MILITARY Navy fires destroyer commander over loss of ‘confidence’Page 3
BY LISA MASCARO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate opened the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump with quiet ceremony Thursday — senators standing at their desks to swear an oath of “impartial justice” as jurors, House prosecutors formally reciting the charges and Chief Justice John Roberts presiding.
The trial, only the third such undertaking in American history, is unfolding at the start of the election year, a time of deep political division in the nation. Four of the senators sitting in judgment on Trump are running for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge him in the fall.
“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!” intoned the
Senate’s sergeant at arms, calling the pro-ceedings to order just past noon.
Senators filled the chamber, an unusual sight in itself, sitting silently under strict rules that prohibit talking or cellphones, for a trial that will test not only Trump’s presidency but also the nation’s three branches of power and its system of checks and balances.
The Constitution mandates the chief jus-tice serve as the presiding officer, and Rob-erts made the short trip across the street from the Supreme Court to the Capitol. He
has long insisted judges are not politicians and is expected to serve as a referee for the proceedings. Senators rose quickly when he appeared in his plain black robe.SEE IMPEACHMENT ON PAGE 6
Senate impeachment trial opensLawmakers vow ‘impartial justice’ against Trump
ASTRID RIECKEN/For The Washington Post
The articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., left, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., escort Chief Justice John Roberts into the Senate chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday.
BY CHAD GARLAND
Stars and Stripes
IRBIL, Iraq — An Iraqi SWAT team this week captured a high-ranking Islamic State official who pictures show crammed intothe bed of a police pickup truck after his arrest in Mosul.
The arrest of ISIS mufti Shifaal-Nima, also known as AbuAbdul Bari, was announced bythe Iraqi government’s secu-rity media cell in a statementThursday.
Bari, a preacher known for“provocative speeches against the security forces” is consideredone of the top leaders of “ISIS gangs,” the statement said.
Considered by ISIS to be an authority in Quranic law, Bari is-sued religious rulings, or fatwas,ordering the execution of schol-ars and clerics who refused to pledge allegiance to the terroristgroup when it occupied Mosul, the statement said. He also or-dered the July 2014 destructionof a mosque built at the site be-lieved to be the burial place ofthe biblical prophet Jonah, whoonce had a notable encounterwith a whale.
The mosque was one of severalcultural sites the extremist groupdestroyed as it swept across SyriaSEE JABBA ON PAGE 4
ISIS’ ‘very own Jabba the Hutt’ captured in Iraq
Twitter photo
Abu Abdul Bari, a high-ranking Islamic State official, has been captured in Mosul, Iraq, officials announced Thursday.
Dershowitz, Starr join Trump’s defense team Page 6
NFL PLAYOFFSOf the coaches in league’s final four, Reid is the outlier Back page
DOD: 11 troops treated for concussions after Iranian attack » Page 4
MOVIES De-aging technologyturns back the clock for venerable actorsPage 11
PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
American Roundup ..... 14Comics ...................... 16Crossword ................. 16Health & Fitness ........ 13Movies ...................... 11Opinion ..................... 15Sports ...................17-24Video Games ............. 12
T O D A YIN STRIPES
BUSINESS/WEATHER
Military ratesEuro costs (Jan. 20) ..........................$1.1399Dollar buys (Jan. 20) .........................€0.8773British pound (Jan. 20) ........................$1.34Japanese yen (Jan. 20) ...................... 107.00South Korean won (Jan. 20) ..........1,129.00
Switzerland (Franc) ...........................0.9679Thailand (Baht) ....................................30.39Turkey (Lira) ........................................5.8898(Military exchange rates are those available to customers at military banking facilities in the country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check with your local military banking facility. Commercial rates are interbank rates provided for reference when buying currency. All figures are foreign currencies to one dollar, except for the British pound, which is represented in dollars-to-pound, and the euro, which is dollars-to-euro.)
EXCHANGE RATES
INTEREST RATESPrime rate ................................................ 4.75Discount rate .......................................... 2.25Federal funds market rate ................... 1.543-month bill ............................................. 1.5230-year bond ........................................... 2.26
WEATHER OUTLOOK
Bahrain68/63
Baghdad61/52
Doha71/55
KuwaitCity
68/57
Riyadh75/48
Djibouti81/72
Kandahar40/34
Kabul31/12
SATURDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST SUNDAY IN THE PACIFIC
Misawa36/28
Guam81/74
Tokyo40/20
Okinawa64/61
Sasebo48/44
Iwakuni47/44
Seoul38/28
Osan40/29 Busan
44/31
The weather is provided by the American Forces Network Weather Center,
2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.
Mildenhall/Lakenheath
40/34
Ramstein39/36
Stuttgart42/38
Lajes,Azores64/61
Rota61/51
Morón58/46 Sigonella
55/40
Naples52/44
Aviano/Vicenza45/36
Pápa33/30
Souda Bay51/48
SATURDAY IN EUROPE
Brussels42/37
Zagan42/35
Drawsko Pomorskie
43/37
Associated Press
BEIJING — China’s economic growth sank to a new multi-de-cade low in 2019 as Beijing fought a tariff war with Washington, but forecasters said a U.S.-Chinese trade truce might help to revive consumer and business activity.
The world’s second-largest economy grew by 6.1%, down from 2018’s 6.6%, already the lowest since 1990, government data showed Friday. Growth in the three months ending in De-cember held steady at the previ-
ous quarter’s level of 6% over a year earlier.
Business sentiment received a boost from Wednesday’s signing of an interim deal in the costly war over Beijing’s technology ambitions and trade surplus. The Trump administration agreed to cancel planned tariff hikes on additional Chinese imports and Beijing promised to buy more American farm goods, though punitive duties already imposed by both sides stayed in place.
The Chinese downturn might
not have bottomed out yet, but improved activity in December suggested the cooling of tensions might be encouraging companies and consumers to spend and in-vest, private sector economists said. The agreement “is a signal that the situation is unlikely to de-teriorate,” said Chaoping Zhu of J.P. Morgan Asset Management in a report.
“Corporate confidence keeps improving,” said Zhu. That might help to “provide strong support” to economic growth.
China’s 2019 economic growth weakens amid trade war
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3
BY ROSE L. THAYER
Stars and Stripes
AUSTIN, Texas — Offices of the company responsible for hous-ing at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma were raided Tuesday by Air Force and Environmental Protection Agency investigators searching for evidence that fami-lies were exposed to asbestos.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said Thursday in a statement that the agencies were investigating sus-pected Clean Air Act violations by Balfour Beatty, the private company that manages housing on the base.
“While this matter is still very much under investigation, should these or any of the other ongoing federal investigations be substan-tiated, Balfour Beatty and those who perpetrated any wrongdo-ing against our military families must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Officials for Balfour Beatty said in a statement that the EPA’s investigation is related to asbes-tos flooring removal that was re-ported in September.
“When that event occurred, [Balfour Beatty] promptly and voluntarily reported the incident to the local Oklahoma Depart-ment of Environmental Quality. The company will continue to co-operate fully with the investiga-tion,” according to the statement.
Linda Card, spokeswoman for Air Force Office of Special In-vestigations, confirmed Thurs-day that investigators from both agencies executed a search war-rant at Balfour Beatty offices and seized evidence. Because the in-vestigation remains open, no fur-
ther information can be released, she said.
In a letter from Balfour Beatty officials to Oklahoma environ-mental officials, the company wrote that a contractor perform-ing floor replacements in homes at Tinker’s McNarney Manor neighborhood used an unlicensed subcontractor to remove asbes-tos-containing vinyl and linoleum flooring without filing required notifications or employing appro-priate work practices.
The contractor performed work in September in up to 30 houses, including 20 homes that had as-bestos flooring, according to the company’s letter. Balfour Beatty officials wrote they were working with base commanders to notify and relocate affected residents so a licensed asbestos-abatement contractor could enter the homes and clean properly.
Further review found that in the previous year, the same com-pany had torn up flooring in 13
homes that contained asbestos, according to the letter. Those residents were also relocated for cleaning.
Balfour Beatty “reported these findings to base command, and has instituted a jointly agreed upon action plan with the Air Force to relocate residents in the 13 occupied units, in advance of mobilizing licensed asbestos-abatement contractors to clean and perform air testing in each unit,” according to the letter.
Balfour Beatty, which oversees 43,000 homes for the Air Force, Army and Navy at 55 installa-tions, also faces a federal inves-tigation by the FBI and the Air Force regarding allegations of falsifying work orders at Tinker Air Force Base in order to earn financial incentive bonuses. Stripes reporter Corey Dickstein con-tributed to this [email protected]: @Rose_Lori
Saturday, January 18, 2020
BY COREY DICKSTEIN
Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — The com-mander of a San Diego-based, guided-missile destroyer has been fired, the Navy announced Thursday without citing a reason why the officer was removed.
Cmdr. Bob Bowen was relieved of command of the USS Decatur by Capt. Dan Cobian, the com-mander of Destroyer Squadron 21, who lost “confidence in his ability to command,” according
to a Navy state-ment. Bowen had command-ed the ship since April 2018, lead-ing it through a deployment largely in the Pacific that con-cluded in April 2019.
Navy officials on Thursday declined to provide additional details about Bowen’s firing, but one official said it came several
weeks after an investigation was completed. The official did not detail the nature of that probe but said it included no criminal allegations.
Bowen will be assigned tem-porarily to a job in San Diego, according to the statement an-nouncing his firing.
Cmdr. Jerry Jackson, a former commander of the destroyer USS Sampson, will temporarily com-mand the Decatur until its execu-tive officer, Cmdr. Derek Rader, takes command at a later date,
the Navy said.The recent deployment of the
Decatur saw the ship participate in several multinational exer-cises. In October 2018, the De-catur helped rescue a crew of seven fishermen stranded off the coast of Sri Lanka in an inoper-able boat. A few weeks earlier, the Decatur was in the news after it nearly collided with a Chinese destroyer in the South China Sea.
In that incident, the Chinese destroyer, the Luyang, aggres-sively approached the Decatur
and issued warnings for it to leavethe area, coming within about 45yards of the American ship, Navyofficials said at the time.
Bowen, from Jacksonville, N.C.,was previously an enlisted sailor,rising to the rank of chief pettyofficer before commissioning asa surface warfare officer. He has served previously in Bahrain andEurope and was the executive of-ficer of the Decatur before takingcommand of the ship. [email protected]: @CDicksteinDC
MILITARY
Base housing company’s office raided in asbestos investigation
Bowen
Naval officer relieved of destroyer command
KELLY WHITE/U.S. Air Force
Housing units at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. Balfour Beatty oversees 43,000 homes for 55 military installations.
10th Mountain Division headquarters tapped for Afghanistan deploymentBY COREY DICKSTEIN
Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — The Army’s 10th Mountain Division head-quarters will deploy to Afghani-stan in the coming months on a regular troop rotation , the ser-
vice announced Friday.The unit, based in Fort Drum,
N.Y., will replace the 1st Armored Division headquarters as a com-mand and control element for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the early spring, said Lt. Col. Kamil Sztalkoper, a spokesman for the
10th Mountain Division. The sol-diers will spread out to locations across the country, supporting operations largely to train Afghan forces and fight terrorist groups, including the Islamic State.
Maj. Gen. Brian Mennes, the division’s commander, will lead
the deployment. In a statement, Mennes called the 10th Mountain the “most deployed in the Army.”
The division headquarters will follow other elements of the 10th Mountain Division into Afghani-stan on a planned nine-month rotation, Sztalkoper said. The
division’s 10th Combat AviationBrigade deployed late last year toAfghanistan and its 1st BrigadeCombat Team will deploy to thatcountry in the near future .
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BY CAITLIN M. KENNEY Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey will lead a new 60-person team for the De-fense Department to develop new methods to counter drone strikes, which are increasing on the bat-tlefields of the Middle East and Afghanistan, Pentagon officials announced earlier this week.
“The idea is to take all of the ef-fort in terms of development and fielding and come up with three to five systems which are the best for counter-[unmanned aerial systems],” Ellen Lord, undersec-retary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said Tuesday to reporters at a Defense Writers Group meeting.
Those systems consist of hard-ware — like radars — and soft-ware that can detect, access, and engage hostile drones, as well as the personnel who operate the system.
The use of drones on battle-fields by military units and ter-rorist groups has grown during the last few years as the technol-ogy has become more accessible. The Washington Post and The New York Times have reported the Islamic State uses off-the-shelf drones that were configured to drop grenades on targets.
“It’s important for the public to understand that the [drone strike] threat is real, and the department is taking it very seriously,” a de-fense official said on the condi-tion of anonymity to discuss the threats posed by drones to ser-vice members. “Ten years ago, [improvised explosive devices]
were the primary threat becausethey were hidden, relatively inex-pensive and represented a deadlystandoff capability. Today, smallUAS’s are extremely cheap, and represent both an [intelligence,surveillance, and reconnais-sance] and direct threat capabil-ity against U.S. service membersaround the world.”
In December, Lord announced the Army was going to take re-sponsibility for the Defense De-partment’s efforts to develop newmethods to counter drone strikes. She said the department needed to “continue to focus heavily oncounter-UAS systems and strate-gies,” after traveling to the Mid-dle East and Afghanistan. Lord said Tuesday that the drone teamwill operate out of a new office in Crystal City, which is near thePentagon.
The Pentagon will decide inApril what three to five systemswill be used by U.S. forces to counter drones.
The Sept. 14 attack on a SaudiArabian oil facility involved aswarm of suspected Iraniandrones and highlighted the needto develop ways to defend against the range of drones, from small to very large, Lord said. She alsosaid U.S. forces have quickly field-ed a method to prevent a similar attack from happening but wouldnot elaborate further.
“Basically, what that did wasreally continue to make clear to the department that counter-UASis very important in terms of the technology,” Lord said. [email protected]@caitlinmkenney
Army general to lead new team to counter drones on battlefield
PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
BY SUSANNAH GEORGE
The Washington Post
ISLAMABAD — Taliban and American negotiators are meet-ing in Qatar for what a Taliban spokesman called “fruitful dis-cussions” that are expected to continue for “several days.”
The two sides “discussed the signing of the agreement and the ceremony for it,” Taliban spokes-man Suhail Shaheen tweeted Friday.
It’s unclear what agreement Shaheen is referring to. Neither Shaheen nor the State Depart-ment responded to requests for comment.
Negotiators reached a draft deal in September that was abruptly scrapped by President Donald Trump. That agreement would have required the withdrawal of thousands of American troops from Afghanistan in exchange
for a Taliban pledge not to harbor terrorists.
In the years before he ran for president, Trump called for end-ing U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. Reducing American troop levels now would increase pressure on Afghan government forces, which continue to struggle to carry out operations without close U.S. support.
Earlier this month a Taliban attack claimed the lives of two U.S. service members when a roadside bomb exploded as their vehicle passed. A Taliban spokes-man, Zabiullah Mujahid, touted the attack on Twitter, saying the blast shredded the vehicle and killed the “invaders.”
Friday’s announcement comes after statements from Pakistani and Taliban officials that the insurgent group is prepared to reduce violence in an effort to reboot stalled peace talks. But
those statements lacked specifics on how long it would last, where it would apply and whether it would include the cessation of attacks on both Afghan and American forces.
The Associated Press reported that Taliban officials said the group gave U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad “a document outlining their offer for a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan that would last between seven and 10 days.”
The Afghan government is de-manding a full cease-fire, claim-ing a “reduction in violence” is too vague.
Former intelligence chief Am-rullah Saleh, a close ally of Af-ghan President Ashraf Ghani, criticized the phrase “reduction in violence” as too vague. “We don’t have [reduction in violence] in the dictionary of war & peace,” he said in a tweet Thursday.
BY ALEX HORTON The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Eleven U.S. troops were injured following the Jan. 8 Iranian strikes on a base in Iraq, defense officials said Thursday, reversing assurances from President Donald Trump and the Pentagon that no Americans had been hurt.
Those troops are still being assessed for concussion symptoms following the blast, Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokes-man for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.
Eight U.S. troops were evacuated to a U.S. base in Germany, he said, and the other three were sent to Camp Arifjan in
Kuwait.“When deemed fit for duty, the service
members are expected to return to Iraq,” Urban said.
U.S. officials disclosed numerous con-cussions as early as Jan. 13 but did not disclose the evacuations until Defense One reported those details.
The acknowledgement marks a sharp turn from initial reports from defense offi-cials and the president, who described the effects of the missile salvos launched in re-taliation for a U.S. strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
“No Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties. All of our soldiers
are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases,” Trump said soon after the attack.
But concussions are not always as im-mediately evident as shrapnel or gunshot wounds, and in the ensuing days, U.S. troops were assessed for blast injuries. The 11 evacuated were sent for further care and screening “in an abundance of caution,” Urban said.
The missile barrage last week against the sprawling Ain al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq left deep craters and the crumpled wreckage of living quarters and a helicopter launch site. At least two sol-diers were thrown through the window of a meters-high tower.
Although there was some speculationthat the attacks were designed to avoid ca-sualties, commanders at the base believethat the strikes were intended to kill U.S.troops. At least “a couple of dozen” person-nel were treated for concussions across thebase, a U.S. military official said.
The base hosts about 2,000 troops, 1,500 of them from the U.S.-led coalition.
It is not clear when the personnel wereevacuated. On Jan. 12, two days after theattack, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper described damage to facilities and equip-ment but offered assurances that there were “no casualties.” Casualties are typi-cally described by the U.S. military as per-sonnel both wounded and killed.
Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s su-preme leader lashed out at West-ern countries as he led Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years, dismissing “American clowns” who he said pretend to support the Iranian nation but want to stick their “poi-soned dagger” into its back.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used his rare appearance at the weekly prayers to deliver a fiery address in which he insisted Iran would not bow to U.S. pressure after months of crushing sanctions and a series of recent crises — from the killing of a top Iranian gener-al to the accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane.
Khamenei said the mass funer-als for Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, show that the Iranian people support the Islam-ic Republic despite its recent tri-als. He said the “cowardly” hit on Soleimani had taken out the most effective commander in the battle against Islamic State .
In response to Soleimani’s kill-ing, Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting U.S. troops in Iraq, without causing serious injuries. Khamenei said the strike had dealt a “blow to America’s image” as a super-power. In the part of his sermon delivered in Arabic, he said the
“real punishment” would be inforcing the U.S. to withdraw from the Middle East.
After the missile strike, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard braced for an American counterattack that never came, it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian jetliner shortlyafter takeoff from Tehran’s in-ternational airport, killing all 176 passengers on board, mostlyIranians.
Authorities concealed their role in the tragedy for three days,initially blaming the crash on a technical problem. When it came,their admission of responsibility triggered days of street protests,which security forces dispersedwith live ammunition and teargas.
Khamenei called the shoot-down of the plane a “bitter acci-dent” that he said had saddenedIran as much as it made its en-emies happy. He said Iran’s en-emies had seized on the crash toquestion the Islamic Republic, the Revolutionary Guard and thearmed forces.
