August 14, 2019

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21 states sue Trump administration over new coal rules

By DON THOMPSON and ADAM BEAM Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A coalition of 21 Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its decision to ease restrictions on coalfired power plants, with California's governor saying the president is trying to rescue an outdated industry.

"They're rolling things back to an age that no longer exists, trying to prop up the coal industry," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference. He said the lawsuit was not just about Trump but "our kids and grandkids" who would continue to be harmed by coal pollutants.

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In this July 27, 2018, file photo, the Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyo. Associated Press

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Wednesday 14 August 2019 Continued from Front

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, whose state produced the second most coal behind Wyoming in 2017, predicted the lawsuit will ultimately fail at the U.S. Supreme Court, which stayed an earlier Obama administration attempt in 2016 at the request of a competing 27-state coalition.

He called the lawsuit a "big government 'power grab'" and argued that the Democratic attorneys general "are dead wrong" in their interpretation of the Clean Air Act. The U.S. EPA and White House issued similar statements saying they expect the new version to survive the court challenge, unlike the Obama-era rules.

"Unlike the previous administration, which crafted a far-reaching, burdensome, and unlawful rule that would have raised energy costs on hardworking American families, the Trump Administration's Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule responsibly protects our clean air, reduces greenhouse gases, protects jobs, and keeps costs affordable," White House spokesman Judd Deere

FRONT

said.

The lawsuit was filed by attorneys general in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

"The science is indisputable; our climate is changing. Ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. Weather is becoming more and more extreme," New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the coalition, said in a statement. "Rather than staying the course with policies aimed at fixing the problem and protecting people's health, safety, and the environment, the Trump Administration repealed the Clean Power Plan and replaced it with this 'Dirty Power' rule."

The states were joined by six local governments: Boulder, Colorado; Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and South Miami, Florida.

The EPA's analysis of the new rules predicts an extra 300 to 1,500 people will

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, left, flanked by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, discusses the lawsuit the state has joined in with 21 other Democrat-led states against the Trump administration over its decision to ease restrictions on coal-fired power plants.

Associated Press

die each year by 2030 because of additional air pollution from the power grid.

But EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in June said Americans want "reliable energy that they can afford," adding he expected more coal plans to open as a result.

"It's more of a fossil fuel protection plan," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said.

It would replace the Clean Power Plan, which would require cutting emissions fossil fuel-burning power plants. Becerra said that

was expected to eliminate as much climate change pollution as is emitted by more than 160 million cars a year, the equivalent of 70 percent of the nation's passenger cars, and was projected to prevent up to 3,600 additional deaths annually. Newsom and James said states' existing efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are beginning to work while creating green jobs and vibrant economies.

In the Northeast, 10 states including New York formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that has re-

duced power plant emissions by more than 50 percent. California's power grid used more energy from non-greenhouse gas sources like wind and solar power in 2017 than from electricity generated by fossil fuels for the first time since the California Air Resources Board began keeping track. The board also found that pollution from transportation did not rise as fast as in previous years, and reported that 2017 was the second straight year emissions fell below the state's 2020 target.q

Pew survey: 60% in U.S. hold dim view of China amid trade war

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Rising tensions over trade have dimmed Americans' opinions of China.

A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 60% say they have an unfavorable view of China — up from 47% last year to the highest proportion since Pew started asking the question 14 years ago.

The survey results being released Tuesday found that 24% of Americans regard China as America's top threat for the future, the same percentage that said so of Russia. North Korea (12 was the only other country to draw double-

digit concern.

The Trump administration and Beijing have been clashing for more than a year over allegations that China steals trade secrets, pressures foreign companies to hand over technology and unfairly subsidizes the country's own companies.

President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods and has said that on Sept.

1, he will tax the $300 billion in Chinese imports that he has so far spared. In retaliation, China has imposed tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. products. Still, the poll finds that only 41% of Americans believe that China's

growing economy is a bad thing for the United States, compared with 50% who called it a good thing. Respondents were far more worried about China's rising military power: 81% said it was bad, 11% good.

Half said they had no confidence in President Xi Jinping, the same as last year.

In addition to being locked in a trade war with Trump, Xi has overseen a crackdown on dissent in China and a more combative foreign policy in East Asia.

Americans 50 and older were most likely to hold negative views of China (67%, compared with 58% of those ages 30-49 and 49% of those 18-29).q

U.S. NEWS A3

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Report: Costs in most states exceed subsidies for child care WASHINGTON (AP) — Child care costs in most states exceed federal subsidy payments provided to lowincome parents, according to a newly released report from the Department of Health and Human Ser-

States have discretion over the how to administer the program: They set their own income requirements and decide how much families are expected to contribute. The report cites several reasons that states

In this Aug. 27, 2018, Vincent Seeborn, 2, reaches out from a structure on the playground at the Wallingford Child Care Center in Seattle.

Associated Press

vices Office of Inspector General, leaving working families with few affordable options.

The report , released Tuesday, focuses on the Child Care Development Fund, an $8.2 billion block grant that goes toward offsetting the cost of care for 1.4 million children nationwide.

The fund is the primary federal funding source for child care assistance for eligible working parents.

The federal recommendation is that states provide payment rates at the 75th percentile, which allows eligible families to access 3 out of 4 providers without paying more out of pocket.

But the report shows most states set their rates much lower.

may keep their rates low, including stretching limited resources to serve more families and taking into consideration the cost of higher-quality care. Nineteen states reported paying enrollment and registration fees for low-income families, and seven states said they pay for extra child care activities such as field trips.

The Administration for Children and Families, which oversees the block grant, relies on states to self-certify that they are setting rates that ensure low-income families have equal access to care. But the inspector general report shows most states aren't meeting the requirements.

Last year, under a biparti-

san agreement, Congress approved a $2.4 billion increase to the fund. But advocates say money continues to be a problem.

"CCDF is severely underfunded, and as families across the country are

struggling to afford care across all income levels, it's dire for low-income families," said Catherine White, director of child care and early learning at the National Women's Law Center. Meanwhile, the Trump

administration has moved to tighten work requirements for low-income families that receive food stamps and housing assistance, creating concern for parents unable to find affordable child care.q

A4 U.S.

Wednesday 14 August 2019

NEWS

Georgia's Abrams announces new voter protection program

This July 22, 2019, file photo shows former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams addressing the 110th NAACP National Convention, in Detroit.

Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Democrat Stacey Abrams, who vaulted onto the national political stage championing voting rights during an unsuccessful 2018 run for Georgia governor, announced on Tuesday that she's launching a new multistate voter protection initiative and not running for president in 2020.

