
over the weekend and broke 4,000
for the first time during the pan-
demic.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Govern-
ment reported 4,058 newly infected
people on Saturday, its highest one-
day count of the pandemic, accord-
ing to metro government data.
About 3,200 people are hospital-
ized, with 114 of them in serious con-
dition Monday, according to public
broadcaster NHK.
The metro government reported
2,195 new casesMonday, according
to NHK. Monday is typically the
day the city reports the lowest num-
ber of new infections. On Sunday,
the prefecture reported 3,058 new-
ly infected people, according to
metro government data.
Close to 30% of Japan’s popula-
tion is fully vaccinated, according to
the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Re-
source Center.
The Olympic Games reported
that 56 people tested positive for
COVID-19 on Friday, Saturday and
Sunday, according to the Tokyo
2020 website. Most, 34, are contrac-
tors, 18 are Games personnel, two
are volunteers and the media and
athletes produced one case each.
Since July 1, the Games have re-
ported that 276 people contracted
the virus, 24 of whom are athletes.
At least one of the positive Olym-
pians is a U.S. soldier.
U.S. military bases in Japan re-
ported 23 new cases of COVID-19
between Friday and 6 p.m. Monday.
U.S. Forces Japan reported a to-
tal of 92 individuals with the virus at
U.S. installations, the bulk of them
on Okinawa, where the Air Force
and Marine Corps accounted for 64
individuals as of Friday, according
to the USFJ website.
On Monday, Sasebo Naval Base
said one new patient tested positive
after falling ill with symptoms of
COVID-19, according to a Facebook
post by the naval base. That person
is in isolation. The base is monitor-
ing three people with the virus.
Marine Corps Air Station Iwaku-
ni, south of Hiroshima, has had one
person test positive for the virus
since Sunday, according to a news
release Monday.
At Kadena Air Base on Okinawa,
19 people tested positive between
July 24 and Friday, according to the
base’s website. Twenty-six people
are under observation.
The Marine Corps reported that
two individuals at its bases on Oki-
nawa tested positive Monday, ac-
cording to a Facebook post by Ma-
rine Corps Installations Pacific. At
least 34 people affiliated with the
Marines on Okinawa tested positive
in July.
Astate of emergency began Mon-
day in Osaka, the second-largest
metro area in Japan, and three pre-
fectures adjacent to Tokyo that are
part of its wider metropolitan area:
Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa.
Those emergencies, and those in
Tokyo and Okinawa, are in place
until Aug. 31.
Emergency measures call on res-
taurants and bars to refrain from
selling alcohol and to close between
8 p.m. and 5 a.m., and residents are
urged to avoid unnecessary travel.
Most U.S. base commanders
have put central Tokyo off-limits to
even their vaccinated personnel,
with some exceptions for travel on
official business.
The U.S. Army and Navy have
their headquarters in Kanagawa,
along with the homeport of 7th
Fleet. U.S. Forces Japan is head-
quartered at Yokota Air Base in
western Tokyo.
Popular beaches in Kanagawa at
Zushi and Hayama are closing due
to the emergency, according to a
Facebook post Monday by Yokosu-
ka Naval Base.
Kanagawa on Sunday reported
1,258 people newly infected with
the coronavirus, the third-highest
one-day count in the prefecture,
NHK reported Monday. Saitama
reported 899 and Chiba 767 on the
same day, according to the broad-
caster.
On Okinawa, prefectural Gov.
Denny Tamaki, in a joint statement
Sunday with city, business and
medical leaders, described the ris-
ing number of infections on the is-
land as “equivalent to a lockdown
level in other countries.”
At a news conference, Tamaki
said the number of new cases, many
of them the delta variant, has tripled
over the past week, mainly among
young people.
The prefecture reported 439 CO-
VID-19 cases Saturday, a one-day
pandemic high, 382 on Friday and
367 on Sunday, according to the
prefectural coronavirus tracking
website.
Tamaki called on Okinawans to
refrain from unnecessary travel or
gatherings for the next two weeks,
to avoid visits to other prefectures
and remote islands, including fam-
ily visits, and to get vaccinated.
Virus cases surgepast 4K in Tokyoover weekend
BY JOSEPH DITZLER
Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes reporter Mari Higa contributedto this [email protected]: @JosephDitzler
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5
WAR ON TERRORISM
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan
president on Monday blamed the American
troops’ speedy pullout for the worsening vio-
lence in his country and said that his admin-
istration would now focus
on protecting provincial
capitals and major urban
areas in the face of the rap-
idly advancing Taliban.
Ashraf Ghani also urged
lawmakers to back a na-
tional mobilization drive
against the Taliban amid
an intensifying war be-
tween the Taliban and Afghan government
forces over the past few months as U.S. and
NATO troops complete their pullout from
the war-torn country.
“An imported, hasty” peace process — a
reference to Washington’s push for negotia-
tions between Kabul and the Taliban — “not
only failed to bring peace but created doubt
and ambiguity” among Afghans, Ghani said
in his address to Parliament.
The Taliban are now trying to seize pro-
vincial capitals after already taking large
swaths of land and scores of districts in more
rural areas, as well as several key border
crossings with neighboring countries.
“The Taliban do not believe in lasting or
just peace,” Ghani said. He predicted a sea
change on the battlefield “in the next six
months” that would push the Taliban back,
without elaborating.
He claimed that Afghan forces are up to
the task and have the “capacity” to defeat
the insurgents. But in past weeks, Afghan
forces have struggled against the Taliban
onslaught, and have often been left without
reinforcements and resupplies.
Hours after the president's remarks, Tali-
ban fighters seized control of Helmand
province's government radio and TV build-
ing in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
Resident Haji Sadullah said they broadcast
religious songs and invited people to follow
their path for close to an hour on both AM
and FM frequencies.
Government officials did not immediate-
ly comment.
Afghanistanleader seeksdefense ofmajor cities
Associated Press
Ghani
tested by the militants. Large-scale conven-
tional attacks on Kandahar and Herat, the
second- and fourth-largest cities in the
country, have the potential to endanger mil-
lions more civilians.
Initial reports suggested the Kandahar
rocket attack came from the eastern side of
the city, where Taliban fighters have made
advances. Pashtun said he feared more at-
tacks in the coming days, because of the de-
teriorating security situation and the re-
moval of an American antimissile system
that protected the airfield before the with-
drawal of U.S. forces from the southern
province.
Gen. Ajmal Shinwari, a security forces
spokesperson, said at a news conference on
Sunday that all troops were on high alert
due to “the emergency situations” in Kan-
dahar and Herat. Hundreds more Afghan
forces have been sent to the southern and
western provinces as reinforcements.
Taliban attacks in Kandahar province
have been ongoing for months, but in recent
days the group began pushing closer into
the city center.
Frontlines that crisscrossed largely agri-
cultural suburbs just weeks ago now span
densely populated neighborhoods. Just a
few hundred meters from a Taliban-held
neighborhood on Kandahar’s western edge,
government forces have transformed a
wedding hall and an opulent multistory
home into makeshift bases.
“They watch us from those houses over
there,” said a commando officer, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to talk to the media. He
pointed out a white Taliban flag visible just
a few blocks away from a traffic circle.
The government soldiers said they ex-
changed fire with Taliban fighters occa-
sionally during the day, but it is at night that
clashes grow more intense.
Thousands of civilians are being forced to
flee their homes. Deeper inside Kandahar
city, makeshift camps have sprung up in
empty lots.
Jalil Ahmad, 30, said his house was de-
stroyed by a mortar attack and his ears
were still ringing from the blast. He said a
police unit took up a firing position on to the
roof of his home, and Taliban fighters retal-
iated with a volley of mortars.
“An entire wall collapsed on my family,”
he said. “We have never seen fighting like
this in our area before.”
In Herat, Afghan special forces were de-
ployed to the city on Sunday to help push
back Taliban advances. Taliban fighters
breached the city limits and a United Na-
tions compound was attacked, as clashes
raged for hours. The U.N. condemned the
attack. A Taliban statement described the
destruction as “regrettable,” saying the
group remains committed to protecting the
U.N.
Abdul Rahman Rahman, an Interior Min-
istry adviser, traveled to Herat on Sunday to
calm “the atmosphere of panic” growing in
the city, he said. Rahman arrived with a
team of Afghan special forces, which he
pledged would deal “fiercely” with the Tali-
ban.
The Taliban push on major cities comes
as the group continues to squeeze much
smaller provincial capitals in areas long
contested by militants. In Helmand, a prov-
ince that has been one of the least stable in
Afghanistan for years, fighting intensified
last week, heightening fears that the prov-
ince’s capital would fall. Taliban fighters
have pushed inside the city’s limits and are
steadily closing in on the central govern-
ment compound.
Afghan forces responded with a puni-
shing wave of air support. One airstrike hit a
small hospital on the city’s outskirts Satur-
day, killing the relative of a patient and in-
juring four others, including a patient and
three members of staff, according to hospi-
tal director Mohammad din Naraiwal.
As the airstrikes drew closer in recent
days, Naraiwal repeatedly communicated
with Afghan government forces, asking
them not to strike the facility. He said no Ta-
liban fighters were present in the building
when it was hit.
“I’m worried if the government resup-
plies their forces there will be more fight-
ing,” he said. “There will be more civilian
casualties.”
Taliban: Forces,militants clash inpopulous areasFROM PAGE 1
LORENZO TUGNOLI/For The Washington Post
A policeman sits in an outpost in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as Afghan security forces findthemselves engaged in a battle with the Taliban inside the city limits.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The
U.S. will give more asylum oppor-
tunities to at-risk Afghans as Tali-
ban violence surges ahead of the
withdrawal of American forces by
the end of August.
The State Department said Mon-
day that “many thousands” of Af-
ghans now qualify to permanently
resettle in the United States. That
number includes current and for-
mer employees of American news
organizations, development agen-
cies and other U.S.-funded relief
groups.
“The U.S. objective remains a
peaceful, secure Afghanistan,” the
State Department said. “However,
in light of increased levels of Tali-
ban violence, the U.S. government
is working to provide certain Af-
ghans, including those who worked
with the United States, the oppor-
tunity for refugee resettlement.”
The new “Priority 2” category of
the U.S. Refugee Admission Pro-
gram was created to address the
situations of Afghans who don’t
qualify for an existing Special Im-
migrant Visa. It applies to Afghans
and members of their immediate
family who may be in peril because
of U.S. affiliation.
Rights groups had called on
President Joe Biden to do more to
protect Afghans who had been af-
filiated with the U.S. but may not
have worked directly for the U.S.
government.
The groups said those Afghans
face just as many risks as counter-
parts covered by the provisions of
the Special Immigrant Visa.
About 20,000 Afghans who
worked for the U.S. government as
translators or in other positions
have already applied to resettle in
the U.S. as part of the visa pro-
gram.
Of those, 2,500 who passed secu-
rity screenings are now being relo-
cated. The first group of about 200
applicants arrived at Fort Lee, Va.,
on Friday.
The Taliban have taken control
of about half of the country’s
roughly 400 districts and continue
to launch offensives, according to
the U.S. military.
Last week, the special inspector
general for Afghanistan recon-
struction said the continued vio-
lence poses an “existential crisis”
for the country.
US allows more Afghan asylum claimsBY PHILLIP WALTER
WELLMAN
Stars and Stripes
[email protected]: @pwwellman �
PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
MILITARY
NAPLES, Italy — A U.S. naval
and amphibious exercise billed as
the largest of its kind in 40 years be-
gins Tuesday, in a globe-spanning
effort that analysts say aims to send
a message to Russia and China that
America can simultaneously an-
swer aggression on multiple fronts.
Large Scale Exercise 2021 is a re-
turn to similar Cold War exercises
in the 1980s demonstrating resolve
and new capabilities, U.S. Naval
Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet
said in a recent statement. The exer-
cise also comes as the military up-
dates its long-standing combat doc-
trine to defend against attacks on its
communications systems and logis-
tical networks. A simulated battle
against a high-end enemy in Octo-
ber exposed those vulnerabilities
and spurred changes, Gen. John
Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said last month.
Large Scale Exercise runs
through Aug. 16 and will include
units in 17 different time zones, the
Navy said.
“LSE will test our commanders
across the spectrum of naval war-
fare from the tactical to the strate-
gic, integrating the Marine Corps to
demonstrate the world-wide fleet’s
ability to conduct coordinated oper-
ations from the open ocean to the lit-
toral,” said Vice Adm. Gene Black,
U.S. 6th Fleet commander.
LSE potentially puts adversaries
on notice that the U.S. can simulta-
neously address challenges in the
Black Sea, eastern Mediterranean
Sea, South China Sea and East Chi-
na Sea – shutting down efforts to
spread American military forces
thin, said James R. Holmes, the J.C.
Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at
the U.S. Naval War College in New-
port, R.I.
It also aims to demonstrate that
U.S. naval and Marine forces can
deny adversaries control of the seas,
which is especially crucial in the
Western Pacific, where the U.S.
hopes to prevent China from occu-
pying Taiwan or seizing the Japan-
administered Senkaku Islands,
Holmes said.
But it isn’t certain if Russia or Chi-
na will interpret the exercise in
those ways or if they are even pay-
ing attention, Holmes said.
Even so, the exercise also tests
U.S. operational methods and tech-
nologies, such as deemphasizing
large ships and high-end systems to
create a nimble, efficient and effec-
tive force designed to take a loss and
continue fighting without measura-
ble impact, Holmes said.
“In that sense we’re reverting to
our World War II approach, when
we had lots of inexpensive, good-
enough stuff and could lose some of
it and still carry on,” Holmes said.
“If we show our adversaries this ap-
proach works, we bolster our ability
to deter them from assailing our-
selves or our allies.”
About 36 ships and more than 50
virtual units, in addition to military,
civilian and contract personnel, will
participate in the exercise. Six naval
and Marine Corps component com-
mands, five U.S. fleets and three
Marine Expeditionary Forces will
be involved.
USS Mount Whitney, the 6th Fleet
flagship, also will participate. The
first LSE will include only U.S.
forces, but future exercises are
planned to include allies and part-
ners, the statement said.
Throwback exercise to span 17 time zones
SCOTT BARNES/U.S. Navy
USS Mount Whitney, 6th Fleet's flagship, arrives in Split, Croatia, for a port visit on Friday, before kickingoff Large Scale Exercise 2021. Six naval and Marine Corps component commands, five U.S. fleets andthree Marine Expeditionary Forces will be involved in the exercise, which will conclude on Aug. 16.
BY ALISON BATH
Stars and Stripes
[email protected]: @TMSWatchdog
An error during routine mainte-
nance caused a $201 million F-22
Raptor to crash last year at Eglin Air
Force Base in Florida, media re-
ports said following a brief service
statement.
The May 15, 2020, crash was
caused by “a maintenance error
made after the aircraft was washed,
which impacted control inputs
transmitted to the aircraft,” the
Northwest Florida Daily News re-
ported last week, citing an emailed
statement from the Air Combat
Command. The pilot, assigned to the
43rd Fighter Squadron, 325th Fight-
er Wing, ejected and sustained only
minor injuries, but the aircraft was
destroyed, said the command,
which is in charge of training, equip-
ping and maintaining units for rapid
deployment abroad.
The Air Force requires that an in-
vestigative board be convened fol-
lowing Class A mishaps, which are
accidents that cause loss of life or
more than $2.5 million in damage.
But that requirement can be waived
by authorities.
Operational concerns led the
ACC to forgo an AIB report, which
would have detailed how the crash
occurred and outlined what investi-
gators determined had caused it, Air
Force Magazine reported.
The requirement for an AIB was
waived by the deputy commander
of the ACC, the magazine said, citing
acommand spokesperson.
The few details that were re-
leased said the issues that led to the
crash arose shortly after takeoff,
when the pilot noticed a Flight Con-
trol System advisory. He continued
with takeoff, but “shortly after the
aircraft became airborne, the pilot
began having trouble controlling
the aircraft and declared an emer-
gency,” said the statement, reported
by Air Force Magazine.
“While a recovery plan was being
coordinated, the pilot continued to
have issues with the aircraft and
ejected,” it said.
The results of an AIB must be re-
leased publicly, although com-
mands can also waive that require-
ment. Information gathered by the
two types of probe conducted into
the Eglin accident — a safety inves-
tigation board and a commander di-
rected investigation — do not have
to be released to the public.
Maintenance error led to F-22 crashin Florida last year, Air Force says
Stars and Stripes
CODY MILLER/U.S. Air Force
A 325th Fighter Wing F22 Raptor soars over the Gulf of Mexico in2017. An error during routine maintenance caused an F22 Raptorfrom the 325th to crash last year at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
The U.S. and Israel vowed to re-
spond to a deadly drone attack on a
tanker last week in a major water-
way for global oil shipments that
they blamed on Iran.
Middle East foes Iran and Israel
have traded multiple accusations of
shipping attacks in recent months.
But Thursday’s strike off the coast
of Oman, which Tehran denied car-
rying out, was the first to kill crew
members — a Romanian and a Brit-
on.
The two fatalities have raised ten-
sions in the Persian Gulf at a critical
juncture with Iran preparing to in-
augurate a new president, and talks
with world powers over its 2015 nu-
clear deal stalled.
“I promise you that Israel will not
sit silently by after a strike against
ships or citizens and will respond
once it finds the where, the when
and the how,” Ram Ben Barak, the
head of the Israeli parliament’s For-
eign Affairs and Defense Commit-
tee, told Army Radio on Monday.
Romania said it had summoned
the Iranian ambassador, while Bri-
tain is sending a team to investigate
the attack on the Mercer Street oil-
products tanker, now moored off
the United Arab Emirates, its depu-
ty envoy to Israel told Israeli broad-
caster Kan.
“There is no justification for this
attack, which follows a pattern of at-
tacks and other belligerent behav-
ior,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken said in a statement Sunday.
“We are working with our partners
to consider our next steps and con-
sulting with governments inside the
region and beyond on an appropri-
ate response, which will be forth-
coming.”
He gave no further details of what
the response might entail. A spokes-
person for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet,
which is based in the region, de-
clined to comment. The U.S. and its
allies created a maritime force in
2019 in response to similar attacks
to protect sea lanes in the Middle
East.
Blinken said he was “confident”
Iran used “one-way explosive”
drones in Thursday’s attack. U.K.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab
said “one or more” of the drones
may have been involved in the hit.
Romania “retains its right to act
accordingly, together with its inter-
national partners, in order to have
an adequate response,” the coun-
try’s Foreign Ministry said in an
emailed response to Bloomberg
questions, saying it had summoned
the Iranian envoy.
US blames Iran for ship attack,plans ‘appropriate response’
BY ARSALAN SHAHLA
AND GWEN ACKERMAN
Bloomberg News
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7
OLYMPICS
VICENZA, Italy — The surprise
gold medal winner in the 100-me-
ter dash at the Tokyo Olympics
was born to an Italian mother and
American soldier father who met
while he was stationed in Vicenza.
But Italian sprinter Lamont
Marcell Jacobs, who was born in
El Paso, grew up in Italy after his
father was transferred to South
Korea and the marriage broke up,
he told reporters in Japan.
“Only my muscle fibers are
American,” he said, the Orange
County Register reported Sunday.
Jacobs’ mother, Viviana Masini,
was 16 years old when she met an
18-year-old U.S. soldier named
Lamont Marcell Jacobs Sr., sta-
tioned at Caserma Ederle in Vi-
cenza, according to an interview
in the Corriere della Sera newspa-
per. The two married and moved
to El Paso, home to Fort Bliss.
About three years later, their
son was born just weeks before his
father was sent to a new posting in
South Korea.