Ukraine’s Foreign MinisterVadym Prystaiko said on Friday that his country wants Iran to issue a formal document admit-ting its guilt. Ukraine, Canadaand other nations whose citizensdied in the crash have demandedIran pay compensation to the vic-tims’ families.
FROM FRONT PAGE
and Iraq, claiming large swaths of territory for its self-styled caliphate. The group has been ousted from all the territory it once held but remains an in-surgent threat in the region.
Memes including “He puts the fat in fatwa” spread on social media after photos were posted of Bari seated on cushions inside his apparent hideout in one image and loaded into the back of a pickup truck in another.
The images of his arrest would strike a psycho-logical blow against ISIS, Maajid Nawaz, founder of the London-based counter-extremist organization Quilliam, wrote on Facebook.
“Gluttony is frowned upon by jihadists. But also, ISIS branded themselves as fighters possessing rare courage & discipline … meanwhile this walrus was their top religious cleric,” he said.
Macer Gifford, a British anti-ISIS activist who fought with a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Syria, applauded the arrest in a Twitter post.
“I’m delighted to say that the Islamic State’s very own Jabba the [Hutt] has been captured,” he wrote, comparing the cleric to the slug-like gang lord of the Star Wars universe who lived on the desert planet Tatooine. “Good luck hanging him in Iraq.”
Iraqi officials did not immediately respond to in-quiries about the raid, which occurred as U.S.-led coalition forces reportedly resumed their support for government anti-ISIS operations.
Nawaz also compared Bari to Jabba the Hutt and offered a Star Wars-themed joke about the arrest.
“Today was a good day for the Force & a bad day for evil,” he [email protected]: @chadgarland
MIDEAST
Troops were injured in strike on base in Iraq
Iran’s top leader strikes defiant tone amid crises
OFFICE OF THE IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER/AP
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers his sermon in the Friday prayers at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran.
Latest talks between Taliban and US are expected to last for days
Jabba: Social media memes spread following arrest
TWITTER/@AliBaroodi
Online pictures of the arrest of Islamic State official Abu Abdul Bari show that he had to be crammed into the bed of a police pickup truck after his capture in Mosul.
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5Saturday, January 18, 2020
BY JOHN VANDIVER
Stars and Stripes
The Army paid “bug bounty” hackers more than $275,000 for detecting vulnerabilities in pop-ular military web sites, which defense officials say is a step toward creating a more secure cyberspace.
The Defense Department, in coordination with the Defense Digital Service and the cyber-security group HackerOne, an-nounced earlier this week the winners of “Hack the Army 2.0,” which allows hackers to probe for security flaws.
The competition, which ended in November, targeted more than 60 publicly accessible web as-sets, including army.mil, goarmy.mil and the Arlington Cemetery website.
Fifty-two hackers from around the world reported 146 vulner-abilities over a five-week span, the event sponsors said in a joint statement Wednesday.
“Hackers from the U.S., Can-ada, Romania, Portugal, Nether-lands, and Germany participated, with the first vulnerability being reported within four hours of the program launching,” the state-ment said.
The top individual payout was $20,000.
“Participation from hackers is key in helping the Department of Defense boost its security prac-tices beyond basic compliance checklists to get to real security,” Alex Romero, digital service ex-pert at the Defense Digital Ser-vice, said in a statement. “With each Hack the Army challenge, our team has strengthened its se-curity posture.”
The military has been sponsor-
ing bug bounties for several yearsin connection with heightenedconcerns about vulnerabilities.
The threat posed by hackersgoes well beyond publicly ac-cessed military web sites. A 2018 GAO report said cyberweakness-es are widespread and can affect real-world missions.
“DOD testers routinely foundmission critical cyber vulnerabil-ities in nearly all weapon systemsthat were under development,”the GAO report said.
Part of the difficulty instrengthening defenses is thePentagon’s problem with recruit-ing and retaining highly skilledexperts, whose talents earn topdollar in the private sector, the GAO said.
The aim of the competition isto disclose vulnerabilities to se-curity teams so they can bettersecure digital assets.
The second-place finisher inthe competition, identified as @alyssa_herrera, said Defense De-partment programs “are some of my favorites to hack on.”
“It is so exciting to know that thevulnerabilities I find go towardsstrengthening Army defenses to protect millions of people,” thehacker said.
The other top winners wereidentified as @erbbysam and @cdl.
This was the second “Hack theArmy” challenge and the ninth time that HackerOne has run acompetition with the DefenseDepartment.
The Army has canceled a top-priority program to replace the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Ve-hicle after receiving just one valid bid for the $45 billion project.
In a statement late Thursday, the service said it had called off solicitation for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle after deciding to revisit the specifica-tions, acquisition strategy and schedule.
“We remain committed to the OMFV program as it is our sec-ond-highest modernization prior-ity, and the need for this ground combat vehicle capability is real,” Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of
the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said in the state-ment. “It is imperative we get it right for our soldiers.”
The M2 Bradley, which has been in service since 1981, trans-ports infantry on the battlefield, provides fire support to dis-mounted troops and combats enemy vehicles.
Updated numerous times, “the M-2 Bradley is considered to have reached the technological limits of its capacity to accommo-date new electronics, armor, and defense systems,” the Congres-sional Research Service said in a report last fall.
Two past efforts to replace the Bradley in 2009 and 2014 were
canceled for cost-associated reasons.
By last October, the Army had received just two qualifying bids for its latest replacement attempt — from General Dynamics and a joint venture by Raytheon and Germany’s Rheinmetall.
The Army disqualified the lat-ter because Rheinmetall couldn’t ship a prototype of its Lynx KF41 Infantry Fighting Vehicle to the U.S. by the service’s deadline. That left General Dynamics as the sole bidder.
“The most prudent means of ensuring long-term program-matic success is to get this multi-billion-dollar effort correct,” said Gen. John M. Murray, com-
mander of the Army Futures Command. “We are going to take what we have learned and apply it to the OMFV program to devel-
op our path and build a healthy level of competition back into theprogram.”[email protected]
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Some reli-gious liberty groups are protest-ing a blessing ceremony for a Protestant Bible to be used by the new U.S. Space Force, saying the ceremony this weekend violates church-state barriers and is an insult to America’s diversity.
Washington National Cathe-dral, seat of the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, tweeted an image Sunday of Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith and the Rev. Carl Wright, the denomina-tion’s bishop for military branch-es and federal agencies, blessing a King James Bible along with Maj. Gen. Steven Schaick, the Air Force chief of chaplains.
The Space Force, part of the Department of the Air Force, is the newest branch of the U.S. military and is dedicated to space warfare.
“The men and women of our Armed Services are a microcosm of our nation’s rich diversity. An official Christian Bible for the #SpaceForce oath violates the
constitutional right to exercise religious freedom that these Air Force officers swear to defend,” the Anti-Defamation League tweeted Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, the Freedom From Religion Foundation tweet-ed that it was “protesting a cer-emony where the newly formed U.S. #SpaceForce designated and blessed its own bible. Select-ing one book as the official ‘holy book’ of a governmental branch is improper and an egregious violation of the Establishment Clause.”
The Rev. Canon Leslie Nunez-Steffensen, assistant to Wright, wrote in a statement that the cathedral “misspoke” by using the word “official” in its tweet. Using a holy book of any kind or none is fine in military culture, Steffensen wrote. Wright was traveling and not available for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Air Force said Wednesday that there is no official sacred text for any branch of the U.S. military. High-ranking leaders often use
a Bible or other sacred text for their swearing-in ceremonies, said Ann Stefanek, but members of the military taking an oath in the typical promotion ceremony simply raise their right hand with no text.
She said the Bible that was blessed in the Sunday ceremony was used Tuesday at the White House swearing-in of Gen. John Raymond, who leads the new Space Force.
Stefanek said the Air Force’s first chief of staff, Gen. Carl Spaatz, used a Bible for his 1947 swearing-in ceremony. He signed that Bible and kept it in the chief of staff’s office. Every chief of staff since, she said — whether Christian, whether they used it in a swearing-in — has signed the Bible. Raymond wanted to start a similar tradition in the new Space Force.
“He signed it, and that will be an opportunity for any future chief of space operations,” she said. “It’s an option. It’s a person-al choice.”
MILITARY
Hackers help Army find flaws on its websites
JAMAR MARCEL PUGH/U.S. Army
The Army has canceled its competition to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, like the one shown above, after receiving only one qualifying bid.
DANIELLE E. THOMAS/Washington National Cathedral
Randolph Marshall Hollerith, left, dean of Washington National Cathedral, and Carl Wright, center, the Episcopal Church’s bishop suffragan for the Armed Forces and Federal Ministries, bless a King James Bible held by Maj. Gen. Steven Schaick, chief of chaplains for the U.S. Air Force.
Groups protest blessing of Bible to be used by Space Force chief
Only one bid for Bradley replacement
PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
FROM FRONT PAGE
“Will all senators now stand, and remain standing, and raise their right hand,” Roberts said.
“Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Don-ald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice accord-ing to the Constitution and laws, so help you God?”
The senators responded they would, and then they lined up to sign an oath book.
Trump faces two charges after the House voted to impeach him last month. One, that he abused his presidential power by pres-suring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid to the country as le-verage. Trump is also charged with obstructing Congress’ ensu-ing probe.
The president insists he did nothing wrong, and he dismissed the trial anew on Thursday at the White House: “It’s totally parti-san. It’s a hoax.”
Eventual acquittal is expected in the Republican-controlled Sen-ate. However, new revelations are mounting about Trump’s actions toward Ukraine.
The Government Accountabil-ity Office said Thursday that the White House violated federal law in withholding the security assis-tance to Ukraine, which shares a border with hostile Russia.
At the same time, an indicted associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Lev Par-nas, has turned over to prosecu-tors new documents linking the president to the shadow foreign policy being run by Giuliani.
The developments applied fresh pressure to senators to call more witnesses for the trial, a main source of contention that is still to be resolved. The White House has instructed officials not to comply with subpoenas from Congress requesting witnesses or other information.
“What is the president hid-ing? What is he afraid of?” asked Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
“The gravity of these charges is self-evident,” he said. “The
House of Representatives has ac-cused the president of trying to shake down a foreign leader for personal gain.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the new information from Parnas demands an investigation, which she doesn’t expect from Trump’s attorney general. “This is an example of all of the presi-dent’s henchmen, and I hope that the senators do not become part of the president’s henchmen.”
Before the swearing-in, House Democrats prosecuting the case stood before the Senate and Rep. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee formally read the ar-ticles of impeachment.
Seven lawmakers, led by Schiff and Rep. Jerrold Nadler of the Ju-diciary Committee, made the sol-emn walk across the Capitol for a second day.
All eyes were on Schiff as he stood at a lectern in the well of the chamber, a space usually re-served for senators.
“House Resolution 755 Im-peaching Donald John Trump, president of the United States, for high crimes and misdemean-ors,” he began, reading the nine pages.
The other House prosecutors stood in a row to his side.
Senators said later that when Roberts appeared the solemnity of the occasion took hold. Secu-rity was tight at the Capitol.
“I thought this is a historic mo-ment, and you could have heard a pin drop,” said Republican John Cornyn of Texas. “And so I think the gravity of what [we] are un-dertaking I think was sinking in for all of us.”
Republican House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took a far different view of the charges and proceedings.
He opened the chamber decry-ing Pelosi’s decision to hand out “souvenir pens” on Wednesday after she signed the resolution to transmit the charges to the Senate.
“This final display neatly dis-tilled the House’s entire partisan process into one perfect visual,” McConnell said. “It was a trans-parently partisan process from beginning to end.”
GOP Sen. James Inhofe was absent, home in Oklahoma for a family medical issue, but plans to take the oath when he returns as the full trial begins next week, his office said.
The Senate will issue a formal summons to the White House to appear, with the president’s legal team expected to respond by Sat-urday. Opening arguments will begin on Tuesday.
The president suggested re-cently that he would be open to a quick vote to simply dismiss the charges, but sufficient Republi-can support is lacking for that.
Instead, the president’s team expects a trial lasting no more than two weeks, according to se-
nior administration officials. That would be far shorter than the trial of President Bill Clinton, in 1999, or the first one, of President An-drew Johnson, in 1868. Both were acquitted.
It would take a super-majority of senators, 67 of the 100, to con-vict the president. Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, but it takes just 51 votes during the trial to approve rules, call witnesses or dismiss the charges.
A group of four Republican senators is working to ensure there will be votes on the possibil-ity of witnesses, though it’s not at all certain a majority will prevail for new testimony.
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine,
Mitt Romney of Utah, LisaMurkowski of Alaska and LamarAlexander of Tennessee areamong those involved.
“I tend to believe having addi-tional information would be help-ful,” Collins said in a statement.“It is likely that I would support amotion to call witnesses.”
Romney said he wants to hearfrom John Bolton, the former national security adviser at theWhite House, who others havesaid raised alarms about the al-ternative foreign policy towardUkraine being run by Giuliani.
The House managers are a diverse group with legal, lawenforcement and military expe-rience, including Hakeem Jef-fries of New York, Sylvia Garciaof Texas, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of California.
Two are freshmen — Crow aformer Army Ranger who servedin Iraq and Afghanistan, Garciaa former judge in Houston. Dem-ings is the former police chief ofOrlando, and Jeffries is a lawyerand member of party leadership.Lofgren has the rare credential ofhaving worked on a congressio-nal staff during President Rich-ard Nixon’s impeachment — heresigned before the full House voted on the charges — and thenbeing an elected lawmaker dur-ing Clinton’s.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s legal team for his upcoming Senate impeach-ment trial will include former Harvard University law profes-sor Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.
The team will also include Pam Bondi, the former Florida attor-ney general and a Trump ally,
according to a person who spoke to The Associated Press on con-dition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak on the record.
The lead roles for Trump’s defense will be played by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.
In adding Dershowitz and Starr, the president is turning to a pair of brand-name attorneys who have experience in some
of the more consequential legal dramas of recent American his-tory. The additions give the presi-dent additional experience both in constitutional law and in the politics of impeachment. Starr’s investigation into Clinton’s re-lationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky helped set in motion Clinton’s impeachment, the last such case before Congress.
Dershowitz confirmed his role
in a series of tweets on Friday, saying, he would “present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional argu-ments against impeachment and removal.”
Dershowitz said of himself: “While Professor Dershowitz is nonpartisan when it comes to the Constitution — he opposed the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and voted for Hillary Clinton — he believes the issues
at stake go to the heart of our en-during Constitution.”
A Fox News host said on the airthat Starr would be parting wayswith the network as a result of his role on the legal team.
Other members of Trump’s legal defense include Jane Raskin,who was part of the president’slegal team during special counselRobert Mueller’s Russia investi-gation, and Robert Ray, who waspart of the Whitewater investiga-tion of the Clintons.
NATION
Impeachment: Senate members were sworn in for Trump impeachment trail
President Pro Tempore of the Senate Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., swears in Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the presiding officer for the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Thursday .
Roberts swears in members of the Senate for the impeachment trial .
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7Saturday, January 18, 2020
NATION
Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring urged the state Su-preme Court on Friday to reject an effort by pro-gun groups to overturn a gun ban at a rally that’s expected to draw tens of thou-sands of activists to Richmond next week amid fears of violence.
The legal arguments have unfolded as the FBI helped police arrest six men linked to a violent white supremacist group known as The Base. At least three of them were believed to be planning to attend the rally in Richmond, according to a law enforce-ment official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.
Herring argued that an executive order by Gov. Ralph Northam banning guns from the state Capitol grounds for Mon-day’s rally is necessary to prevent the kind of violence seen during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. One woman was killed and more than 30 other people
were hurt when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counter protesters.
“Determined to prevent another trage-dy, the Governor issued a carefully limited Executive Order. The Order does not pre-vent anyone from speaking, assembling, or petitioning the government. Instead, it temporarily precludes private possession of firearms in a sensitive public place dur-ing a specified time to protect public safety and safeguard the rights of all citizens to peacefully speak, assemble, and petition their government,“ the legal brief says.
It was not clear when the Supreme Court would rule.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League and Gun Owners of America filed an emer-gency appeal after Judge Joi Taylor ruled Thursday that the governor has the author-ity under state law to take action related to “the safety and welfare“ of the state.
“Without relief from this court, peti-tioners and thousands of other rally par-ticipants will be irreparably denied their
right to bear arms,” the groups’ attorneys argued.
In her written decision, Taylor cited rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts that found the Second Amend-ment right to bear arms is not unlimited. Because of that, she wrote, the gun-rights groups would not “suffer an irreparable harm” sufficient to justify the injunction.
The three men arrested in Maryland and Delaware were believed to be planning to attend the rally in Richmond, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity .
One of the men had discussed traveling to Ukraine to fight alongside “national-ists” and compared the white supremacist group to al-Qaida, a prosecutor said during the defendants’ initial court hearing.
A criminal complaint charges former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Jordan Mathews, 27, and Brian Mark Lem-ley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Md., with transport-ing a firearm and ammunition with intent
to commit a felony. William Garfield Bil-brough IV, 19, of Denton, Md., is chargedwith “transporting and harboring aliens.”
FBI spokesman Kevin Rowson said Fri-day that agents also assisted in the arrestsof three Georgia men linked to The Base,on charges of conspiracy to commit mur-der and participating in a criminal streetgang.
Details of their cases have been sealed by a judge, Floyd County police Sgt. ChrisFincher told the AP on Friday. Fincheridentified them as Luke Austin Lane ofFloyd County, Michael Helterbrand of Dal-ton, and Jacob Kaderli of Dacula.
Virginia’s solicitor general, Toby Hey-tens, argued at Thursday’s hearing that the governor was well within his authority to declare the state of emergency and banweapons after law enforcement identified “credible evidence“ that armed out-of-state groups planned to come to Virginiawith the possible intention of participatingin a “violent insurrection.”
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Denver of-ficials on Thursday said they would not hand over information requested by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement on four men wanted for deportation.
ICE, the Homeland Security agency tasked with arresting and deporting people in the U.S. il-legally, sent four administrative subpoenas earlier this week to law enforcement looking for informa-tion on three Mexican nationals and one Honduran who had been in custody in Denver.
It was the first time subpoenas had been sent to a law enforce-ment agency — an escalation of the conflict between the Trump administration and so-called sanctuary cities.
Henry Lucero, deputy execu-tive associate director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Op-erations, said Wednesday that the agency doesn’t want to get into the business of subpoenaing fellow law enforcement agencies — he called it a last resort. But because of changes in how municipalities work with ICE, it could be nec-essary to expand the practice to other cities in order to catch dan-gerous people and deport them, he said.
ICE officials believe they have the legal right to do it under the Immigration and Nationality Act. If a law enforcement agency doesn’t comply, ICE officials said they could work with federal of-ficials to take the subpoena to a judge who could hold them in con-tempt. ICE officials had no addi-tional comment Thursday.
Chad Sublet, Senior Counsel to the Department of Safety in Denver, noted in a letter to ICE officials that the subpoenas were
administrative — not issued by ajudge — and there was no veri-fiable information on the docu-ments to show the purpose wasfor law enforcement and not civil immigration enforcement.