Abrams revealed plans for the initiative, called Fair Fight 2020, during a speech before a labor union convention in Las Vegas that was livestreamed on Facebook. The multimillion-dollar project will staff and fund voter protection teams in battleground states across the country ahead of next year's elections.

The announcement follows months of speculation over what Abrams' next move in politics might be, including whether she'd join the crowded field of 2020 presidential hopefuls as she had mused.

But that notion was put to rest as Abrams expressed optimism that Democrats could make gains in the next election.

"We're going to win because there are only two things stopping us in 2020: making sure people have a reason to vote and that they have the right to vote.

Well I've decided to leave it to a whole bunch of other folks to make sure they have a reason to vote," Abrams said, referring to the field of Democratic candidates.

"But I'm here today to announce Fair Fight 2020 to make sure everyone has the right to vote," she said.

Abrams spokesman Seth Bringman confirmed that Abrams was not running for president and would instead focus on the new initiative.

Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House, faced Republican Brian Kemp during her unsuccessful bid for Georgia governor last year. Kemp was secretary of state during their race, and Abrams frequently accused him of using his position to sup-

press votes, especially in minority communities.

Kemp vehemently denied the claim.

Voters in that election reported a myriad of problems casting ballots including malfunctioning voting equipment and long wait times that caused some voters to give up in frustration.

In the days following Kemp's narrow victory, Abrams refused to concede the race. She quickly founded a political organization that filed a federal lawsuit that said state elections officials "grossly mismanaged" the election in a way that deprived some citizens of their right to vote.

Abrams said her new group will fight "systematic" voter suppression across the country.

A statement from Fair Fight says the initiative will "either directly fund, or assist in raising the funds for, robust voter protection operations, which will be run by Democratic state parties and allies."

"Fair Fight staff will provide ongoing support to these operations," it says.

In February, Abrams was tapped to deliver the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's 2019 State of the Union address.

A few months later she announced that she would not run in 2020 for the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue, after being heavily recruited by Senate Democratic leadership to run. Her decision to remain on the sidelines leaves her as a prime potential vice presidential pick and keeps the door open to a possible 2022 rematch against Kemp.q

U.S. NEWS A5

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Dreadful heat, humidity invade South as misery continues

By JEFF MARTIN and JAY REEVES Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Stifling heat smothered states from Texas to South Carolina on Tuesday with temperatures that felt like 120 degrees (49 Celsius), making it difficult to be outside for long, much less work or play.

As the entire Southeast baked amid heat warnings and advisories that reached from central Texas to coastal Georgia, construction workers toiled under a blazing sun in Louisiana. Alabama's largest city opened its auditorium as a refuge for anyone needing to cool down.

Some schools and coaches limited football practice for players getting ready for the upcoming season, and social media was dotted with photos showing automobile thermometers with triple-digit readings.

Forecasters said a cold front and storms could lead to a slight midweek cool down, but for the meantime it was just too hot.

The National Weather Service said the afternoon heat index, a combination of temperature and humidity, climbed to 120 degrees (48.8 Celsius) in Clarksdale, Mississippi, nearly hitting the 121 degrees (49.4 Celsius) it felt like Monday . Readings were nearly as high in cities including Dyersburg, Tennessee, and West Memphis, Arkansas.

In downtown Birmingham,

Alabama, a piano-playing sidewalk evangelist sought refuge from the sun with two umbrellas — one over his head and the other on his sunny side.

Around the corner, artist Henry L. McShan sold his watercolor landscapes in a shady spot beside a park.

Temperatures in Birmingham were already in the 90s Tuesday morning and topped 100 degrees later.

"I'm going to be here all day. I've got several bottles of water. I'm ready for it," said McShan, his face glistening with sweat.

It was just as sizzling along the Gulf Coast in south Alabama and along the Florida Panhandle. The heat index hit 117 (47 Celsius) before noon Tuesday in the Mobile, Alabama, area.

Pensacola saw a heat index of 115, also before noon.

The heat index in the hottest areas should be 15 to 20 degrees cooler Wednesday, according to the weather service.

Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are prime threats during heat waves, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Kansas, a 2-year-old boy died after he was found alone in a parked car in the afternoon heat Sunday. It appears heat played a role in the child's death, Lawrence Police Chief Gregory Burns Jr. said in a statement Monday. The heat index

Children splash in the new splash pad at Riverview Park in North Augusta, S.C., Monday, August 12, 2019.Hazardous heat is in the Augusta, Ga., area weather forecast.

Associated Press

was 96 (36 Celsius) at the time, the weather service said.

In Texas, managers of the state's main electric grid declared an energy conservation emergency and asked its customers to dial back their thermostats between 3 and 7 p.m. Tuesday because of the extreme heat. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas took the action a day after it set an all-time peak demand record.

At the Dallas Zoo, where $1 admission day was expected to draw large crowds, misting tents were set up

for visitors to cool down. Elephants will be soaked with water cannons and offered frozen treats, said spokeswoman Chelsey Norris.

In Louisiana, road workers were urged to take precautions to protect themselves from the heat, said Erin Buchanan, a spokeswoman with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.

"Every summer, we know we're going to encounter some extreme heat," she said. "They know to take multiple breaks. They know to stay hydrated."

Heat alerts stretched as far

east as the Upstate area of South Carolina.

In Spartanburg, South Carolina, the Carolina Panthers and Buffalo Bills practiced together before a preseason NFL game in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over the weekend, Panthers coach Ron Rivera had some fun with Bills coach Sean McDermott, sending a screenshot of the heat index in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It showed 110 degrees (43 Celsius) along with an orange emoji face dripping with sweat.

"A psychological game," Rivera joked.q

A6 U.S.

NEWS United tells pilots no alcohol for 12 hours before flights Wednesday 14 August 2019

In this June 26, 2019, file photo United Airlines jetliners pass each other at Denver International Airport in Denver.

Associated Press

By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer DALLAS (AP) — United Airlines is setting an earlier cutoff time for when pilots must stop drinking alcohol before flights.

The airline is telling pilots they must abstain from alcohol for 12 hours before flights, up from the previous eight hours.

The change in the rule — it's called "bottle-to-throttle" in the airline business — comes several days after two United pilots were

arrested in Scotland and charged with suspicion of being under the influence before a flight to the U.S. The old eight-hour limit complied with Federal Aviation Administration rules, which also prohibit pilots from flying with a blood-alcohol content at or above 0.04%. Almost all states make it a crime to drive a car at or above 0.08%.

An extra four hours will help social drinkers sober up, although it might not be long enough for a heavily drunk-

en person. Some researchers calculate that once someone puts down the bottle, their blood-alcohol level drops 0.015% each hour. At that rate, a drinker could go from 0.12% to zero in eight hours, or from 0.18% to zero in 12 hours.