“It was impossible for us to fol-
low him,” Jacobs’ mother said,
Corriere della Serra reported. “I
then decided to return to Italy.
Marcell wasn’t even a month old.
“From there a challenge of our
own was born. I was a young moth-
er with a child to raise and the
great thing is that through the
growth of Marcell I had the oppor-
tunity to live a new life, new hori-
zons.”
Jacobs, 26, hasn’t seen his fa-
ther since and hadn’t spoken to
him until last year, The Washing-
ton Post reported. His mother nur-
tured him, going to all his races as
he grew up and trained in the 100-
meter dash and long jump in De-
senzano del Garda, about an hour
from Vicenza, she told Corriere
Della Sera.
Among his idols was Andrew
Howe, he told Olympics.com, who
like him was an American-born,
biracial Italian sprinter coached
by his mother in Italy after his fa-
ther left the family when he was a
baby.
Until Sunday, few fans had
heard of Jacobs. Bookmakers
made him somewhere between an
8-1 and 10-1 long shot, The Wash-
ington Post said.
“It’s a dream, a dream, it is fan-
tastic,” he said after winning the
race, according to Reuters. “May-
be tomorrow I can imagine what
they are saying, but today it is in-
credible.”
He credited his surprising win
to better nutrition and training,
and more emphasis on his mental
approach, the Post said. Jacobs
said part of his mental improve-
ment came because of his fledg-
ling relationship with his father,
who lives in Dallas and texted him
before the race.
“You can do it. We are with
you,” the message said, according
to The Washington Post.
Parents of Italian sprinter met at Vicenza
Lamont Marcell Jacobs strikes a pose after his victory in the 100 meters at the Olympics in Tokyo onSunday.
FRANCISCO SECO/AP
Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy,the winner of the Olympic 100meters, shows off his gold medalon Monday, in Tokyo.
PHOTOS BY ANTONIO CALANNI/AP
A poster reading “Go Marcell” for Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs isseen in front of the hotel Florence, run by his mother Viviana Masini inManerba del Garda, Italy.
Masini shows a corner in herhome, devoted to Jacobs, with anold pair of running shoes, a photoof him as a child and the Italianflag, in Manerba del Garda, Italy.
BY NANCY MONTGOMERY
Stars and Stripes
PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
VIRUS OUTBREAK
ORLANDO, Fla. — A day after it
recorded the most new daily cases
since the start of the pandemic,
Florida on Sunday broke a previ-
ous record for current hospitaliza-
tions set more than a year ago be-
fore vaccines were available.
The Sunshine State had 10,207
people hospitalized with con-
firmed COVID-19 cases, accord-
ing to data reported to the U.S. De-
partment of Health & Human Ser-
vices.
The previous record was from
July 23, 2020, more than six
months before vaccinations start-
ed becoming widespread, when
Florida had 10,170 hospitaliza-
tions, according to the Florida
Hospital Association.
Florida is now leading the na-
tion in per capita hospitalizations
for COVID-19, as hospitals around
the state report having to put
emergency room visitors in beds
in hallways and others document a
noticeable drop in the age of pa-
tients.
In the past week, Florida has av-
eraged 1,525 adult hospitalizations
aday, and 35 daily pediatric hospi-
talizations. Both are the highest
per capita rate in the nation, ac-
cording to Jason Salemi, an associ-
ate professor of epidemiology at
the University of South Florida.
The hospitalizations and in-
creasing cases have come as the
new, more transmittable delta
variant has spread throughout
Florida, and residents have re-
turned to pre-pandemic activities.
“The recent rise is both striking
and not at all surprising,” Salemi
said in an email late Saturday.
Federal health data released
Saturday showed that Florida re-
ported 21,683 new cases of CO-
VID-19, the state’s highest one-day
total since the start of the pandem-
ic. The latest numbers were re-
corded Friday and released Satur-
day on the U.S. Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention’s
website. The figures show how
quickly the number of cases is ris-
ing in the Sunshine State; only a
day earlier, Florida reported
17,093 new daily cases.
Fla. breaks record for most active COVID-19 hospitalizationsAssociated Press
A Tennessee legislator who went from
unmasked gatherings with fellow legisla-
tors to being placed on a ventilator days lat-
er has emerged with a message for constit-
uents after a harrowing eight-month expe-
rience with long-haul COVID-19: Take the
coronavirus seriously.
“It is a disease that wants to kill us,” state
Rep. David Byrd, a Republican, said in a
statement Friday. Byrd, 63, described an
ordeal that included 55 days on a ventilator
in which COVID-19 ravaged his memory,
muscles and organs — it led to him having a
liver transplant in June. His condition was
so grave that his family began planning for
his funeral at least once. Stressing that CO-
VID-19 is real and “very dangerous,” Byrd
encouraged people to get vaccinated.
“This is not an issue that should divide
us,” he wrote.
Before Byrd became ill around Thanks-
giving, his attitude about the virus included
a June 2020 vote for a resolution that ac-
cused the “mainstream media” of sensa-
tionalizing pandemic coverage. In Novem-
ber, he was among the House Republican
Caucus members who gathered for an in-
person multiday retreat amid surging in-
fections statewide.
The shift from minimizing the risks of
the coronavirus to urgently warning about
them is not unique to Byrd, who did not re-
spond to The Washington Post’s request for
comment Sunday. A growing group of
Americans, including some Republicans,
are now rapidly reassessing their doubts
and dismissals as new infections fueled by
the easier-to-spread delta variant of the vi-
rus point toward a summer virus surge.
Leaders such as Alabama Republican
Gov. Kay Ivey and Arkansas Republican
Gov. Asa Hutchinson have traveled their
states and written opinion articles encou-
raging people to get vaccinated. In Tennes-
see, state Rep. Bryan Terry, a Republican
who is a physician, urged vaccinations af-
ter becoming infected after he was immu-
nized.
“I’m convinced the vaccine protected my
health and possibly saved me from an ex-
tensive hospitalization, or death,” Terry
said last week. “All Tennesseans, especial-
ly those with risk, need to talk to their doc-
tor about getting vaccinated.”
In his statement Friday, Byrd said he was
sharing his experience in hope that it
“helps others to act against an enemy that
knows no skin color, economic status or po-
litical affiliation.”
GOP lawmaker who once spurned masks switches courseThe Washington Post
HARTFORD, Conn. — With
U.S. health officials recommend-
ing that children mask up in school
this fall, parents and policy makers
across the nation have been
plunged anew into a debate over
whether face coverings should be
optional or a mandate.
The delta variant of the corona-
virus now threatens to upend nor-
mal instruction for a third consec-
utive school year. Some states have
indicated they will probably heed
the federal government’s guidance
and require masks. Others will
leave the decision up to parents.
The controversy is unfolding at a
time when many Americans are at
their wits’ end with pandemic re-
strictions and others fear their
children will be put at risk by those
who don’t take the virus seriously
enough. In a handful of Republi-
can-led states, lawmakers made it
illegal for schools to require
masks.
In Connecticut, anti-mask ral-
lies have happened outside Gov.
Ned Lamont’s official residence in
Hartford, and lawn signs and bum-
per stickers call on him to “unmask
our kids.” The Democrat has said
that he’s likely to follow the latest
advice from the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention.
The CDC on Tuesday recom-
mended indoor masks for all
teachers, staff, students and vis-
itors at schools nationwide, re-
gardless of vaccination status. The
agency cited the risk of spread of
the highly contagious delta varia-
nt, even among vaccinated people.
Alima Bryant, 33, a mother of
four who organizes anti-mask par-
ents in Branford, Conn., said she’s
not a conspiracy theorist, but she
believes scientists have overstated
the dangers of COVID-19, espe-
cially for children. She said she
will take her children out of school
rather than subject them to wear-
ing masks, which she believes are
more likely to make them ill than
the virus.
“Especially with little kids, I can
imagine how often they’re touch-
ing dirty things, then touching the
mask,” she said. “Also, in kinder-
garten, you have to learn social
cues, and even with speech and ev-
erything, it’s so important to not be
wearing a mask.”
But parents such as Ryan Zuim-
merman, of Lenexa, Kan., fear that
approach will prolong the pan-
demic.
In Johnson County, Kan., the
state’s most populous county, five
districts recommend but do not re-
quire masks. A sixth district has
not yet decided.
Zimmerman, speaking at a re-
cent meeting of country commis-
sioners, said that if masks are only
recommended and not required,
“95% of kids won’t be wearing
them.”
“This isn’t about comfort or con-
trol or obedience or your rights. It
is not conspiracy or child abuse. It
is about doing unto others as you
want them to do unto you,” he said.
“I ask you this: If it was your kid
who was high risk, what if you had
to send that kid you had spent your
whole life protecting to school in
this environment?”
Another public meeting, this one
in Broward County, Fla., had to be
postponed for a day last week after
roughly two dozen mask oppo-
nents waged screaming matches
with school board members and
burned masks outside the build-
ing.
When the discussion resumed
Wednesday, it was limited to 10
public speakers, and all but one
spoke vehemently against masks,
saying their personal rights were
being eroded.
Vivian Hug, a Navy veteran,
brought her twins with her as she
addressed board members, saying
she was tired of the “fear monger-
ing” and giving up “freedoms in
the name of safety.”
“Please stop the insanity. You
have already done damage to these
kids having to wear masks,” she
said before putting her daughter
up to the microphone, where the
little girl complained that masks
make it hard for her to breathe and
give her headaches.
But Dr. Karyl Rattay, director of
the Delaware Division of Public
Health, said there is no credible
evidence masks are unsafe for
children. She said the science is
clear that face coverings have pre-
vented the spread of COVID-19 in
schools.
“If we want to have kids in school
this fall, and as many kids as we
possibly can get into school, masks
are a key component,” she said.
Mask guidance divides parents before school yearBY PAT EATON-ROBB
Associated Press
MARTA LAVANDIER/AP
Joann Marcus of Fort Lauderdale, left, cheers as she listens to the Broward School Board’s emergencymeeting Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9
NATION
BOSTON — Evictions, which
have mostly been on pause during
the pandemic, were expected to
ramp up Monday after the Biden
administration allowed the federal
moratorium to expire over the
weekend and Congress was unable
to do anything to extend it.
Housing advocates fear the end
of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention moratorium could
result in millions of people being
evicted. But most expect the wave
of evictions to build slowly over the
coming weeks and months as the
bureaucracy of removing people
from their homes restarts.
On Sunday night, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and the House Demo-
cratic leaders called on the Biden
administration to immediately ex-
tend the moratorium.
The Biden administration an-
nounced Thursday it would allow
the ban to expire, arguing its hands
were tied after the U.S. Supreme
Court signaled the measure had to
end.
More than 15 million people live
in households that owe as much as
$20 billion to their landlords, ac-
cording to the Aspen Institute. As of
July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in
the U.S. said they faced eviction in
the next two months, according to
the U.S. Census Bureau’s House-
hold Pulse Survey.
Parts of the South and other re-
gions with weaker tenant protec-
tions will likely see the largest
spikes and communities of color
where vaccination rates are some-
times lower will be hit hardest.
The Biden administration had
hoped that historic amounts of rent-
al assistance allocated by Congress
in December and March would
help avert an eviction crisis. But the
distribution has been slow.
MICHAEL DWYER / AP
People from a coalition of housing justice groups hold signsprotesting evictions during a news conference outside the Statehouseon Friday in Boston.
Evictions expectedto spike as pandemicmoratorium ends
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — After much delay, senators un-
veiled a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure
package, wrapping up days of painstaking work on the
inches-thick bill and launching what is certain to be a
lengthy debate over President Joe Biden’s big priority.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act clocked
in at some 2,700 pages, and senators could begin amend-
ing it soon. Despite the hurry-up-and-wait during a rare
weekend session, emotions bubbled over once the bill
was produced Sunday night. The final product was not
intended to stray from the broad outline senators had
negotiated for weeks with the White House.
“We haven’t done a large, bipartisan bill of this nature
in a long time,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y. He said a final vote could be held “in a
matter of days.”
Akey part of Biden’s agenda, the bipartisan bill is the
first phase of the president’s infrastructure plan. It calls
for $550 billion in new spending over five years above
projected federal levels, what could be one of the more
substantial expenditures on the nation’s roads, bridges,
waterworks, broadband and the electric grid in years.
Senators and staff labored behind the scenes for days
to write the massive bill. It was supposed to be ready Fri-
day, but by Sunday, even more glitches were caught and
changes made. Late Sunday, most of the 10 senators in-
volved in the bipartisan effort rose on the Senate floor to
mark the moment.
“We know that this has been a long and sometimes
difficult process, but we are proud this evening to an-
nounce this legislation,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-
Ariz., a lead negotiator. The bill showed “we can put
aside our own political differences for the good of the
country,” she said.
Sen. Rob Portman, of Ohio, a Republican negotiator,
said the final product will be “great for the American
people.”
Over the long weekend of starts and stops, Schumer
repeatedly warned that he was prepared to keep law-
makers in Washington for as long as it took to complete
votes on both the bipartisan infrastructure plan and a
budget blueprint that would allow the Senate to begin
work later this year on a massive, $3.5 trillion social,
health and environmental bill.
Among the major new investments, the bipartisan
package is expected to provide $110 billion for roads and
bridges, $39 billion for public transit and $66 billion for
rail. There’s also set to be $55 billion for water and
wastewater infrastructure as well as billions for air-
ports, ports, broadband internet and electric vehicle
charging stations.
The spending is broadly popular among lawmakers,
bringing long-delayed capital for big-ticket items that
cities and states can rarely afford on their own.
Paying for the package has been a challenge after
senators rejected ideas to raise revenue from a new gas
tax or other streams. Instead, it is being financed from
funding sources that might not pass muster with deficit
hawks, including repurposing some $205 billion in un-
tapped COVID-19 relief aid, as well as unemployment
assistance that was turned back by some states and rely-
ing on projected future economic growth.
“I’ve got real concerns with this bill,” said Sen. Mike
Lee, R-Utah.
Bipartisan support from Republican and Democratic
senators pushed the process along, and Schumer want-
ed the voting to be wrapped up before senators left for
the August recess.
Last week, 17 GOP senators joined all Democrats in
voting to start work on the bipartisan bill. That support
largely held, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., voting yes in another procedural
vote to nudge the process along in the 50-50 Senate,
where 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster and
advance legislation.
Whether the number of Republican senators willing
to pass the bill grows or shrinks in the days ahead will
determine if the president’s signature issue can make it
across the finish line.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he expects Schumer
to allow all senators to have a chance to shape the bill and
allow for amendments from members of both parties.
“I hope we can now pump the brakes a little bit and
take the time and care to evaluate the benefits and the
cost of this legislation,” he said.
The bipartisan bill still faces a rough road in the
House, where progressive lawmakers want a more ro-
bust package but may have to settle for this one to keep
Biden’s infrastructure plans on track.
Senate likely to vote soonon $1T infrastructure bill
BY KEVIN FREKING
AND LISA MASCARO
Associated Press
NASHUA, N.H. — Christina Dar-
ling finally replaced her 2006 Chev-
rolet Equinox after it broke down
several times while picking up her
children from day care. But the 31-
year-old mother of two was strug-
gling to keep up with the car pay-
ments.
Brianne Walker, 29, desperately
wanted to take her three children
and two siblings camping for the
first time but wasn’t sure how she
could pay for it. After all, she was be-
hind on her rent, and day care and
grocery costs were adding up.
Then, the two women from New
Hampshire got a surprise in their
bank accounts this month. They
qualified for the expanded child tax
credit, part of President Joe Biden’s
$1.9 trillion coronavirus relief pack-
age. Families on average are getting
$423 this month; the Treasury De-
partment estimates that 35.2 million
families received payments in July.
“The additional money does help
alleviate the pressure,” said Walker,
who took custody of her siblings last
year after her mother overdosed.
The $800 credit will help make up
for losses she incurred after quitting
a kitchen design job to care for the
five youngsters, ages 3 to 19.
Biden increased the amounts go-
ing to families and expanded it to in-
clude those whose income is so little
they don’t owe taxes. The benefits
begin to phase out at incomes of
$75,000 for individuals, $112,500 for
heads of household and $150,000 for
married couples. Families with in-
comes up to $200,000 for individuals
and $400,000 for married couples
can still receive the previous $2,000
credit.
In the past, eligible families got a
credit after filing their taxes — ei-
ther as a lump sum payment or a
credit against taxes owed. But now
six months of payments are being
advanced monthly through the end
of the year. A recipient receives the
second half when they file their tax-
es. The credit is $3,600 annually for
children under age 6 and $3,000 for
children ages 6 to 17. Eligible fam-
ilies will receive $300 monthly for
each child under 6 and $250 per ol-
der child.
Families who receive the credit
are mostly spending it on rent, child
care and groceries, as well as catch-
ing up on cellphone and other bills.
For Darling, the $550 she gets will go
to car payments, more fresh pro-
duce and a babysitter so she can at-
tend Nashua Board of Education
meetings. She is running for a seat
on the board. Eventually, she hopes
to put money aside to save for a
home with a yard.
“Every step closer we get to a liv-
able wage is beneficial. That is mon-
ey that gets turned around and spent
on the betterment of my kids and
myself,” said Darling, a housing re-
source coordinator who had been
supplementing her $35,000-a-year
salary with visits to the Nashua Soup
Kitchen and Shelter’s food pantry.
Families paying off rent, food, debts with child tax creditBY MICHAEL CASEY
Associated Press
ELISE AMENDOLA/AP
Christina Darling and her sons, Brennan, 4, left, and Kayden, 10,prepare a snack at home in Nashua, N.H., on Wednesday. Darling andher family have qualified for the recently expanded child tax credit.
PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
NATION
NEW YORK — Two men
strode up to a crowd outside a
barbershop in the New York
City borough of Queens and
opened fire, wounding 10 peo-
ple before fleeing on mopeds,
police said Sunday morning.
The shooting in the borough’s
Corona neighborhood took
place just before 11 p.m. Satur-
day. The eight men and two
women, who range in age from
19 to 72, were all hospitalized
with non-life-threatening inju-
ries, according to police. The
most seriously injured victim
suffered a gunshot wound to the
stomach, NYPD Chief of Detec-
tives James Essig said.
Police said the two gunmen
arrived at the scene on foot, but
left by jumping on the backs of
two mopeds driven by two other
men. All four were wearing
hooded sweatshirts, police said.
Three of those shot were
known members of the Trinita-
rios, a Dominican street gang,
and were the intended targets,
Essig said. A party was in pro-
gress at a restaurant a few doors
down from the barbershop at
the time of the shooting, he add-
ed.
“This was a brazen, coordi-
nated attack, for lack of a better
word,” Essig said. “This is un-
acceptable, and it has to stop.”
No one was in custody as of
Sunday morning, and police
said they would be releasing
still photos and video from the
scene.
Police: 10 shot in Queens by2 men who fled on mopeds
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — With no Su-
preme Court opening to slow them,
President Joe Biden and Senate
Democrats are putting judges on
federal trial and appellate courts at
a much faster clip than any of Bi-
den’s recent predecessors.
Eight judges already have been
confirmed, including potential Su-
preme Court pick Ketanji Brown
Jackson to the federal appeals court
in Washington. More than 30 other
judicial nominations are pending
for more than 100 openings.
By this time four years ago, the
Senate, then under Republican con-
trol, had confirmed four of Preis-
dent Donald Trump’s nominees, in-
cluding Justice Neil Gorsuch.
But in 1993 and 2009, the start of
the last two Democratic adminis-
trations, no judges had been con-
firmed by the end of July.