“The documents appear to be arequest for information related toalleged violations of civil immi-gration law,” he wrote. “Based on these facts, we are denying yourrequest.”
Sublet wrote the subpoenascould be “viewed as an effort to intimidate officers into help en-forcing civil immigration law.”
He also disputed that Denverhad failed to comply with initial requests by ICE for informationon foreign nationals wanted fordeportation, attaching documentsthat showed law enforcement hadresponded to 88 requests by ICEbetween October and Decemberof last year.
One of the men sought by ICEwas from Mexico and had beenarrested for sexual assault, an-other for vehicular homicideand a third for child abuse and strangulation assault. The Hon-duran man was arrested on do-mestic violence charges. All hadbeen removed from the countrypreviously. Three were releasedfrom custody and one was still in custody.
ICE officers rely on help from local law enforcement. Over thebudget year that ended Sept. 30,officers arrested about 143,000 people and deported more than267,000. More than 92,000 of thearrests were of people with crim-inal convictions.
But immigrant advocates andsome lawmakers say ICE is tar-geting people who have been inthe U.S. for decades, who have families and pay taxes — and who should not be their focus.
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Harvey Wein-stein’s lawyers went to court Thursday with a last-minute de-mand to halt jury selection and move his rape trial out of New York City, where they say intense publicity, protesters and even the consideration of supermodel Gigi Hadid as a juror have turned the case into a “media and entertain-ment circus.”
Weinstein’s lawyers detoured to the Manhattan appellate court for oral arguments hours after the 24-year-old Hadid was dismissed from the jury pool and as jurors were starting to be picked for the case. By the end of the day, seven jurors — four men and three women — had been selected from about 145 potential jurors who re-mained in the pool after an initial round of questioning.
Weinstein’s lawyers, who float-ed similar concerns in a losing ef-fort to move the trial in October, said a “carnival-like atmosphere” has taken hold during eight days of jury selection, making it im-possible for Weinstein to get a fair trial in his hometown.
“The deluge of publicity adverse to Mr. Weinstein has engulfed the potential jury pool resulting in untoward pressure upon jurors to convict a man demonized and prejudged guilty,” Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala wrote in a filing that spurred Thursday’s trip to the appellate court.
Weinstein, 67, is charged with raping a woman in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and sexu-ally assaulting another woman in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty and said any sexual activity was consensual. If convicted, Wein-stein could face life in prison.
His lawyers acknowledge media coverage of the ex-movie mogul’s case extends beyond the city, but they argue the furor has reached an only-in-New-York degree.
“You’re in the media capital of the world,” Weinstein attorney John Esposito told appellate Jus-tice David Friedman.
Prosecutors oppose moving the trial, pointing to the plethora of potential jurors still in the run-ning — all pledged they could be fair and impartial — as evidence that the process is working. Mov-ing to a smaller community with a smaller jury pool would only make it more difficult to find ju-
rors, they added.As for the protests, prosecu-
tor Valerie Figuerdo argued: “There’s no reason to think the jurors would be impacted by it because New Yorkers see protests all the time.”
The appellate court did not immediately rule on moving the trial. The matter will go to a panel of judges with the aim of having a decision before opening state-ments, which could happen as early as next week. Friedman de-clined a request from Weinstein’s lawyers to halt the trial until the panel rules.
Organizers appeal Virginia rally gun ban
MARK LENNIHAN/AP
Harvey Weinstein and his attorney Donna Rotunno arrive at a Manhattan courthouse to attend jury selection for his trial on rape and sexual assault charges Friday in New York.
Weinstein’s attorneys want trialto be moved
Denver officials won’t hand over information requested by ICE
PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
NATION
BY MICHELLE L. PRICE
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — Driving on any freeway in Las Vegas, you’re likely to see Tom Steyer’s face. Turn on the radio, you might hear his voice. Turn on the television, you’ll probably run across his campaign ad.
But Alondra Escobedo didn’t expect to run into the Democratic presidential candidate near the snack aisle at her local Mexican grocery store Wednesday night.
Steyer, flanked by twin signs for his campaign, was standing on a low stage in front of a display of chips, popcorn and peanuts at an east Las Vegas market, speak-ing about his immigration policy to several dozen people seated in folding chairs.
Steyer, a billionaire environ-mental activist from Califor-nia, was on a two-day campaign swing through Nevada, riding high on recent polling showing him ascendant in the early vot-ing state. Steyer entered the 2020 race late and has only started building up his staff in Nevada in recent months. He is making a concerted push to reach Latinos with Spanish-language ads, and is ramping up his appearances in the state, including his visit this week.
Steyer, worth an estimated $1.6 billion according to Forbes, has become a familiar face after run-ning television ads over the past few years calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Since jumping into the presiden-tial race in July, he’s spent tens of millions of dollars on campaign ads, and in Nevada, he’s had the airwaves largely to himself until recently, when fellow candidate and billionaire Michael Bloom-berg launched TV ads.
Steyer has so far mostly drawn modest crowds to his campaign events. He’s eschewed big rallies,
instead turning up at a number of issue-focused town halls — or, as was the case Wednesday night, near Aisle 8 at the grocery store with immigrant advocacy group Mi Familia Vota.
“When I saw him here, I thought this is amazing how he’s actually coming out to local places with us here because I definitely wouldn’t see Trump in any of these plac-es,” Escobedo said.
The 23-year-old Democrat said she hasn’t seen any other presi-dential candidates besides Steyer, but she knew Steyer from his TV commercials.
“In the Hispanic channels, he pops up a lot because he is sup-porting the Hispanic heritage, immigrants,” she said. “I even told my husband, like, it’s amaz-ing how in his commercials, what stood out to me was his diversity of people.”
Nevada, considered the first test of a candidate’s appeal be-fore a diverse electorate, boasts a population that’s 29% Latino — a population that Steyer’s cam-paign has made a concerted ef-fort to court.
In December, he launched Spanish ads on television. His two-day swing through Las Vegas this week included two events with a Latino-focus, along with an appearance at a Native American forum and a wide-ranging town hall.
Campaigning at the grocery store, Steyer decried Trump’s immigration policies and pledged to push for comprehensive im-migration reform that addresses the millions of immigrants liv-ing in the country without legal permission.
“They are part of this society. They’ve been contributing to this society. They deserve papers,” Steyer said. “They deserve a legal status, and I believe that they de-serve a path to citizenship.”
Ascendent Steyer makes campaign swing in Nevada
JOHN LOCHER/AP
Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer reacts after speaking at a Culinary Workers Union hall Thursday in Las Vegas.
Pence courts evangelical Latino voters in Florida
Associated Press
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Marilyn Del Valle climbed to her feet at the Nacion de Fe church in Kis-simmee on Thursday, clapping and taking photos as Vice Presi-dent Mike Pence took the stage.
Del Valle is a proud “Nuyori-can” — born in New York to Puer-to Rican parents — who lives in central Florida. She’s part of the Republican Party’s highly court-ed demographic this campaign season: evangelical Latinos.
The campaign believes that emphasizing religion and anti-abortion talking points could reach those Latino voters who have doubts about the GOP over issues like immigration. Even at-tracting a small slice of evangeli-cal Latinos could help Trump win Florida again; he won the state by 1.2 percentage points in 2016.
Less than two weeks ago, Trump visited a Hispanic mega-church in Miami, kicking off an “Evangelicals for Trump” focus, and Thursday’s event was an ex-tension of that. Kissimmee, which is in Osceola County near Orlan-
do, is heavily Puerto Rican. Those voters are especially attractive to the GOP because they’re Ameri-can citizens and can vote. While many have traditionally been Democrats, Republicans think they can reach the more con-servative folks in that booming demographic.
According to census data, 29.3% of the residents in Osceola were a racial group other than white in 2000. In 2018, that number had swelled to 55.3%.
Pence worked to energize the crowd of a few hundred people, drawing raucous applause when referencing the administration’s defense of anti-abortion policies.
“President Donald Trump is the most pro-life president in American history,” he said.
Said Robert Barreto, who drove to Kissimmee to see the vice pres-ident after being shut out of an earlier event with Pence because the venue was too crowded: “It’s a key issue for me, a candidate is pro-life.”
He added that a strong econ-omy was another large factor in
why he supports the GOP ticket.Saul Perez, a Puerto Rican
who lives in nearby St. Cloud, has attended Nacion de Fe for 12years. He said his top priorities are religious expression and theeconomy, noting happily that herecently paid $2.70 a gallon for gas and under President Barack Obama, gas was $3.89 a gallon.
“Things were bad in the pastunder Obama,” he said.
Pence, along with speakerswho included Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Jose Fuentes,the former attorney general ofPuerto Rico, remarked on the lowHispanic unemployment rate.
“In the words of Ronald Rea-gan: Are you guys doing bettertoday than you were doing threeyears ago?” asked Fuentes.
The crowd also went wild whenPence mentioned “the freedom tolive our values” and said Trumptook steps Thursday to give reli-gious organizations easier access to federal programs and reaf-firmed students’ rights to pray inpublic schools.
JOHN RAOUX/AP
Vice President Mike Pence poses for a photo with a supporter before leaving a campaign event Thursday in Kissimmee, Fla.
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Democratic presidential candi-date Michael Bloomberg would push for all new cars to be elec-tric by 2035 and new buildings to produce zero carbon emissions by 2025 as part of clean energy plans he released this week.
Bloomberg’s latest climate plans build off his December plan to cut the United States’ car-bon emissions by 50% by 2030. That’s less ambitious than the Green New Deal that many of his competitors have embraced that
calls for achieving net-zero car-bon emissions within 10 years. Bloomberg’s plans do not include total costs or specifics on how they would be paid for, details his campaign advisers say they will share later.
The newest plan, released Fri-day, outlines how Bloomberg would cut down on pollution from cars and trucks, the nation’s big-gest source of carbon emissions. While the plan calls for new fed-eral standards requiring all new cars to be electric by 2035, it would require 15% of the nation’s trucks and buses to be pollution-
free by 2030. Those are less loftygoals than some of his competi-tors, including Sens. Bernie Sand-ers, of Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts.
Bloomberg’s plan also calls forexpanding tax credits and re-bate programs to help people buyelectric vehicles and for building charging stations along highways. The plan calls for spending $250billion on clean energy researchand development by 2025.
Bloomberg would also invest in high-speed rail, pledging to build an operable segment in the nextfive years.
Bloomberg releases plans for clean energy
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9Saturday, January 18, 2020
NATION
DHS seeks Pentagon funds for border wall
Starbucks moves into poor areas
Woman found after being stuck in snow for 6 days
BY LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The De-partment of Homeland Security has asked the Pentagon to fund the construction of 270 miles of border wall this year as part of a counter-drug effort, defense offi-cials said Thursday.
The officials said the request came in Wednesday, and the Pen-tagon is beginning what will be a two-week assessment to deter-mine what will be approved. The officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, would not provide any cost estimates.
The request comes amid sharp divisions about the border wall between President Donald Trump and members of Congress who have opposed the use of military
funding for the construction.The border wall is one of
Trump’s signature issues — he’s been talking about building a “big beautiful wall” between the U.S. and Mexico since his early cam-paign days. He also has claimed that Mexico is paying for the wall, but that has not happened.
Instead, money has been di-verted from military construction projects and drug interdiction funding, setting up a persistent source of conflict between Demo-cratic lawmakers and Trump in the budget bills each year.
Defense officials said the re-quest is for construction or re-placement of border barriers, lighting and roads in six sec-tors across several states. The six areas, the officials said, are high traffic areas that include
some urban sections near border crossings.
Earlier this week, officials said the Trump administration was weighing whether to shift billions more in military funding to build the border wall. And House Ap-propriations Committee Chair-woman Nita M. Lowey and other lawmakers said the administra-tion was planning to “steal” $7.2 billion in counternarcotics and military construction funding to pay for the wall.
Officials on Thursday said there have been no decisions about any funding levels. And they said the Pentagon’s two-week review will assess if the request meets legal requirements and seeks feasible construction. Senior military leaders will review the impact on military readiness and the comp-
troller will identify potential funds. A final decision would be made by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
When asked about wall funding this week, Esper said the Penta-gon considers the southwest U.S. border to be part of its mission to protect the homeland, and that the department supports the DHS in that respect. Asked whether that meant supporting DHS financial-ly, he said, “If that’s what it takes, we prepared to support.”
Last year Trump was forced to settle for just $1.4 billion in wall funding following the longest government shutdown in history. In reaction, he declared a nation-al emergency that allowed him to shift almost three times as much money from military accounts to wall building.
The Supreme Court ruled thissummer the funds could be used.In total, about $12 billion has beenallocated for the wall. And billionsmore have been requested.
The defense officials said thatlast year counternarcotics fund-ing was authorized for use toconstruct 129 miles of borderreinforcement. Military con-struction money is being used for another 175 miles. All together,the officials said, they expect tocomplete 400 to 500 miles of bor-der construction by the end of this year.
The officials said broadly thatcounterdrug money can be usedfor the wall because the entiresouthwest border has been certi-fied by DHS as a drug-smugglingcorridor.
BY DEE-ANN DURBIN
Associated Press
DETROIT — Starbucks has a point to prove: There’s more to the company than selling $4 lattes to rich people.
The Seattle-based coffee giant that has cultivated a reputation for being socially responsible said Thursday it is expanding its effort to put more coffee shops — and create more jobs — in poor neighborhoods.
Starbucks plans to open or re-model 85 stores by 2025 in rural and urban communities across the U.S. Each store will hire local staff, including construc-tion crews and artists, and will have community event spaces. The company will also work with local United Way chapters to de-velop programs at each shop, such as youth job training classes and mentoring.
The effort will bring to 100 the number of “community stores” Starbucks has opened since it an-nounced the program in 2015.
“All of these programs are with the intent of being purposeful and profitable,” said John Kelly, Star-bucks executive vice president of public affairs and social impact.
Starbucks opened its first com-munity store in Ferguson, M o. , in 2016, two years after the riots that broke out over the shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer. It has added 13 more locations since then, including stores in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans and Jonesboro, G a. Another one will open this spring in Prince George’s County, M d. Starbucks estimates the shops have created more than 300 jobs.
The project could help the com-pany overcome lingering mis-trust in some communities after the furor that erupted in 2018
when two black men waiting to meet someone in a Philadelphia Starbucks were arrested for not ordering anything. Starbucks mandated racial bias training at its 8,000 company-owned stores in response to that incident.
Kelly said the stores reflect Starbucks’ core belief in respon-sible capitalism. The coffee shops are profitable, he said, and have the same menu as regular Star-bucks stores.
“This is not charity. These are successful stores,” Kelly said, acknowledging neighbors’ skepti-cism. “We’re defying a lot of the stereotypes and we’re proud to do so.”
The Starbucks in Jonesboro lies on a busy road with strip malls and numerous chain restaurants. Business was brisk on Thursday afternoon, with a dozen or so cus-tomers inside and a steady stream of cars at the drive-thru.
A man who was walking by the store and gave his name as Leroy Z said he is glad Starbucks is giving locals another choice for coffee beyond the fast-food restaurants in town. But he was skeptical about how much Star-bucks cares about the community and how much the store will bol-
ster the local economy.“They wouldn’t be here if they
didn’t think they could make money,” he said. “They’re here because this is a main drag to Atlanta.”
In the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, Star-bucks opened a community store in 2016; a Whole Foods opened nearby the following year. But across the busy intersection is an old, abandoned building.
Englewood resident Princess Thomas, 60, frequents Kusanya Cafe, a neighborhood nonprofit coffee shop. When it’s closed, she goes to the Starbucks a mile away.
Thomas said she appreciates Starbucks employing local resi-dents, but hopes its support for the community goes beyond “lip service.”
“A lot of people in this area have had their benefits cut. They can’t afford to feed their families. So when you say you’re doing something for the community, what can you do for those people, instead of just seeing them as cus-tomers?” she said.
Brett Theodos, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who studies economic development, said he has visited Starbucks’ community stores in Chicago and Baltimore, and they seemed to be providing a service — and, more important, jobs — that those neighborhoods wouldn’t otherwise have.
“I can’t think either of a retail-er, especially one that has more of a discretionary, higher-end purchase, being willing to push into neighborhoods and markets that have less purchasing power,” Theodos said.
Associated Press
BUTTE MEADOWS, Calif. —The family of a woman with de-mentia who survived for six daysin her snowbound SUV in North-ern California said they fearedthe worst.
“We thought she was probablydead,” Laura Powell, stepdaugh-ter of Paula Beth James, 68, toldSacramento TV station KTXL.
A search helicopter flying over the remote, mountainous commu-nity of Butte Meadows, about 200 miles northeast of San Francisco, spotted James’ SUV on Wednes-day. She disappeared Jan. 9.
“It just felt like we weredoomed,” Powell said. “So, it was just literally a miracle that thoseguys found her in just the nick oftime.”
The helicopter landed, and two searchers hiked in and foundJames inside the SUV buried in snow.
A vehicle designed for travel-ing on snow rescued James, who was awake and conscious whendeputies found her, Powell andauthorities said.
“She looked at them and shesaid, ‘I’m very cold, I hope youbrought a blanket,’ ” Powell said.
James was hospitalized in sta-ble condition, authorities said.
Her family said she stayedwarm by periodically turning onthe car for heat and bundling upwith moving blankets and floormats from the SUV. She was se-verely dehydrated and developedsome frostbite but is doing well,relatives said.
“I really want to say thank youfrom the bottom of my heart tothe sheriff’s department. They want above and beyond, and wereally appreciate them for that,”Powell said.
GERALD HERBERT/AP
Baristas prepare drinks at a Starbucks on South Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, on Thursday . Starbucks, the home of the $4 latte, is opening more coffee shops in poor neighborhoods.
‘ When you say you’re doing something for the community, what can you do for those people, instead of just seeing them as customers? ’
Princess ThomasEnglewood resident
PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
WORLD
Russia blames US policies for growing tension
Locust outbreak swarms East Africa
Volcano erupting in Philippines still ‘life-threatening’ despite lull
BY VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press
MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign policy chief on Friday blamed what he described as “aggres-sive” U.S. policies for growing global tensions, noting Washing-ton’s reluctance to extend a key nuclear arms pact.
Sergey Lavrov, who serves as acting foreign minister in the wake of Wednesday’s resignation of the Russian Cabinet, said this week’s meeting of top U.S. and Russian diplomats on strategic stability didn’t achieve any im-mediate results, adding that “dia-logue is continuing.”
Russia-U.S. relations have been at post-Cold War lows since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.
Speaking at an annual news conference, Lavrov said that the U.S. has stonewalled Russia’s push for extending the New Start nuclear arms treaty that expires in 2021. The agreement is the last U.S.-Russian arms control deal still in place, and Moscow has ar-gued that its demise will remove the final barrier stemming an arms race.
“We will act strongly to avoid depriving the world of agree-ments that control and limit nu-clear weapons,” said Lavrov, who was appointed foreign minister in 2004.