United sent a bulletin describing the new policy to pilots a week ago, and it took effect last Saturday.

"This policy is being changed to help assure pilot compliance with standards established by the

United States and individual states where United operates around the world," the bulletin said. It warned that meeting the 12-hour ban doesn't guarantee that pilots will be in the clear — some countries have a zero-tolerance policy on blood-alcohol content.

In a statement, the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents United pilots, said "Inappropriate alcohol use by airline pilots is exceedingly rare," and the professionalism of pilots has contributed to making air travel safe.

A United spokesman declined to say whether the change was due to the arrests of two United pilots on Aug. 3 in Glasgow, Scotland, before they were scheduled to operate a flight to Newark, New Jersey. The flight was canceled.

Representatives for American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines said their policies follow the FAA's current standard

of no drinking within eight hours of duty. They said their airlines are not considering any changes. Alaska Airlines said it has a 10-hour no-alcohol rule for pilots.

United's new policy was first reported by Skift, a travel industry media company.

The arrests of the United pilots followed other recent incidents. In May, an American Airlines pilot received a suspended six-month sentence after pleading guilty in a U.K. court to drinking before a Manchester to Philadelphia flight. In July, a Delta pilot was arrested before a flight in Minneapolis — airport police said he had an alcoholic container in his possession.

Incidents involving alcohol and on-duty airline employees aren't limited to pilots.

On Aug. 2, a flight attendant was arrested after a United Express flight landed in Indiana. Passengers said she slurred her words during the pre-flight safety demonstration, then passed out in her jump seat.q

Fortnite world champ 'swatted' at Pennsylvania home POTTSGROVE, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania teen who won $3 million as the first Fortnite World Cup solo champion had armed police show up at his house.

Kyle Giersdorf was livestreaming on Saturday when he was "swatted," a prank that aims to prompt police and SWAT teams to respond to fake emergencies.

Upper Pottsgrove Police Cpl. Albert Werner told USA Today a caller told police

"he was Kyle and said he had shot his father multiple times." Police called the home before entering and the teen's father said everything was fine.

Werner says the call came from outside the country.

The 16-year-old Giersdorf told his fellow gamers it was scary.

A phony 911 call led to the death of a Kansas man two years ago. The caller was sentenced to 20 years in prison.q

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U.S. NEWS A7

Wednesday 14 August 2019

2 guards suspended and warden reassigned after Epstein death

By JIM MUSTIAN, MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMO Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The warden at the federal jail where Jeffrey Epstein took his own life over the weekend was removed Tuesday and two guards who were supposed to be watching the financier were placed on leave while federal authorities investigate the death.The move by the Justice Department came amid mounting evidence that the chronically understaffed Metropolitan Correctional Center may have bungled its responsibility to keep the 66-year-old Epstein from harming himself while he awaited trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.

Epstein was taken off a suicide watch last month for reasons that have not been explained, and was supposed to have been checked on by a guard every 30 minutes. But investigators learned those checks weren't done for several hours before he was found Saturday morning, according to a person familiar with the case who was not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Attorney General William Barr ordered warden Lamine N'Diaye temporarily assigned to the Bureau

of Prisons' regional office while the FBI and the Justice Department's inspector general investigate. The two guards were not identified.

While the exact manner of Epstein's death has not been officially announced, a second person familiar with operations at the jail said the financier was discovered in his cell with a bedsheet around his neck.

That person likewise spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason.

Under the jail's protocol, Epstein would not have been given a bedsheet had he been on suicide watch.

He was placed on suicide watch last month after he was found on the floor of his cell with bruises on his neck, but he was later returned to the jail's special housing unit for inmates needing close supervision.

On Monday, Barr said that he was "frankly angry to learn of the MCC's failure to adequately secure this prisoner," adding: "We will get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability."

The warden of an institution in upstate New York has been named the acting warden at the jail.

Eric Young, president of the union council that represents prison guards, said that such reassignments are routinely done to "pro-

tect the integrity of investigations until any formal action, if any, is warranted."

Jose Rojas, a union leader and teacher at a federal prison in Florida, said N'Diaye should be home without pay instead of being reassigned. He said it appears to him that the Bureau of Prisons is "protecting him and putting the blame on officers."

"I put this on the warden," he said. "If he would have had common sense and followed policy, we wouldn't be here discussing this."

The guards on Epstein's unit the night of his apparent suicide were working overtime shifts to make up for staffing shortages, one person familiar with the matter said. The person said one guard was working a fifth straight day of overtime and another was working mandatory overtime.

One of the guards had a different job in the jail and did not regularly perform correctional officer duties, the person said. The prison has been pressing noncustodial staff into working as correctional officers because staffing levels are less than 70 percent of what they should be, union officials said.

The Bureau of Prisons considers all employees "correctional workers" and trains them in "basic correctional duties to secure

This March 28, 2017, file photo, provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein.

Associated Press

the facility in the event of a disturbance and to provide inmate supervision," according to a 2012 Government Accountability Office report on overcrowding.

All new employees are sent to a training academy in Georgia for a three-week "Introduction to Correctional Techniques" course that covers firearms, selfdefense, policies and procedures. They must also pass a physical-abilities test that measures their "ability to perform the essential functions of a correctional worker," such as detecting movement, climbing ladders and using handcuffs.

Epstein was being held without bail on federal sex trafficking charges that could have brought 45 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors in New York are pursuing a parallel investigation into whether any of his associates will face charges for assisting him in what authorities say was his rampant sexual abuse of girls as young as 14.

According to police reports, FBI records and court documents, Epstein had a team of recruiters and other assistants who knew of his penchant for girls and lined up victims for him.q

A8 WORLD

Wednesday 14 August 2019

NEWS

Bolton's UK trade-deal promise leaves questions unanswered

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday that getting a free trade deal with the United States would be "a tough old haggle," after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton promised the U.K. quick sector-bysector trade deals once it leaves the European Union.

Bolton said after meeting Johnson on Monday that "it might be possible to reach a bilateral agreement very quickly, very straightforwardly" in some areas of trade after Brexit.

Bolton said that "in the Trump administration, Britain's constantly at the front of the trade queue — or line as we say."

The comments could be interpreted as a boost to Johnson, who has vowed that Britain will leave the EU on Oct. 31, with or without a divorce deal. Supporters of Brexit say a free trade deal with the United States can help make up for any reduction in commerce with the EU after Britain leaves the bloc's single market for goods and services.

In 2018, Britain did almost half its trade with the EU, while the U.S. accounted for 18% of U.K. exports and 11% of imports.