The last two Democratic presi-
dents, Bill Clinton and Barack Oba-
ma, were slow to move judicial
nominations. But they both had
early, time-consuming Supreme
Court vacancies to deal with.
Justice Byron White announced
his retirement two months after
Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. Jus-
tice David Souter told Obama he
would step down just over three
months after Obama took office in
2009.
Progressives pushed hard for
Justice Stephen Breyer to retire
this summer, but the 82-year-old
leader of the court’s diminished lib-
eral wing has given every indica-
tion he will be on the bench when
the court starts its new term in Octo-
ber.
Those encouraging Breyer to
step down haven’t masked their dis-
appointment, but they are happy
with the nominees Biden has put
forward so far — more diverse ra-
cially, by gender and legal experi-
ence than were Trump’s picks, who
were overwhelmingly white and
male.
They include public defenders,
civil rights lawyers and attorneys
for organized labor, along with the
more typical mix of prosecutors
and big law firm members.
“I don’t see any silver lining to
Breyer staying on the court,” said
Nan Aron, the outgoing president of
the liberal Alliance for Justice. She
worries that an illness or death
could take away the Democrats’
precarious majority in the Senate
and that Senate Republican leader
Mitch McConnell could reprise his
refusal to confirm a Democratic
nominee, just as he did when Jus-
tice Antonin Scalia died in 2016 and
Obama nominated Merrick Gar-
land, now the attorney general, to
the Supreme Court.
But Aron said, “We’re so pleased
with both the pace and high quality
of the Biden nominees, particularly
that so many come from all corners
of the legal profession ... It’s a won-
derful departure from previous
Democratic administrations.”
Among his appointments are Tif-
fany Cunningham, the first Black
woman to serve on the court of ap-
peals in Washington, D.C., that
deals with patent and other special-
ized cases and Candace Jackson-
Akiwumi, only the second Black
woman to be a judge on the federal
appeals court based in Chicago.
Biden also has nominated civil
rights attorney Myrna Perez for the
federal appeals court based in New
York. She would be the first Latina
on that court since Justice Sonia So-
tomayor moved up to the Supreme
Court.
“We have had a good selection of
nominees come forward,” said Sen.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate Ju-
diciary Committee chairman.
One additional benefit of Biden’s
focus on diversity is that it might
tamp down the restiveness of pro-
gressives who also are advocating
for court reforms, including ex-
panding the Supreme Court by four
justices to counterbalance the three
Trump appointees.
“It could mollify his progressive
base, who realize he is not going to
go in for expanding the size of the
court or even term limits,” said
Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Insti-
tution expert on the judiciary.
Biden’s nominees all have drawn
at least some Republican support in
the Senate. Sens. Lindsey Graham,
R-S.C., and Susan Collins, R-Maine,
have voted for all eight judges who
have been confirmed.
Another 15 Republicans have not
voted for any Biden judicial nomi-
nees.
Some of the opposition could be a
form of payback for Democratic op-
position to Trump nominees, said
Carrie Severino, whose conserva-
tive Judicial Crisis Network has
spent millions of dollars supporting
Republican nominees and oppos-
ing Democrats.
“Many Republican senators be-
lieve that returning to a universe
where Democrat nominees are just
reflexively confirmed would con-
stitute unilateral disarmament in
light of the unyielding opposition to
President Trump’s nominees for
four years,” Severino said, singling
out Vice President Kamala Harris
for her votes against Trump court
picks when she served as a senator
from California.
TOM WILLIAMS/AP
Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, testifiesbefore a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on pending judicial nominations in April on Capitol Hill inWashington, D.C.
Biden’s picks for judges beingconfirmed at newly rapid pace
Associated Press
DENVER, Colo. — Mudslides
from heavy rains caused “ex-
treme damage” to a major inter-
state and left it blocked with
piles of boulders and logs, Col-
orado transportation officials
said Sunday, as forecasters
warned of more flash floods in
the coming days across the
Rocky Mountain and Great Ba-
sin regions.
The flood risk was elevated for
many areas of the West where
recent wildfires burned away
vegetation and left hillsides
more susceptible to erosion, the
National Weather Service said.
Interstate 70 in Glenwood Ca-
nyon, Colo., was closed with no
word on when it might re-open
after being pounded by flash
floods over a three-day period.
Lanes in both directions re-
mained blocked by debris that
flowed out of the burn scar from
a wildfire last year in the Grizzly
Creek area.
The torrent of rocks that came
tumbling down the canyon’s
steep walls smashed apart sec-
tions of the concrete roadway
and sheared off a long section of
steel guardrail, photos provided
by state officials showed.
More rain was in the forecast
for the drought-parched region,
triggering flash flood watches
for portions of Utah, Colorado,
New Mexico, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada, Oregon and Washing-
ton state.
I-70 is a major transportation
corridor between the Rocky
Mountains and the West Coast.
An approximately 46-mile
stretch of the interstate was
closed. Transportation officials
advised long-distance truckers
to detour north onto Interstate
80 through Wyoming.
Crews were still assessing
damage late Sunday. They had
been working to clear the high-
way since Thursday when an-
other flash flood hit Saturday,
forcing them to evacuate the ar-
ea and causing even more dam-
age.
“When we know exactly what
the damage is, then we’ll have a
better idea” on when it could re-
open, said Colorado Department
of Transportation spokesperson
Tamara Rollison.
“It’s not just clearing the de-
bris. There’s also the damage,”
she said. “Our engineering staff
have never seen anything like
this before.”
More than 100 people had to
spend the night on the highway
Thursday night, including near-
ly 30 who took refuge in a tunnel
following the mudslides in west-
ern Colorado.
Mudslides also closed down
Colorado Highway 125 near
Granby and U.S. Highway 6 over
Colorado’s Loveland Pass. High-
way 6 was reopened Sunday,
Rollison said.
In Rock Springs, Wyo., nine
adults and eight children re-
ceived assistance after flooding
on Saturday, the Red Cross said.
Flood watches in
West as mudslides
shutter interstateAssociated Press
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11
AMERICAN ROUNDUP
Mountain lion caught inneighborhood back to wild
CA RAMONA — A young
mountain lion captured
after roaming an Orange County
neighborhood was released to the
wild in the Santa Ana Mountains.
The 1-year-old male cub was
captured July 13 after being spot-
ted several times in a neighbor-
hood in Mission Viejo.
California Department of Fish
and Wildlife wardens took the
mountain lion to the San Diego
Humane Society’s Ramona Wild-
life Center, where he was evaluat-
ed and treated for parasites.
Once rescuers determined the
cub could survive on his own,
game wardens returned him to his
home territory.
Man charged with repeatDUI for road rage incident
DE LEWES — A Wilming-
ton man was charged
with drunken driving and weap-
ons offenses after an alleged road
rage incident in Lewes, Delaware
State Police said.
Troopers responded to the
parking lot of a Home Depot after
a man called 911 to report that an
aggressive driver followed him on
Coastal Highway and into the
parking lot, where he threw a lock
at the man’s vehicle and screamed
at him, police said in a news re-
lease.
Troopers made contact with the
driver later identified as John Gil-
len, 56, and detected a strong odor
of alcohol, police said. Gillen was
arrested and a search of his car
turned up an 11-inch makeshift
shank and a 14-inch hatchet, po-
lice said. Gillen is prohibited from
owning a deadly weapon and has
two prior convictions for driving
under the influence, police said.
Gillen was charged with posses-
sion of a deadly weapon during the
commission of a felony, posses-
sion of a deadly weapon by a per-
son prohibited, third offense driv-
ing under the influence, disorder-
ly conduct and following a motor
vehicle too closely.
8 alleged gang memberscharged with trafficking
GA ALBANY — Eight al-
leged gang members
were indicted on a variety of gang-
related and human trafficking
charges in southwest Georgia.
A Dougherty County grand jury
returned the 54-count indictment
against alleged members of the
Inglewood Family Gangster
Bloods in Albany, state Attorney
General Chris Carr announced.
Agents with the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation and the attorney
general’s human trafficking unit
found evidence that a victim was
physically and sexually assaulted,
drugged and made to perform sex
acts by known gang members to
generate money for their gang, the
release says.
The charges in the indictment
include racketeering, gang charg-
es, sexual crimes, assault and traf-
ficking.
House fire 1 day beforeclosing dashes plans
NY WASHINGTON — A
house fire has de-
stroyed a New York home a day
before a couple was scheduled to
close on the property.
Authorities in Dutchess County
said the house in the Millbrook
section of Washington, about 15
miles northeast of Poughkeepsie,
burned to the ground about 12
hours after the sellers moved out
and a day before a retired New
York City couple was scheduled to
close on it. The Dutchess County
sheriff’s office told the Albany
Times-Union the fire doesn’t ap-
pear to be suspicious.
The unidentified couple had
paid $100,000 over the $287,000
asking price for the 1936 cottage
situated on five acres with a pond,
and had given up their apartment
lease, packed a truck and were
ready to move in, real estate Sandi
Park told the newspaper. The cou-
ple’s down payment will be re-
turned, she said.
Firefighters thwartattempted firetruck theft
OK TULSA — An Oklaho-
ma man was arrested
after being accused of trying to
steal a firetruck.
After arriving at the scene, po-
lice found a group of Tulsa fire-
fighters holding down a suspect.
Firefighters told police that
they found the man after hearing
glass break and the sound of the
ladder truck’s horn going off. Po-
lice alleged that the man had start-
ed the truck and tried driving
through the fire station’s overhead
doors before firefighters discov-
ered what he was doing.
The suspect was arrested and
charged with first-degree burgla-
ry, attempted auto theft and dam-
age to property.
Effort to restore historicBlack church gets boost
MA GREAT BARRING-
TON — The nonprofit
restoring a historic Black church
in Massachusetts where civil
rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois
once attended services received a
grant worth almost $500,000.
The National Park Service
grant announced by the Upper
Housatonic Valley Natural Heri-
tage Area will help toward the re-
habilitation of the Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church in Great Barrington,
The Berkshire Eagle reported.
Upon completion, the organiza-
tion wants to reestablish the space
as a heritage center and visitor
site that will include a flexible per-
formance space, as well as “mu-
seum-level interpretive exhibits
and programming,” interim exec-
utive director Eugenie Sills said.
Sills said the project will cost $5
million to $7 million and take
years to complete.
Mother arrested afterabandoning newborn child
MD GLEN BURNIE — A
19-year-old woman
accused of abandoning her new-
born daughter in a wooded area in
Glen Burnie was arrested and
charged with attempted murder
and other offenses, Anne Arundel
County police said.
Early on July 14, officers re-
sponding to a 911 call reporting the
sound of a crying baby found an
unclothed baby girl with an umbil-
ical cord still attached, police said
in a news release. The baby had
minor injuries after being in con-
tact with some bushes and was
taken to a hospital. Police said the
baby is healthy.
When investigators identified
the baby’s mother, she was given
medical treatment and access to
crisis intervention, police said.
Olivia Thompson, 19, of Glen Bur-
nie, was arrested and charged
with first- and second-degree at-
tempted murder, assault, child
abuse, neglect of a minor, reckless
endangerment and desertion of a
minor child, according to police.
Artifact from steamerwreck raised by museum
VT BURLINGTON — An
artifact from a steamer
that sank in Lake Champlain more
than 200 years ago is back on the
surface where it is being studied
and preserved.
Earlier this summer, research-
ers from the Lake Champlain
Maritime Museum, the Vermont
Division for Historic Preservation
and others recovered the 125-
pound cast-iron block from the
bottom of the lake.
The block is believed to have
held one end of the drive shaft of
the Phoenix, an early Lake Cham-
plain steamer that sank on Sept. 4,
1819, killing six of the 46 passen-
gers and crew on board.
Researchers have known about
the location of the Phoenix’s hull’s
remains for decades, but only re-
cently have they been recovering
more pieces of the wreck. Last
year, a diver using a remotely op-
erated vehicle found the paddle-
wheels.
MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY (CALIF.) REGISTER/AP
Artist Sarah Rutherford, bottom left, works on painting a twostory mural on the building at Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange Countydistribution center in Irvine, Calif. The mural depicts faces of Orange County residents served by the food bank.
Food for thought
THE CENSUS
100 The anniversary that a northern Indiana university is celebrat-ing next year, leading to the school restoring its chime bells in
preparation. Manchester University has hired The Verdin Company of Cincina-ti, Ohio, to remove and refurbish the existing 10 bells, create four additionalbells and build a new tower structure. The removal of 10 bronze bells in theAdministration Building tower will occur Aug. 9-11, the university said in anews release. Plans call for an open bell tower to be installed next spring orsummer in the middle of the Manchester University Mall, said Melanie Har-mon, the university’s vice president for advancement.
From The Associated Press
PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
WORLD
BOZALAN, Turkey — Selcuk
Sanli let his two cows loose to
fend for themselves, put his fam-
ily’s most treasured belongings
in a car and fled his home as a
wildfire approached his village
near Turkey’s beach resort of
Bodrum, one of thousands flee-
ing flames that have coated the
skies with a thick yellow haze.
He returned to check on his
house Monday in Bozalan only to
find that the fire had flared
again.
“Property is an important part
of life but life itself comes first,”
he said as he prepared to leave
his home once again.
For the sixth straight day,
Turkish firefighters were bat-
tling Monday to control the blaz-
es tearing through forests near
Turkey’s beach destinations.
Fed by strong winds and scorch-
ing temperatures, the fires that
began Wednesday have left eight
people dead and forced residents
and tourists to flee vacation re-
sorts in a flotilla of small boats.
Many villagers lost homes and
farm animals and had trouble
breathing amid the heavy
smoke.
Agriculture and Forestry Min-
ister Bekir Pakdemirli said
crews were still tackling seven
fires in the coastal provinces of
Antalya and Mugla that are pop-
ular tourist areas. Other active
fires were in Isparta, 236 miles
northeast, in Denizli province in
southwest Turkey.
Another fire in Tunceli, in
southeast Turkey, was contained
Monday, the minister said. In all,
129 fires that broke out in over 30
provinces since Wednesday
have been extinguished.
“We are going through days
when the heat is above 40 C (104
degrees Fahrenheit), where the
winds are strong and humidity is
extremely low,” Pakdemirli
said. “We are struggling under
such difficult conditions.”
At least 13 settlements in Mu-
gla were fully or partially evac-
uated, the minister said.
The EU said it helped mobilize
firefighting planes from Croatia
and Spain to help Turkey. Planes
from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbai-
jan and Iran have also been fight-
ing the blazes.
Spain’s government said it is
sending two water-dumping air-
craft and one transport plane to
help Turkey with the wildfires,
as well as 27 soldiers to help out.
Turkey battles wildfires for6th day; EU to send planes
Associated Press
BEIJING — More than 300 peo-
ple died in recent flooding in cen-
tral China, authorities said Mon-
day, three times the previously an-
nounced toll.
The Henan provincial govern-
ment said 302 people died and 50
remain missing. The vast majority
of the victims were in Zhengzhou,
the provincial capital, where 292
died and 47 are missing. Ten oth-
ers died in three other cities, offi-
cials said at a news conference in
Zhengzhou.
Record rainfall inundated the
city on July 20, turning streets into
rushing rivers and flooding at
least part of a subway line. Video
posted online showed vehicles be-
ing washed away and desperate
people trapped in subway cars as
the waters rose. Fourteen people
died in the subway flooding.
The previous death toll, an-
nounced Friday, was 99.
Authorities said 189 people
were killed by floods and mud-
slides, 54 in house collapses and
39 in underground areas such as
basements and garages and in-
cluding those on subway Line 5.
The death toll remained at six in
an expressway tunnel from which
247 vehicles were removed as it
was drained.
Wang Kai, the governor of He-
nan province, expressed deep
condolences to the victims and
sympathies to the families on be-
half of the Henan Communist Par-
ty committee.
The worst came after Zhengz-
hou was hit by 8 inches of rain in
one hour starting at 4 p.m. on July
20, overwhelming the already
drenched city. Children were
trapped in schools, and stranded
people stayed in their workplaces
overnight.
The rains headed north in the
following days, hitting the Henan
cities of Hebi, Anyang and Xin-
xiang. Seven people died and
three are missing in Xinxiang,
where record rains dropped more
than 10 inches of water in a 19-
hour period. Henan is an inland
county about 380 miles southwest
of Beijing.
Death tolltriples infloodingin China
Associated Press
MEITU, CHINATOPIX/AP
A girl helps her pet dog through flood waters after record downpoursreceded in Zhengzhou city July 21. Chinese authorities announced ahuge jump in the death toll from recent floods.
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13
WORLD
SEOUL, South Korea — South
Korea said Monday it’ll keep
pushing to improve ties and re-
sume talks with rival North Korea,
despite the North’s threat to rekin-
dle animosities if Seoul holds its
summertime military drills with
the United States.
On Sunday night, the powerful
sister of North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un warned the drills would
seriously undermine efforts to re-
store mutual trust between the
Koreas and becloud prospects for
better ties if the training is
launched as scheduled this month.
Her statement raised a question
about the sincerity of North Ko-
rea’s recent decision to reopen
long-stalled communication chan-
nels with South Korea.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry
said Monday the exact timing, size
and other details of the drills
haven’t been fixed and that they
were the issues that must be deter-
mined by South Korean and U.S.
authorities. Spokesman Boo
Seung-Chan repeated his previ-
ous statement that Seoul and
Washington are examining fac-
tors like the pandemic’s current
status, diplomat efforts to curb
North Korea’s nuclear ambitions
and South Korea-U.S. military
readiness.
Lee Jong-joo, a spokeswoman at
the Unification Ministry, said Se-
oul views the communication
channels’ restoration as a starting
point for restoring long-suspend-
ed ties between the Koreas. She
said Seoul will steadily seek to re-
sume talks with North Korea, but
without haste.
North Korea sees regular mili-
tary drills between South Korea
and the United States as an inva-
sion rehearsal and often responds
to them with its own weapons
tests. In the past few years, howev-
er, South Korea and the U.S. have
canceled or downsized some of
their training to support the now-
dormant diplomacy on ending the
North Korean nuclear crisis or be-
cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.
S. Korea seeks to improve tiesdespite North threat on drills
BY HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press
AHN YOUNGJOON/AP
South Korean army soldiers work on K2 tanks in preparation for anexercise at a training field in Paju, South Korea, near the border withNorth Korea, on Monday.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Gunmen on
Monday shot and killed a police officer as-
signed to protect a polio vaccination team
in northwestern Pakistan, an official said.
It was the third attack in two days on Pa-
kistani policemen assigned to protect polio
workers.
The deadly attack took place in the town
of Kolachi in the Dera Ismail Khan dis-
trict. Officer Dilawar Khan was on his mo-
torcycle, heading to escort polio workers
taking part in a nationwide campaign
aimed at making Pakistan a polio-free
state.
The gunmen fled the scene and a police
search is underway, according to Moham-
mad Aslam, a local police official.
Pakistani militants often target polio
teams and police assigned to protect them,
claiming the vaccination campaigns are a
Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
No one immediately claimed responsib-
ility for any of the attacks.
Pakistan says polio vaccine team attacked, policeman killedAssociated Press
PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
FACES
Motown vocal legend Smokey Robinson gratefully re-
turned to the concert stage last month after having spent
nearly two weeks hospitalized in December with CO-
VID-19.
“I was in the hospital for 11 days before Christmas and it
wiped me out. It was touch and go,” the longtime Los An-
geles resident said, speaking by phone July 30.
The famed singer-songwriter, who turned 81 on Feb. 19,
is a 2002 National Medal of the Arts recipient and 1987 Rock
& Roll Hall of Fame inductee. His concert July 24 at North-
ern Quest Resort & Casino in Airway Heights, Wash., out-
side Spokane, was his first performance in front of a live
audience since early 2020.