“We stand for the extension of the New Start treaty without any preconditions,” he said. “I hope that the Americans hear us, but we haven’t received any coherent signals from them.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed for China to join nuclear arms cuts, but Lavrov described the idea as unrealistic. He pointed at Bei-jing’s refusal to discuss reduc-tions in its nuclear arsenal, which
is much smaller than those of the U.S. or Russia.
Lavrov emphasized that the U.S. push for Russia to encour-age China to change its mind doesn’t make sense. “We respect the Chinese position and we won’t persuade China to change it,” he said.
Turning to other issues, Lav-rov criticized Britain, France and Germany for caving in to pres-sure from the U.S. over a nuclear deal with Iran.
Earlier this week, the three countries reluctantly triggered the accord’s dispute mechanism to force Iran into discussions over its violations, starting the clock on a process that could result in the “snapback” of U.N. and European Union sanctions on Iran.
The three nations are being pressed on one side by Trump to abandon the agreement , as he did unilaterally in 2018, and on the other side by Iran to provide enough economic incentives for it to continue honoring the deal.
Lavrov noted that the EU boasted about creating a mecha-nism for trade with Iran bypass-ing U.S. sanctions, but never put it into action.
He described the move by Brit-ain, France and Germany as a “dangerous turn,” arguing that the three nations used the mo-ment of heightened tensions be-tween the U.S. and Iran to “blame Iran for all what happened.”
Following the U.S. drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran announced what it said was its fifth and final step in dropping its commitments under the 2015 deal. Iran said it would no longer abide by any limitations to its en-richment activities.
BY ELIAS MESERET AND CARA ANNA
Associated Press
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The most serious outbreak of locusts in 25 years is spreading across East Africa and posing an unprecedented threat to food se-curity in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, authorities say. Unusual climate conditions are partly to blame.
The locust swarms hang like shimmering dark clouds on the horizon in some places. Roughly the length of a finger, the insects fly together by the millions and are devouring crops and forcing people in some areas to bodily wade through them. Near the Ke-nyan town of Isiolo on Thursday, one young camel herder swung a stick at them, with little effect. Others tried to shout them away.
An “extremely dangerous in-crease” in locust swarm activ-ity has been reported in Kenya, the East African regional body reported this week. One swarm measured 37 miles long by 25 miles wide in the country’s north-east, the Intergovernmental Au-thority on Development said in a statement.
“A typical desert locust swarm can contain up to 150 million lo-custs per square kilometer,” it said. “Swarms migrate with the wind and can cover 100 to 150 kilometers in a day. An average swarm can destroy as much food crops in a day as is sufficient to feed 2,500 people.”
The outbreak of desert locusts, considered the most dangerous locust species, also has affected
parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan,Djibouti and Eritrea and IGADwarns that parts of South Sudanand Uganda could be next.
The outbreak is making the re-gion’s bad food security situationworse, the United Nations’ Foodand Agriculture Organization has warned. Hundreds of thou-sands of acres of crops have beendestroyed.
BY AARON FAVILA AND JIM GOMEZ
Associated Press
TAGAYTAY, Philippines — An erupting Philippine volcano remains life-threaten-ing despite weaker emissions and fewer tremors, an official said Friday and ad-vised thousands of displaced villagers not to return to the danger zone.
The Taal volcano emitted weaker ash and steam explosions Thursday and Fri-day, the sixth day of its eruption. But de-spite the seeming lull, continuing volcanic quakes, the drying of the crater lake and other signs indicate magma is moving
beneath, said Maria Antonia Bornas, an official with the Philippine Institute of Vol-canology and Seismology.
“When there is an explosion, that will be life-threatening, especially if people get very near, like on Volcano Island,” Renato Solidum, head of the institute, told The As-sociated Press.
The volcano since Sunday has remained at alert level 4, the second-highest warning, indicating a hazardous explosive eruption is possible in hours or days. Solidum said assessing whether the volcano’s restive-ness has eased may take up to two weeks.
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from areas now under a secu-
rity lockdown, and soldiers and police have been stopping desperate villagers from returning to retrieve belongings and save their poultry and cattle. Police have al-lowed batches of residents to check their homes for a few hours during the day in some high-risk villages.
Jerick Oco, 21, who worked as a tourist guide on Volcano Island, which sits in the middle of Taal Lake south of Manila, was relieved to hear that the volcano was calm-ing down but said poor villagers like him face more daunting problems, like finding new homes and jobs.
“They should help people retrieve be-longings from their homes instead of block-
ing them. They should help them restart (their lives) again,” Oco said.
Many houses and farms are damaged by ash, though no deaths or major injuries directly caused by the eruption have beenreported. Authorities have reported one traffic fatality on an ash-covered road andan evacuee dying from a heart attack.
About 125,000 people fled their homes in hardest-hit Batangas province, morethan 40 miles south of Manila. At least 373evacuation sites were crammed with thedisplaced and needed more face masks,portable toilets, bottled water and sleepingmats, according to a provincial disaster-response office.
A Samburu man who works for a county disaster team identifying the location of the locusts, holds one on his hand.
PHOTOS BY PATRICK NGUGI/AP
A Samburu boy uses a wooden stick to try to swat a swarm of desert locusts filling the air, as he herds his camel near the village of Sissia, in Samburu county, Kenya, on Thursday.
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11Saturday, January 18, 2020
MOVIES
BY MATT KEMP
Associated Press
With Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” expected to battle “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”
and “1917” for the best picture Oscar in February, all eyes are on the special effects team that made the sprawling crime epic possible.
“The Irishman” unfolds over decades, with the 76-year-old Robert De Niro and his co-stars playing their characters from their 30s into retire-ment age, a feat that’s made the fi lm one of 2019’s most acclaimed movies.
It’s all possible through new digital de-aging techniques that in the past year in cinemas have shaved decades from Samuel L. Jackson’s face in “Captain Marvel” and turned back the clock to the 1990s for Will Smith in “Gemini Man.”
Each fi lm has arrived at its re-verse aging trick through a different technique, leading some to call 2019 a monumental year for de-aging in fi lm.
To many, “The Irishman” stands out from the fi eld, thanks to its complete avoidance of “tracking markers” — dots painted onto actors’ faces which allow computers to mathemati-cally replicate facial movements and manipulate them as the director sees fi t.
The youthful transitions of “The Irishman” are the work of Pablo Helman, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, who’s an Oscar nominee for his work on “Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones” and “War of the Worlds.”
Helman says the decision to forgo tracking markers came directly from Scorsese and De Niro.
“He’s not going to wear a helmet with little cameras in there,” says Helman. “He’s going to want to be in the moment with Joe Pesci and Al Pacino on set, with no markers on him. So, if you’re going to capture the performance, how are you going to do that?”
Enter the “three-headed monster,” a unique camera rig that has a direc-tor camera in the center and two “wit-ness” cameras on either side shooting infrared footage. That allowed Helman to eliminate shadows created by on-set lighting. The shadows could potentially interfere with the geo-metric facial shapes constructed by de-aging software.
“You’re not interrupting the direc-tor’s thread of thinking,” explains Helman. “You’re not changing the light on set, but the computer can see in a different spectrum.”
While the team at Industrial Light and Magic was working on “The Irishman,” another group of technical wizards was experimenting with de-aging at director Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop in New Zealand, creating an entirely digital, 23-year-old version of Smith for “Gemini Man.”
“Since I started visual FX 25 years ago it’s been the Holy Grail,” says Bill
Westenhofer, one of the fi lm’s VFX supervisors.
“You have that many years of ex-pertise of looking at a human face and knowing what’s wrong. So, to try and get all the different things together and get it to pull off right, that’s been the challenge.”
To create the character of Junior — a younger clone of Smith’s assas-sin Henry Brogan — the superstar wore the traditional gray tracksuit, complemented by a head rig with two cameras capturing his facial expres-sions via tracking markers.
Before fi lming commenced on both “Gemini Man” and “The Irishman,” the teams at ILM and Weta drew up test footage to show the fi lms’ direc-tors that what they were suggesting was possible.
For “Gemini Man,” it was a clip from the 1995 movie “Bad Boys” into which they inserted two shots of their new, digital Will Smith and asked Ang Lee to spot the “fake.”
For “The Irishman,” De Niro also returned to the 1990s, performing the pink Cadillac scene from “Goodfel-las” before being de-aged in post-production — convincing an initially skeptical Scorsese that he could bring the long-gestating project to life.
Helman and his team then spent two years looking through old movies and cataloging the targeted ages that De Niro, Pacino and Pesci would ap-pear in “The Irishman.” They created a program — similar to that used to create online “deepfake” videos where one actor’s face is swapped for another’s — which would check that their work on the movie was heading in the right direction .
In “Captain Marvel,” a young Nick Fury was created by comparing foot-age from old Jackson movies with the work the actor did on set — again, using tracking markers.
“I looked at that face as, you know, maybe ‘The Negotiator’ face,” says Jackson, referring to his 1998 movie of the same name, “Fortunately for them and for me, I had enough stuff from that period in my life that they could use a bunch of different facial expressions and fi lms to put that face together that made sense to people who knew me from that time.“
Darren Hendler, director of the Digital Human Group at Digital Domain and the man responsible for turning Josh Brolin into “Avengers” supervillain Thanos, was impressed by Jackson’s appearance in the movie.
“That’s more of a 2D-image-based approach where they’re taking the actor’s performance and then they’re painting and tracking certain frames. They’re still using some of the actor’s performance directly, but they’re modifying it. It was very believable. It may not have been exactly what the young Samuel Jackson looked like, but it defi nitely looked de-aged.”
“Different approaches suit differ-ent requirements,” says Weta’s Guy Williams. “It’s not a one-size-fi ts-all kind of situation.”
‘Holy Grail’ digital effects rewindingthe clock for aging Hollywood actors
ACTUAL DE-AGED
ACTUAL DE-AGED
AP photos
This combination of photos shows Samuel L. Jackson, from top, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, stars of “Captain Marvel” and “The Irishman,” respectively, during filming, left, and following digital de-aging techniques that shaved years off their faces, right.
ACTUAL DE-AGED
PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
BY CHRISTOPHER BYRD
Special to The Washington Post
In a recent article in The Atlantic, “Why White-Col-lar Workers Spend All Day at the Offi ce,” journalist
Derek Thompson writes: “imag-ine a future of work where there is no end to labor and time itself is the offi ce.” Mosaic is a game that imagines such a scenario by addressing the internet’s erosion of the space between offi ce life and home life to a pernicious degree, caused by the tethering of workers to their smartphones or other similar devices. The consequence? Pervasive and con-tinuous employee assessment.
Mosaic tells the story of the dreary life of an offi ce worker who receives, via an app on his phone, productivity breakdowns that detail his rate of underper-formance in relation to other employees and “friendly remind-ers” that late absences will result in severance of his contract. His phone also tells him how fast he should alter his pace to get to work on time and offers him a discount on a drug to boost his cognitive performance.
The anonymous man in ques-tion lives in a small apartment with a kitchen table covered in overdue bills. He has a habit of sleeping with his work clothes on and slapping his face to wake up after his alarm goes off. I found it mildly amusing at fi rst to click on a mouse button and watch him do so. But, upon guiding him to the bathroom and watching him straighten his tie in the mirror and brush his teeth, the ironic distance shrank as I saw him grip the sides of the sink and bob his head, as if about to vomit,
then raise himself up and cover his face with his hand. Those who have coped with depression likely know this pantomime well.
Using a simple point-and-click interface, Mosaic is divided be-tween linear narrative sections and puzzles that represent the man’s work tasks. Essentially, the narrative elements are a series of visual metaphors that underscore the protagonist’s alienation. Many of these scenes are visually striking, if unsubtle, such as when the man imagines his fellow workers being ground up on a conveyor belt and turned into electric impulses that pass through a circuit board; or when walking to work one day he sees a butterfl y fl uttering in the distance, a luminous creature amid the drab cityscape. A shift in perspective allows the player to guide the butterfl y through a construction zone. What happens next struck me as obvious from the get-go. Upon taking control of the butterfl y, I simply waited to see how it would die.
Some of the visual metaphors are droll. I gave a little chuckle at one point watching the man stand beneath an advertisement for a sleeping drug on one side and an energy booster on the other, the images neatly sum-ming up the conditions of a society that creates the problems for which it sells the remedies.
The sections of Mosaic that correspond to the young man’s offi ce tasks take the form of puzzles that unfold across a hexagonal grid. Your task is to build a chain of hexagons that stretch from the bottom of the grid upward to a “milestone.” Clicking on individual tiles sends
resources up to a tile to construct a link. A number of variables determine how the chains can be constructed. For instance, to connect one tile to another, a space must be left between linked units and one must build around shaded tiles that repre-sent rules and regulations. As chains become longer, it takes more time for the resources at the bottom of the screen to reach, and thus construct, a clicked-on tile, which creates an active link.
Complicating matters are roving threats — colored clouds that range over areas of the grid that infect the chain links that they touch. Infected areas must be cleansed by dispatching re-sources to that area, and threats must be neutralized by fi guring out how to marshal enough re-
sources to hem them in. Figuring out how to use things such as “loopholes” to quickly shoot re-sources from one area to another is essential.
Although these puzzles are not terribly challenging, they may cause a little aggravation at fi rst because you are given very little direction on how to go about them. This is on purpose. Before you tackle the fi rst puzzle, a mes-sage box appears on the screen saying, “In our ongoing efforts to optimize your workfl ow, numer-ous changes have been made to the OS. Onboarding costs are cut, so if you’re confused, don’t bother your supervisors.” Recognizing how I moved from a state of mild perplexity early on to an ability to handle the later puzzles on autopilot, I noted how
Mosaic’s puzzle mechanics serve to mimic the natural condition of the offi ce worker who struggles with tasks in the beginning that later on become second nature.
Mosaic’s appeal rests upon its aesthetic character rather than its gameplay. If you’re not drawn in by the game’s theme and visual style, then you’ll be let down by the experience. Al-though I wasn’t overly entranced by Mosaic — its approach is too straightforward for my taste — I tip my hat to the developers for making a game that punctures a hole in the noxious ideology that work, necessarily, gives meaning to our lives.
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Online: mosaiccorp.biz
VIDEO GAMES
Play is workMosaic makes players endure day after awful day at the offi ce
A tranquil, exhilarating ride that could be a minor classic BY CHRISTOPHER BYRD
The Washington Post
As I look at my bicyclist perched atop the third mountain trail on Redmoor Peaks, I’m faced with a decision.
To his left is a steep narrow trail that wends back and forth. The turns aren’t too bad, but there are a few rocks near the edge of the path that can easily throw my rider from his bike if he grazes them. What gives me pause, though, is thought of the narrow, descending path that picks up after the start of the trail. It’s lined with trees that, ever so briefl y, obscure the sight of my cyclist. I have a bad habit of tensing up as I pass through them and smacking into a tree or one of the rocks on the ground. So, I consider another way.
By veering off the fi rst sharp curve down the path, I can maneuver the bike along a steep mountain ridge that skirts past the path’s fi rst set of turns and deposits me at the beginning of the section that leads to the tree-lined part that makes me fi dgety. In that particular spot, I can veer again off the pathway and plunge along the side of the mountain at a near 90-degree angle, then, assuming I angle the front wheel just right, zip along an ultra-nar-row ridge that slices down a corner of the mountain like a thin scar.
The decision is really no decision; I take the faster,
riskier path each time. I’d rather worry about two dif-fi cult sections than deal with many potential concerns.
Lonely Mountains: Downhill is both tranquil and chal-lenging. Deciding how to thread your solitary rider down one of the game’s picturesque mountains makes for an entrancing experience. Likely, anyone who has ever rid-den a mountain bike will have a visceral response to the
action on screen, which smartly forgoes music for a na-ture soundtrack. The controls are intuitive (right trigger to accelerate, left to brake), but mastering the subtleties of how to take a particular jump or turn on a given trail, and knowing when to accelerate, drift, brake or speed up, takes practice. With that in mind, your fi rst goal upon un-locking a new trail is to explore it without a care for time or performance. Upon fi nishing it, you’re then challenged to complete it in a given time limit or with less than a certain number of crashes.
The game is especially beautiful. Your blockhead-looking avatar might recall the blank-faced video game characters of yore, but the vibrant colors, dynamic light-ing and abstract forms are expressive. (Indeed, Lonely Mountains looks more refi ned than many big-budget games.) The mountains are conspicuously well designed. I can’t tell you how many times, while traveling at great speed I hit, say, a tree root and knew that obstacle had been positioned to trip me up. A bloody crash results in a quick restart at a checkpoint. Death feels as light as it does in an arcade — it’s easy to want to have another go, and hard to know when to end.
Lonely Mountains: Downhill is a beautiful marriage of aesthetics and gameplay. It has the makings of a minor classic.
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox OneOnline: lonelymountains.com
Raw Fury
Mosaic’s dreary, monotonous hopelessness challenges the notion that work gives meaning to our lives.
Thunderful
Lonely Mountains: Downhill has an addictive gameplay and a beautiful aesthetic.
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13Saturday, January 18, 2020
HEALTH & FITNESS
BY STACEY BURLING
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Your skin doesn’t like winter. The com-bination of cold air outside and heated air inside often leads to dry, itchy, scaly skin.
There’s plenty of advice on the web about what to do and plenty of heavily marketed products that claim they’ll solve this seasonal problem, often at a hefty price. But how many of us have tried a watery lotion that made big promises and stopped working by the time we got to the offi ce? How many have tried one that made the itching worse? And, really, how exactly are we supposed to slather slippery concoctions on skin still wet from a shower when everyone knows that oil and water don’t mix?
In the interest of cutting through the noise and possibly solving our own dry-skin problems, we asked three dermatologists — Jules Lipoff of Penn Medicine, Gopal Patel of Aesthetic Der-matology Associates in Media and Paoli, and Nazanin Saedi, director of the Jefferson Laser Surgery and Cosmetic Dermatology Center — for advice. Here’s what they said.
Are there medical reasons to worry about dry skin?
Usually not. If you neglect it and let your skin crack, you could be at higher risk of infection. In some cases, dry skin can be a symptom of an underactive thyroid, Saedi said. It is more common in people with allergies, eczema or atopic dermatitis, and asthma. Patients with neuropathy, a nerve problem common in people with diabetes, may not realize their skin is dry and may wait too long to use moisturizers, Patel said. Dry skin may also be a sign of autoimmune conditions such as Sjogren’s disease or of certain cancers, he said.
Is it more common in older people? Yes. Older skin becomes less effi cient at at-
tracting moisture to itself. However, Saedi said she has teenage patients with dry skin. Their faces may still be oily, but they have dry knees, ankles, and elbows.
Do men and women or people of different races have different rates of dry skin?
Mostly not. However, dryness may be more visible on darker skin. And oil gland activity declines earlier in older women than in older men, Patel said.
Will drinking more water or eating certain foods make skin less dry?
No. “For the average person, there’s nothing you could consume that would make your skin better,” Lipoff said.
Is using a loofah or washcloth to rub dry skin during showers a good idea?