Johnson said Tuesday that "In the U.S. there are all sorts of opportunities we have to open up trade."

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a roundtable to improve the criminal justice system, at 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019.

Associated Press

"We will do a great deal with them and it will open up opportunities for U.K. businesses, and especially service companies, in the U.S.," he said.

"It will be a tough old haggle — but we will get there," he added.

Trade experts said Bolton's warm words for Britain left many key questions unanswered.

David Henig, director of the U.K. Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy, said sectoral trade deals were feasible, along the lines of the U.S.-EU Open Skies agreement on

aviation. But he cautioned that grander claims about a trans-Atlantic free trade deal were premature.

"The scope for significant growth in trade from the U.K. side is not great," he said. "From the U.S. side ... there is scope for a lot more U.S. exports of agriculture" — but those would be controversial in Britain, where many regard U.S., animalwelfare standards as lax.

He said both governments could want a "token" trade deal for political reasons.

"President Trump wants a win before the election next year, Boris Johnson wants a U.S. deal," Henig

said. "So it's not impossible to see them announcing on Nov. 1: 'We have a trade deal.' It might not mean an awful lot. ... The devil, as often, could be in the detail."

As for Bolton's "front of the queue" remark — a dig at former President Barack Obama's 2016 assertion that a post-Brexit Britain would be at the "back of the queue" for a U.S. trade deal — Henig said "it's not entirely clear that anybody else is in the queue."

"Most people are trying to avoid having trade deals with the U.S. because they think they'd be disadvantageous," he said. "We may

be the only people actually wanting this, because Trump doesn't really believe in trade anyway. He's a 'U.S. first' person."

The value of the British pound has plummeted in recent weeks as the odds shorten on Britain crashing out of the EU without an agreement, an outcome most economists say would cause economic turmoil.

Britain's Parliament has rejected the existing divorce agreement and the EU refuses to renegotiate, so a no-deal Brexit appears increasingly likely.

Pro-EU lawmakers hope to take action in Parliament this fall to block a no-deal departure — either by passing legislation or by bringing down the government, which could lead to an early election.

Johnson has refused to rule out suspending Parliament if legislators try to delay or prevent Brexit. On Tuesday a judge set a hearing next month for an attempt by opposition lawmakers to stop Johnson from bypassing Parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit.

At the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Judge Raymond Doherty said a substantive hearing should take place Sept. 6 on a claim by more than 70 parliamentarians that sending lawmakers home before Oct. 31 would be "unlawful and unconstitutional."q

U.N. urges reluctant EU nations to help stranded migrants

By LORNE COOK BRUSSELS (AP) — The United Nations refugee agency urgently appealed to European governments Tuesday to let two migrant rescue ships disembark more than 500 passengers who remain stranded at sea as countries bicker over who should take responsibility for them.

The people rescued while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa are on ships chartered by humanitarian aid groups that the Italian government has banned from its territory. The archipelago nation of Malta also

In this photo taken Saturday and released Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019, a rescue team of the Ocean Viking ship, operated by the NGOs Sos Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, approaches a rubber dinghy with over 80 migrants off the Libyan coast.

Associated Press

has refused to let the ships into that country's ports.

It's unclear where they might find safe harbor,

even though the Italian island of Lampedusa appears closest. About 150 of the rescued passengers have been on the Spanishflagged charity ship the Open Arms since they were plucked from the Mediterranean 13 days ago.

"This is a race against time," Vincent Cochetel, the International Red Cross special envoy for the central Mediterranean, said in a statement. "Storms are coming, and conditions are only going to get worse."

While the number of migrants reaching Europe by sea has dropped substantially so far this year, the

Red Cross says nearly 600 people have died or gone missing in waters between Libya, Italy and Malta in 2019.

The agency said many of the people on the ships "are reportedly survivors of appalling abuses in Libya."

Cochetel said the ships "must be immediately allowed to dock" and their passengers "allowed to receive much-needed humanitarian aid."

"To leave people who have fled war and violence in Libya on the high seas in this weather would be to inflict suffering upon suffering," the envoy said.q

WORLD NEWS A9

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Russian military orders village evacuation, then cancels it MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian military on Tuesday told residents of a village near a navy testing range to evacuate, but cancelled the order hours later, adding to the uncertainty and confusion fueled by a missile explosion last week that led to a brief spike in radiation that frightened residents and raised new questions about the military's weapons program.

Initially the military told residents of Nyonoksa, a village of about 500, to move out temporarily, citing unspecified activities at the range. But a few hours later, it said the planned activities were cancelled and rescinded the request to leave, said Ksenia Yudina, a spokeswoman for the Severodvinsk regional administration.

Local media in Severodvinsk said Nyonoksa residents regularly receive similar temporary evacuation orders usually timed to tests at the range.

The Defense Ministry initially said Thursday's explosion of a rocket engine at the navy range killed two people and injured six others, but the state-controlled Rosatom nuclear corporation said two days later that the blast also killed five of its nuclear engineers and injured three others. It's still not clear what the final toll is.

And just as the Severodvinsk administration reported a brief spike in radiation levels, the Defense Ministry insisted that no radiation had been released — a blunt denial reminiscent of Soviet-era attempts to cov-

In this grab taken from a footage provided by the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM press service, people gather for the funerals of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by a rocket explosion in Sarov, the closed city, located 370 kilometers (230 miles) east of Moscow, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019.

Associated Press

er up disasters that added to public nervousness.

"It's shocking when people who live there, let alone us, have no idea what really happened," Svetlana Alexievich, a Nobel Prizewinning author who wrote a book containing firsthand accounts of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, said on Ekho Moskvy radio. "It looks like we haven't learned the lessons of Chernobyl and Fukushima."

When reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded and burned on April 26, 1986, Soviet leaders initially tried to hide the disaster from the public and it took them days to acknowledge the full scale of the world's worst nuclear accident.

After Thursday's missile explosion, the Severodvinsk city administration said the radiation level rose to 2 microsieverts per hour for about 30 minutes before returning to the area's natural level of 0.1 microsieverts per hour. Emergency officials issued a warning to all workers to stay indoors and close the windows.

Spooked residents rushed to buy iodide, which can help limit the damage from exposure to radiation.

Yudina said that radiation levels in Severodvinsk, a city of 183,000 about 30 kilometers (20 miles) east of Nyonoksa, have been normal since Thursday.

Local emergency officials also announced after taking ground samples from around the area that they

have found no trace of radioactive contamination.

After Thursday's explosion, Russian authorities also closed part of Dvina Bay on the White Sea to shipping for a month, in what could be an attempt to prevent outsiders from witnessing an operation to recover the missile debris.