“I was really worried about it because I’m a COVID sur-
vivor,” Robinson said. He had not previously disclosed that
he had contracted the deadly virus.
“It messed with my vocal cords,” Robinson continued.
“I could barely talk for a month (afterward), so I had to
continually work on myself to sing and get those muscles
back. It was a nervous situation (in Washington state) be-
cause it was a full-blown, two-hour concert. But after two or
three songs, it felt good. I was very happy about that.”
Robinson did not say how or when last year he contracted
COVID-19 — for which he was vaccinated in late March —
or where he was hospitalized. But he spoke with palpable
enthusiasm throughout his 45-minute interview, at one
point breaking into a vigorous vocal simulation of former
Temptations’ singer Eddie Kendricks at full throttle.
Robinson said he has now resumed work on two new al-
bums — one in English and one in Spanish — both of which
he describes as “contemporary.” He is also focused on a
biopic feature film based on his life and career. Robinson
formed his first band, The Five Chimes, before he had be-
come a teenager.
“We’re script-writing right now,” said the Detroit native,
whose candid autobiography, “Smokey: Inside My Life,”
was published in 1989. “We’ve been working on it for a
year.”
As the leader of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, he
wrote and recorded some of the most enduring pop songs of
the 1960s before launching his solo career. As a staff writer
for Motown Records, he helped craft chart-topping hits for
The Temptations, Mary Wells and others. Bob Dylan fa-
mously hailed him as “our greatest living poet.”
Asked if music means more to him now than it did before
the pandemic and his contracting COVID-19, Robinson of-
fered a simple but eloquent response.
“Everything means more to me now,” he said.
TNS
R&B icon Smokey Robinson is happy to be back on tour.
‘It was touch and go’Smokey Robinson gratefully resumes touring after battling COVID-19
BY GEORGE VARGA
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Michael Jackson’s musical leg-
acy never left, but a kind of come-
back is coming.
With a series of court victories
that bring the end to serious legal
crises, with a Broadway show be-
ginning and a Cirque du Soleil
show returning after a long pan-
demic pause, the Jackson busi-
ness is on the upswing 12 years af-
ter the pop superstar’s death.
Very recently, things looked
grim. The 2019 HBO documentary
“Leaving Neverland” raised child
molestation allegations anew. The
once-dead lawsuits brought by the
two men featured in it had been
revived by changes in the law.
And a decision in the estate’s ap-
peal of a $700 million tax bill was
taking years to arrive.
“I was always optimistic,” said
John Branca, the entertainment
attorney who worked with Jack-
son through many of his biggest
triumphs and now serves as co-ex-
ecutor of his estate. “Michael in-
spired the planet, and his music
still does. There was never any
doubt about that.”
The optimism was warranted. A
succession of court decisions
came. One accusers’ lawsuit was
dismissed in October. The other
was tossed out in April. In May, a
ruling in the tax case slashed the
bill dramatically. The estate sud-
denly stands nearly clear of a doz-
en years of disputes. That means
Branca expects that in the next 18
months it can finally be taken out
of probate court and turned into a
trust for Jackson’s three children,
who are all now adults.
And the focus of the estate can
now shift back to presenting Jack-
son to the world.
The first priority is the revival
of the Cirque du Soleil show, “Mi-
chael Jackson: One” at the Man-
dalay Bay Resort and Casino in
Las Vegas. It is slated to reopen
Aug. 19 after a coronavirus clo-
sure of nearly a year and a half, in
time for a major celebration there
planned for Jackson’s Aug. 29
birthday.
The Broadway show, “MJ: The
Musical,” will follow quickly on its
heels, the first of several planned
projects.
“It’s not a chronological depic-
tion of Michael’s life,” said Brabca
of the Broadway show. “It’s more
impressionistic, inspired by Mi-
chael’s life and his music. It takes
place as Michael is preparing for a
tour and MTV wants to get an in-
terview. Michael’s very press shy,
and slowly but surely as they de-
velop a relationship begins to talk
about different parts of his life that
then get enacted in the show.”
Successes aside, Branca feels
lingering bitterness about direc-
tor Dan Reed’s “Leaving Never-
land” and what he felt were Amer-
ican media outlets that “don’t have
the time or the wherewithal to do
the research to figure out what’s
true and what’s not true.”
The estate’s last lingering law-
suit, now in private arbitration, is
one that it brought itself, against
HBO over the documentary.
“I was very angry at HBO and
Dan Reed and I still am because
here’s the thing: You can say any-
thing you want about somebody
who’s dead. They’re not here to
protect themselves,” Branca said.
The two men featured in the
documentary are appealing the
dismissals of their lawsuits. HBO
has defended “Leaving Never-
land” as a valid and important
piece of documentary journalism.
Under the guidance of Branca
and co-executor John McClain,
the estate has brought in $2.5 bil-
lion in revenue in the past 11 years,
and Jackson has remained the top
earning deceased celebrity every
year since his death at age 50 from
a lethal dose of the anesthetic pro-
pofol.
But Branca says the way Jack-
son’s musical legacy echoes
through modern artists may be his
most impressive legacy.
“Kanye West, Drake, Beyoncé,
Usher, Justin Timberlake, Justin
Bieber, Ariana Grande — they all
point back to Michael,” Branca
said. “His influence is really enor-
mous.”
Michael Jackson’s estateon the verge of a comeback
AP
Singer Michael Jackson is shownin 1989. The singer, who died in2009, will be the focus of anupcoming Cirque du Soleil showand a Broadway musical.
BY ANDREW DALTON
Associated Press Walt Disney Co.’s “Jungle
Cruise,” based on a theme-park
ride, opened as the top film in
North American theaters, collect-
ing a higher-than-expected $34
million sales in a still-tough cli-
mate for movie theaters.
“The Green Knight,” a fantasy
take on the King Arthur story from
A24, opened in second place with
$6.78 million in sales, researcher
Comscore Inc. said Sunday. Last
weekend’s leader, the M. Night
Shyamalan horror film “Old,”
landed in the third place with rev-
enues of $6.76 million. The new
Matt Damon film “Stillwater”
opened with $5.12 million.
“Jungle Cruise” debuted in both
theaters and online — available to
Disney+ subscribers for an addi-
tional fee of $30 — the same strate-
gy the entertainment giant em-
ployed with its Marvel film “Black
Widow” a few weeks ago.
“Jungle Cruise” features
Dwayne Johnson as captain of an
Amazon riverboat, and Emily
Blunt plays his passenger. The
film cost about $200 million to
make, according to trade reports.
Controversy over the simulta-
neous release of films in theaters
and online has been heating up.
Besides angering theater owners,
Disney was sued by actress Scar-
lett Johansson, a star of the com-
pany’s Marvel films. She alleged
in a lawsuit last week that the com-
pany broke its promise to release
“Black Widow” only in movie the-
aters when it made it available for
streaming. Her contract guaran-
teed her a share of the box-office
receipts.
Disney countered that it paid
Johansson $20 million and that the
suit is without merit.
Fests drop DaBaby after
controversial remarksJust a day after Lollapalooza an-
nounced that DaBaby would not
be performing at the music festiv-
al Aug. 1 due to his recent homo-
phobic and sexist comments, the
rapper was also dropped from
Governors Ball, set to be held in
late September. Both actions fol-
low a week of intense criticism di-
rected at the artist.
The decisions came a week af-
ter the 29-year-old rapper, whose
real name is Jonathan Kirk, di-
rected homophobic and sexist
comments during his set at the
Rolling Loud festival in Miami
Gardens, Fla. DaBaby — who has
amassed six Grammy nomina-
tions — encouraged those in at-
tendance to raise their cellphone
lights on the condition that they
weren’t gay men or affected by
HIV/AIDS, inaccurately stating
that the disease would “make you
die in two to three weeks.”
Other news■ Charles Connor, known for
being Little Richard’s drummer
who performed with other music
greats including James Brown
and Sam Cooke, died July 31. He
was 86. Connor’s daughter, Quee-
nie Connor Sonnefeld, said her fa-
ther died peacefully in his sleep at
his home in Glendale, Calif. She
said her father had been diag-
nosed with normal pressure hy-
drocephalus, a brain disorder that
causes fluid buildup.
Disney’s ‘Jungle Cruise’ topsbox office with $34M debut
From wire reports
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15
ACROSS 1 Pal
5 Jokester
8 The Mets’
old home
12 Prefix with pilot
13 “Westworld”
network
14 Egg container
15 Well-versed
competitor?
17 Toward the
rising sun
18 “So there!”
19 Decay
20 Brother of Moses
21 Enervate
22 Mork’s planet
23 Southpaw
26 Car protectors
30 Pac-12 team
31 Favorite
32 Sicilian peak
33 Bravery
35 Bas-relief
medium
36 Unpaid TV spot
37 Tibetan bovine
38 Illuminated
41 Dawn goddess
42 Ripken of
baseball
45 Now, on a memo
46 Surveillance
aircraft
48 Actress Hatcher
49 2016 Olympics
city
50 Apple product
51 Barking mammal
52 Rm. coolers
53 “The Mule”
actor Michael
DOWN 1 Moolah
2 Luau dance
3 Hexagonal state
4 Oft-tattooed word
5 Jubilant shout
6 Help a crook
7 Inherited
8 Preview
9 Get wind of
10 Old U.S. gas
brand
11 Envelope abbr.
16 Use a rosary
20 Pitcher’s pride
21 Outstanding
student
22 Ump’s call
23 Jean- — Picard
24 Author Umberto
25 Winter ailment
26 Spell-off
27 UFO crew
28 ICU workers
29 — Paulo, Brazil
31 Links org.
34 Cleo’s slayer
35 React in horror
37 Toys on strings
38 Back muscles,
for short
39 “Understood”
40 Skater Lipinski
41 Grand tale
42 Superhero’s
garment
43 Soon, poetically
44 Castor’s mother
46 Span. lady
47 Back talk
Answer to Previous Puzzle
Eugene Sheffer CrosswordFra
zz
Dilbert
Pearls B
efo
re S
win
eN
on S
equitur
Candorv
ille
Beetle B
ailey
Biz
arr
oCarp
e D
iem
PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Max D. Lederer Jr., Publisher
Lt. Col. Marci Hoffman, Europe commander
Lt. Col. Michael Kerschbaum, Pacific commander
Michael Ryan, Pacific chief of staff
EDITORIAL
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WashingtonJoseph Cacchioli, Washington Bureau [email protected] (+1)(202)886-0033Brian Bowers, Assistant Managing Editor, [email protected]
CIRCULATION
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© Stars and Stripes 2021
stripes.com
OPINION
Three months ago, Canada, which
has no domestic manufacturer of
COVID-19 vaccines, lagged far be-
hind the United States in immuniza-
tions. Only 3% of its population was fully vacci-
nated. Canadians watched glumly as friends
and relatives south of the border lined up for
shots, while residents of Toronto and Mon-
treal suffered repeated lockdowns.
No longer. Last month, Canada blew past
the United States in the share of its population
that’s fully vaccinated — 58% as of Friday, ver-
sus 49% in the U.S. — to take first place among
the seven big industrial democracies. (The
United States ranks sixth, ahead of only Ja-
pan.)
How did Canada, the country that most
closely resembles the U.S., do so much better,
even though it had to wait longer for Pfizer-
BioNTech and Moderna to deliver their vac-
cines? The simple answer is that in Canada, the
pandemic didn’t become a politically polar-
ized issue, as it did in the United States.
Canada’s major political parties, including
the opposition Conservatives, joined early in
full-throated support of mass vaccination.
Leading politicians didn’t dismiss immuniza-
tion as unnecessary, deride mask mandates or
attack scientists. When Andrew Scheer, then
the Conservative leader, criticized Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau last year over the im-
munization program, it was to complain that
he wasn’t delivering vaccines fast enough.
Canadians have argued over how quickly to
lift limits on public gatherings, restaurants
and retail stores, but their debates have been
muted by U.S. standards. The country’s tough-
est lockdown was imposed by Ontario Pre-
mier Doug Ford, a populist conservative who
has been compared to former President Do-
nald Trump.
“I can’t stand lockdowns,” Ford com-
plained, but he stuck by his health experts’
recommendation to keep the restrictions until
almost 80% of Ontarians had received their
first doses of vaccine.
Like the U.S., Canada has anti-vaxxers —
just fewer of them. An Angus Reid Institute
poll last month found that only 8% of Cana-
dians said they definitely do not intend to get a
COVID vaccination, including 15% of Conser-
vative Party voters. Polls in the United States
have found refusal rates at least twice as high.
And there lies a clue toward a deeper, more
complex explanation for Canada’s vaccina-
tion success over that of the U.S.: the underly-
ing differences between the countries’ politi-
cal cultures and, especially, their conserva-
tive parties.
“There is much less polarization in Canada
overall,” Peter Loewen, a political scientist at
the University of Toronto, told me. “There’s
not a lot of political mileage in appearing to be
anti-science in Canada; there is in the United
States.”
Canadians also differ from Americans in
that more of them trust their government to do
the right thing. Frank Graves of Ekos Re-
search, an Ottawa pollster, noted that in one
survey last year, Americans’ trust in Washing-
ton was as low as 17%; the trust level in Canada
was 37%, about twice as high.
“In Canada, our number actually bounced
up during the pandemic, as people looked to
government as a source of salvation,” he told
me. “Trust in government, in science and in
public health are all interrelated, and they are
all key predictors of anti-vax sentiment.”
Another difference: Canada’s Conservative
Party is more moderate than the post-Trump
Republican Party.
“There’s a strain of authoritarian populism
in both parties, but it has become the dominant
faction in the Republican Party; it’s not as
large in Canada,” Graves said.
Before the 2020 U.S. presidential election,
Canada’s Leger Poll asked Canadians wheth-
er they would vote for Trump or Joe Biden.
Among all Canadians, Biden was the favorite,
by a whopping 84%; even Conservative Party
voters preferred Biden over Trump, at 59%.
One last difference: Canada has no equiva-
lent of Fox News spreading misinformation
about COVID vaccines.
Of course, not everyone is impressed by
Canada’s anti-pandemic measures. Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis recently derided them as
an example of what not to do.
“We were the leading state fighting against
coronavirus lockdowns,” he bragged on Fox
News. “I believe had Florida not done that, you
would see the other states to have followed
Canada, [which is] still locked down.”
But the governor should be careful about
the comparisons he invites.
Florida led the U.S. in COVID-19 cases last
week, and more than 39,000 Sunshine State
residents have died from the disease. Canada,
with a much larger population, has had about
27,000 COVID deaths. Its per capita death rate
is less than half that of Florida.
That should make even Republicans ask
themselves: What is Canada doing right?
Canada’s political culture permits vaccination gainsBY DOYLE MCMANUS
Los Angeles Times
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
We are, it seems, on the verge of
war. A germ war, to be precise,
that pits the vaccinated against
the unvaccinated and is forcing
government officials, universities and corpo-
rations to pick sides. A time for choosing
awaits us all.
We’re about to enter a strange era not seen
since 1905, when the Supreme Court ruled in
favor of state police powers to require vac-
cines, in that case smallpox, for the benefit of
the larger community. Today, such a scenario
seems better suited to science fiction. But this
is our world now, and we’ve all been inducted
to serve. As COVID-19 reemerges through the
twice-more-contagious delta variant, forcing
many Americans to wear masks again and
possibly to discontinue gathering in public
places, the message is clear: Either get vacci-
nated, or prepare to be treated differently.
President Joe Biden has ordered that all
federal employees (though not uniformed
members of the military) either get vaccinat-
ed or wear masks and submit to frequent coro-
navirus testing. Biden is also urging private
companies and the military to do the same.
Duke University has announced that it will
require that anyone on campus — students,
faculty, staff — provide proof of full vaccina-
tion or have an approved medical or religious
exemption. Unvaccinated people will have to
wear masks and submit to regular testing.
There’s no telling how many more universi-
ties, companies and communities will follow
suit. But the die has been cast. The approxi-
mately 50% of Americans who have stepped
up to the plate and been fully vaccinated, thus
drastically reducing the infection rates (for a
while), are fed up. The delta variant is quickly
overtaking what progress was made by the
willing and is swiftly moving through popula-
tions of the unvaccinated. The fear among ex-
perts is that as delta spreads, infected people
will surround and overwhelm vaccinated peo-
ple through “spillover infection,” while con-
tinuing to retard herd immunity.
There is little goodwill between warring
factions. People who don’t want the vaccine
argue that it’s still categorized as an emergen-
cy-use concoction, the full effects of which re-
main unknown. This would be a reasonable
enough argument were it not for the fact that
COVID and its mutations pose an emergency
that can be contained only by vaccinating as
many people as possible.
Those of us who’ve gotten our shots see no
point to such reluctance when the alternative
is so troubling. Even if most people who con-
tract COVID don’t die, more than 600,000
Americans already have. Is that figure too
small to give people pause? Do the vaccine-
averse figure that losing older Americans and
fatter Americans, the most vulnerable to ex-
treme sickness and death, is just the price we
pay? For many people over 65, more than 80%
of whom are fully vaccinated, compromise is
neither rational nor negotiable. Fully 42% of
Americans are obese, according to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Prevention, and
also at high risk for COVID.
It isn’t hard to spot the class war lurking
within our germ war. The college-educated
are less likely to be obese, probably because
they’re more fluent in nutrition and because,
having higher incomes, they can afford to buy
healthier foods. We learned in the early
rounds of this pandemic that the virus is dev-
astating to minorities with unequal access to
health care; will one part of the population let
that happen again to another part?
Iam not unmindful of what this might do to
us. The circumstances in which we find our-
selves remind me of the worst sectarian fight-
ing during the Iraq War, when former friends
would cross the street rather than share a side-
walk with someone who supported or opposed
the U.S.-led invasion. Divided families could
barely discuss the subject with each other,
making holidays and reunions impossible. Re-
lationships dissolved. Bitterness reigned.
Those days seem like a picnic compared
with what could happen if almost half the U.S.
population, already riven by political discord,
persists in making life miserable for the other
half. This time the battleground isn’t far away,
but in our front yards, schools and workplaces.
The pandemic changed us, we’ve said over
and over. But as we measure our progress, it
seems reasonable to wonder: Could the next
pandemic ruin us? Does any vaccinated per-
son want to be around an unvaccinated per-
son? How will we know who’s who? Will we
soon be wearing ID bracelets? Such questions
raise another frightening prospect to all of
this: With the decisions being made to now
wage war on the unvaccinated, are we laying
the groundwork for even greater distrust in an
already convulsive time?
Cures can be worse than the disease, we’ve
heard. I support the measures mentioned
here, but I also fear we’re about to test that hy-
pothesis in ways never before imagined.
Will delta variant turn Americans against one another?BY KATHLEEN PARKER
Washington Post Writers Group
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17
SCOREBOARD/NBA
PRO SOCCER
MLS
Eastern Conference
W L T Pts GF GA
New England 11 3 3 36 33 21
Orlando City 8 4 4 28 26 21
Nashville 6 1 9 27 25 15
NYCFC 8 5 2 26 30 16
Philadelphia 6 4 7 25 21 17
Columbus 6 4 6 24 17 16
CF Montréal 6 6 4 22 21 20
D.C. United 6 7 3 21 21 18
New York 5 7 3 18 20 20
Toronto FC 3 8 5 14 21 33
Cincinnati 3 7 5 14 17 29
Atlanta 2 6 8 14 16 21
Chicago 3 9 4 13 18 28
Inter Miami CF 3 8 3 12 12 24
Western Conference
W L T Pts GF GA
Seattle 9 3 5 32 25 13
SportingKansas City
9 4 3 30 29 19
LA Galaxy 9 6 1 28 27 27
Colorado 8 4 3 27 22 16
LAFC 6 5 5 23 22 19
Minnesota 6 5 5 23 19 21
Real Salt Lake 5 4 6 21 24 16
Portland 6 8 1 19 19 26
Houston 3 4 9 18 17 20
FC Dallas 4 7 5 17 20 24
San Jose 4 7 5 17 18 25
Vancouver 3 7 6 15 18 27
Austin FC 3 8 4 13 10 16
Note: Three points for victory, one pointfor tie.