No. You want to be gentle to dry skin. Exfoliat-ing “just makes it worse,” Saedi said.
What about showers? Sadly, these doctors want to take all the joy out
of showers. Hot, steamy showers may feel good for your muscles, your sinuses and your soul, but they dry out skin. The doctors want you to take lukewarm showers that last fi ve to 10 minutes. (Trust us, 10 minutes is a long time in lukewarm water unless you keep your house really toasty, and you’re not supposed to do that, either.)
There’s no need to lather all over. Unless you are covered in dust or mud, you only really need to soap the smelly parts.
What soap should I use during my short, chilly shower?
Doctors like simple, unscented bar soaps with added moisturizers. Lipoff says people tend to overuse the liquid soaps. If you must use a liquid, Saedi says, go with one that is fragrance-free and says it’s for sensitive skin. Patel likes cleansers from Vanicream and Cetaphil. Steer clear, the doctors said, of strongly scented soaps such as Irish Spring and Zest because they can irritate skin.
Should I wash my face differently? Yes. You only need to wash it once a day, in the
evening. You can just rinse in the morning. You don’t necessarily need a different cleanser for both face and body.
Do I really have to put lotion on while I’m wet from the shower?
The doctors agree this is better, but they don’t mean dripping wet. Pat yourself down with a towel, but leave a little moisture. Immediately rub on some lotion to trap the moisture against your skin.
What kind of moisturizer should I use? There’s no need to spend a fortune on what
Patel called “Hollywood” skin creams. The fancy stuff sometimes contains scents and addi-tives that are irritating.
“You have to understand that most of the skin-care industry is marketing,” Lipoff said.
The doctors had different favorite products,
but they agreed on one of them: petroleum jelly. You can’t beat it for value, they said. It’s great for your lips, but probably not what you want for the rest of your face. There, you’re looking for products that are noncomedogenic, which means they don’t clog pores. Because it can feel a little thick and greasy, it may be best to apply petroleum jelly to your body at night.
The doctors also agreed that the thicker the product, the better, which generally means that you want products sold in jars, not tubes.
“When in doubt, just look for the cheapest thing you can get in a jar,” Patel said, adding that he prefers “established brands.”
Lipoff suggests starting with inexpensive products and working your way up until you fi nd something that works for you. Saedi and Patel tend to like products you can get at the drug-store, but not at the lowest price points.
Saedi looks for thick creams that contain ceramides and hyaluronic acid. She likes Neu-trogena Hydro Boost and Neutrogena Norwe-gian Formula hand cream. Patel recommends Aquafor, Aveeno, CeraVe, and Eucerin products.
For skin that is more seriously dry and cracked, patients can try “acid-based” creams such as Amlactin and CeraVe SA. For the face, he said products by Vanicream, CeraVe and Cetaphil are good.
The doctors did not recommend oils and said that a lot of people fi nd lanolin, a key ingredient in some products, irritating.
How often should I use skin cream? Twice a day.
What if my scalp feels dry, too? Patel said this is probably seborrheic derma-
titis or dandruff, not dry skin. Use a dandruff shampoo.
Will a humidifi er help? Yes. Patel said 40% humidity is ideal . The bed-
room is a good location at home because that’s where you spend the most time.
What mistakes are patients making? Patel has patients who like to rub their skin
with alcohol and peroxide. That is very drying. Noxzema is too harsh for most people, he said, and back scratchers can break fragile skin. The doctors agreed that trendy tea tree oil can be problematic. Allergic reactions to it have been increasing.
Itching to get rid of dry skin? Doctors recommend products and best practices to keep cracking to a minimum
iStock illustration
PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
Town baffled by tree cutting mystery
RI TIVERTON — A Rhode Island community is try-
ing to figure out who cut down about two dozen trees on a town-owned waterfront lot without permission.
The trees in Tiverton were reported cropped to a height of about four feet on Jan. 3.
Police have conducted “an ex-haustive investigation,” and are asking that anyone with informa-tion contact them, Chief Patrick Jones told The Newport Daily News for story published Wednes-day. The culprit could face charg-es including theft and vandalism and destruction of town property.
Authorities have contacted all the area tree companies, the electric company and the town’s public works department to see if they may have done it, but they all denied it, Town Clerk Nancy Mello said.
She suggested someone may have wanted to improve the view of the water.
Sheriff found guilty of drunken driving
NH CONCORD — A New Hampshire sheriff was
found guilty Tuesday of drunken driving.
A judge sentenced Merrimack County Sheriff Scott Hilliard to spend five days in the Belknap County jail. Hilliard was also found guilty of transporting an alcoholic beverage.
Hilliard was arrested in Au-gust in a restaurant parking lot
in Tilton after officers responded to a call about a driver swerving on the road. The off-duty sheriff smelled of alcohol and was sway-ing when police encountered him walking to his car.
Couple allegedly traded drugs for food stamps
AZ PHOENIX — State prosecutors say the
owners of a Glendale conve-nience store have been arrested for allegedly selling illegal drugs in exchange for food stamps and cash.
The Arizona Attorney Gener-al’s Office announced Tuesday that Bejar Sadiq Abdulaziz and Gretel De La Fuente Gamez are accused of trading drugs for food stamps or cash since 2017 at the Azad Market they ran.
According to a grand jury in-dictment, the drugs included co-caine, spice, meth and THC vape cartridges.
Abdulaziz and Gamez are ac-cused of fraudulent schemes and artifices, money laundering, ille-gal control of an enterprise, theft, assisting a criminal syndicate, sale or transportation of danger-
ous/narcotic drugs and unlawful use of food stamps.
Stolen artifacts returned to museum
RI PROVIDENCE — Native American arrowheads
have been returned to the Rhode Island museum they were stolen from nearly 30 years ago.
Agents from the U.S. Depart-ment of Homeland Security located the 34 white-quartz ar-rowheads in an eBay adver-tisement, WPRI-TV reported Tuesday.
The couple who attempted to sell the arrowheads say they did not know there were stolen, and claim to have traded a case of wine for the collection on Craig-slist in 2017.
Woman accused of stealing $2M in jewelry
CA SANTA ANA — A 54-year-old California
woman was arrested after au-thorities say she pulled a large kitchen knife on staff at a jewelry store and stole $2 million worth of
their merchandise.Costa Mesa police officers ar-
rested Karen Yvonne Floyd ofNewport Beach on Monday, TheOrange County Register reportedTuesday.
Floyd walked into a store Sat-urday, asked to try on multiplehigh-end pieces and proceeded to walk out of the store wearingthem, authorities said. Floyd was stopped by store security whenshe allegedly pulled out the knifeand threatened them, authoritiessaid.
Poe House added to list of literary landmarks
MD BALTIMORE — Anassociation repre-
senting libraries is honoring theEdgar Allan Poe House and Mu-seum in Baltimore.
A division of the American Li-brary Association has added the Poe House to its national registryof Literary Landmarks. The mu-seum will host a dedication cer-emony Sunday, which coincideswith the celebration of the 211th anniversary of Poe’s birth.
The organization says the PoeHouse is the first literary sitein Maryland to be included inthe registry. Previous dedica-tions have included the homes ofTennessee Williams, MarjorieKinnan Rawlings and WilliamFaulkner.
The master of Gothic horror lived at the Baltimore house from 1833 to 1835. It became a muse-um in 1949 and was designateda National Historic Landmark in1971. From wire reports
AMERICAN ROUNDUP
The amount in dollars a Florida woman who fed vul-tures, alligators and other wildlife behind her gated-community home has agreed to pay to settle a lawsuit brought by the homeowners association. Palm Beach County Judge Scott Kerner on Wednesday permanently
enjoined Irma Acosta Arya from feeding wildlife and ordered her to pay up by Feb. 14, the Palm Beach Post reported. Neighbors and the homeowners association said Acosta Arya’s nocturnal and daytime feedings attracted flocks of defecating and vomiting vultures, along with raccoons, alligators and bobcats.
Dog gives birth to bright green puppy
NC CANTON — The Avengers may have
gained a canine sidekick after a North Carolina family’s dog gave birth to a bright green puppy named “Hulk.”
Gypsy, a white shepherd owned by Haywood County resident Shana Stamey, delivered eight puppies Friday morning. Gypsy’s hour labor was going smoothly until the fourth puppy came out as a small, but mighty tuft of lime green fur, Stamey said.
“I started freaking out,“ Sta-mey told news outlets. “But ev-erybody was healthy.”
Liquid from inside Gypsy’s stomach likely stained the white dog’s fur during pregnancy, Su-zanne Cianciulli, the manager of Junaluska Animal Hospital in Waynesville, told news outlets.
Regular baths and daily licks from Gypsy are expected to fade Hulk’s green hue in a few weeks, Stamey said.
Police: Teens used replica gun to rob man
MA BOSTON — Boston police have arrested
13- and 15-year-old boys they say used a replica Uzi machine pistol to rob a man on a city street.
The victim was walking in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood at about 11 p.m. Tuesday when he felt a sharp jab in his lower back, Sgt. Detective John Boyle told The Boston Globe.
One suspect rifled through the victim’s pockets, taking his phone, some cash, and a gift card, Boyle said.
One suspect hit the victim in the face while holding the sus-pected weapon in his hand, de-manding the victim provide the code needed to unlock his phone, Boyle said.
The suspects were arrested minutes later as they left a nearby Dunkin’ restaurant, carrying the victim’s iPhone, gift card, and a replica Uzi machine pistol, police said.
Woman accused of stealing dog at gunpoint
DC WASHINGTON — A woman accused of
stealing a dog at gunpoint in Maryland has been identified and charged, police said.
Juanel Huff, 26, is in custody in Washington, D.C., Prince George’s County police said in a news release Tuesday.
The owner of the puppy, named Lobo, told police he was on a walk in Landover last month when an armed woman demanded the dog. The woman, now identified as Huff, got into a struggle with the man. He let go of the gun when an accomplice, a man, approached, according to police.
Huff reportedly pulled the trig-ger several times but the gun didn’t fire. She took the dog and she and the man drove away, po-lice said. The accomplice hasn’t been identified.
A person found Lobo alone in Washington the next day. The puppy was later reunited with his owner.
THE CENSUS
Interactive art
53K
A young guest enjoys a snack while standing inside a jumbo, interactive replica of the famous 1851 painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” at the American Adventure pavilion at Epcot in Orlando, Fla., on the eve of the 2020 Epcot Festival of the Arts on Thursday .
JOE BURBANK, ORLANDO (FLA.) SENTINEL/AP
Saturday, January 18, 2020 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15
OPINIONMax D. Lederer Jr., Publisher
Lt. Col. Sean Klimek, Europe commanderLt. Col. Richard McClintic, Pacific commander Caroline E. Miller, Europe Business Operations Joshua M. Lashbrook, Pacific Chief of Staff
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After its 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, Justice David Souter re-portedly “wept” when the role of the Supreme Court was raised
in determining the outcome of the presi-dential election. The court continues to grapple with the legacy — and controversy — of that decision. With the still developing Senate trial in President Donald Trump’s impeachment, the court could soon be pulled into the flip side of Bush v. Gore, not who could be declared but who should be removed as president.
Despite what Trump counsel Rudy Giu-liani has declared in calling for the court to nullify the impeachment, the Constitution does not state any function of the court in impeachments other than the limited role of the chief justice as the presiding judge. That suits most justices just fine. Most justices would prefer to drink molten lead than get pulled into another presidential legitimacy case.
Yet, the Trump impeachment trial may force that cup to the lips of the justices. With a trial that started in the Senate on Thursday, the looming question over the Senate will be whether to allow witnesses. While I strongly disagreed with the House in rushing this impeachment forward rather than waiting a couple of months to complete its record, I still support a trial with witnesses in the Senate. If witnesses are called, however, the court could be forced to finally face a question more than 50 years in the making.
In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon and ordered the release of the Watergate tapes to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski — and ultimate-ly to Congress. Nixon resigned roughly two weeks later. That case has spawned a
variety of interpretations of its rejection of executive privilege, including one in-terpretation I call the “Nixon fallacy.” The fallacy goes something like this: Impeach-ment so exceeds in importance executive-privilege claims that the Supreme Court has already declared that criminal or im-peachment investigations take precedence over privilege so any withholding of testi-mony or documents is per se obstruction.
In reality, the Supreme Court never said anything like that. Yes, the court rejected what it described as the claim of an “abso-lute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity” to withhold relevant evidence in a criminal investigation. But it did not say that a president could not invoke privi-lege over the testimony in an impeachment proceeding or that such privilege asser-tions could not ever prevail. Indeed, it did not even categorically reject such claims in a criminal investigation but simply said that “without more” of a justification from Nixon, the tapes would have to be turned over to the Watergate special prosecutor.
A national security adviser speaking to a president about the delivery of military aid to a foreign country is the very definition of a core protected area of executive privi-lege. That does not mean the White House would win in a fight over John Bolton’s testimony. However, it does mean Trump has a viable and recognized basis for with-holding information in this area — creat-ing an issue capable of judicial review and resolution.
So, here is one scenario. The Senate crosses the Rubicon and both sides call wit-nesses from Bolton to Hunter Biden to give depositions. While Biden would not be able to refuse to testify absent a Fifth Amend-ment plea (which could be overcome by a grant of immunity), the White House would try to halt Bolton’s participation under a claim of privilege. The White House would
presumably push the case into the federaldistrict court, which would have to review each area of questioning to determine ifexecutive privileges or congressional pre-rogatives should prevail. Appeals wouldfollow. And all that assumes the Senate is willing to wait for those courts to rule.
The problem is time. It took only three months to litigate the Nixon tapes contro-versy from the district court to a final de-cision of the Supreme Court. By refusingto delay the impeachment vote, the Houseeffectively gave up control of its own case.The Senate may have little time or patienceto allow the House to correct that blunder.
In my view, Bolton should testify. Indeed, he should have been subpoenaed in theHouse. There are valid privilege claims to be raised, but he can clearly answer ques-tions narrowly tailored to the issue of aquid pro quo.
The only body less eager to grapplewith those claims than the Senate is theSupreme Court. The aversion is only en-hanced by the possibility of recusal of Chief Justice John Roberts in any appeal,leaving the court with a risk of a tie voteon a critical impeachment question. Overa decade after she ruled in Bush v. Gore,Sandra Day O’Connor was still expressing regrets and wondered aloud, “Maybe thecourt should have said, ‘We’re not going totake it, goodbye.’ ”
But that may be difficult when the Sen-ate is waiting roughly 1,500 feet away foran answer on what Bolton might say. Three branches of government would literally belocked in a constitutional hold with the cu-rious figure of Bolton sitting in the center. Before he speaks, the court may have no alternative but to be heard.Jonathan Turley is the chair of public interest law at George Washington University and served as the last lead counsel in an impeachment trial before the Senate in defense of Judge Thomas Porteous. He is also a CBS and BBC legal analyst.
BY JOSH HAMMER
Special to the Los Angeles Times
Many have been all too quick to make Attorney General William Barr out to be a reflex-ive toady for President Donald
Trump. Just last week, the New York City Bar Association took the extreme step of writing to congressional leaders to investi-gate Barr for political bias. And last month, he came under blistering criticism for de-fending the Trump campaign and charac-terizing the FBI’s Russia investigation into the 2016 election as bogus.
Slate has accused Barr of using the De-partment of Justice as “a personal law firm for Trump.” Vox has bewailed “the department’s politicization under Barr.” The Daily Beast has lamented how Barr has “become another of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.” Perhaps none of these media outlets recalls the time when then-Attorney General Eric Holder described himself as President Barack Obama’s “wingman.” Curiously, Holder actually took to The Washington Post to decry Barr’s ostensible self-debasement as an unfortunate “instrument of politics.”
Holder’s hypocrisy aside, the new stance in favor of a strongly independent attorney general among liberals is misguided as a matter of constitutional interpretation and ahistorical as a matter of American cus-tom. Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution states that “(t)he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The power is vested not in numerous sources, but solely in the president. The president maintains plenary authority over the entirety of the
executive branch.The “unitary executive theory,” which
Democrats routinely excoriate, comes from the plain text of the Constitution. As Barr recently said during his remarks at the Federalist Society’s 2019 National Lawyers Convention, the notion of the uni-tary executive “is not ‘new,’ and it is not a ‘theory.’ ” On the contrary, he continued, “(i)t is a description of what the Fram-ers unquestionably did in Article II of the Constitution.”
Throughout American history, attorneys general have intuited and acted upon their nonindependent subordination to presi-dents of the United States. In “Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics in the Attorney General’s Office, 1789-1990,” the scholar Nancy V. Baker explored the historical nature of the attorney general’s position. Baker devoted entire book sections to “The Attorney General as a Legal Advisor” and “The Attorney General as a Policy Advi-sor.” She observed that “before he became an administrator” of a sprawling Depart-ment of Justice bureaucracy, “the attorney general assumed the role of the advisor to the president.” What’s more, the attorney general’s “responsibility” to serve in such an advisory capacity “has antecedents in seventeenth-century England.”
Indeed, the role of the attorney general as a top presidential adviser has been a re-curring theme throughout American his-tory. When President Abraham Lincoln’s attorney general, Edward Bates, wrote to Congress in 1861 to defend Lincoln’s uni-lateral suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, he did so not as a neutral arbiter of legal principle, but as Lincoln’s top legal adviser who shared his superior’s policy
aim of a Union victory in the Civil War.Similarly, President Franklin Roos-
evelt’s wartime attorney general, FrancisBiddle, ceased his vocal opposition to Japa-nese American internment after it becameobvious that Roosevelt planned to sign thefateful Executive Order 9066. Biddle un-derstood that he was not in any way inde-pendent of the president, but that he was apolitical appointee who had to support thepresident in order to keep his job.
In modern times, the Justice Depart-ment’s Office of Legal Counsel, which wascreated by Congress during the New Deal, provides “legal advice to the president and all executive branch agencies” andreviews “all executive orders and substan-tive proclamations proposed to be issued by the president.” The president also hasat his disposal the White House counsel’soffice, but that office tends to focus on legal issues arising from legislation, executiveand judicial branch nominations, and eth-ics questions.
Though the O L C does sometimes reachlegal conclusions at loggerheads with theWhite House, it is hardly independent inany meaningful way. Former Acting Assis-tant Attorney General David Barron, wholed the OLC during the early years of theObama administration, once stated thatthe office’s legal analyses “may appropri-ately reflect the fact that its responsibili-ties also include facilitating the work of theExecutive Branch and the objectives of the President, consistent with the law.”
Eric Holder was correct the first time.The attorney general, in large part, actu-ally is the president’s “wingman.”Josh Hammer is editor at large of the Daily Wire and of counsel at First Liberty Institute.
High court might intervene in Senate trial
Barr isn’t a toady. That’s the nature of his job.
PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17Saturday, January 18, 2020
SCOREBOARD
Go to the American Forces Network website for the most up-to-date TV schedules.myafn.net
Sports on AFN
College football
Bowl glanceFriday, Dec. 20
Frisco (Texas) BowlKent State 51, Utah State 41
Bahamas BowlNassau
Buffalo 31, Charlotte 9Saturday, Dec. 21Celebration Bowl
At AtlantaNC A&T 64, Alcorn State 44
New Mexico BowlAlbuquerque
San Diego State 48, Central Michigan 11Cure Bowl
Orlando, Fla.Liberty 23, Georgia Southern 16
Boca Raton (Fla.) BowlFAU 52, SMU 28
Camellia BowlMontgomery, Ala.
Arkansas State 34, FIU 26New Orleans Bowl
Appalachian State 31, UAB 17Las Vegas Bowl
Washington 38, Boise State 7Monday, Dec. 23Gasparilla BowlAt Tampa, Fla.
UCF 48, Marshall 25Tuesday, Dec. 24
Hawaii BowlHonolulu
Hawaii 38, BYU 34Thursday, Dec. 26
Independence BowlShreveport, La.
Louisiana Tech 14, Miami 0Quick Lane Bowl
DetroitPittsburgh 34, Eastern Michigan 30
Friday, Dec. 27Military Bowl
Annapolis, Md.North Carolina 55, Temple 13
Pinstripe BowlNew York
Michigan State 27, Wake Forest 21Texas Bowl
HoustonTexas A&M 24, Oklahoma State 21
Holiday BowlSan Diego
Iowa 49, Southern Cal 24Cheez-It Bowl
PhoenixAir Force 31, Washington State 21
Saturday, Dec. 28Camping World Bowl
Orlando, Fla.Notre Dame 33, Iowa State 9
Cotton Bowl ClassicArlington, Texas
Penn State 53, Memphis 39Peach Bowl
AtlantaCFP Semifinal: LSU 63, Oklahoma 28
Fiesta BowlGlendale, Ariz.
CFP Semifinal: Clemson 29, Ohio State 23Monday, Dec. 30
Sunday, Jan. 19Tennessee at Kansas CityGreen Bay at San Francisco
Pro BowlSunday, Jan. 26At Orlando, Fla.
AFC vs. NFCSuper Bowl
Sunday, Feb. 2At Miami Gardens, Fla.
NFC champion vs. AFC champion
NFL injury report NEW YORK — The National Football
League injury report, as provided by the league:
TENNESSEE TITANS at KANSAS CITY CHIEFS — TITANS: DNP: CB Logan Ryan (illness). LIMITED: LB Jayon Brown (shoul-der), LB Rashaan Evans (foot), WR Adam Humphries (ankle), CB Adoree’ Jackson (foot), LB David Long (knee). FULL: WR Cody Hollister (ankle). CHIEFS: DNP: DT Chris Jones (calf), RB LeSean McCoy (ill-ness), QB Matt Moore (illness). LIMITED: TE Travis Kelce (knee). FULL: CB Morris Claiborne (shoulder), CB Kendall Fuller (knee), DE Tanoh Kpassagnon (neck), C Austin Reiter (wrist), DT Khalen Saun-ders (knee), G Andrew Wylie (ankle).
GREEN BAY PACKERS at SAN FRANCIS-CO 49ERS — PACKERS: DNP: WR Geron-imo Allison (illness), TE Jimmy Graham (not injury related), WR Ryan Grant (not injury related). LIMITED: T Bryan Bulaga (not injury related), DT Kenny Clark (back), WR Allen Lazard (ankle), TE Marcedes Lewis (not injury related), LB Preston Smith (ankle), G Billy Turner (ankle), RB Dan Vitale (knee), CB Tramon Williams (not injury related). FULL: S Adrian Amos (chest), LB Blake Martinez (hand). 49ERS: DNP: DE Dee Ford (quadri-cep, hamstring), TE George Kittle (ankle). LIMITED: LB Kwon Alexander (pectoral). FULL: RB Tevin Coleman (elbow), RB Ra-heem Mostert (calf).
SOUTHAppalachian St. 83, Arkansas St. 80, OTBelmont 87, E. Kentucky 56Charleston Southern 77, Campbell 62FAU 97, Middle Tennessee 94FIU 93, UAB 68Georgia Southern 82, Troy 66Georgia St. 72, South Alabama 63High Point 68, UNC Asheville 66Hofstra 63, UNC Wilmington 61Louisiana Tech 72, Rice 56Memphis 60, Cincinnati 49Murray St. 84, UT Martin 62N. Kentucky 88, Youngstown St. 63North Florida 75, Jacksonville 68North Texas 72, Southern Miss. 52Northeastern 79, Coll. of Charleston 76Presbyterian 74, Longwood 67Radford 63, SC-Upstate 59Stetson 54, North Alabama 49Tennessee St. 64, Morehead St. 46Texas St. 64, Louisiana-Monroe 63Texas-Arlington 81, Louisiana-Lafay-
ette 65UALR 71, Coastal Carolina 55W. Kentucky 71, Old Dominion 69Winthrop 116, Hampton 95
MIDWESTAustin Peay 84, SE Missouri 59CS Bakersfield 74, UMKC 64, OTDetroit 90, Milwaukee 84Drake 84, Illinois St. 74E. Illinois 70, Jacksonville St. 69Grand Canyon 78, Chicago St. 64Green Bay 73, Oakland 69Oral Roberts 87, W. Illinois 70Wright St. 75, Cleveland St. 62
FAR WESTArizona 93, Utah 77BYU 93, San Diego 70CS Northridge 80, UC Riverside 68Colorado 68, Arizona St. 61E. Washington 78, Idaho 75Gonzaga 104, Santa Clara 54N. Arizona 75, S. Utah 72N. Colorado 71, Sacramento St. 52New Mexico St. 70, Utah Valley 56Pacific 65, Portland 55Pepperdine 75, Loyola Marymount 67Seattle 91, Rio Grande 74Southern Cal 88, California 56UC Davis 85, Long Beach St. 82Washington 64, Oregon St. 56Washington St. 72, Oregon 61Weber St. 76, Idaho St. 68, OT
Thursday’s women’s scoresEAST
Fairfield 72, Canisius 70Georgia Tech 82, Syracuse 64Louisville 81, Boston College 70Manhattan 80, Siena 50Maryland 87, Nebraska 69Niagara 63, Iona 57Quinnipiac 60, Monmouth (NJ) 53Rider 76, Marist 72Rutgers 62, Penn St. 57Temple 69, South Florida 66
SOUTHBelmont 68, E. Kentucky 48Charlotte 52, Marshall 46Chattanooga 80, Wofford 76Clemson 75, Pittsburgh 67Duke 50, Notre Dame 47Furman 81, ETSU 62Kentucky 76, Texas A&M 54Middle Tennessee 81, FAU 66Mississippi St. 64, LSU 60Morehead St. 84, Tennessee St. 47NC State 68, Florida St. 51North Carolina 78, Miami 58Old Dominion 76, W. Kentucky 65South Alabama 81, Georgia St. 64Tennessee 78, Florida 50Troy 79, Georgia Southern 69UAB 71, FIU 58UConn 59, UCF 52UT Martin 98, Murray St. 56Wake Forest 62, Virginia 56
MIDWESTDetroit 70, Cleveland St. 59E. Illinois 55, Jacksonville St. 52Iowa 76, Minnesota 75Michigan 68, Wisconsin 56Michigan St. 68, Ohio St. 65Northwestern 71, Indiana 69Oral Roberts 79, Purdue Fort Wayne 73Purdue 81, Illinois 67Rio Grande 85, Seattle 81S. Dakota St. 99, North Dakota 64SE Missouri 81, Austin Peay 43South Carolina 78, Missouri 45South Dakota 80, N. Dakota St. 36Tennessee Tech 65, SIU-Edwardsville 50Youngstown St. 79, Oakland 74
SOUTHWESTArkansas St. 76, Appalachian St. 58Louisiana-Monroe 58, Texas St. 55Rice 60, Louisiana Tech 47Southern Miss. 65, North Texas 57Texas-Arlington 79, Louisiana-Lafay-
ette 52FAR WEST
BYU 76, Pacific 66CS Bakersfield 70, UMKC 60CS Northridge 63, Cal St.-Fullerton 57Gonzaga 67, Santa Clara 52Grand Canyon 69, Chicago St. 49Hawaii 80, UC Riverside 57Idaho 69, E. Washington 60Idaho St. 65, Weber St. 54N. Arizona 84, S. Utah 76N. Colorado 73, Sacramento St. 63Oregon 87, Stanford 55Portland 73, San Francisco 66San Diego 72, Saint Mary’s (Cal) 54UC Davis 57, Long Beach St. 55UC Santa Barbara 65, UC Irvine 61Utah Valley 58, New Mexico St. 54
Deals
Thursday’s transactionsBASEBALL
American LeagueBOSTON RED SOX — Promoted Shawn
Haviland and Chris Mears to pitching co-ordinators, performance. Named Reed Gragnani and Chris Stasio assistant hitting coordinators; Jordan Elkary as-sistant, baseball development; and Jake Chaplin mental skills coach.
HOUSTON ASTROS — Agreed to terms with OF George Springer on a one-year contract.
National LeagueATLANTA BRAVES — Signed INF Ad-
einy Hechavarria to a one-year contract.NEW YORK METS — Announced the
team and manager Carlos Beltran have agreed to mutually part ways.
SAN DIEGO PADRES — Signed RHPs Pe-dro Avila, Kyle Barraclough, Miguel Diaz, Jerad Eickhoff, Chih-Wei Hu, Chase John-son and Jimmy Yacabonis; Cs Webster Rivas and Charlie Valerio; OFs Abraham Almonte, INFs Ivan Castillo and Seth Me-jias-Brean to minor league contracts.
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — Named Mark Hallberg and Alyssa Nakken assis-tant coaches.
BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association
ATLANTA HAWKS — Acquired G Trev-eon Graham and Jeff Teague from Min-nesota for G-F Allen Crabbe. Recalled F Bruno Fernando from College Park (NBAGL).
FOOTBALLNational Football League
CAROLINA PANTHERS — Named Joe Brady offensive coordinator.
CHICAGO BEARS — Named Bill Lazor offensive coordinator and John DeFilip-po quarterbacks coach. Promoted Dave Ragone to pass game coordinator, Brian Ginn to assistant special teams coach, Chris Jackson to assistant wide receiv-ers and Shane Toub to defensive quality control.
HOCKEYNational Hockey League
DALLAS STARS — Recalled D Stephen Johns from Texas (AHL).
NEW JERSEY DEVILS — Placed RW Kyle Palmieri on injured reserve, retroactive to January 11. Recalled F Michael McLeod from Binghamton (AHL).
SOCCERMajor League Soccer
MINNESOTA UNITED — Acquired G Tyler Miller from the Los Angeles FC for $150,000 in 2020 General Allocation Mon-ey (GAM) and $50,000 in 2021 Targeted Allocation Money (TAM).
NEW YORK CITY FC — Agreed to terms with F Ismael Tajouri-Shradi on a multi-year contract.
PHILADELPHIA UNION — Signed D Mark McKenzie.
VANCOUVER WHITECAPS — Acquired D Cristiam Gutierrez Colo-Colo (Chile).
National Women’s Soccer LeagueWASHINGTON SPIRIT — Acquired the
2020 first- (No. 4), two 2020 second-round draft picks and the 2021 first-0round draft pick from Sky Blue FC for a player to be named.
COLLEGEBAYLOR — Named Dave Aranda foot-
ball coach.DEPAUL — Announced F D.J. Williams
has joined the men’s basketball program as a graduate transfer.
Golf
The American ExpressPGA TourThursday
La Quinta, Calif.s-Stadium Course (Host Course); 7,113
yards; Par 72q-La Quinta Counry Club; 7,060 yards;
Tom Pernice Jr. 35-35—70 -2Steve Flesch 35-35—70 -2Paul Broadhurst 34-36—70 -2Wes Short, Jr. 35-35—70 -2Vijay Singh 34-36—70 -2Jerry Kelly 33-37—70 -2Sandy Lyle 35-36—71 -1Jay Haas 38-33—71 -1Fred Funk 36-35—71 -1Tom Lehman 34-37—71 -1Colin Montgomerie 35-36—71 -1Hale Irwin 39-33—72 EJeff Sluman 35-37—72 ERocco Mediate 36-36—72 EKirk Triplett 35-37—72 EErnie Els 36-36—72 EMark Calcavecchia 35-38—73 +1Mark O’Meara 37-36—73 +1Kevin Sutherland 35-39—74 +2Davis Love III 37-37—74 +2
Diamond ResortsTournament of Champions
LPGA TourThursday
At Tranquilo Golf CourseLake Buena Vista, Fla.
Purse: $1.2 millionYardage: 6,645; Par 71 (34-37)
First RoundDanielle Kang 29-34—63 -8Gaby Lopez 32-33—65 -6Angela Stanford 31-34—65 -6Inbee Park 31-34—65 -6Celine Boutier 32-34—66 -5Lexi Thompson 33-33—66 -5Sei Young Kim 32-34—66 -5Marina Alex 30-36—66 -5Nasa Hataoka 31-35—66 -5Brooke M. Henderson 32-35—67 -4Cheyenne Knight 34-34—68 -3Moriya Jutanugarn 32-36—68 -3Jasmine Suwannapura 32-36—68 -3Annie Park 35-33—68 -3Amy Yang 32-36—68 -3Bronte Law 34-35—69 -2Cydney Clanton 33-36—69 -2Mi Jung Hur 33-36—69 -2Jessica Korda 33-37—70 -1Georgia Hall 34-36—70 -1Pernilla Lindberg 34-36—70 -1Brittany Lincicome 32-39—71 EIn Gee Chun 35-36—71 ENelly Korda 35-38—73 +2Eun-Hee Ji 36-38—74 +3Ariya Jutanugarn 36-39—75 +4
Tennis
Adelaide InternationalThursday
At Memorial Drive Tennis CentreAdelaide, Australia
Purse: $546,355Surface: Hardcourt outdoor
Men’s SinglesQuarterfinals
Felix Auger-Aliassime (2), Canada, def. Alex Bolt, Australia, 6-3, 6-0.
Note: Two points for a win, one pointfor overtime loss. Top three teams in each division and two wild cards perconference advance to playoffs.
Thursday’s gamesBoston 4, Pittsburgh 1Columbus 3, Carolina 2Florida 4, Los Angeles 3N.Y. Rangers 3, N.Y. Islanders 2Montreal 4, Philadelphia 1Calgary 2, Toronto 1, SOWashington 5, New Jersey 2Vegas 4, Ottawa 2Minnesota 3, Tampa Bay 2Anaheim 4, Nashville 2Buffalo 4, Dallas 1Colorado 4, San Jose 0Vancouver 3, Arizona 1
Friday’s gamesAnaheim at CarolinaPittsburgh at DetroitTampa Bay at Winnipeg
Saturday’s gamesWashington at N.Y. IslandersSt. Louis at ColoradoArizona at EdmontonCalgary at OttawaNew Jersey at ColumbusFlorida at DetroitVegas at MontrealLos Angeles at PhiladelphiaChicago at TorontoBuffalo at NashvilleDallas at MinnesotaSan Jose at Vancouver
Sunday’s gamesBoston at PittsburghN.Y. Islanders at CarolinaWinnipeg at ChicagoColumbus at N.Y. Rangers
Monday’s gamesDetroit at ColoradoFlorida at Minnesota
Kreider wins it on late power-play goal
Rangers edge IslesBY VIN A. CHERWOO
Associated Press
UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Chris Kreider and the New York Rangers like the way they’ve been playing lately. Beating the rival New York Islanders for the second time in four days was a big confidence boost, too.
Kreider scored a power-play goal with 25 seconds left to give the Rangers their fourth win in five games, 3-2 over the Is-landers on Thursday night.
“As the season’s going we’ve started to do a lot of the little things that have given us opportunities to win games and be in games,” Kreider said. “We’ve had a stretch here where we’ve definitely done a better job of that.”
With the Islanders’ Derick Brassard off for cross-checking earlier in the final minute, Kreider was at the right side of the net and knocked in the rebound of Mika Zibanejad’s shot for the tiebreaking goal.
Zibanejad and Tony DeAngelo also scored as the Rangers beat the Islandersfor the fourth time in the last five meetings after losing 12 of the previous 13 match-ups. Alexandar Georgiev stopped 38 shotsto improve to 4-1-0 against the Islanders, who faced the Rangers at Nassau Coliseumfor the first time in nearly five years.
The Rangers also won 6-2 at home Mon-day night .
“They test your mettle, they test your mental toughness, they test your physicaltoughness,“ Rangers coach David Quinnsaid of the Islanders. “To come in here andget two points certainly is a great sign forgrowth.”
Josh Bailey and Anthony Beauvillierscored for the Islanders, and Semyon Var-lamov finished with 25 saves.
“I thought we played well for the mostpart,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said.“We made a poor decision at the end andthey capitalized on it.”
FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP
The New York Rangers’ Chris Kreider, top, shoots the puck past New York Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov, left, and Johnny Boychuk for the game-winning goal with 25 seconds remaining in the third period Thursday in Uniondale, N.Y.
Roundup
Ovechkin’s 3 goals help Caps top DevilsAssociated Press
WASHINGTON — When Alex Ovechkin took an errant stick to the face that made him bleed, his Washington Capitals teammates knew it wouldn’t be good for the New Jersey Devils.
A fired-up Ovechkin came back from the bloody mouth to re-cord his 25th career hat trick and lead the Capitals past the Devils 5-2 on Thursday night. Ovechkin knew New Jersey’s Miles Wood didn’t mean to high-stick him and the referees didn’t see it, but that didn’t stop him from exact-ing some revenge with his second consecutive multigoal game.
“He always plays better when he’s a little (angry), so there you go,” Capitals center Nicklas Back-strom said. “It was drawn up like that. He came back, got a little mad, scored two and then he was just waiting for the third.
“That’s just the story of Ovi.”Ovechkin reached 31 goals this
season and joined Mike Gartner as the only players to score 30 or more in each of his first 15 NHL seasons. He has five over his past two games to get to 689 total, one back of Mario Lemieux for 10th on the NHL’s career list.
“It never gets old, but without my team, without my teammates, I’d never reach that milestone, I’d never reach those numbers,” Ovechkin said. “(Lemieux was) one of my idols when I’m grow-ing up. I get lucky I have a time to play against him, was on the ice with him a couple times. It’s huge.”
Carl Hagelin and Jakub Vrana also scored for Washington, which has won two in a row since a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Devils five days earlier. The Capitals looked much more like a first-place team Thursday than
they did in these teams’ most re-cent meeting.
Avalanche 4, Sharks 0: Philipp Grubauer made 27 saves for his first shutout of the season and host Colorado got goals from four players in a win over San Jose.
It was Grubauer’s third shutout since joining Colorado in the sum-mer of 2018 and his first since March 9, 2019, against Buffalo. Grubauer now has two shutouts in six games against San Jose.
Canadiens 4, Flyers 1: Ilya Kovalchuk scored twice and Carey Price recorded 40 saves as visiting Montreal avoided a sea-son series sweep.