"The military's desire to keep a tight lid on information about armed forces ... has led to vitally important information being hidden from the public in a critical situation," independent military analyst Alexander Golts said in a commentary. Neither the Defense Ministry nor Rosatom named the type of rocket that exploded during the test, saying only that it had liquid propellant.

But Rosatom's statement saying that the explosion occurred during tests of a "nuclear isotope power source" led observers to conclude it was the Burevestnik (Petrel), a nuclear-powered cruise missile code-named Skyfall by NATO that was first revealed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2018 along with other doomsday weapons.

President Donald Trump backed that theory Monday, tweeting, "The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia. We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian 'Skyfall' explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!"q

A10 WORLD

NEWS Riot police, protesters clash briefly at Hong Kong airport Wednesday 14 August 2019

By YANAN WANG and KATIE TAM Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Riot police clashed briefly with pro-democracy protesters at Hong Kong's airport Tuesday night in a chaotic end to a second day of demonstrations that caused mass cancellations and disruptions at the Chinese city's busy transport hub.

Calm eventually returned, with most of the protesters leaving the airport hours after officers armed with pepper spray and swinging batons tried to enter the terminal, fighting with demonstrators who barricaded entrances with luggage carts. Protesters said they planned to return to the airport early Wednesday.

The burst of violence also included protesters beating at least two men they suspected of being undercover agents and came the same day Hong Kong's pro-Beijing leader warned that the demonstrators had pushed events onto a "path of no return," highlighting the hardening positions on both sides.

Police took away several people they caught outside the arrival hall and eventually retreated.

Police said they were trying to help ambulance officers reach an injured man whom protesters had cornered and detained for about two hours on suspicion of being an undercover agent from mainland China. Rescuers eventually succeeded in getting him to an ambulance, local broadcaster RTHK reported.

Protesters then detained and beat a second man whom they also suspected of being an undercover agent.

After a brief period when planes were able to take off and land early in the day, authorities were forced to cancel the remaining flights. The airport authority suspended check-in services for departing flights as of 4:30 p.m., with departing flights that had completed the process able to continue to operate.

The airport's website

Policemen in riot gears arrest a protester during a demonstration at the Airport in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019.

Associated Press

showed at least 120 cancellations and it advised people not to come to the airport, one of the world's busiest.

More than 200 flights were canceled Monday and passengers were forced to stay in the city while airlines tried to find other ways to get them to their destinations.

The airport disruptions escalated a summer of demonstrations aimed at what many Hong Kong residents see as an increasing erosion of the freedoms they were promised in 1997 when Communist Partyruled mainland China took over what had been a British colony.The protests have built on an opposition movement that shut down much of the city for seven weeks in 2014 before it eventually fizzled and its leaders were jailed on public disturbance charges.

The central government in Beijing has ominously characterized the current protest movement as something approaching "terrorism" that poses an "existential threat" to citizens.

While Beijing tends to define terrorism broadly, extending it especially to nonviolent movements opposing government policies in minority regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, its use of the term in relation to Hong

Kong raised the prospect of greater violence and the possible suspension of legal rights for those detained.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said the instability, chaos and violence have placed the city on a "path of no return."

The black-clad demonstrators have shown no sign of letting up on their campaign to force Lam's administration to respond to their demands, including that she step down and scrap proposed legislation under which some suspects could be sent to mainland China, where critics say they could face torture and unfair or politically charged trials.

Lam has rejected calls for dialogue, part of what analysts say is a strategy to wear down the opposition movement through police action while prompting demonstrators to take more violent and extreme actions that will turn the public against them.

At the airport, protesters discussed among themselves whether they should simply block all access to the facility.

Meanwhile, paramilitary police were assembling across the border in the city of Shenzhen for exercises that some saw as a threat to increase force against the mostly young protesters who have turned out by

the thousands in the past 10 weeks.

President Donald Trump tweeted that U.S. intelligence believes that the Chinese government is moving troops to its border with Hong Kong. He also tweeted that "Everyone should be calm and safe!"

He provided no additional details.

While China has yet to threaten using the army — as it did against pro-democracy protesters in Beijing in 1989 — the Shenzhen exercises were a sign of its ability to crush the demonstrations, even at the cost to Hong Kong's reputation as a safe haven for business and international exchange. Images on the internet showed armored personnel carriers belonging to the People's Armed Police driving in a convoy Monday toward the site of the exercises.

The People's Liberation Army has a garrison in Hong Kong, which recently released a video showing its units combating actors dressed as protesters. Hong Kong police also put on a display of water cannons.

Police have arrested more than 700 protesters since June and say they have infiltrated the movement, leading to concerns that officers were inciting violence. Scores of protest-

ers and police have been hurt, including a woman reported to have had an eye ruptured by a beanbag round fired by police during clashes Sunday.

Police said they are investigating the incident, which protesters have taken up as a rallying cry. Some in the airport occupation wore gauze bandages dyed with artificial blood over one eye.

The U.N.'s top human rights official condemned violence around the protests and urged both sides to settle their dispute through "open and inclusive dialogue."

Rupert Colville, spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, said her office had reviewed evidence that police are using "less-lethal weapons in ways that are prohibited by international norms and standards." That includes firing tear gas canisters into crowded, enclosed areas and directly at individuals, "creating a considerable risk of death or serious injury," Colville said in a statement.

In a sign of rising tensions, protesters in the evening detained two men they claimed were undercover police from mainland China. They tied his wrists with plastic strips and poured water over his head. Airport security guards did not appear to be able to stop the crowd.

Sally Tong, an 18-year-old protester, said they needed to hold him as evidence that mainland Chinese authorities are in Hong Kong to monitor the demonstrations. Tong said the man was dressed in black and wore a mask to look like one of them.

"We want to keep him here and investigate," Tong said.

Protesters said the man dropped his wallet when he was running away from them, and they found ID cards from mainland China and also found his name on a list of police officers online.

Protesters also bound the hands of the second man they captured. q

WORLD NEWS A11

Wednesday 14 August 2019

2 Ebola patients in Congo "cured" with drugs, say doctors

This undated file photo taken from the Facebook page of The Lucie Blackman Trust shows Nora Quoirin.

Associated Press

Malaysia police: Family confirms body as missing London teen SEREMBAN, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian police said Tuesday the family of a missing 15-year-old London girl has positively identified a naked body found near the nature resort where she disappeared over a week ago.

Police said rescuers earlier Tuesday found the body of a female Caucasian beside a small stream in steep terrain about 2 ½ kilometers (1 ½ miles) from the Dusun eco-resort in southern Negeri Sembilan state, where Nora Anne Quoirin went missing Aug. 4. The body was airlifted to a hospital for identification and an autopsy.