Sunday’s games
Chicago 1, Philadelphia 1 Nashville 1, Toronto FC 1
Wednesday’s games
Nashville at New England Atlanta at CF Montréal D.C. United at Columbus Toronto FC at Philadelphia Miami at Orlando City New York City FC at Chicago Cincinnati at New York Houston at Austin FC FC Dallas at Seattle Sporting Kansas City at Los Angeles FC Real Salt Lake at LA Galaxy San Jose at Portland
Saturday, Aug. 7
Atlanta at Columbus Orlando City at Cincinnati Houston at Minnesota New York City FC at Toronto FC Austin FC at FC Dallas Sporting Kansas City at Colorado Real Salt Lake at Portland
Sunday, Aug. 8
New York at Chicago Philadelphia at New England Nashville at Miami Los Angeles FC at San Jose CF Montréal at D.C. United Vancouver at LA Galaxy
NWSL
W L T Pts GF GA
Portland 8 3 1 25 19 7
Gotham FC 5 1 5 20 13 7
Chicago 6 5 2 20 15 18
Washington 5 4 3 18 15 14
North Carolina 5 4 3 18 16 9
Houston 5 5 2 17 14 13
Orlando 4 4 5 17 15 16
Reign FC 5 6 1 16 12 13
Louisville 3 6 2 11 7 17
Kansas City 0 8 4 4 5 17
Note: Three points for victory, one pointfor tie.
Sunday’s games
Portland 2, Kansas City 0 Chicago 3, Washington 1 Gotham FC 1, Houston 1, tie
Saturday, Aug. 7
North Carolina at Gotham FC Portland at Washington Houston at Reign FC
DEALS
Sunday’s transactions
BASEBALLMajor League Baseball
American LeagueBALTIMORE ORIOLES — Reinstated LHP
Keegan Akin from the 10-day IL. PlacedLHP Tanner Scott on the 10-day IL. Desig-nated RHP Thomas Eshelman for assign-ment.
BOSTON RED SOX — Agreed to termswith C Nathan Hickey, 1B Niko Kavadasand RHP Luis Guerrero on minor leaguecontracts.
CHICAGO WHITE SOX — Placed CF BillyHamilton on the 10-day IL, retroactive toJuly 31. Recalled RHP Jimmy Lambert fromCharlotte (Triple-A East). Optioned RHPJimmy Lambert to Charlotte.
HOUSTON ASTROS — Placed RHP RyanPressly on the paternity list. Recalled RHPBryan Abreu from Sugar Land (Triple-AWest). Reinstated RHP Josh James fromthe 60-day IL. Designated RHP Ralph GarzaJr. for assignment.
LOS ANGELES ANGELS — Optioned RHPJames Hoyt and SS Luis Rengifo to SaltLake (Triple-A West). Selected the con-tracts of LHP Reid Detmers and INF KeanWong from Salt Lake and agreed to termson major league contracts.
NEW YORK YANKEES — Recalled RHP Al-bert Abreu from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre(Triple-A East). Placed RHP Domingo Ger-man on the 10-day IL.
OAKLAND ATHLETICS — Recalled RHPDaulton Jefferies from Las Vegas (Triple-AWest). Optioned OF Seth Brown to Las Ve-gas.
TAMPA BAY RAYS — Placed LHP JeffreySprings on the 10-day IL. Recalled RHP DJJohnson from Durham (Triple-A East).
TEXAS RANGERS — Agreed to terms withOF Aaron Zavala, C Tucker Mitchell andRHP Kyle Larson on minor league con-tracts.
TORONTO BLUE JAYS — Activated RHPsJose Berrios and Joakim Soria. OptionedRHP Thomas Hatch and LHP Tayler Sauce-do to Buffalo (Triple-A East).
National LeagueATLANTA BRAVES — Sent RHP Huascar
Ynoa to Rome (High-A East) on a rehab as-signment.
COLORADO ROCKIES — Sent RHPs Rob-ert Stephenson and Yency Almonte to Al-buquerque (Triple-A West) on rehab as-signments. Reinstated OF Yonathan Dazafrom the IL. Optioned RHP Jose Mujica toAlbuquerque.
LOS ANGELES DODGERS — Optioned RFZach McKinstry and RHP Mitch White toOklahoma City (Triple-A West). Trans-ferred RHP Jimmie Sherfy from the 10-dayIL to the 60-day IL. Activated RF MookieBetts from the 10-day IL. Selected the con-tract of RHP Yefry Ramirez from OklahomaCity and agreed to terms on a majorleague contract.
MIAMI MARLINS — Optioned 1B LewinDiaz to Jacksonville (Triple-A East). Select-ed the contract of LHP Sean Guenther fromJacksonville and agreed to terms on a ma-jor league contract.
MILWAUKEE BREWERS — Placed RHPHunter Strickland on the 10-day IL. Select-ed the contract of LHP Blaine Hardy fromNashville (Triple-A East) and agreed toterms on a major league contract.
NEW YORK METS — Placed INF Luis Guil-lorme on the 10-day IL. Recalled RHP GeoffHartlieb from Syracuse (Triple-A East).
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS — Activated LHPJon Lester. Optioned RHP Jake Woodfordto Memphis (Triple-A East).
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — Optioned 3BJason Vosler to Sacramento (Triple-AWest). Activated LF Kris Bryant.
WASHINGTON NATIONALS — ActivatedRHP Josiah Gray. Optioned RHP TannerRainey to Rochester (Triple-A East).
BASKETBALLUTAH JAZZ — Waived G Matt Thomas.
FOOTBALLNational Football League
ATLANTA FALCONS — Signed LB TuzarSkipper.
DENVER BRONCOS — Signed DB Rojes-terman Farris.
LAS VEGAS RAIDERS — Re-signed K Do-minik Eberle.
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS — Signed QBK.J. Costello.
MIAMI DOLPHINS — Placed TEs MikeGesicki, Cethan Carter and Adam Shaheenon the reserve/COVID-19 list.
NEW ORLEANS — Signed RB DevontaFreeman.
NEW YORK GIANTS — Signed C Joe Loo-ney.
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS — Signed QB SeanMannion. Waived QB Danny Etling.
WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM —Placed DT Daron Payne on the reserve/COVID-19 list.
TENNIS
Atlanta Open
SundayAt Atlanta Station
AtlantaPurse: $555,995
Surface: Hardcourt outdoorMen’s SinglesChampionship
John Isner (6), United States, def. Bran-don Nakashima, United States, 7-6 (8), 7-5.
Charleston 125
SundayAt Family Circle Tennis Center
Charleston, S.C.Purse: $115,000
Surface: Red clayWomen’s Singles
ChampionshipVarvara Lepchenko (4), United States,
def. Jamie Loeb, United States, 7-6 (4), 4-6,6-4.
WTA Winners Open
MondayAt Arenele BNR
ClujNapoca, RomaniaPurse: $235,238
Surface: Red clayWomen’s Singles
QualificationJana Fett (4), Croatia, def. Vanessa Ioana
Georgiana PoPa Teiusanu, Romania, 6-4,6-1.
Women’s SinglesRound of 32
Kaja Juvan (6), Slovenia, def. MarinaMelnikova, Russia, 6-1, 6-1.
Lara Arruabarrena, Spain, def. EvelyneChristelle Atticia Tiron, Romania, 6-0, 6-0.
AUTO RACING
F1 Hungarian Grand PrixSunday
At HungaroringBudapest, Hungary.
Lap length: 4.00 kilometers(Start position in parentheses)
1. (8) Esteban Ocon, France, Alpine, 70laps, 1:32:54.762.
2. (10) Sebastian Vettel, Germany, As-ton Martin, 70, +1.859 seconds.
3. (1) Lewis Hamilton, Great Britain,Mercedes, 70, +2.736.
4. (15) Carlos Sainz Jr, Spain, Ferrari, 70,+15.018.
5. (9) Fernando Alonso, Spain, Alpine,70, +15.651.
6. (5) Pierre Gasly, France, Alphatauri,70, +1:03.614.
7. (16) Yuki Tsunoda, Japan, Alphatau-ri, 70, +1:15.803.
8. (18) Nicholas Latifi, Canada, Wil-liams, 70, +1:17.910.
9. (17) George Russell, Great Britain,Williams, 70, +1:19.094.
10. (3) Max Verstappen, Netherlands,Red Bull Racing, 70, +1:20.244.
11. (13) Kimi Raikkonen, Finland, AlfaRomeo Racing, 69, +1 lap.
12. (11) Daniel Ricciardo, Australia,McLaren, 69, +1 lap.
13. (20) Mick Schumacher, Germany,Haas F1 Team, 69, +1 lap.
14. (14) Antonio Giovinazzi, Italy, AlfaRomeo Racing, 69, +1 lap.
15. (19) Nikita Mazepin, Russia, Haas F1Team, did not finish, 3.
16. (6) Lando Norris, Great Britain,McLaren, did not finish, 2.
17. (4) Sergio Perez, Mexico, Red BullRacing, did not finish.
18. (2) Valtteri Bottas, Finland, Mer-cedes, did not finish.
19. (7) Charles Leclerc, Monaco, Ferra-ri, did not finish.
20. (12) Lance Stroll, Canada, AstonMartin, did not finish.
Driver Standings
1. Max Verstappen, Netherlands, RedBull Racing, 185 points.
2. Lewis Hamilton, Great Britain, Mer-cedes, 177.
3. Lando Norris, Great Britain, McLa-ren, 113.
4. Valtteri Bottas, Finland, Mercedes,108.
5. Sergio Perez, Mexico, Red Bull Rac-ing, 104.
6. Charles Leclerc, Monaco, Ferrari, 80.7. Carlos Sainz Jr, Spain, Ferrari, 68.8. Daniel Ricciardo, Australia, McLa-
ren, 50.9. Pierre Gasly, France, Alphatauri, 39.10. Sebastian Vettel, Germany, Aston
Martin, 30.11. Fernando Alonso, Spain, Alpine, 26.12. Lance Stroll, Canada, Aston Martin,
18.13. Esteban Ocon, France, Alpine, 14.14. Yuki Tsunoda, Japan, Alphatauri,
10.15. Kimi Raikkonen, Finland, Alfa Ro-
meo Racing, 1.16. Antonio Giovinazzi, Italy, Alfa Ro-
meo Racing, 1.
Manufacturers Standings
1. Red Bull Racing, 289.2. Mercedes, 285.3. McLaren, 163.4. Ferrari, 148.5. Alphatauri, 49.6. Aston Martin, 48.7. Alpine, 40.8. Alfa Romeo Racing, 2.9. Williams, 0.10. Haas F1 Team, 0.
GOLF
US Senior Women’s Open
The Legends �TourSunday
At Brooklawn Country ClubFairfield, Conn.
Purse: $1 millionYardage: 5,959; Par: 72
(a)amateurFinal Round
Annika Sorenstam, $180,000 67-69-72-68—276 -12 Liselotte Neumann, $108,000 70-69-71-74—284 -4 Laura Davies, $68,977 71-75-68-71—285 -3 Yuko Saito, $43,970 70-70-74-72—286 -2 Catriona Matthew, $43,970 71-70-71-74—286 -2 Kris Tschetter, $35,338 69-72-75-73—289 +1 Christa Johnson, $28,876 74-71-75-70—290 +2 Kimberly Williams, $28,876 72-72-74-72—290 +2 Helen Alfredsson, $28,876 74-72-72-72—290 +2 Karen Weiss, $20,173 77-70-76-68—291 +3 Tammie Green, $20,173 74-75-72-70—291 +3 S. Green-Roebuck, $20,173 71-74-75-71—291 +3 Juli Inkster, $20,173 73-74-72-72—291 +3 Dana Ebster, $20,173 67-74-76-74—291 +3 Trish Johnson, $16,003 76-72-72-72—292 +4 Rosie Jones, $16,003 71-70-76-75—292 +4 Michele Redman, $13,748 74-76-73-70—293 +5 Cheryl Anderson, $13,748 74-76-71-72—293 +5 Barbara Moxness, $13,748 72-76-72-73—293 +5 Martha Leach (a), $0 74-76-71-73—294 +6 Ellen Port (a), $0 71-69-77-77—294 +6 M. McGann, $12,047 73-72-72-77—294 +6 Nicole Jeray, $10,981 71-76-75-73—295 +7 Jamie Fischer, $10,981 73-76-73-73—295 +7 Maggie Will, $9,938 77-72-76-71—296 +8 Sue Ginter, $8,778 73-75-76-73—297 +9 J. Gallagher-Smith, $8,778 76-73-73-75—297 +9 Lisa DePaulo, $8,778 76-74-71-76—297 +9 Lara Tennant (a), $0 76-76-72-75—299+11 Nanci Bowen, $7,778 75-74-75-75—299+11 Cindy Schreyer, $7,778 73-78-71-77—299+11 Elaine Crosby, $6,880 77-74-78-71—300+12 Laurie Rinker, $6,880 75-77-76-72—300+12 Carolyn Hill, $6,880 73-79-76-72—300+12 Becky Iverson, $6,880 76-71-75-78—300+12 Dina Ammaccapane, $5,887 77-73-79-72—301+13 D. Ammaccapane, $5,887 76-75-77-73—301+13 Lynne Cowan (a), $0 74-77-76-74—301+13 Corey Weworski (a), $0 75-77-73-76—301+13 Lisa Grimes, $5,887 75-75-74-77—301+13 C. Johnston-Forbes, $5,050 77-74-77-74—302+14 Julie Piers, $5,050 75-76-76-75—302+14 Kasumi Fujii, $5,050 75-74-78-75—302+14 Hollis Stacy, $5,050 75-75-76-76—302+14 Sherry Andonian, $5,050 74-74-78-76—302+14 Laura Coble (a), $0 74-73-77-79—303+15 Tonya Gill Danckaert, $4,472 75-75-78-76—304+16 Sue Wooster (a), $0 74-78-74-78—304+16 L. Shanahan Rowe, $4,184 78-73-78-77—306+18 Jennifer Cully, $4,184 77-74-75-80—306+18 Kristi Albers, $3,894 76-75-79-78—308+20
HANDA World Invitational
LPGA Tour
SundayAt Galgorm Castle and Massereene Golf
CoursesBallymena, Northern Ireland
Purse: $4.5 millionGalgorm Castle
Yardage: 6,546; Par: 73Massereene Golf ClubYardage: 6,461; Par: 72
Final Round(xwon playoff)
x-P. Anannarukarn 70-69-66-70—275 -16 Emma Talley 67-65-73-70—275 -16 Jennifer Kupcho 66-69-70-71—276 -15 Atthaya Thitikul 71-67-70-70—278 -13 Sydnee Michaels 73-69-70-67—279 -12 Mina Harigae 69-69-72-69—279 -12 Chella Choi 66-69-71-73—279 -12 Pernilla Lindberg 73-66-75-66—280 -11 Sarah Kemp 70-71-69-70—280 -11 Wichanee Meechai 70-72-67-71—280 -11 Yu Liu 75-70-68-68—281 -10 Muni He 71-69-72-69—281 -10 Su Oh 68-72-69-72—281 -10 Georgia Hall 68-73-71-70—282 -9 Yealimi Noh 73-70-68-71—282 -9 Ryann O’Toole 72-68-70-72—282 -9 Lauren Coughlin 72-73-69-69—283 -8 Alison Lee 73-70-70-70—283 -8 Olivia Mehaffey 70-72-71-70—283 -8 Paula Reto 74-71-67-71—283 -8 Min Seo Kwak 67-70-75-71—283 -8 Gemma Dryburgh 66-70-75-72—283 -8 Liz Nagel 75-68-67-73—283 -8 Charley Hull 68-68-74-73—283 -8 Karolin Lampert 70-72-72-70—284 -7 Lina Boqvist 72-72-68-72—284 -7 Alana Uriell 70-73-69-72—284 -7 Lindsey Weaver 72-69-71-72—284 -7 Ursula Wikstrom 70-70-71-73—284 -7 Lindy Duncan 73-72-68-72—285 -6 Pornanong Phatlum 68-71-72-74—285 -6 K. Perry-Hamski 74-69-71-72—286 -5 Dottie Ardina 72-69-72-73—286 -5 Esther Henseleit 70-73-71-73—287 -4 Stephanie Kyriacou 70-72-72-73—287 -4 Linnea Strom 70-70-72-75—287 -4 Johanna Gustavsson 72-69-73-74—288 -3Kristen Gillman 72-69-72-75—288 -3Cloe Frankish 72-73-68-76—289 -2Tiia Koivisto 71-71-71-78—291 E
Aug. 3 1852 — The first intercollegiate rowing
race is held on Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H.,where Harvard beats Yale by four lengthson the 2-mile course.
1949 — The National Basketball Associ-ation is formed by the merger of the Na-tional Basketball League and the Basket-ball Association of America.
1990 — The Professional Golfers Associ-ation Tour announces it will not hold tour-naments at golf clubs that have all-whitememberships or show any other signs ofdiscrimination.
1996 — Andre Agassi, the Dream Teamand the U.S. women’s 400-meter relayteam win Olympic gold medals, while the
American men’s 400 relay settles for sil-ver. With Carl Lewis idled by a coach’s de-cision and Leroy Burrell injured, the men’s400 team is shocked by Canada — the firsttime the U.S. lost the event at the Olym-pics.
2003 — Annika Sorenstam completes acareer Grand Slam at the Women’s BritishOpen, beating Se Ri Pak by a stroke in athrilling head-to-head showdown.
2012 — Michael Phelps rallies to win the100-meter butterfly for his third gold of theLondon Games and No. 17 of his career. It’sPhelps’ third consecutive win in the eventat the Olympics, and his 21st career med-al. Missy Franklin sets a world record inthe 200 backstroke for the 17-year-old’sthird gold in London.
AP SPORTLIGHT
Free agency doesn’t start until 6
p.m. Eastern on Monday. The
machinations toward getting
ready, however, were in full steam
on Sunday.
And the Miami Heat were at the
center of the activity.
With Kyle Lowry set to become
one of the top free agents available
once the shopping window opens,
the Heat announced that they
picked up the $19.4 million option
year on point guard Goran Dragic
on Sunday — a move that could be a
precursor to making a deal for
Lowry, who was a Miami target at
the trade deadline this past season.
Lowry won’t be the only big
name to be closely followed on
Monday.
A person with knowledge of the
situation said that Kawhi Leonard
was declining his $36 million op-
tion for this coming season with the
Los Angeles Clippers, and a anoth-
er person said Chris Paul was de-
clining his $44 million option with
the Phoenix Suns. Those people
spoke to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity because
neither move was announced pub-
licly and in both cases, said that Le-
onard and Paul would take the op-
portunity to negotiate longer deals
and remain with their respective
teams.
“We’ll know what his decision is
at that point in time,” Suns general
manager James Jones said last
week when asked about Paul’s fu-
ture. “But I think what we have is
enticing, I think he likes being
here, we like having him here. So,
I’m confident that we’ll be able to
have a conversation — hopefully in
the coming days that will make ev-
eryone happy.”