Tomas Tatar scored his 17th goal of the season and Artturi Lehkonen added his 11th for the Canadiens, who find themselves six points behind Philadelphia for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Bruins 4, Penguins 1: Patrice Bergeron scored his 20th goal,
Karson Kuhlman and David Pas-trnak both had two assists, and host Boston topped Pittsburgh.
Sean Kuraly and Par Lindholm also scored for the Bruins and Brad Marchand added an empty-net goal in the final minute.
Panthers 4, Kings 3: Brian Boyle scored the eventual win-ning goal and host Florida held off a late surge to beat Los Angeles.
Mike Matheson, Frank Vatrano and Evgenii Dadonov also scored for the Panthers. Jonathan Hu-berdeau, who set the franchise points record in last Monday’s 8-4 win over Toronto, recorded an assist on Dadonov’s goal.
Flames 2, Maple Leafs 1 (SO): Matthew Tkachuk scored the only goal of the shootout, leading visit-ing Calgary past Toronto.
Derek Ryan scored in regula-tion for the Flames, who got 35 saves from David Rittich through 65 minutes. Rittich stopped Jason Spezza, Auston Matthews and
Mitch Marner in the shootout. Blue Jackets 3, Hurricanes 2:
Nick Foligno scored the tiebreak-ing goal with 1:41 left in the game, Elvis Merzlikins had 32 saves and host Columbus edged Carolina.
Foligno grabbed the loose puck in the slot and fired it past Petr Mrazek’s glove for his first goal in 23 games.
Wild 3, Lightning 2: Zach Parise scored his team-leading 17th goal and Ryan Suter added his seventh as host Minnesota snapped a four-game losing streak.
Parise has three goals in the past two games. Joel Eriksson Ek also scored and Alex Stalock stopped 18 shots for Minnesota.
Ducks 4, Predators 2: Rickard Rakell had a goal and an assist, and John Gibson made 33 saves in visiting Anaheim’s victory.
Josh Manson, Adam Henrique and Derek Grant also scored for the Ducks, who snapped a four-game losing streak. Cam Fowler and Ryan Getzlaf each had two assists.
Sabres 4, Stars 1: Rasmus Dahlin scored a tiebreaking goal in the second period, and Linus Ullmark made 28 saves to lead visiting Buffalo to its season-best third straight win.
Dahlin took a pass from Henri Jokiharju and sent a wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle past Ben Bishop at 16:10.
Canucks 3, Coyotes 1: Jake Virtanen scored the go-ahead goal midway through the second period and Jacob Markstrom made 34 saves to lead Vancouver past Arizona.
Bo Horvat also scored and Tan-ner Pearson had an empty-net goal for the Canucks, who won for the 10th time in 13 games.
AL DRAGO/AP
Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin celebrates with center Nicklas Backstrom, right, after scoring his third goal of the game Thursday against the New Jersey Devils in Washington. The Capitals won 5-2.
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19Saturday, January 18, 2020
BY TOM CANAVAN
Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. — Firing coaches has been the norm in the NHL for decades. It’s just gone to another level this season in our instant-gratification society.
Halfway through the season, seven coaches have been either fired or forced out, and in all like-lihood there will be more disap-pearing from some struggling teams.
Five of the firings were related to team performance. The latest came Wednesday when Gerard Gallant was abruptly fired by the Vegas Golden Knights less than two years after leading them to the Stanley Cup Final in their first season of existence and win-ning NHL coach of the year hon-ors along the way.
Peter DeBoer, fired last month by the San Jose Sharks, takes over immediately and will be the Vegas coach the rest of the season.
General manager Kelly Mc-Crimmon announced the change in the aftermath of a 4-2 loss to Buffalo on Tuesday night that dropped Vegas out of a playoff po-sition in the Western Conference. The Golden Knights had lost four in a row, matching the longest point drought in their brief fran-chise history.
The coaches let go for off-ice performance include: Bill Peters, who either resigned or was fired in Calgary over alleged racist comments, and Jim Montgomery, who said he was fired in Dallas for unprofessional conduct. He said he is undergoing alcohol rehabilitation.
While underachieving teams, poor records and owner impa-tience are the leading factors in the changes, other things have in-fluenced the moves that are based on the hope that past results else-where deliver similar gains.
Start with the Craig Berube factor. He took over as coach of the St. Louis Blues in November 2018 and led them from dead last in the standings in January to their first Stanley Cup title.
Mike Sullivan led the Pitts-burgh Penguins to consecutive Cups after taking over in Decem-ber 2015. A few years before that, Darryl Sutter took over the Los Angeles Kings in December 2011 and led them to their first Cup that season. There was another parade after the 2013-14 season.
Instant success in all cases.Hockey owners are far too im-
patient with their coaches, for-mer NHL executive and current Sportsnet NHL analyst Brian Burke said Tuesday .
“It is a lot easier to turn around a business in some other area than it is in hockey and pro sports, and the Berube factor does not help,” Burke said.
It certainly has put more hock-
ey coaches on notice in a field that already had very little security.
Of the 31 current NHL coach-es, only three have been with the same team since the start of the 2015-16 season. Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning has the longest tenure, starting in March 2013. Paul Maurice was hired by the Winnipeg Jets the following January, and Jeff Blashill joined the Detroit Red Wings on June 9, 2015.
They are the longest tenured among current coaches.
Including the seven firings this season: Gallant from Vegas; Mike Babcock from Toronto; Peters from Calgary; John Hynes from New Jersey, Montgomery from Dallas; DeBoer from San Jose; and Peter Laviolette from Nash-ville, there are 14 coaches in their first season with their team this year.
Berube, who has been on the job less than 14 months, has the 18th-longest tenure with his team among the current coaches.
Many hockey owners are tired of waiting for success, said Pierre McGuire, NBC Sports’ NHL In-side-the-Glass analyst.
“I think people look at history in the league and ownerships in particular, and say: ‘What about us?’ ” McGuire said. “ ‘You’ve told us about this five-year plan, or four-year plan and these guys are doing it in one year, and in some instances six months.’ That’s what leads to itchy trigger fingers.”
Change does bring some posi-tives. Following Tuesday night’s games, the Maple Leafs were 16-6-2 under Sheldon Keefe. The Flames were 13-6-1 under Geoff Ward. The Stars were 10-4-1 with Rick Bowness, and the Devils, Sharks and Predators were show-ing signs of improvement under Alain Nasreddine, Bob Bough-ner and Hynes, who only needed a month to find a job. Still, only three are currently in playoff spots.
Bowness credits his players, noting the positive results were not instantaneous.
“We had to work our way through a lot of things,“ he said. “And hopefully they’re all behind us.”
The reality for owners is the NHL is quickly becoming a 50-50 league. With the addition of Seattle through expansion, half of the league’s teams will make the playoffs each season.
While it sounds like a fair num-ber, things have changed since 1987, when Burke took a job with the Vancouver Canucks. There were 21 teams and 16 made the postseason. If a team missed, a tweak here or there and it could get back to the playoffs relatively soon.
“There was no exile,” Burke said. “There was no six, seven, eight years of missing the play-offs. Some teams are missing the playoffs for six, seven or eight years. The industry has never
been patient enough with coachesand it’s at an all-time low right now. Casualty rates are at an all-time high, and we’re not done yet this year.”
The Blues beat the odds withtheir coaching job change be-cause they had a solid team en-tering the season under MikeYeo and underachieved. Berubeprovided the right voice, play-ers such as Ivan Barbashev and Alexander Steen accepted roles, defenseman Colton Parayko tookhis game to another level, and akid name Jordan Binnington gaveSt. Louis what it needed most: un-believable goaltending.
Islanders coach Barry Trotzwas Predators coach for 15 sea-sons. He worked the entire timewith general manager DavidPoile and the two had a plan theyfollowed. They counted on each other and communicated.
“What happens when you’rewinning, you’re the smartest guyon the planet,” said Trotz, whowon a Cup with Washington in 2018. “When you’re losing, you don’t know a thing. You needpeople when things aren’t goingwell. In this business, when it’s not going well, you have the fan base on you, you have the mediaon you. You need someone thattrusts what you’re doing and cansay, ‘Hey, I believe in you andI don’t see that there’s a changeneeded.’ ”
It’s exactly what he got fromPoile.
Cooper knows the feeling.There were rumors about his job being in jeopardy earlier thisyear when the Lightning got offto a bad start on the heels of theplayoff debacle after winning thePresidents’ Trophy last season.
“We know the business we getinto in this league,” Cooper said Sunday before the Lightning hadits franchise record-tying 10-game winning streak snapped by the Devils. “For me being in this organization we have one com-mon goal: we’re all in it together.A big part of why I have beenaround is the communication among all of us. I have been veryfortunate.”
Trotz said surviving toughtimes builds better teams.
“The easiest thing is to panic when it’s not going really well,” he said. “But we’re in the winningbusiness and I understand thattotally. I understand it more now,20-something years into it, than Idid probably in Year 1 or 2. In thefirst or second year when you’restarting out you’re just trying tosurvive.”
Unfortunately, many coacheshave not been surviving lately.
“We’ve had a lot of volatilitythis year,” McGuire said. “Therewas a lot of volatility last summer. Hopefully it is going to straighten out a little bit here, the next littlewhile.”
NHLAround the league
Vegas’ dismissal of Gallant means seven have been fired this season
Coaches find they’re on thin ice
CHRIS SEWARD/AP
By taking over the Vegas Golden Knights from the fired Gerard Gallant, Peter DeBoer, above, is the 14th coach in his first season with his team this season.
Knightsdouble upSenators
Associated Press
OTTAWA, Ontario — Mark Stone made his return to Ottawa memorable — for himself and his new coach.
Stone scored a goal and picked up an assist, leading Vegas to a 4-2 victory over the Senators on Thursday night in Peter DeBoer’s debut as the Golden Knights’ coach.
The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Knights, who fired Gerard Gallant on Wednes-day. Peter Stastny, Chandler Ste-phenson and Ryan Reaves also scored for Vegas.
Stone, traded to Vegas last Feb-ruary, received a video tribute during the first TV timeout, with Senators fans giving him a stand-ing ovation. Stone took to the ice to thank the fans and gave them a thumbs up.
“It was nice to get the win,” Stone said. “It was weird, for sure. Six great years over there. They took a chance on me from Day One. I was no shoo-in to be an NHL hockey player and this team helped me develop and mold me into the player I am today. It was unfortunate that we weren’t able to end my career here, but at the same time Vegas has become home and the place that I want to spend the rest of my career.”
DeBoer didn’t have a lot of time to settle in as he met with the team briefly Thursday morning and then prepared for the game.
“I told them if I call any of them Jumbo or Burnsie to kick me,” joked DeBoer. “I didn’t make any mistakes on names, but it was a good night. It’s a good group and, like I said, a tough week and some hard days. I thought it was nice to get a win and kind of move past that.”
Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 33 shots for Vegas, tying the New York Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist for fifth place on the NHL’s ca-reer list with 458 wins.
SEAN KILPATRICK, THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP
Vegas Golden Knights right wing Mark Stone celebrates a goal against the Senators during the second period Thursday in Ottawa, Ontario. Vegas won 4-2.
PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 18, 2020
NBA/COLLEGE BASKETBALLNBA roundup
Ingram, Pelicansend Jazz’s streak
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — Brandon Ingram scored a career-high 49 points, and the New Orleans Pelicans stopped the Utah Jazz’s 10-game winning streak with a 138-132 victory Thursday night.
Utah led 132-127 on Bojan Bog-danovic’s three-pointer with 2:28 to go in overtime, but went score-less the rest of the way. The Peli-cans scored 11 straight on layups by Derrick Favors and E’Twaun Moore and seven free throws.
Favors finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks against his former team. Moore had 16 points for New Orleans, which has won 10 of 14 and has two games to play before the NBA’s top overall draft choice, Zion Williamson, is slated to make his Pelicans debut on Wednesday night.
Utah star Donovan Mitch-ell tied his career high with 46 points before missing several shots in the final minutes of over-time. Bogdanovic scored 26, and Rudy Gobert had 17 points, 14 re-bounds and three blocks.
The Pelicans thought they had won the game in regulation on Ingram’s off-balance jumper with .2 seconds left. But Jaxson Hayes was called for holding Gobert as Utah attempted a desperation tip-in on the inbound pass.
Bucks 128, Celtics 123: Gi-annis Antetokounmpo had 32 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists, and NBA-leading Mil-waukee won its fifth straight by beating visiting Boston.
It was Antetokounmpo’s 35th double-double of the season. Khris Middleton scored 23 points for Milwaukee (37-6), and Donte DiVincenzo had 19.
Kemba Walker scored 40 points for the Celtics, who took the floor without Jaylen Brown. The 6-foot-6 forward suffered a sprained right thumb in a 13-point loss to Detroit on Wednesday.
Clippers 122, Magic 95: Kawhi Leonard scored 32 points, leading host Los Angeles past Orlando.
Leonard also had five rebounds and five assists in his fourth con-secutive game with at least 30 points. He was 12-for-20 from the field.
The Clippers placed seven players in double figures and led by many as 23 in their fourth vic-tory in five games. Montrezl Har-rell finished with 21 points.
Suns 121, Knicks 98: Dean-dre Ayton had 26 points and a ca-reer-high 21 rebounds, powering Phoenix past host New York.
The Suns shot 51% (47-for-92) from the field and placed five players in double figures in their third win in four games. Devin Booker scored 29 points, and Ricky Rubio had 25 points and 13 assists.
New York lost for the seventh time in eight games, and rookie guard RJ Barrett departed in the
third quarter with an ankle in-jury. Barrett was using crutches after the game.
Nuggets 134, Warriors 131 (OT): Malik Beasley made two free throws with 8.9 seconds left in overtime, and short-handed Denver handed Golden State its 10th consecutive loss.
Will Barton had a season-high 31 points in the Nuggets’ fifth win in six games. Nikola Jokic added 23 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists, and Beasley finished with 27 points.
Alec Burks scored 25 for Gold-en State, and D’Angelo Russell had 21 points and six assists. It’s the longest slide for the Warriors since they also dropped 10 in a row March 9-24, 2002.
College basketball roundup
Elleby, Washington St.knock off No. 8 Oregon
Associated Press
PULLMAN, Wash. — CJ Elleby scored 25 points and Washington State beat a Top-10 team for just the third time, surprising No. 8 Oregon 72-61 on Thurs-day night.
Elleby, who was held to a season-low six points in his last game, helped Washington State (11-7, 2-3 Pac-12) to its first win over a Top-10 opponent since 2007.
Elleby shot 9-for-20, including 4-for-7 from three-point range, and added a season-high 14 rebounds. Isaac Bonton finished with 12 points and six assists, and Jeff Pollard scored 11 for the Cougars.
Payton Pritchard had 22 points and five assists for Oregon (14-4, 3-2), which had its three-game win-ning streak halted. Chris Duarte had 15 points for the Ducks.
Trailing by five points with 3:24 left, Pritchard made a clutch jumper in the paint, then converted a free throw to make it 60-58.
On the ensuing possession, Elleby converted a three-point play to make the score 63-58.
Washington State then went on a 9-0 run that closed out Oregon.
No. 1 Gonzaga 105, Santa Clara 54: Joel Ayayi scored 19 points and Filip Petrusev and Admon Gilder each scored 18 as the Bulldogs pounded the Broncos for their 33rd straight home win, the lon-gest streak in the nation.
Corey Kispert added 16 points for Gonzaga (19-1, 5-0 West Coast).
Josip Vrankic scored 12 points and Trey Wertz 11 for cold-shooting Santa Clara (15-4, 2-2), which is off to its best start in decades. But the Broncos have lost 20 straight to Gonzaga, dating to 2011.
The Broncos were doomed by 30% shooting in this game, including 3 of 25 from three-point range.
Gonzaga has won 11 games in a row since its only loss to Michigan.
No. 20 Colorado 68, Arizona State 61: Tyler Bey scored 19 points, Lucas Siewert added 14 and the Buffaloes overcame a slow start to beat the Sun Devils.
Colorado (14-3, 3-1 Pac-12) won its first road game
in conference play and has won seven of eight over-all. Siewert hit 4 of 6 three-pointers and Bey madehis only attempt from long range to give the Buffa-loes some much-needed offense.
Arizona State (10-7, 1-3) has dropped five of itslast seven.
Remy Martin scored 25 points and Romello Whitehad 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Sun Devils,who shot just 30% from the field in the second half, including 4-for-19 (21%) from three-point range.
No. 22 Memphis 60, Cincinnati 49: DJ Jef-fries scored 18 points, Precious Achiuwa added 12points and 11 rebounds and the host Tigers used arally midway through the second half to defeat theBearcats.
Lester Quinones added 13 points, seven coming in the final five minutes, as Memphis (14-3, 3-1 Ameri-can Athletic Conference) broke a six-game losingstreak in the series with Cincinnati.
Jarrron Cumberland, the defending AmericanAthletic Conference player of the year, led Cincin-nati (10-7, 3-2) with 19 points, while Keith Williamsscored 12, going 4-for-14 from the field, part of theBearcats struggling to a 30% shooting night from the field.
Army 79, Holy Cross 67: Matt Wilson scored23 points, Tommy Funk had 18 points and seven assists, and the visiting Black Knights won a game postponed due to a fatal car crash involving the Cru-saders women’s rowing team.
The game was scheduled for Wednesday night butwas pushed back a day after the Holy Cross rowingteam was involved in a crash during a winter train-ing trip to Vero Beach, Fla. The school announced 20-year-old Grace Rett passed away as a result ofinjuries sustained in the accident.
Alex King added 11 points, Lonnie Grayson had six rebounds and Wilson made 10 of 13 shots forArmy (6-10, 1-4 Patriot League), which snapped its five-game losing streak.
Matt Faw scored a career-high 22 points and had three blocks for the Crusaders (2-16, 1-4). Joe Pridgen added 17 points and Connor Niego had 13 points.
NBA scoreboard
Eastern ConferenceAtlantic Division
W L Pct GBBoston 27 13 .675 —Toronto 26 14 .650 1Philadelphia 26 16 .619 2Brooklyn 18 22 .450 9New York 11 31 .262 17
Thursday’s gamesPhoenix 121, New York 98Milwaukee 128, Boston 123New Orleans 138, Utah 132, OTDenver 134, Golden State 131, OTL.A. Clippers 122, Orlando 95
Friday’s gamesChicago at PhiladelphiaMinnesota at IndianaWashington at TorontoCleveland at MemphisMiami at Oklahoma CityAtlanta at San AntonioPortland at Dallas
Saturday’s gamesL.A. Clippers at New OrleansMilwaukee at BrooklynPhoenix at BostonDetroit at AtlantaPhiladelphia at New YorkCleveland at ChicagoToronto at MinnesotaL.A. Lakers at HoustonOrlando at Golden StatePortland at Oklahoma CitySacramento at Utah
Sunday’s gamesMiami at San AntonioIndiana at Denver
Monday’s gamesDetroit at WashingtonToronto at AtlantaPhiladelphia at BrooklynChicago at MilwaukeeNew Orleans at MemphisNew York at ClevelandOklahoma City at HoustonOrlando at CharlotteSacramento at MiamiL.A. Lakers at BostonDenver at MinnesotaIndiana at UtahSan Antonio at PhoenixGolden State at Portland
PETE CASTER/AP
Washington State guard Isaac Bonton, right, shoots as Oregon forward Shakur Juiston defends during the second half of Thursday’s game in Pullman, Wash. Washington State won 72-61.