"The family members have been brought here to identify the body that we recovered earlier and the family has confirmed that the body is Nora Anne," Negeri Sembilan police chief Mohamad Mat Yusop told reporters at the hospital morgue.

Quoirin's family arrived Aug. 3 for a two-week stay

at the Dusun, a small resort located in a durian orchard next to a forest reserve 63 kilometers (39 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur.

Police believe the teen, who has learning and physical disabilities, climbed out through an open window in the living room of the resort cottage. They listed her as a missing person but said the investigation included possible criminal aspects of the case. The girl's family says she isn't independent and wouldn't wander off alone, and was likely to have been abducted.

Mohamad said a senior pathologist will conduct a post mortem Wednesday morning to determine the cause of death. National deputy police chief Mazlan Mansor earlier told a news conference that the body, which "was not in any clothing," was found by volunteers registered with the rescue team Tuesday afternoon in an area that had previously been searched by rescuers. q

By SALEH MWANAMILONGO KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Two Ebola patients who were treated with new drugs in the city of Goma in eastern Congo have been declared "cured" and returned to their home.

Top doctors fighting Ebola quickly used the case on Tuesday to press the message that people can recover from the potentially deadly disease if they seek proper care.

Ebola is dangerous but it is also curable with correct treatment, said Dr. JeanJacques Muyembe, director of Congo's National Institute for Biomedical Research.

"Ebola kills quickly and Ebola heals quickly. That's the message," said Muyembe, at a press conference in Goma.

"These cases were detected very quickly. The husband was infected, he was at home for 10 days and his wife and son were infected," said Muyembe. "As soon as the response teams detected these cases, they brought them here to the treatment center. We gave them treatment that is effective and here in a short time both are cured."

Muyembe said two new drugs "are now be used to treat Ebola patients because, according to the studies and the results we obtained in the lab, these are the two drugs that are effective."

Muyembe and other scientists announced this week that preliminary results from two trials in Congo found

Esperance Nabintu and her one-year-old son, Ebenezer Fataki, after the two had been declared cured of Ebola, in Goma, Congo Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019.

Associated Press

two drugs — made by Regeneron and the U.S. National Institutes of Health — seem to be saving lives. Researchers said more study is needed to nail down how well those two compounds work. The drugs are antibodies that block Ebola. In the trial, significantly fewer people died among those given the Regeneron drug or the NIH's, about 30%, compared to those who received another treatment.

Esperance Nabintu rejoiced that she and her young son had survived Ebola.

"May the Lord be praised, I thank the Lord very much. I and my child were sick with Ebola, but God has just healed us.

"My brothers, we must not doubt. Ebola exists, "said Nabintu, whose husband was the second Ebola victim to die in Goma. No other Ebola death has been detected since then.

After a public announcement that Nabintu and

her son, Ebenezer Fataki, 1, had recovered from Ebola, the response team accompanied the two former patients their home in the Kiziba area, where the medical team educated the residents about proper Ebola treatment.

There is less danger that Ebola will spread through Goma, the capital of North Kivu province with more than 2 million inhabitants, because about 200 contacts and suspected cases have been identified and have received proper medication, said Muyembe. He said people arriving in Goma are being monitored at the city's entry points.

"People who come from Beni and Butembo (nearby cities where there are many Ebola cases) must be carefully examined, "said Muyembe. "All of the 200 contacts we are following are doing well. We are waiting until the end of the 21-day surveillance period.q

A12 WORLD

Wednesday 14 August 2019

NEWS

Presidential candidate Alberto Fernandez, left, addresses supporters next to his partner Fabiola Yanez outside the "Frente de Todos" party headquarters after primary elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019.

Argentine vote leader questions deal with European Union BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina's newly established leading presidential contender is throwing doubt on a newly signed regional trade pact with Europe and also feuding with one of his country's partners in the deal, the far-right president of neighboring Brazil.

Alberto Fernández thumped President Mauricio Macri by 15 percentage points in Sunday's primary voting — making his slate, which includes exPresident Cristina Fernández as his running mate, the clear leader for October's main election and prompting a stock market collapse among investors worried about their leftleaning populist policies.

Fernández raised doubts Monday night about the European Union's trade deal with the South American trade bloc Mercosur that was signed in June but not yet ratified.

"That agreement doesn't exist, never existed," he told Net TV. "They signed a sort of protocol letter in which they set out a series of topics to deal with."

The agreement has alarmed European farmers and South American manufacturers and service providers who fear they cannot compete with goods produced by the other partner in the deal.

Fernández said there is "no doubt" that the world has globalized, "and to renounce that is a stupidity,

to deny that is a stupidity.

The issue is how you enter into globalization."

"We have to see what this agreement consists of," he added. He said there are some early indications that some aspects of the deal would be "disadvantageous for Argentina. If those things are fixed, welcome for Argentina."

Meanwhile, he heated up a feud with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has suggested that a Fernández government would be a disaster that would flood Brazil with Argentine refugees in the same way Venezuelans have fled their own country's economic collapse.

"In political terms, I have nothing to do with Bolsonaro," Fernández said, describing Brazil's leader as "a racist, a misogynist and violent, the sort of person who celebrates the torture of Dilma Rousseff" — a reference to Bolsonaro's praise for a man accused of overseeing the torture of Brazil's former leftist president.

Even so, Fernández said, "We are going to get on splendidly with Brazil. It is always going to be our principal partner." He also had critical words for the socialist government of Venezuela, which was a close ally of his running mate when she was president in 20072015. Macri has warned that the Fernándezes, who are not related, would make Argentina a sort of Venezuela.q

Kashmiri Muslims participate in Eid prayers outside a mosque during a security lockdown in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019.

Associated Press

Indian-controlled Kashmir under strict lockdown for 9th day

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN Associated Press SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Residents of Indian-administered Kashmir were running short of essentials on Tuesday as an unprecedented security lockdown kept people indoors for a ninth day.

India has imposed a nearconstant curfew and a communications blackout as it tries to stave off a violent reaction to the government's decision on Aug. 5 to strip Kashmir of its autonomy.

The reaction to India's unprecedented move has so far been largely subdued.

But anti-India protests and clashes have occurred daily, mostly as soldiers withdraw from the streets at dusk. Though the scale of the lockdown is unprecedented, civil resistance to Indian rule is not uncommon in Kashmir, and young men have hurled stones and abuse at police and soldiers.

Indian troops patrolling the disputed region allowed some Muslims to walk to mosques to mark the Eid alAdha festival on Monday, and shops were opened briefly on previous days.