The 35-year-old Lowry has
spent his last nine seasons with To-
ronto.
Free agencywill beginwith focuson Lowry
BY TIM REYNOLDS
Associated Press
BRANDON DILL/AP
Toronto Raptors guard KyleLowry is considered the top NBAfree agent available.
PAGE 18 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
MLB
American League
East Division
W L Pct GB
Tampa Bay 64 42 .604 _
Boston 63 44 .589 1½
New York 56 48 .538 7
Toronto 54 48 .529 8
Baltimore 37 67 .356 26
Central Division
W L Pct GB
Chicago 62 44 .585 _
Cleveland 51 51 .500 9
Detroit 51 57 .472 12
Kansas City 45 59 .433 16
Minnesota 44 62 .415 18
West Division
W L Pct GB
Houston 64 42 .604 _
Oakland 60 47 .561 4½
Seattle 56 50 .528 8
Los Angeles 52 53 .495 11½
Texas 38 67 .362 25½
National LeagueEast Division
W L Pct GB
New York 55 49 .529 _
Philadelphia 52 53 .495 3½
Atlanta 52 54 .491 4
Washington 49 56 .467 6½
Miami 44 61 .419 11½
Central Division
W L Pct GB
Milwaukee 63 43 .594 _
Cincinnati 56 50 .528 7
St. Louis 53 52 .505 9½
Chicago 51 56 .477 12½
Pittsburgh 40 65 .381 22½
West Division
W L Pct GB
San Francisco 66 39 .629 _
Los Angeles 64 43 .598 3
San Diego 61 47 .565 6½
Colorado 46 60 .434 20½
Arizona 33 73 .311 33½
Sunday’s games
Toronto 5, Kansas City 1Detroit 6, Baltimore 2N.Y. Yankees 3, Miami 1Chicago White Sox 2, Cleveland 1St. Louis 7, Minnesota 3Texas 4, Seattle 3San Francisco 5, Houston 3Oakland 8, L.A. Angels 3Tampa Bay 3, Boston 2Milwaukee 2, Atlanta 1Cincinnati 7, N.Y. Mets 1Washington 6, Chicago Cubs 5Philadelphia 15, Pittsburgh 4San Diego 8, Colorado 1L.A. Dodgers 13, Arizona 0
Monday’s games
Cleveland at TorontoBaltimore at N.Y. YankeesSeattle at Tampa BayL.A. Angels at TexasPhiladelphia at WashingtonN.Y. Mets at MiamiPittsburgh at MilwaukeeSan Francisco at Arizona
Tuesday’s games
Baltimore (Wells 1-1) at N.Y. Yankees(Cole 10-6)
Cleveland (Plesac 6-3) at Toronto (Ryu 10-5)Boston (Richards 6-6) at Detroit (Peralta 3-2)Minnesota (Maeda 4-4) at Cincinnati
(Mahle 8-3)Seattle (Kikuchi 6-6) at Tampa Bay (Pati-
ño 2-2)L.A. Angels (Suarez 4-4) at Texas (Lyles 5-7)Kansas City (Bubic 3-4) at Chicago White
Sox (Cease 7-6)San Diego (Snell 4-4) at Oakland (Ma-
naea 8-6)Houston (McCullers Jr. 8-2) at L.A. Dodg-
ers (Buehler 11-1)Philadelphia (Wheeler 8-6) at Washing-
ton (Corbin 6-9)N.Y. Mets (Walker 7-5) at Miami (TBD)Pittsburgh (Kranick 1-2) at Milwaukee
(Houser 7-5)Atlanta (Fried 7-7) at St. Louis (Lester
3-5)Chicago Cubs (Davies 6-7) at Colorado
(Freeland 1-6)San Francisco (Cueto 7-5) at Arizona
(Bumgarner 5-6)Wednesday’s games
Minnesota at CincinnatiSeattle at Tampa BaySan Diego at OaklandBaltimore at N.Y. YankeesCleveland at TorontoBoston at DetroitL.A. Angels at TexasKansas City at Chicago White SoxHouston at L.A. DodgersPittsburgh at MilwaukeePhiladelphia at WashingtonN.Y. Mets at MiamiAtlanta at St. LouisChicago Cubs at ColoradoSan Francisco at Arizona
Scoreboard
SAN FRANCISCO — Kris
Bryant homered in his Giants de
but, a twoout solo shot in the third
inning, and San Francisco beat the
Houston Astros 53 on Sunday.
Darin Ruf had three hits includ
ing a home run and two RBIs.
Brandon Crawford and Donovan
Solano both added two hits. The
Giants won two of three in the in
terleague matchup of division
leaders and have the best record
in the majors at 6639.
“I can’t say enough good things
about this first day,” Bryant said.
“I feel giddy. It felt like Christmas
morning, honestly.”
Acquired in a trade from the
Chicago Cubs for two minor
league prospects just minutes be
fore Friday’s deadline, Bryant
was greeted by chants of “KB!
KB! KB!” when he trotted onto the
field for pregame warmups and
received a standing ovation before
his first atbat. The fourtime All
Star was cheered again after strik
ing out swinging.
Those cheers got louder after
Bryant crushed an 01 pitch from
Luis García (76) into the left field
stands for his 19th home run this
season.
“The first homer’s weird,”
Bryant said. “You don’t know
what teams do when you come to
celebrate in the dugout so I was
kind of lost a little bit,”
The Giants said they expected
Bryant to hit a home run. After all,
his former teammates in Chicago
who were also traded — Javier
Báez and Anthony Rizzo — home
red in their first games with their
new clubs.
“We were going to send him
back if he didn’t homer himself,”
joked Ruf, who homered in the
fifth. “Luckily we get to keep him.
He’s going to be very, very valua
ble to our team going forward.”
After Mike Yastrzemski dou
bled and Buster Posey walked in
the third, Crawford and Ruf fol
lowed with RBI singles to put the
Giants ahead 32.
Bryant homers in Giants debutSan Francisco downs
Houston to win series
BY MICHAEL WAGAMAN
Associated Press
JED JACOBSOHN/AP
San Francisco’s Kris Bryant, in his second atbat in a Giants uniform, homers in front of Houston Astroscatcher Martin Maldonado during the third inning of a 53 Giants win Sunday in San Francisco.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. —
Shane McClanahan went six
strong innings, Brandon Lowe
homered and the AL Eastleading
Tampa Rays beat the Boston Red
Sox 32 Sunday for a threegame
sweep.
McClanahan (54) allowed one
run and four hits over six innings,
helping the Rays take a 1½game
lead over the Red Sox.
Hunter Renfroe homered for
Boston, which has lost a season
high four in a row and five of six.
Kiké Hernández and Rafael
Devers had consecutive twoout
singles in the ninth off Matt Wisler,
who then retired J.D. Martinez on a
short fly for his first save.
Yankees 3, Marlins 1: Anthony
Rizzo continued his remarkable
debut with the Yankees with an
other key hit and New York com
pleted a threegame sweep at Mia
mi.
The partisan Yankees crowd got
to cheer when New York had an
eighthinning rally led by RBI sin
gles from Rizzo and Aaron Judge.
Reds 7, Mets 1: Rookie Max
Schrock went 5for5 with a home
run while giving AllStar Joey Vot
to a break, leading fellow new
comer Vladimir Gutierrez and
Cincinnati to a win at New York.
Dodgers 13, Diamondbacks 0:
Albert Pujols doubled home three
runs to cap a fiverun second in
ning, Mookie Betts homered in his
return from the injured list and Los
Angeles rolled at Arizona.
White Sox 2, Indians 1: Brian
Goodwin homered with one out in
the ninth inning to lift host Chicago
over Cleveland.
Brewers 2, Braves 1: Willy
Adames hit an early homer off
Charlie Morton, Brett Anderson
pitched 52⁄�3 strong innings and Mil
waukee won at Atlanta.
Blue Jays 5, Royals 1: José
Berríos pitched six shutout innings
in his Toronto debut and the team
completed a threegame sweep in
its first series north of the border
since 2019, beating Kansas City.
Tigers 6, Orioles 2: Eric Haase
hit a tworun double in a threerun
first inning and host Detroit beat
Baltimore.
Phillies 15, Pirates 4:Kyle Gib
son pitched into the seventh inning
in his Philadelphia debut and got
plenty of support to help the Phil
lies roll at Pittsburgh.
Cardinals 7, Twins 3: Adam
Wainwright threw seven effective
innings and rookie Edmundo Sosa
homered to help host St. Louis beat
Minnesota.
Nationals 6, Cubs 5: Yadiel
Hernandez’s solo shot in the ninth
inning — his second homer of the
day — gave Washington the victory
over visiting Chicago.
Athletics 8, Angels 3: Yan
Gomes homered in his Oakland de
but, fellow newcomer Starling
Marte had three hits and stole
three bases, and the Athletics won
at Los Angeles.
Rangers 4, Mariners 3: Jonah
Heim hit his second walkoff
homer in two games right after a
tying, tworun shot from Andy Ibá
nez in the ninth inning, and host
Texas rallied again to beat Seattle.
Padres 8, Rockies 1: HaSeong
Kim homered and drove in three
runs, Jake Cronenworth contribut
ed three hits and host San Diego
beat Colorado.
Rays sweep series from Red Sox
SCOTT AUDETTE/AP
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher ShaneMcClanahan allowed one run andfour hits in six innings in a 32win Sunday over Boston.
Associated Press
ROUNDUP
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19
OLYMPICS SCOREBOARD
Medals Table
Monday
Nation G S B Tot
United States 21 25 17 63
China 29 17 16 62
ROC 12 21 17 50
Britain 11 12 12 35
Japan 17 6 10 33
Australia 14 4 15 33
Italy 4 9 15 28
France 6 10 7 23
Germany 6 5 11 22
South Korea 6 4 9 19
Netherlands 5 7 6 18
Canada 3 4 7 14
Switzerland 3 4 5 12
New Zealand 4 3 4 11
Taiwan 2 4 4 10
Brazil 2 3 5 10
Czech Republic 4 3 1 8
Croatia 3 2 2 7
Cuba 2 3 2 7
Spain 1 3 3 7
Hungary 2 2 2 6
Georgia 1 4 1 6
Ukraine 0 1 5 6
Denmark 2 1 2 5
Austria 1 1 3 5
Indonesia 1 1 3 5
Serbia 1 1 3 5
Turkey 1 0 4 5
Slovenia 2 1 1 4
Romania 1 3 0 4
Sweden 1 3 0 4
Venezuela 1 3 0 4
Jamaica 1 1 2 4
Ecuador 2 1 0 3
Greece 2 0 1 3
Hong Kong 1 2 0 3
Slovakia 1 2 0 3
South Africa 1 2 0 3
Belgium 1 1 1 3
Ethiopia 1 1 1 3
Norway 1 1 1 3
Ireland 1 0 2 3
Israel 1 0 2 3
Colombia 0 2 1 3
Dominican Republic 0 2 1 3
Mongolia 0 1 2 3
Kazakhstan 0 0 3 3
Mexico 0 0 3 3
Kosovo 2 0 0 2
Qatar 2 0 0 2
Poland 1 1 0 2
Tunisia 1 1 0 2
Belarus 1 0 1 2
Estonia 1 0 1 2
Fiji 1 0 1 2
Uzbekistan 1 0 1 2
Monday’s medalists
ATHLETICSMen’s 3000m Steeplechase
GOLD—Soufiane El Bakkali, Morocco SILVER—Lamecha Girma, Ethiopia BRONZE—Benjamin Kigen, Kenya
Men’s Long Jump
GOLD—Miltiadis Tentoglou, Greece SILVER—Juan Miguel Echevarria, Cuba BRONZE—Maykel Masso, Cuba
Women’s 100m Hurdles
GOLD—Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, Puer-to Rico
SILVER—Kendra Harrison, United States BRONZE—Megan Tapper, Jamaica
Women’s 5000m
GOLD—Sifan Hassan, Netherlands SILVER—Hellen Obiri, Kenya BRONZE—Gudaf Tsegay, Ethiopia
Women’s Discus Throw
GOLD—Valarie Allman, United States SILVER—Kristin Pudenz, Germany BRONZE—Yaime Perez, Cuba
BADMINTONMen’s Singles
GOLD—Viktor Axelsen, Denmark SILVER—Long Chen, China BRONZE—Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, In-
donesia
Women’s Doubles
GOLD—Indonesia (Greysia Polii, Apriya-ni Rahayu)
SILVER—China (Qing Chen Chen, Yi FanJia)
BRONZE—South Korea (Soyeong Kim,Heeyong Kong)
CYCLING TRACKWomen’s Team Sprint
GOLD—China (Shanju Bao, TianshiZhong)
SILVER—Germany (Lea Sophie Frie-drich, Emma Hinze)
BRONZE—ROC (Daria Shmeleva, Anas-tasiia Voinova)
EQUESTRIANEventing Individual
GOLD—Julia Krajewski, Germany SILVER—Tom McEwen, BritainBRONZE—Andrew Hoy, Australia
Eventing Team
GOLD—Britain (Tom McEwen, Laura Col-lett, Oliver Townend)
SILVER—Australia (Kevin McNab, Shane
Rose, Andrew Hoy) BRONZE—France (Nicolas Touzaint, Ka-
rim Florent Laghouag, Christopher Six)GYMNASTICSMen’s Rings
GOLD—Yang Liu, ChinaSILVER—Hao You, ChinaBRONZE—Eleftherios Petrounias,
Greece Men’s Vault
GOLD—Jeahwan Shin, South Korea SILVER—Denis Abliazin, ROCBRONZE—Artur Davtyan, Armenia
Women’s Floor Exercise
GOLD—Jade Carey, United States SILVER—Vanessa Ferrari, Italy BRONZE—Mai Murakami, JapanBRONZE—Angelina Melnikova, ROC
SHOOTING50m Rifle 3 Positions Men
GOLD—Changhong Zhang, China SILVER—Sergey Kamenskiy, ROC BRONZE—Milenko Sebic, Serbia
25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men
GOLD—Jean Quiquampoix, France SILVER—Leuris Pupo, CubaBRONZE—Yuehong Li, China
WEIGHTLIFTINGWomen’s 87kg
GOLD—Zhouyu Wang, ChinaSILVER—Tamara Yajaira Salazar Arce,
Ecuador BRONZE—Crismery Dominga Santana
Peguero, Dominican Republic Women’s +87kg
GOLD—Wenwen Li, ChinaSILVER—Emily Jade Campbell, Britain BRONZE—Sarah Elizabeth Robles, Unit-
ed States WRESTLING
Men’s Greco-Roman 130kg
GOLD—Mijain Lopez Nunez, Cuba SILVER—Iakobi Kajaia, Georgia BRONZE—Riza Kayaalp, Turkey BRONZE—Sergei Semenov, ROC
Men’s Greco-Roman 60kg
GOLD—Luis Alberto Orta Sanchez, Cuba SILVER—Kenichiro Fumita, Japan BRONZE—Sailike Walihan, China BRONZE—Sergey Emelin, ROC
Women’s Freestyle 76kg
GOLD—Aline Rotter Focken, Germany SILVER—Adeline Maria Gray, United
States BRONZE—Yasemin Adar, Turkey BRONZE—Qian Zhou, China
WrestlingMonday
MenGreco-Roman 97kg
Round of 16
Musa Evloev, ROC, def. Giorgi Melia, Ge-orgia, 3-0, 0-1, Points.
Alex Gergo Szoke, Hungary, def. ArturOmarov, Czech Republic, 3-0, 0-1, Points.
Tracy Gangelo Hancock, United States,def. Mihail Kajaia, Serbia, 5-0, 0-1, Points.
Tadeusz Michalik, Poland, def. HaikelAchouri, Tunisia, 10-0, Technical Superior-ity.
Mohammadhadi Saravi, Iran, def. AdemBoudjemline, Algeria, 3-0, 6-0, TechnicalSuperiority.
Kiril Milenov Milov, Bulgaria, def. Cenk Il-dem, Turkey, 3-0, 0-1, Points.
Arvi Martin Savolainen, Finland, def. Ga-briel Alejandro Rosillo Kindelan, Cuba, 0-1,3-0, Points.
Artur Aleksanyan, Armenia, def. UzurDzhuzupbekov, Kyrgyzstan, 3-0, 1-1,Points.
Quarterfinals
Musa Evloev, ROC, def. Alex GergoSzoke, Hungary, 3-2, 3-0, Points.
Tadeusz Michalik, Poland, def. TracyGangelo Hancock, United States, 0-1, 4-2,Points.
Mohammadhadi Saravi, Iran, def. KirilMilenov Milov, Bulgaria, 4-0, 2-0, Points.
Artur Aleksanyan, Armenia, def. ArviMartin Savolainen, Finland, 0-1, 5-0,Points.
Semifinals
Musa Evloev, ROC, def. Tadeusz Micha-lik, Poland, 5-0, 2-1, Points.
Artur Aleksanyan, Armenia, def. Mo-hammadhadi Saravi, Iran, 1-0, 3-1, Points.
Greco-Roman 77kgRound of 16
Shohei Yabiku, Japan, def. Demeu Zha-drayev, Kazakhstan, 1-0, 4-3, Points.
Bozo Starcevic, Croatia, def. Aik Mnatsa-kanian, Bulgaria, 0-1, 3-0, Points.
Mohammadali Geraei, Iran, def. Yosva-nys Pena Flores, Cuba, 5-0, 2-3, Points.
Karapet Chalyan, Armenia, def. Jalgas-bay Berdimuratov, Uzbekistan, 3-0, 2-0,Points.
Aleksandr Chekhirkin, ROC, def. AlfonsoAntonio Leyva Yepez, Mexico, 7-0, 0-0,Points.
Akzhol Makhmudov, Kyrgyzstan, def.Lamjed Maafi, Tunisia, 11-0, Technical Su-periority.
Rafig Huseynov, Azerbaijan, def. AlexMichel Bjurberg Kessidis, Sweden, 0-1, 1-0,Points.
Tamas Lorincz, Hungary, def. Zied AitOuagram, Morocco, 0-0, Forfeit.
Quarterfinals
Tamas Lorincz, Hungary, def. Shohei Ya-biku, Japan, 3-0, 0-1, Points.
Mohammadali Geraei, Iran, def. BozoStarcevic, Croatia, 1-0, 4-5, Points.
Karapet Chalyan, Armenia, def. Alek-sandr Chekhirkin, ROC, 1-1, 1-0, Points.
Akzhol Makhmudov, Kyrgyzstan, def.Rafig Huseynov, Azerbaijan, 9-1, TechnicalSuperiority.
Semifinals
Tamas Lorincz, Hungary, def. Moham-madali Geraei, Iran, 0-1, 6-4, Points.
Akzhol Makhmudov, Kyrgyzstan, def.Karapet Chalyan, Armenia, 6-1, 0-1, Points.
WomenFreestyle 68kg
Round of 16
Tamyra Marianna Stock Mensah, UnitedStates, def. Sara Dosho, Japan, 10-0, Tech-nical Superiority.
Zhou Feng, China, def. Yudari SanchezRodriguez, Cuba, 13-2, Technical Superior-ity.
Alla Cherkasova, Ukraine, def. Agniesz-ka Jadwiga Wieszczek Kordus, Poland, 1-0,10-0, Technical Superiority.
Anna Carmen Schell, Germany, def. EnasAhmed, Egypt, 3-0, 4-0, Points.
Battsetseg Soronzonbold, Mongolia,def. Koumba Larroque, France, 0-1, 4-2,Pin.
Khanum Velieva, ROC, def. Danielle Su-zanne Lappage, Canada, 1-0, 6-0, Points.