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21Saturday, January 18, 2020
FROM BACK PAGE
What Shanahan and LaFleur certainly can admire about Reid is his forward-thinking approach on offense. Both of them are bred in offense, and they rarely back off. While Reid has been a bit more conservative — at least until Patrick Mahomes showed up — Shanahan and LaFleur rarely get shy with the ball.
Vrabel has a defensive back-ground, having won three Super Bowls as a linebacker in New England. Though nobody who saw him catch passes, including for a touchdown in the 2005 game against Reid and the Eagles, can forget his hand in the Patriots offense.
That’s hardly the only connec-tion among this quartet.
The ties between the Niners and Packers coaching staffs run deep. LaFleur worked under Shanahan on staffs in Houston, Washington and Atlanta before heading in his own direction. LaFleur’s brother, Mike, is the passing game coordi-nator in San Francisco and was blocked by Shanahan this past offseason when Matt wanted to hire him as offensive coordinator in Green Bay.
“It’s always a little bit different just because of how close you are with the other person,” Shanahan said. “I know Matt and Mike are as close as any brothers could be just like most people are with sib-lings, but it really doesn’t matter.
There’s a lot of talk to it and stuff, but I mean, there’s no feeling when that game goes on, there’s no feelings when you’re studying and preparing.
“Everyone cares about the other person. I know if we weren’t in it, I know he’d be pulling for his brother just like when I wasn’t going against my dad (long-time coach Mike Shanahan), I was al-ways pulling for him. But, I know when you go against each other, that stuff doesn’t matter. Every-one’s got a job to do and everyone is pretty competitive and wants to win, also.”
Matt LaFleur also has a very tight relationship with 49ers de-fensive coordinator Robert Saleh. They were roommates as gradu-
ate assistants at Central Michigan and have been close friends since. Saleh recommended LaFleur for his first NFL job as a quality con-trol offensive assistant with the Texans in 2008-09, when Shana-han was offensive coordinator.
“I was messing with him the other day,” LaFleur said. “I asked him to call me. I shot him a text message. I said, ‘Hey, would you give me a call? I have a couple questions about your defense.’
“That was the last of the communication.”
Shanahan also spent a year as offensive coordinator in Cleve-land when Packers defensive co-ordinator Mike Pettine was head coach in 2014. Shanahan resigned from that job after one season and
left to take the same position in Atlanta.
Vrabel doesn’t have any con-nections in that way. He is theonly one of the four who has wona Super Bowl.
“I think there’s always experi-ences that you try to draw from as a player,” Vrabel said. “I mean,that’s what I have (done). I spent14 years in the National Football League, and I don’t even knowhow many playoff games, but those were good experiencesabout preparation and really fo-cusing on what got us to this pointfrom where we were at different points in the season. And then,there’s also things that I have to do as a coach to make sure thatwe’re ready.”
BY MIKE FITZPATRICK
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Carlos Bel-trán’s 2 ½-month tenure as New York Mets manager ended Thurs-day before he spent a game on the bench, the latest fallout from the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal that has rocked Major League Baseball.
The Mets announced the de-cision in a news release, saying Beltrán and the team “agreed to mutually part ways.” The move came two days after Boston cut ties with manager Alex Cora, who was Houston’s bench coach in 2017 when Beltrán played for the Astros.
A day before that, manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were fired by Houston soon after they were suspended for the 2020 season by Commis-sioner Rob Manfred for their roles in the cheating scheme.
Next to fall was Beltrán, the only Astros player mentioned by name Monday when MLB issued its findings from an investiga-tion into the club’s conduct. No players were disciplined, but the
nine-page report said Beltrán was among the group involved in the team’s illicit use of electron-ics to pilfer signs during Hous-ton’s run to the 2017 World Series championship.
“Over my 20 years in the game, I’ve always taken pride in being a leader and doing things the right way, and in this situation, I failed,” Beltran said in a statement issued through agent Dan Lozano.
“As a veteran player on the team, I should’ve recognized the severity of the issue and truly re-gret the actions that were taken. I am a man of faith and integrity and what took place did not dem-onstrate those characteristics that are so very important to me and my family. I’m very sorry. It’s not who I am as a father, a husband, a teammate and as an educator. ... I hope that at some point in time, I’ll have the opportunity to return to this game that I love so much.”
Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen and Chief Oper-ating Officer Jeff Wilpon met with MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem and Bryan Seeley, who headed the investigation, on Wednesday morning in New
York, then with Beltrán at the team’s spring training complex in Florida on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
“Considering the circumstanc-es, it became clear to all parties that it was not in anyone’s best interest for Carlos to move for-ward as manager of the New York Mets,” Van Wagenen and Wilpon said in a statement.
“We believe that Carlos was honest and forthcoming with us. We are confident that this will not be the final chapter in his base-ball career.”
On a later conference call, Wil-pon said the team had heard in advance “from sources” that Bel-trán wasn’t going to be suspended by MLB.
“I think the change was when the report did come out, how prominent he was in it,” Wilpon said.
The commissioner’s office did not pressure the Mets to fire Bel-trán, Wilpon said, telling execu-tives it was the club’s decision.
“This has been a difficult week. Make no mistake, it’s been diffi-cult for everyone involved,” Van Wagenen said.
BY JANIE MCCAULEY
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Alyssa Nakken became the first female coach on a major league staff in baseball history Thursday when she was named an assistant to new Giants manager Gabe Kapler.
Major League Baseball con-firmed Nakken is the first woman coach in the majors. Nakken is a former softball standout at first base for Sacramento State who joined the club in 2014 as an in-tern in baseball operations. She and Mark Hallberg, who was also named as an assistant Thursday, will work to promote high per-formance along with a close-knit team atmosphere.
Kapler, who expressed dur-ing the winter meetings that he would hire some coaches for non-traditional roles, said in a text message Nakken (nack-in) will be in uniform.
The team said Nakken has been responsible for “developing, pro-ducing and directing a number
of the organization’s health andwellness initiatives and events.”
The NBA has several femaleassistant coaches. The NFL’s SanFrancisco 49ers have Katie Sow-ers as an offensive assistant.
At Sacramento State from 2009-2012, Nakken was a three-time all-conference player and four-time Academic All American.She earned a master’s degree in sport management from the Uni-versity of San Francisco in 2015.
“Alyssa and Mark are highly respected members of the organi-zation and I’m delighted that theywill now focus their talents onhelping to build a winning culturein the clubhouse,” Kapler said.“In every organization, environ-ment affects performance, and baseball clubhouses are no dif-ferent. That’s why in addition to assisting the rest of the coachingstaff on the field, Mark and Alys-sa will focus on fostering a club-house culture that promotes highperformance through, amongother attributes, a deep sense ofcollaboration and team.”
Chief: Coaching staffs of Packers, Niners share multiple connections over several years
Giants hire majors’ first female coach
Mets, new manager part ways
GREGORY BULL/AP
Carlos Beltran is out as manager of the Mets before he spent a game on the bench, the latest fallout from the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
MLB/SPORTS BRIEFS/NFL
Briefl yBaylor hires LSU’s Aranda as head coach
Baylor hired LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda as its new head coach Thursday, three days after the Tigers com-pleted their undefeated national championship.
Aranda, 43, a head coach for the first time, takes over a Big 12 program in much better shape than it was when Matt Rhule got there more than three years ago.
Rhule became head coach of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers on Jan. 7, six days after the Bears finished an 11-3 season with a loss to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Baylor was ranked 13th in the final AP Top 25 poll.
Astros, Springer settle on $21 million contract
George Springer and the Hous-ton Astros settled on a $21 mil-lion, one-year contract Thursday.
Springer had asked for $22.5million in salary arbitration andthe Astros offered $17.5 million, making the settlement $1 mil-lion over the midpoint. He made$12.15 million last year.
The 30-year-old outfielder set career highs last season, hitting39 home runs with 96 RBIs while batting .292. Springer led Hous-ton to its first World Series titlein 2017, hitting five homers in theseven-game win over the Los An-geles Dodgers.From The Associated Press
PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •
BY JOSH DUBOW
Associated Press
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Nick Bosa re-mained on the turf with the wind knocked out of him after beating yet another offen-sive lineman for a sack when the appre-ciative San Francisco 49ers fans started chanting his name.
Bosa hopped up, jogged off the field and then quickly got back to doing what he’s done for his entire rookie season by ha-rassing quarterbacks and spoiling game plans for offenses around the league.
There are plenty of reasons for the re-markable turnaround in San Francisco that has the 49ers (14-3) ready to host
the Green Bay Pack-ers (14-3) in the NFC championship game on Sunday after win-ning only 10 games in the first two sea-sons under coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch.
There’s been a healthy season for quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, innova-tive play-calling from Shanahan, physical dominance from All-Pro tight end George Kittle and a throw-back season from shutdown cornerback Richard Sherman.
But perhaps no one has had a bigger impact than Bosa, a rookie who already has the physical
tools and techniques of a player far more experienced.
“It was kind of shocking how silly he was able to make a lot of talented tackles look early, myself included,” veteran left tackle Joe Staley said Wednesday. “Now it’s just who he is and is what we expect now.”
Bosa was born for this role as a disrup-tive defensive end. His father, John, was a first-round pick by Miami in 1987 who played three seasons in the NFL.
His older brother Joey was drafted third overall by the Chargers in 2016 before win-ning Defensive Rookie of the Year and re-cording 40 sacks in his first four seasons.
Nick Bosa was dominant as a rookie as well after being picked second overall last spring. His nine sacks were the fourth most ever for a 49ers rookie, and he ranked third in the NFL with 68 quarterback pres-sures, according to SportsInfo Solutions, trailing only Cameron Jordan and Dani-elle Hunter.
Bosa also has been disruptive against the run and even flashed the ability to play in pass coverage He dropped off last week and broke up a pass to Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook.
“Obviously, making the plays is good,” Bosa said. “But, I mean, I try and bring the same effort, same technique, same every-thing every week. (Sunday) I got a couple
Saturday, January 18, 2020
NFL PLAYOFFS
Rookie DE Bosa one of biggest reasons behind 49ers’ turnaround on ‘D’
Impact player
Above: Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, foreground, is tackled by San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa with teammate Dee Ford in pursuit during the second half of a divisional playoff game Jan. 11 in Santa Clara, Calif. Left: Bosa was dominant after being picked second overall last spring. His nine sacks were the fourth most ever for a 49ers rookie, and he ranked third in the NFL with 68 quarterback pressures.PHOTOS BY BEN MARGOT, TOP, AND TONY AVELAR, LEFT/AP
sacks. That always helps. But most of the plays that I’m most proud of are the plays that weren’t the sacks.”
Bosa and the entire defensive line have been making plays all season. The four first-round draft picks the team spent on defensive linemen the past five seasons and the trade for another former first-rounder in Dee Ford are paying big dividends.
The Niners also made some schematic
changes this season under new defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, lining up the de-fensive ends out wider than in the past to create better angles to get to the quarter-back and more 1-on-1 matchups.
It has worked as advertised as the 49ers increased their sack total in the regular season from 36 to 48 and went from a re-cord-low seven takeaways to 27 in large part because of the improved pass rush.
“Once we got the pads on in training camp, it was very eye-opening,” quarter-back Jimmy Garoppolo said about the up-graded line. “They made it difficult on us in training camp and it transferred over tothe season, thankfully.”
The defensive line took a little step back-ward late in the season when Ford playedonly four snaps in the final six games be-cause of injuries.
But Ford’s return against the Vikingslast week contributed to a six-sack perfor-mance as he drew extra attention with the threat of his speed rush to open opportuni-ties for teammates.
Ford got one sack of his own to forcea field goal late in the first half and evenlined up next to Bosa at times, including onBosa’s first of two sacks in the game. Thatgave the line a new look for offenses thatstill have to deal with power rushers De-Forest Buckner and Arik Armstead on the other side.
“I told Dee, ‘I wish I could scare peoplewith my presence like you do,’ ” Bosa said.“I mean, when a guard sees Dee Ford onthem, their mind is racing, they’re think-ing about what he’s about to do, whateverit is. Just having his presence and his pass-rush ability, his knowledge and communi-cation, he’s a true vet. It’s nice to have him out there.”
‘ It was kind of shocking how silly he was able to make a lot of talented tackles look early, myselfincluded. ’
Joe Staley49ers left tackle,
on rookie DE Nick Bosa
• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23Saturday, January 18, 2020
BY TERESA M. WALKER
Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Titans safety Kenny Vac-caro listened to how coach Mike Vrabel praised his performance
in Tennessee’s wild-card win with the hint of a smile.
“I know how Vrabel is,” Vac-caro said. “He’s tough. He wants you to be physical, gritty, grindy, and he just likes guys that are going to hit. I was hitting people like I’ve always hit people. I ap-preciate the compliment because he doesn’t really give out too many.”
No, the second-year head coach doesn’t waste much time with praise.
That’s not why the Titans fired Mike Mularkey two years ago after losing in the divisional round of the playoffs, preferring to gamble on hiring a coach who could push them to compete for championships. They chose Vra-bel as a first-time head coach, and the former 14-year linebacker with three Super Bowl rings has the Titans a win away from the franchise’s second Super Bowl berth and first since the 1999 season.
Vrabel’s message since mid-April has been pushing the Ti-tans to find a way to go from good to great after three straight 9-7 seasons. Tennessee went 9-7 again during the regular season, but Vrabel isn’t ready to grade his team yet, not before the AFC championship game Sunday at Kansas City (13-4). It will be the Titans’ first time playing for the conference title since the 2002 season.
“Well, I think that we have cer-tainly improved,” Vrabel said. “I think we’ve made progress. Something that we focused on a while back is just trying to con-tinue to improve each and every week. So, how close we are, I don’t know that. I know that we’re going to do what we’ve done for a long time, and what we know is to prepare to try to go in and play with confidence and execute.”
That focus on improvement has endeared him to the Titans. He has a hands-on approach, wheth-er he’s banging away at a football being carried by Derrick Henry during a running back drill or wearing a blocking pad to work on technique with linebackers and defensive linemen. Four-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman Jur-rell Casey loves how Vrabel and all his coaches are involved and detail-oriented at practice.
But it’s Vrabel’s mindset that Casey appreciates most.
“He doesn’t care about the wins, he don’t care about none of that that happened,” Casey said. “He’s excited for that moment. But he’s onto the next. His mind-set is always onto the next. ‘We can cherish the moments for a bit, but let’s get back to the grind. I don’t care about the excuses you have. You’re sore, whatever. You get back in this building and get back to it.’ ”
Vrabel dealt with numerous injuries during his first season, including starting quarterback Marcus Mariota missing the regular-season finale, which the Titans lost with a playoff berth on the line.
His biggest challenge came in mid-October this season. The Ti-tans had scored only one touch-down in a 10-quarter stretch capped by a 16-0 loss at Denver that dropped Tennessee to 2-4. At that point, Vrabel benched Mari-ota for veteran Ryan Tannehill, who had been acquired in a trade with Miami to upgrade the back-up position.
The Titans (11-7) are 9-3 since then, including winning their last three on the road. They clinched the AFC’s No. 6 seed in the regu-
lar-season finale against AFCSouth champ Houston, beat thedefending Super Bowl championPatriots in New England and thenknocked off the top-seeded Ra-vens in Baltimore. Vrabel is theTitans’ first coach to win his first two postseason games since JeffFisher after the 1999 season.
“They’re playing real goodfootball right now,” Kansas City coach Andy Reid said. “They’re strong. They’re well-coached. Mike does a nice job with them.”
Vrabel, who greets each player outside the locker room door aftergames, says he’s made clear thateveryone should be held account-able. That includes himself as he works to improve as a coach.
His approach has helped builda locker room where teammateshold each other responsible fortheir preparation and play.
“I ain’t going to say the guy isperfect, but he damn near under-stands football better than any-body in this building, outside thisbuilding,” Casey said. “The guy,he’s an intelligent dude. It’s not really too much you can questionthat man.” AP sports writer Dave Skretta contrib-uted to this report from Kansas City, Mo.
NFL PLAYOFFS
PHOTOS BY JULIO CORTEZ/AP
With the Titans sitting at 2-4 after six games this season, head coach Mike Vrabel, above, benched starting quarterback Marcus Mariota in favor of veteran Ryan Tannehill, below. The Titans are 9-3 since, including winning their last three on the road.
Titans’ big gamble close to paying offTennessee tooka risk when itselected Vrabelas head coach
‘ I ain’t going to say the guy is perfect, but he damn near understands football better than anybody in this building. ’
Jurrell CaseyFour-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman on Titans head coach Mike Vrabel
S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S Saturday, January 18, 2020
SPORTS
ED ZURGA/AP
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has made 15 trips to the postseason, but he has never hoisted the Lombardi Trophy.
Reid has most experience by far, but final 4 all chasing 1st Super Bowl title as coaches
Shanahan LaFleur Vrabel
San Francisco DE Nick Bosa had nine sacks this season after being picked second overall.JEFF CHIU/AP
Inside:� Rookie pass rusher Nick Bosa a big reason for 49ers’ defensiveturnaround, Page 22� Titans getting what they hoped for when gambling on Vrabel as head coach, Page 23
AFC ChampionshipTennessee Titans (11-7)
at Kansas City Chiefs (13-4)AFN-Sports
9:05 p.m. Sunday CET5:05 a.m. Monday JKT
NFC ChampionshipGreen Bay Packers (14-3)
at San Francisco 49ers (14-3)AFN-Sports
12:30 a.m. Monday CET8:30 a.m. Monday JKT
BY BARRY WILNER
Associated Press
Of the coaches in the NFL’s Final Four, Andy Reid is the outlier.
Only Kansas City’s coach has been the
head coach in a Super Bowl. Only Reid is close to having a Hall of Fame-worthy résumé. Only Reid has been around for a couple of decades.
So, while Tennessee’s Mike Vra-bel, Green Bay’s Matt LaFleur and San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan might look up to Reid and his ca-reer achievements, they also rec-ognize that whichever of them wins
the NFL title will be doing so for the first time as a coach.
No, despite his longevity as Ea-gles and then Chiefs coach, and his 15 trips to the postseason, Reid has never lifted the Lombardi Trophy.
“Listen, you’ve known me a long time, I’m thinking more about the players than I’m thinking about myself,” Reid said. “That’s now where I go — I’m trying to get the guys ready, I’m going to make sure I’m ready, then I’m going to go play. I don’t really look at it that way: It’s more a disappointment for the other teams, they worked their tails off and fell short.”
SEE CHIEF ON PAGE 21
Woman in uniformGiants become fi rst team in majors to hire female coach » MLB, Page 21