The lockdown is expected to last at least through Thursday, India's indepen-

dence day. Surveillance drones and military helicopters hovered over Srinagar, the region's main city. On Sunday, soldiers stopped vehicles in the city's main business hub, causing a traffic jam just as a low-flying drone passed by, according to Javaid Ahmed, a resident who said he witnessed the scene from a nearby building.

He said he later saw the same scene broadcast on Indian TV channels.

"That footage was used to say Kashmir was normal with everyone thronging the streets," Ahmed said.

Kashmiris fear India's move to put the region under greater New Delhi control will alter its demographics and cultural identity.

India said its decision to revoke Kashmir's special constitutional status and downgrade it from statehood to a territory would free it from separatism.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule for decades.

Some 70,000 people have died in clashes between militants and civilian protesters and Indian security forces since 1989. Most Kashmiris want either independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan and is

claimed by both in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two wars over it. The first ended in 1948 with the region divided and a promise of a U.N.sponsored referendum on its future. It has never been held.

Pakistan has denounced the recent changes as illegal and has downgraded its diplomatic ties with New Delhi, expelled the Indian ambassador and suspended trade and train services.

An uneasy calm continued to prevail along the Line of Control in Pakistancontrolled Kashmir, where residents of Chakothi, a remote border town, said they were living in a state of uncertainty.

"Solve the issue of Kashmir through talks or war but now solve it, as we are always the victim whenever there is any tension between Pakistan and India," Rubina Bibi, a 40-year-old housewife, told The Associated Press.

Jalal Hanif, a shop owner, said there had been no exchange of fire in Chakothi or elsewhere in Pakistan's part of Kashmir since New Delhi imposed the changes. "But whenever Indian troops open fire, shells and mortars hit our bazaar and homes," he said. q

LOCAL A13

Wednesday 14 August 2019

CubAruba Sixteen years ago Gladys came to Aruba because of love.

Her ex-husband is Aruban and fell in love with her while she was a dancer at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. “I never heard of Aruba, but I thought, it is an island in the Caribbean? What can go wrong?” She soon had two beautiful daughters and took time to be with them, but when they grew up she felt the need to do something again. “I picked up the dancing in hotel shows, but it became too hard to combine with the kids, so I got into managing the kids club. It taught me a lot, I like to dive into things and absorb knowledge.” She became a diving teacher, waitress and learned English that way. Gladys is a self-made woman, determined to learn about the world and its challenges.

“I would say it is best to live life with awareness, consciousness. Let it flow, do not force, it will come.”q

“I am just helping people to feel energized, that’s me”

EAGLE BEACH — Casa del Mar Beach Resort & Timeshare offers you paradise: an oceanfront location on the white sands of Eagle Beach, the amazing aquamarine Caribbean ocean, wonderfully luxurious oceanfront, or poolside timesharing suites with a world of amenities like a spa, restaurant, and a fitness center. Three times a week there is a special lady providing the guests with chair yoga. Meet the dynamic Cuban Gladys Margarita Duarte!

It is evident that the guests love her_ as the full class of chair yoga walks away with a big smile on their faces after Gladys’ energy hour. “She is the greatest, we love her, and she is so genuine and good in what she does,” one of the guests says.

The patio in front of the pool at Casa del Mar Beach Resort is flanked by trees and makes up for a peaceful setting where your perfect start of the day happens. “I have been working here five years now, and at this resort the guests are like friends.

There is a strong connection. The energy is very positive and it rubs off,” Gladys explains. She was the first to introduce yoga on a chair and it has been a big success. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, her class starts at 8 AM. “Being seated on a chair helps you focus on the movements you do with your core, arms, legs, any part you are activating and bringing attention to.” Yoga_ in her opinion_ is not only about relaxing, but also about strengthening and activating your body. “Everybody needs it. The way you do everything in life is a connection between mind and body. I help bring awareness how you position your body.” Her class is full_ and even men love to participate. Funny detail was that she had a group of golfers in stating her yoga created a stronger golf swing. “I was positively surprised that day to see half my class filled with men and asked them what is going on. Is this some kind of bet,” she jokes.

Hooked on Yoga Yoga came to her at a point in her life when she was looking for some deeper sense. “My friend gave me a yoga retreat in Costa Rica so I went, not knowing what to expect. In the beginning, I thought everyone was crazy as they talked about deeper emotions and all were sitting still and meditating, and they even were vegans. I was used to physical action and as a Cuban, we solve problems with a bottle of rum and let it out,” she laughs. But she turned around and yoga vibes captured her. “I got hooked, this is it, and I felt it.” She travelled to Thailand to learn Thai yoga, Thai massage, took pain management courses, studied the anatomy of the body and attended personal trainings. “I love to learn, I wake up every day as if I know nothing.”

Gladys took another approach to life because of the yoga and with that change she is also vegan now. “I was raised with the perspective that animals are below humans in rank. When I got a little dog that idea was changed. I loved her with all my heart and she was my baby. Sadly she passed away, but she did make that change of mind happen.” She explains that she feels animals now and it is impossible for her to eat them. “I have chosen a path in life that I need to follow. Yoga and meditation helped me find my direction.” Gladys also works as massage therapist at Clinical Massage & Spa residing in the Casa del Mar Beach Resort.

Casa del Mar would like to welcome you to their family of owners with suits available for sale or rental year round.

Juan E. Irausquin Boulevard 51 Oranjestad, Aruba T + 297 582 7000

A14 LOCAL

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Tickle your Taste Buds with Tierra del Sol NOORD — There is a place on the Northern part of the island that makes up for your perfect dream meal. The location: the island’s rugged north coast and blue ocean forming your panoramic from Tierra del Sol’s restaurant, either from the poolside outdoor terrace or from the elegant indoor restaurant.

The offering: From lunch to dinner excellent cuisine, friendly service, and a gorgeous setting, but now even more special with the NEW ‘All You Can Taste’ concept – on from Tuesdays to Saturdays from 6PM – 10PM.

Lush Lunch Guests praise Tierra del Sol restaurant for the magnificent views making it a popular lunch spot as well as a great after-golf lunch experience. Locals and visitors have been coming for years to Tierra del Sol to unwind and let go in this elegant yet laid-back setting.

Divine Dining Tune in for an experience that will give dining another perspective.

We are not talking about the standard 3-course menu, but about a journey through taste-land. The

Restaurant at Tierra del Sol invites you to taste as many tapa-sized items as you wish from their extensive fine dining menu.