Meerim Zhumanazarova, Kyrgyzstan,def. Mimi Nikolova Hristova, Bulgaria, 2-1,5-4, Points.
Blessing Oborududu, Nigeria, def. ElisManolova, Azerbaijan, 7-2, 6-0, TechnicalSuperiority.
Quartefinals
Tamyra Marianna Stock Mensah, UnitedStates, def. Zhou Feng, China, 6-0, 4-0,Technical Superiority.
Alla Cherkasova, Ukraine, def. Anna Car-men Schell, Germany, 4-0, 2-0, Pin.
Battsetseg Soronzonbold, Mongolia,def. Khanum Velieva, ROC, 0-1, 8-4, Points.
Blessing Oborududu, Nigeria, def. Mee-rim Zhumanazarova, Kyrgyzstan, 1-0, 2-2,Points.
Semifinals
Tamyra Marianna Stock Mensah, UnitedStates, def. Alla Cherkasova, Ukraine, 2-0,8-4, Points.
Blessing Oborududu, Nigeria, def. Batt-setseg Soronzonbold, Mongolia, 7-0, 0-2,Points.
Women’s volleyball
Group A
Country W L Pts
Brazil 5 0 14
Serbia 4 1 12
Dominican Republic 2 3 8
South Korea 3 2 7
Japan 1 4 4
Kenya 0 5 0
Group B
Country W L Pts
United States 4 1 10
Italy 3 2 10
ROC 3 2 9
Turkey 3 2 9
China 2 3 7
Argentina 0 5 0
Sunday, July 25
Italy 3, ROC 0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-14)United States 3, Argentina 0 (25-20, 25-
19, 25-20)Serbia 3, Dominican Republic 0 (25-18,
25-12, 25-20)Turkey 3, China 0 (25-21, 25-14, 25-14)Japan 3, Kenya 0 (25-15, 25-11, 25-23)Brazil 3, South Korea 0 (25-10, 25-22, 25-
19)
Tuesday, July 27
ROC 3, Argentina 0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-13)United States 3, China 0 (29-27, 25-22, 25-
21)Serbia 3, Japan 0 (25-23, 25-16, 26-24)Italy 3, Turkey 1 (25-22, 23-25, 25-20, 25-
15)Brazil 3, Dominican Republic 2 (25-22, 17-
25, 13-25, 25-23, 12-15)South Korea 3, Kenya 0 (25-14, 25-22, 26-
24)
Thursday, July 29
Italy 3, Argentina 0 (25-21, 25-16, 25-15)South Korea 3, Dominican Republic 2 (25-
20, 17-25, 25-18, 15-25, 15-12)Serbia 3, Kenya 0 (25-21, 25-11, 25-20)ROC 3, China 2 (25-17, 23-25, 20-25, 27-25,
15-12)Brazil 3, Japan 0 (25-16, 25-18, 26-24)United States 3, Turkey 2 (25-19, 25-20,
17-25, 20-25, 15-12)
Saturday, July 31
Dominican Republic 3, Kenya 0 (25-19,25-18, 25-10)
ROC 3, United States 0 (25-20, 25-12, 25-19)
Turkey 3, Argentina 0 (25-23, 25-20, 25-18)
Brazil 3, Serbia 1 (25-20, 25-16, 23-25, 25-19)
South Korea 3, Japan 2 (19-25, 25-19, 22-25, 25-15, 14-16)
China 3, Italy 0 (25-21, 25-20, 26-24)
Monday’s matches
Serbia 3, South Korea 0 (25-18, 25-17, 25-15)
United States 3, Italy 2 (25-21, 16-25, 27-25, 16-25, 12-15)
Turkey 3, ROC 2 (25-21, 23-25, 23-25, 25-15, 10-15)
China 3, Argentina 0 (25-15, 25-22, 25-19)Dominican Republic 3, Japan 1 (25-10, 25-
23, 19-25, 25-19)Brazil 3, Kenya 0 (25-10, 25-16, 25-8)
Wednesday’s matches
United States vs. Dominican RepublicBrazil vs. ROCSouth Korea vs. TurkeySerbia vs. Italy
Friday’s matches
Semifinals
Sunday, August 8
Bronze MedalGold Medal
Women’s basketballGroup A
Country W L Pts
Spain 3 0 6
Serbia 2 1 4
Canada 1 2 2
South Korea 0 3 0
Group B
Country W L Pts
United States 3 0 6
Japan 2 1 4
France 1 2 2
Nigeria 0 3 0
Group C
Country W L Pts
China 3 0 6
Belgium 2 1 4
Australia 1 2 2
Puerto Rico 0 3 0
Monday, July 26
Spain 73, South Korea 69Serbia 72, Canada 68
Tuesday, July 27
Japan 74, France 70United States 81, Nigeria 72Belgium 85, Australia 70China 97, Puerto Rico 55
Thursday, July 29
Canada 74, South Korea 53Spain 85, Serbia 70
Friday, July 30
Belgium 87, Puerto Rico 52United States 86, Japan 69France 87, Nigeria 62China 76, Australia 74
Sunday’s games
Spain 76, Canada 66Serbia 65, South Korea 61
Monday’s games
Japan 102, Nigeria 83United States 93, France 82China 74, Belgium 62Australia 96, Puerto Rico 69
Wednesday’s gamesQuarterfinals
United States vs. AustraliaSpain vs. FranceChina vs. SerbiaBelgium vs. Japan
Men’s water poloGroup A
Country W L T Pts GF GA
Greece 4 0 1 9 68 34
Italy 3 0 2 8 60 32
Hungary 3 1 1 7 64 35
United States 2 3 0 4 59 53
Japan 1 4 0 2 65 66
South Africa 0 5 0 0 20 116
Group B
Country W L T Pts GF GA
Spain 5 0 0 10 61 31
Croatia 3 2 0 6 62 46
Serbia 3 2 0 6 70 46
Australia 2 3 0 4 49 60
Montenegro 2 3 0 4 54 56
Kazakhstan 0 5 0 0 35 92
Sunday, July 25
Italy 21, South Africa 2Greece 10, Hungary 9United States 15, Japan 13Montenegro 15, Australia 10Spain 13, Serbia 12Croatia 23, Kazakhstan 7
Tuesday, July 27
United States 20, South Africa 3Spain 8, Montenegro 6Serbia 19, Kazakhstan 5Italy 6, Greece 6Hungary 16, Japan 11Australia 11, Croatia 8
Thursday, July 29
Hungary 23, South Africa 1Spain 16, Kazakhstan 4Italy 12, United States 11Croatia 13, Montenegro 8Greece 10, Japan 9Serbia 14, Australia 8
Saturday, July 31
Montenegro 19, Kazakhstan 12Spain 16, Australia 5Hungary 11, United States 8Croatia 14, Serbia 12Italy 16, Japan 8Greece 28, South Africa 5
Monday’s games
Hungary 5, Italy 5Greece 14, United States 5Serbia 13, Montenegro 6Spain 8, Croatia 4Japan 24, South Africa 9Australia 15, Kazakhstan 7
Wednesday’s gamesQuarterfinals
United States vs SpainGreece vs MontenegroItaly vs SerbiaHungary vs Croatia
Women’s handball
Group A
Country W L T Pts
Norway 5 0 0 10
Netherlands 4 1 0 8
Montenegro 2 3 0 4
Angola 1 3 1 3
South Korea 1 3 1 3
Japan 1 4 0 2
Group B
Country W L T Pts
ROC 3 1 1 7
Sweden 3 1 1 7
France 2 2 1 5
Hungary 2 3 0 4
Spain 2 3 0 4
Brazil 1 3 1 3
Sunday, July 25
Netherlands 32, Japan 21ROC 24, Brazil 24Montenegro 33, Angola 22Norway 39, South Korea 27Sweden 31, Spain 24France 30, Hungary 29
Tuesday, July 27
Japan 29, Montenegro 26Brazil 33, Hungary 27Sweden 36, ROC 24Netherlands 43, South Korea 36Norway 30, Angola 21Spain 28, France 25
Thursday, July 29
Netherlands 37, Angola 28Spain 27, Brazil 23South Korea 27, Japan 24Norway 35, Montenegro 23ROC 38, Hungary 31Sweden 28, France 28
Saturday, July 31
Angola 28, Japan 25Montenegro 28, South Korea 26ROC 28, France 27Sweden 34, Brazil 31Hungary 29, Spain 25Norway 29, Netherlands 27
Monday’s games
South Korea 31, Angola 31France 29, Brazil 22ROC 34, Spain 31Hungary 26, Sweden 23Netherlands 30, Montenegro 29Norway 37, Japan 25
Wednesday’s gamesQuarterfinals
Montenegro vs ROCNorway vs HungarySweden vs South KoreaFrance vs Netherlands
Friday’s games
Semifinals
Women’s field hockey
Group A
Country W L T Pts GF GA
Netherlands 5 0 0 10 18 2
Germany 4 1 0 8 13 7
Britain 3 2 0 6 11 5
India 2 3 0 4 7 14
Ireland 1 4 0 2 4 11
South Africa 0 5 0 0 5 19
Group B
Country W L T Pts GF GA
Australia 5 0 0 10 13 1
Argentina 3 2 0 6 8 8
Spain 3 2 0 6 9 8
China 2 3 0 4 9 16
New Zealand 2 3 0 4 8 7
Japan 0 5 0 0 6 13
Wednesday, July 28
Netherlands 5, South Africa 0Britain 4, India 1Spain 2, New Zealand 1Germany 4, Ireland 2Australia 1, Japan 0Argentina 3, China 2
Thursday, July 29
Spain 2, China 0Netherlands 1, Britain 0Argentina 2, Japan 1Australia 1, New Zealand 0
Friday, July 30
Germany 4, South Africa 1India 1, Ireland 0
Saturday, July 31
China 3, New Zealand 2Spain 4, Japan 1Australia 2, Argentina 0India 4, South Africa 3Netherlands 3, Germany 1Britain 2, Ireland 0
Monday’s gamesQuarterfinals
Argentina 3, Germany 0India 1, Australia 0Netherlands 3, New Zealand 0Britain 2, Spain 2, Britain wins 2-0 in
shootout
Wednesday’s gamesSemifinals
Netherlands vs BritainArgentina vs India
Friday’s games
Bronze MedalGold Medal
PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
OLYMPICS
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Yuki
Yanagita tied it with an RBI groun-
der off Scott McGough in the ninth
inning, Takuya Kai hit a winning
single against Edwin Jackson in
the 10th and Japan beat the United
States 7-6 Monday night to reach
the Olympic semifinals.
Japan overcame a 6-5, ninth-in-
ning deficit against McGough, a
31-year-old former Miami Marlins
reliever with 16 saves in his third
season with the Central League’s
Yakult Swallows. He walked Seiya
Suzuki with one out as rain started
to fall, then allowed a single to
Hideto Asamura that put runners
at the corners.
Yanagita hit a chopper to sec-
ond, driving in a run on the groun-
dout.
Under tournament rules, extra
innings start with runners on first
and second, an even more extreme
distortion than the Major League
Baseball runner-on-second rule
used since the start of the 2020 pan-
demic season.
Ryoji Kuribayashi (1-0) retired
the side in order in the top half, and
Jackson (0-1), a 37-year-old veter-
an of a record 14 major league
teams, relieved in the bottom of the
inning.
Pinch-hitter Ryoya Kurihara
sacrificed, manager Mike Scioscia
went to the mound and the U.S.
went to a five-man infield.
Kai, who had entered as a defen-
sive replacement, lined the next
pitch off the right-field wall.
Japan (3-0) will play South Ko-
rea (3-1) on Wednesday night for a
spot in the final.
The U.S. (2-1) fell into the loser’s
bracket of the double-elimination
second round. To reach this week-
end’s final, it must beat the winner
of Tuesday’s elimination game be-
tween the Dominican Republic
(1-2) and Israel (1-3), and then the
Japan-South Korea loser.
Boston prospect Triston Casas
hit a tiebreaking, three-run homer
in the fifth inning for a 6-3 lead.
SUE OGROCKI/AP
Japan's Takuya Kai, center, and teammates celebrate their 76 quarterfinal win over the United States.
Japan rallies against bullpento beat US 7-6 in 10 innings
BY RONALD BLUM
Associated Press
TOKYO — Poland granted a vi-
sa Monday to a Belarusian Olym-
pic sprinter who said she feared
for her safety and that her team’s
officials tried to force her to fly
home, where the autocratic gov-
ernment was accused of diverting
a flight to arrest a dissident jour-
nalist.
An activist group that is helping
athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya
told The Associated Press that it
bought her a plane ticket to War-
saw for the coming days.
The current standoff apparently
began after Tsimanouskaya criti-
cized how officials were managing
her team — setting off a massive
backlash in state-run media back
home, where authorities relent-
lessly crack down on government
critics. The runner said on her In-
stagram account that she was put
in the 4x400 relay even though she
has never raced in the event.
The runner was then apparently
hustled to the airport but refused
to board a flight for Istanbul and in-
stead approached police for help.
In a filmed message distributed on
social media, she also asked the In-
ternational Olympic Committee
for assistance.
“I was put under pressure, and
they are trying to forcibly take me
out of the country without my con-
sent,” the 24-year-old said in the
message.
The rapid-fire series of events
brought international political in-
trigue to an Olympics that have
been more focused on operational
dramas, like maintaining safety
during a pandemic and navigating
widespread Japanese opposition
to holding the event at all.
Belarus’ authoritarian govern-
ment has relentlessly targeted
anyone even mildly expressing
dissent since a presidential elec-
tion a year ago triggered a wave of
unprecedented mass protests.
Poland grants visa to Belarus sprinterBY GRAHAM DUNBAR
Associated Press
MARTIN MEISSNER/AP
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, ofBelarus was given a visa byPoland after she says teamofficials tried to force her to flyhome after a dispute.
TOKYO — Coach Karch Kiraly
knew there would be challenges
and adversity to overcome if the
U.S. women’s volleyball team want-
ed to achieve its goals at the Tokyo
Olympics.
He sure was right during pool
play, and now the Americans are in
position to make a run at their first
gold medal in the sport after win-
ning their group.
Two key starters have gone down
with ankle injuries, an assistant
coach spent two weeks in quaran-
tine as a close contact to someone
who tested positive for COVID-19
and the Americans dealt with a
straight-set loss to the team known
as the Russia Olympic Committee.
But after finishing the prelimina-
ry stage with a tense, five-set win
over Italy on Monday despite setter
Jordyn Poulter joining star Jordan
Thompson on the sideline with a
rolled right ankle, the U.S. heads in-
to the quarterfinals in good form.
“We have had our share and our
team handled it superbly,” Kiraly
said about the adversity. “They real-
ly stayed together. I look back and
our substitute box is getting very
lonely back there. There’s only
three or four players there. So it’s
getting to be a bit of an adventure.
But our team played with great
heart and played together.”
In Kiraly’s first Olympics as a
head coach, the Americans raced
through their first six matches un-
defeated before losing in the semifi-
nals to Serbia after star blocker Fo-
luke Akinradewo Gunderson went
down with a knee injury.
The injuries to Thompson and
Poulter haven’t slowed down the
U.S. team yet in Tokyo, with Annie
Drews thriving in place of Thomp-
son as an opposite and Micha Han-
cock stepping in at setter after Poul-
ter got hurt.
“We have 23 people that could
have been on this roster,” captain
Jordan Larson said. “We knew it
was going to take a lot of us to find a
way to win. We’re finding that now.
We can have anybody at any point
step in and take over a match. We
have confidence and trust that peo-
ple are going to do their job and exe-
cute at a high level. We’ve been talk-
ing about it and you’re just seeing it
come to play now.”
Drews led the team with 22 points
in the five-set win over Italy in her
first Olympic start after Thompson
rolled her ankle upon landing on a
teammate’s foot in a loss Saturday to
the ROC.
Thompson was watching from
the stands. She is working tirelessly
to rehab the injury in hopes of being
able to return later in the tourna-
ment.
Thompson came into the day tied
for the third-most points in the tour-
nament with 66, but there was little
drop-off with Drews in there in-
stead.
“Definitely a little nervous at the
beginning, a good nervous,” Drews
said. “But it’s a role I’ve played with
our team before. I felt the trust they
had in me. Obviously not the cir-
cumstances you’d like to be playing
in, but we talk a lot about being 12
strong.”
Poulter landed on a teammate’s
foot in the third set and watched the
end of the match from a wheelchair.
She was to have tests on the ankle to
determine the injury’s severity.
The next task for the U.S. team
will be the quarterfinals on Wednes-
day, when the Americans will face
the Dominican Republic, which
beat Japan in four sets to advance.
Banged-up USwomen head tovolleyball quartersWith two starters out, Americans top Italy in five sets
BY JOSH DUBOW
Associated Press
FRANK AUGSTEIN/AP
United States’ Jordan Thompson treats her injured foot during thewomen’s volleyball preliminary round match against Italy on Monday.
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21
OLYMPICS
seconds. On July 1, Warholm
broke a 29-year-old record held by
Kevin Young when he finished in
46.70 in his first race of the season,
in Oslo.
The others to crack 47 are Sam-
ba Abderrahman, the Qatari who
is also in Tuesday’s final and Ben-
jamin, the American who ran
46.83 at Olympic trials in June.
On the women’s side, Muham-
mad and McLaughlin have been
going back and forth for a few
years.
Muhammad set the world re-
cord at the U.S. nationals in 2019,
finishing in 52.20 and beating
McLaughlin by more than a half-
second. Nine weeks later at world
championships, Muhammad low-
ered the record to 52.16.
McLaughlin’s time of 52.23 in that
race would have been a world re-
cord had she run it three months
earlier.
McLaughlin changed coaches,
starting work with Bobby Kersee,
and after a down year because of
the COVID-19 pandemic, all signs
pointed to another record going
down. But she didn’t wait until she
arrived in Tokyo. McLaughlin be-
came the first woman to crack 52
seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials
last month, running 51.90 and set-
ting the stage for more this week.
“It’s just one of those times in
our sport, and especially in this
event, where people are realizing
that they can run this fast and it’s
kind of everybody moving at the
same pace,” McLaughlin said.
Meanwhile, Muhammad dealt
with injuries and a bout with CO-
VID-19, and had not reached top
form. She felt her second-place
finish in 52.42 at trials was more
than respectable given what she’d
been through.
Moses isn’t counting her out for
Tokyo — either for the gold medal,
or as the one who could lower the
world record again.
“She might be in a better posi-
tion. Less races. Very experi-
enced. A real student of the hur-
dles. Understands that race com-
pletely,” he said. “In a fast race,
which you have to expect, it goes
to whoever makes the least mis-
takes after the seventh hurdle and
stays with a pattern to maximize
the time.”
Moses said McLaughlin and
Muhammad have gotten into such
good shape that they can often
cover the area between hurdles in
15 strides, whereas 16 or 17 was
long the standard for women.
“Their training cycle is all year
long, versus it just being a season-
al sport where they would just get
ready for summer like we did,”
Moses said. “They’re also running
less meets. It’s like eight to 10 a
year. We used to run 15 or 20.”
Enhanced shoe technology that
has overtaken every event com-
bines with new surfaces — the To-
kyo track seems fast — to create
conditions that help runners go
faster, regardless of the event.
It leads Moses to wonder how
low he might have gone with to-
day’s equipment. Nobody will ev-
er know, but he is impressed with
what today’s crop of hurdlers is
doing with the sport he defined
back in the day.
“Right now, if one of these con-
tenders is in a race and they do ev-
erything right, there’s no doubt
they can be the one to break a
world record again by a tenth of a
second,” Moses said. “It can hap-
pen any time.”
Leaps: American women have beensetting stage for Olympics since 2019FROM PAGE 24
AP
Edwin Moses, shown at the 1980 Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., won107 finals in a row from 197787 and lowered the world record in the400meter hurdles to 47.02 seconds during his prime. Moses, whosays he has been enjoying watching current hurdlers break newbarriers, wonders how he would have done with today’s equipment.MARTIN MEISSNER/AP
Karsten Warholm, of Norway,broke the men’s world record inthe 400meter hurdles with atime of 46.70 seconds.
TOKYO — The path to Valarie Allman’s
gold medal — the first for the U.S. track and
field team at Olympic Stadium — started
with, of all things, a plate of spaghetti.
That promise of pasta from her high
school team was enough to lure her into the
discus and to the point she reached on a
rainy Monday night at the Tokyo Games: A
breakthrough — and a much-needed gold
medal for the United States.
Allman opened the final with a throw of
68.98 meters (226 feet, 3 inches) and then
waited through an hourlong delay and
around 50 throws by her competition. But
nobody could pass her.
“To be here, to be in this moment, feels so
surreal,” Allman said.
About that life-altering meal: As a teenag-
er, she was a dancer who dabbled in differ-
ent track disciplines. But she hadn’t found
her true track calling. The throwers on her
high school team in Longmont, Colo., said
she could partake in a pasta meal with them
on one condition: She had to give throwing a
try.
That’s how the discus became her thing.
“Looking back, gosh darn, that was the
best spaghetti dinner of my entire life,” said
the 26-year-old Allman, a multiple All-
American while at Stanford who now and
trains in Austin, Texas.
Worked out well for the U.S., too.
Hardly anyone figured the country’s first
medal at Olympic Stadium would come
from women’s discus. Not so much because
of the event — American Stephanie Brown
Trafton won it at the 2008 Beijing Games —
but because of where it fell on the schedule:
Day 4.
But what seemed like good bets for wins
— 4x400 mixed relay, men’s 100, women’s
100 hurdles — didn’t materialize.
Allman came through.
Earlier in the day, the American favorite
in the 100-meter hurdles, Keni Harrison,
came in second to Jasmine Camacho-
Quinn, who grew up in South Carolina, went
to college at Kentucky and trains in Florida,
and is taking the hurdles gold to her moth-
er’s native Puerto Rico
“This was what I wanted for this year. I
wanted to be a gold medalist,” Camacho-
Quinn said.
She powered ahead of Harrison early and
finished in 12.37 seconds for a .15 second win
— a blowout in such a short race. Megan
Tapper of Jamaica finished third..
The fact Allman had to wait out a rain de-
lay only added to the drama. She and her fel-
low competitors could be seen sitting under
cover, with rain gear draped across their
heads, after the downpour hit. She was in a
groove before the stoppage, too. All she
thought about during the delay was staying
calm. She tried to think about her technique.
And while her first throw would be her top
attempt, no one could catch her. Kristin Pu-
denz of Germany was second and Yaime Pe-
rez of Cuba captured bronze.
“I’m still waiting for my feet to touch the
ground,” Allman said.
Light on her feet, Allman has a certain
rhythm in the ring. That’s from her dancing
days, which she’s carried over to the discus.
“It’s a second-and-a-half dance that you
do hundreds of times, and really repetitive,
but gosh darn, I do think it’s a dance,” she
said. “It’s poetry. It’s grace. It’s balance. It’s
powerful. It’s figuring how to do it as effi-
ciently as you can.”
She and her coach, Zebulon Sion, have
steadily built her into a gold medal-winning
discus thrower with picture-perfect tech-
nique.
“It’s not how she finishes, but what we try
to do is, in the middle, collect her energy and
release that energy,” Sion explained. “It’s
aesthetically pleasing — the lines, the bal-
ance, it’s stacked just right and no weird an-
gles.”
To think, it all started with a plate of spa-
ghetti.
“Our team is filled with so many incred-
ible athletes, and I am just blown away that I
am not only a medalist,” Allman said, “but I
am the gold medalist.”
Allman wins discus, first US track medal PAT GRAHAM
Associated Press
MATTHIAS SCHRADER /AP
Valarie Allman competes in the discus throw final on Monday in Tokyo. Allman won thegold medal, which was the first medal in track for the US at these Games.
PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
OLYMPICS
TOKYO — Simone Biles is back.
The 2016 Olympic gymnastics
champion will return to competition
in the balance beam final on Tues-
day, a little over a week after step-
ping away from the meet to focus on
her mental health.
“We are so excited to confirm that
you will see two U.S. athletes in the
balance beam final tomorrow — Su-
ni Lee AND Simone Biles!! Can’t
wait to watch you both!” USA Gym-
nastics said in a statement.
The 24-year-old Biles won bronze
on beam in Rio de Janeiro five years
ago and qualified for the eight-wom-
an final at the Ariake Gymnastics
Centre on the first weekend of the
Games.
She removed herself from the
team final on July 27 after a shaky
performance on vault during the
first rotation. She watched from the
sidelines as her three American
teammates completed the meet
without her; the U.S. took silver be-
hind the team known as the Russian
Olympic Committee.
The six-time Olympic medalist
later said she was dealing with is-
sues surrounding air awareness, re-
ferred to as “the twisties” in her
sport. Biles qualified for all five indi-
vidual event finals but took herself
out of four of them: the all-around,
vault, floor exercise and uneven
bars. Lee earned the gold in the all-
around, becoming the fifth straight
American to claim the sport’s mar-
quee title.
Considered to be the greatest
gymnast of all time and the unques-
tioned face of the U.S. Olympic
movement when she arrived in Ja-
pan, Biles continued to train and be
evaluated daily by the USA Gym-
nastics staff after opting out of mul-
tiple finals. She has also been a fix-
ture in the stands supporting Lee,
MyKayla Skinner and Jade Carey
while they competed in the event fi-
nals.
She went into extensive detail
about “the twisties” last week, ex-
plaining she lost the confidence of
knowing what her body was going to
do in midair. It’s not the first time
Biles dealt with the problem, though
she did say the issues followed her to
both uneven bars and beam.
Previous bouts with the phenom-
enon were limited to floor exercise
and vault, where more twisting ele-
ments are required.
“I’m really proud of her for com-
ing back,” said American Jade Ca-
rey, who won gold on floor exercise
Monday while Biles watched sur-
rounded by the rest of the U.S. wom-
en’s team. “She’s been through a lot
this Olympics so I’m really proud
and happy to see her going after
beam.”
Biles says she’llreturn for finalin balance beam
GREGORY BULL/AP
Simone Biles of the UnitedStates celebrates after teammateMykayla Skinner won the silvermedal in the vault during theartistic gymnastics women’sapparatus final on Monday.
It will be her first event
since she removed
herself from team final
BY WILL GRAVES
Associated Press
TOKYO — Jade Carey traveled the world for a spot
in the Olympics. Germany. Qatar. Azerbaijan. Aus-
tralia.
A lot of long flights. A little bit of jet lag. One un-
relenting vision of what could be possible.
She wasn’t going to let a little thing like a sticky
patch of carpet get in her way.
The 21-year-old American gymnast soared to gold
in the women’s floor exercise Monday night, her
powerful and precise routine capping a roller-coast-
er 24 hours in which she narrowly avoided serious
injury during the vault finals when her right foot
caught just as she was preparing her entry.
Carey’s score of 14.366 gave the U.S. women’s team
its fifth medal of the Games and assured that each of
the six athletes who came to Tokyo — Carey, Simone
Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Grace McCallum
and MyKayla Skinner — will be checking some seri-
ous bling in customs when they return home.
Considered one of the favorites after coming in sec-
ond during vault qualifying, Carey was thundering
down the blue runway Sunday when she tripped. Her
planned Cheng vault instead became a simple back
tuck, her medal chances evaporating in the process.
Stunned, she recovered in time to complete her
second vault but finished well off the podium before
quietly retreating to the waiting arms of her father
Brian, her lifelong coach, and the comfort of her
teammates.
Knowing his daughter had less than a day to re-
group in time for the floor finals, Brian Carey turned
off the “coach” switch and flipped on the “dad” one.
“I told her, ‘You know, right now, you feel like yes-
terday was the worst day in your life, but today can be
your best day. So just don’t give up. Keep going,’ ” Ca-
rey said. “And she killed it.”
GREGORY BULL/AP
Jade Carey, of the United States, performs on the floor during the artistic gymnastics women's apparatusfinal at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Monday in Tokyo.
Carey’s long road to theOlympics ends with gold
BY WILL GRAVES
Associated Press
ASHLEY LANDIS/AP
Carey poses after winning the gold medal for thefloor exercise, giving the U.S. women's gymnasticsteam its fifth medal of the Games.
CHIBA, Japan — American
wrestler Adeline Gray fell short of
the career-defining moment she
sought for so long.
Germany’s Aline Rotter-Focken
beat her 7-3 Monday night in the
76-kilogram women’s freestyle
wrestling final.
Gray is a five-time world cham-
pion, but she had never claimed an
Olympic medal. She finished a dis-
appointing seventh at the Rio de Ja-
niero Games in 2016 while fighting
through injuries that kept her out of
action for a year.
She bounced back to win two
more world titles and earn the No. 1
seed at the Olympics. She was con-
fident she would join Helen Marou-
lis as the only two U.S. women’s
wrestling Olympic gold medalists.
Even with the loss, Gray feels her
legacy is safe. It was just the sixth
medal for a U.S. women’s wrestler.
“A silver medal is not what I
came for, but it’s what I have,”
Gray said. “And I’m very proud to
bring home a medal from the
Olympics for
Team USA. I
wanted it to be a
different color,
but I’m also very
excited about go-
ing back with
some hardware.”
Rotter-Focken,
the No. 2 seed,
was emotional after the victory.
“It’s crazy, it’s unbelievable,”
she said. “I dreamed about it for
many years and I worked for this
every day. It’s unreal right now. I
think I need a few years to recog-
nize this.”
Rotter-Focken scored an early
point for Gray’s inactivity. She
countered a shot by Gray to go up
3-0, then scored four points on a
throw to go up 7-0.
The throw surprised Gray.
“I’m a big, strong woman, and
she put her hips into me and
squashed me to the ground,” Gray
said. “And she took advantage of
some length that she has over me.”
Gray finally got on the board on a
step-out with just over a minute to
go. She scored two on a takedown
with about 30 seconds remaining,
but that was all she could manage.
She then watched her friend cel-
ebrate and carry the German flag.
They both are 30 years old and have
competed since their teenage
years.
“Aline is a friend, and I am so
proud that I got to go out on the mat
and compete with her,” Gray said.
“I wanted to come out on top, but
she did this time. But I’m sure this
will just be a friendship that blos-
soms even more.”
Gray loses in 75-kg wrestling final, settles for silverBY CLIFF BRUNT
Associated Press
Gray
Tuesday, August 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23
OLYMPICS
KASHIMA, Japan — Carli
Lloyd, clutch in so many critical
moments for the U.S. women’s
soccer team, failed to connect
against Canada on Monday night
and the Americans won’t play for a
fifth Olympic gold medal.
Lloyd’s look in the 86th minute
with the United States trailing by a
goal hit the crossbar as Canada
won 1-0 and dropped the Ameri-
cans into the bronze medal match.
It is the second straight Olympics
that the U.S. failed to reach the
gold medal game.
The Americans were bounced
from the 2016 Rio Games by Swe-
den in the quarterfinals.
As Canada celebrated wildly at
Ibaraki Kashima Stadium, Lloyd
knelt to the turf with her head in
her hands.
“That wasn’t good enough,” said
Lloyd, the oldest player on the U.S.
team at 39 and playing in what was
likely her last major tournament
with the national team.
The U.S. lost starting goalkeep-
er Alyssa Naeher when she came
down awkwardly after going up
for the ball around the 20th min-
ute. Trainers attended to her for
some five minutes as backup
Adrianna Franch warmed up on
the sideline.
Naeher tried to stay in the game,
but was replaced by Franch in the
30th minute.
Canada pounced in the 74th
minute on Jessie Fleming’s penal-
ty kick, which gave Canada its first
win against the United States since
2001.
Fleming booted her PK past a
diving Franch and took off toward
the sideline, sliding on her knees
before teammates swarmed
around her.
The U.S. will play for the bronze
on Thursday in Kashima against
either Australia, a 1-0 loser to Swe-
den in the other semifinal.
Canada will play for the gold Fri-
day at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium
against Sweden. Canada features
Quinn, a midfielder who will be-
come the first openly transgender
athlete to win an Olympic medal.
Quinn won bronze in 2016 before
coming out as transgender.
It is the second straight Olym-
pics that the Americans, the two-
time defending World Cup cham-
pions, will not play for the gold
medal. The team was uncharac-
teristically uneven in Japan, start-
ing with a 3-0 loss to Sweden that
snapped a 44-game unbeaten
streak.
The Americans bounced back to
beat New Zealand but then came a
scoreless draw with Australia in
the group stage. A 4-2 penalty
shootout against the Netherlands
on Friday advanced the U.S. to the
semifinals.
The loss of goalkeeper Naeher
clearly hurt the U.S. She was key to
the victory over the Dutch in the
quarterfinals, with a penalty save
during regulation and two more in
the deciding shootout. After the
semifinal loss, she was on crutch-
es.
“I think this is my first loss ever
to Canada,” Megan Rapinoe said.
“It sucks not to be able to compete
for a gold medal, which is what we
wanted. Not a great performance,
either. That’s the most frustrating
thing.”
U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski
has been creative with his lineups
throughout the tournament. On
Monday, Lynn Williams, original-
ly an alternate, started her second
straight game. Lloyd, Rapinoe and
Samantha Mewis were on the
bench to start.
Lloyd actually had two attempts
against Canada. She fired off a shot
in the 65th minute that forced Can-
adian goalkeeper Stephanie
Labbe to leap to push it over the
crossbar. A short time later, Labbe
stopped Julie Ertz’s header off a
corner from Rapinoe as the United
States increased the pressure.
“Definitely had a bit of a mo-
mentum shift there in the second
half, and came on strong,” Labbe
said. “I think for us it was about
staying tight defensively and that’s
something we’ve done all tourna-
ment.”
Canada upsets US in women’s soccer
FERNANDO VERGARA/AP
Canada’s Vanessa Gilles, left, comforts the United States’ Carli Lloydafter a women’s semifinal soccer match on Monday in Kashima,Japan. Canada won 10.
BY ANNE M. PETERSON
Associated Press
TOKYO — April Ross and Alix Klineman
put away a Cuban team they had never
played before.
Next up for the Americans is one of the
most familiar faces in all of beach volley-
ball: Four-time Olympian — and defending
gold medalist — Laura Ludwig.
Ross and Klineman beat Cuba in straight
sets, 21-17, 21-15 in their knockout round
opener on Monday to reach the quarterfi-
nals, where they will meet the German and
her current partner, Maggie Kozuch.
Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst won it all
in Rio de Janeiro, where Ross and Kerri
Walsh Jennings took bronze. With Kozuch,
Ludwig advanced to the round of eight by
beating Brazil’s Agatha and Duda on Sun-
day in three sets.
“We have a lot of respect for them and, ob-
viously, Laura’s success,” said Klineman,
who also played against Kozuch on the Ital-
ian indoor volleyball tour. “We know they’re
going to come out motivated. As are we.”
Asked how many times she had played
against the 35-year-old Ludwig over the
years, Ross said “a lot. A lot.” According to
the Beach Volleyball Database, Ross and
her partners are 20-8 over the years against
Ludwig and hers; they did not meet in Lon-
don or Rio.
One day after two U.S. teams were elim-
inated in the round of 16, Ross and Kline-
man beat Lidy Echeverria and Leila Marti-
nez to keep the Americans’ best medal
hopes alive.
After losing the first set, Cuba scored the
first four points of the second and still led
9-5 when the Americans cut the deficit to
two. Then, at 9-7, Echeverria landed under
the net after chasing a ball, and Klineman
landed on top of her.
Cuba was initially awarded the point, but
the Americans complained to chair referee
Rui Carvalho that there was interference;
he conferred with second referee Mariko
Satomi, and they gave the point to the Amer-
icans.
“It’s just people going for the ball, and she
came under,” Klineman said. “We got the
point, and I got a little fired up and we used
that for some momentum going forward.
But, you know, no hard feelings. I think
we’re both just trying to make a play.”
Instead of a 10-7 Cuban lead, it was 9-8.
And Echeverria was slow to get up. After
a few minutes on the sand with her partner
tending to her, she got up and tested her
knee.
“Once we knew that she was a little bit
hurt, we were trying to allow her to gather
herself,” Ross said.
The match continued, but not for much
longer.
“Obviously, I don’t want to see anybody
injured,” Klineman said, “especially at the
Olympics.”
Also Monday, No. 1 seed Sarah Pavan and
Melissa Humana-Paredes of Canada beat
Spain in straight sets. They join the Cana-
dian team of Heather Bansley and Brandie
Wilkerson in the quarterfinals. That pair
knocked out Americans Sarah Sponcil and
Kelly Claes on Sunday.
“Canada is the only nation that has two
teams still in the quarterfinals,” Humana-
Paredes said. “Normally at this stage, you
see two Americans, two Brazilians. Here,
you’re seeing two Canadians now, and I
think that says a lot about our program and
our federation. And I think as a country, we
should be really proud of where we are in
beach volleyball.”
Ross, Klineman advance to beach quarterfinalsBY JIMMY GOLEN
Associated Press
PETROS GIANNAKOURIS/AP
April Ross, left, and teammate Alix Klineman of the United States celebrate a playduring their women’s beach volleyball victory against Cuba on Monday.
HugeleapsUS track legend Moseslikes what he sees intoday’s hurdles game
BY EDDIE PELLS
Associated Press
TOKYO — Better shoes, better
tracks, better technique, better train-
ing.
Any of that could explain how Syd-
ney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muham-
mad have pushed hurdling into a new
golden age. Or maybe
the best reason for
the renaissance, ac-
cording to the best
hurdler in history, is
that they have each
other.
“I wish I’d had that
kind of competition
when I was running,”
Edwin Moses told The Associated
Press. “I knew I could run 46.5, but I
never had to work that hard at the be-
ginning of a race, let alone at the end.”
Moses, the man who once won a re-
markable 107 finals in a row from 1977-
87 and who lowered the world record
to 47.02 seconds during his prime, says
he has been enjoying watching hur-
dlers break new barriers over the past
two years.
The drama is expected to reach a
crescendo this week at the Tokyo
Olympics.
McLaughlin and Muhammad, who
have lowered the world record in each
of their last three races on a major
stage, are expected to square off in the
final Wednesday. Karsten Warholm of
Norway has been rewriting the record
book on the men’s side, and a show-
down with Rai Benjamin of the U.S. is
in the offing Tuesday.
Only four men have ever cracked 47
Sydney Mclaughlin became the firstwoman to crack 52 seconds in the400meter hurdles when she ran a51.90 in June’s U.S. Olympic trials.
PETR DAVID JOSEK/AP
PAGE 24 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Tuesday, August 3, 2021
SPORTSAnother smashing start
Bryant homers for Giants, as ex-CubsRizzo, Báez did in debuts ›› MLB, Page 18
US women upset by Canada in semifinals ›› Soccer, Page 23
INSIDE
■ US gymnastCarey wins goldin floor exercisePage 22
■ Biles to returnin beam finalPage 22
■ Americanwomen reachquarterfinals inbeach volleyballPage 23
■ Allman’s win in discus givesUS 1st track goldPage 21
OLYMPICS
Muhammad
SEE LEAPS ON PAGE 21
ASHLEY LANDIS/AP