Fresh Oysters, Tuna Crab Duo, Bruchetta Caprese, Portobello Mushroom, Smoked Beef Tataki or Chicken Curry Waldorf Salad are only some of the welcoming dishes. For the main courses you can TIERRA DEL SOL RESTAURANT https://www.tierradelsol.com/dining/ Phone: (+297) 586-7800 Ext. 231 Email: restaurant@tierradelsol.com

decide for Skirt Steak, Duck Venison Duo or Pumpkin Risotto among others and to top it off with a sweet surrender a Duo of Quesillo & Brownie, Melon Martini or Cheesecake are one of the choices. This all for a special price and including a glass of sangria. Indulge into this culinary discovery at the most romantic scenery of our One Happy Island.q Monday 11:00am — 3:00pm Tuesday – Saturday 11:00am – 10:00pm Sunday Brunch 11:00am – 3:00pm

Economy inched forward as inflation rose in 2018 ORANJESTAD — The Centrale Bank van Aruba (CBA) published the State of the Economy of 2018. This publication provides a synopsis of the local and international economic developments of this period. The domestic highlights are presented below, including a summary of main economic indicators.

In 2018, Aruba’s economy experienced an estimated real growth of 0.9 percent. The main driver of growth was tourism services exports, which performed admirably well in 2018 despite further contraction in the Venezuelan market.

Other sectors of the economy lagged behind resulting in lackluster investment and consumption behavior. Tourism growth in Aruba outpaced that of the Caribbean destinations as a whole. All tourism indicators, with the exception of the number of cruise visitors, show that Aruba outperformed Caribbean destinations on average, as indicated by figures from the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

According to the latest estimates, real consumption in 2018 declined by 1.7 percent. On average, in 2018 consumer sentiment contracted by 0.8 percentage point to 95.4. Partly due to delays and lack of new sizeable investment projects, the total level of investment (real terms) fell by 1.9 percent in 2018.

The 12-month average CPI inflation stood at 3.6 percent in December 2018, the effect of increased gasoline and food prices along with an expansion in indirect tax rates. Energy and food prices rose by 0.7 and 1.0 percentage point, respectively. Also, the introduction of BAVP and a higher BAZV tariff resulted in a core inflation of 1.8 percent for 2018. For the second consecutive quarter, the real effective exchange rate of the florin vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar increased in the fourth quarter of 2018. This indicates a de-

terioration in Aruba’s competitive position relative to the United States, explained mainly by the tightening in fiscal policies by the Aruban government.

The total money supply increased in 2018, predominantly because of an expansion in savings and time deposits. Total credit granted by the commercial banking sector also expanded during this period, caused primarily by a continuing growth in housing mortgages. During the same period, net claims on the public sector grew.

The weighted average interest rate fluctuated during the year, and at year-end was higher than the year before. Meanwhile, the financial soundness indicators measured improvements during 2018. Gross official reserves reached Afl. 1,778 million at end-2018, equal to 87.4 percent of the Assessing Reserve Adequacy (ARA) metric applied by the IMF as an additional benchmark to assess the adequacy of Aruba’s foreign reserve holdings. Therefore, it is imperative that

the level of the official foreign reserves is increased over time.

The government’s financial deficit fell by Afl. 87.2 million to Afl. 45.2 million at the end of 2018, due primarily to a 6.5 percent expansion in revenues, partly the result of the increase in the tariffs of the BBO, the BAZV and the BAVP as of July 1, 2018. Additionally, the rise in the BAZV rate reduced the general health insurance’s (AZV) deficit, and thus diminished the transfer by the government to the AZV to cover the deficit. Total government debt expanded by Afl. 127.6 million to Afl. 4,286.5 million at the end of 2018 as the government entered into several external and domestic borrowings.

The current account of the balance of payments recorded an Afl. 24.4 million deficit in 2018, the first deficit in four years. The first quarter of 2018, with tourism at its peak level, was the only quarter with a current account surplus.

The complete publication is available on the CBA’s website (www.cbaruba.org).q

LOCAL A15

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Lend a Hand to Community ORANJESTAD — Diamonds International Aruba employees are proud participants of the Lend a Hand project, which concentrates on the development of our local communities and its residents in areas where need has been demonstrated.

The DI Aruba team recently completed their 8th Lend a Hand project in Fundacion Pa Nos Comunidad (FPNC), a foundation that

supports vulnerable groups and voluntary initiatives in the Aruban community.

During the years of its existence, the foundation has provided food packages to more than 3000 families of the Aruban community who live below the poverty line. The provided food packages are distributed for temporary support.

FPNC has been able to do this with the financial support from the Aruban Society. FPNC's major project

is the national Food Bank; storage for food products, clothing, furniture and other basic needs articles. At the same time, they avoid waste of food and products.

The management team of DI Aruba would like to extend thanks once more to the Lend a Hand team for volunteering and for the outstanding teamwork that they demonstrated. Moreover, we express our gratitude to FPNC for opening their doors and giving DI Aruba the opportunity to make a contribution to their foundation.

If you have a project that could benefit from the Lend a Hand team, please contact us at aruba@shopdi.com<mailto:aruba@ shopdi.com>, 5880443<tel:5880443>, or you can find us on Facebook at Diamonds International Aruba.q

A16 LOCAL

Wednesday 14 August 2019

‘Aruba makes History in Lima 2019’ PERU — Mack van den Eerenbeemt made history in Lima, Peru by becoming Aruba's first-ever medal winner at the PanAmerican Games 2019.Van den Eerenbeemt won the bronze in Windsurfing RX-S. RS:X is a windsurfing class selected by the International Sailing Federa-

tion (ISAF) to replace the Mistral One Design Class from the 2008 Summer Olympics. The discipline has similarities to Formula Windsurfing - mainly in that the equipment used was designed to allow windsurfing in low and moderate wind conditions with good performance.RS:X equipment includes a

board with a dagger board, and a sail of a specified size Mack van den Eerenbeemt is a young man dedicated to his sport, and a true example for our youth.

More importantly he is a beautiful human being. It must have been a feeling of relief and profound

happiness that moment he found out he won a medal. ‘It felt like the breeze of Aruba all over me when I was competing and this is what made me win,” says van den Eerenbeemt. Last year he won gold at the South American and Caribbean Championship in Barranquilla, Colombia.q

Guests work out to keep the lights on at this top Caribbean resort EAGLE BEACH —Now when guests at Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort power up their workouts, they’ll be powering up the resort.

The addition of SportsArt ECO-POWRTM exercise equipment now produces electricity – instead of consuming it. This is the newest initiative in the resort’s comprehensive wellness program.

Bucuti & Tara’s new lineup includes an electricitygenerating indoor cycle, treadmill, recumbent bikes and upright bikes. The Caribbean’s first carbon neutral resort features a contemporary Fitness Centre with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the white sands and turquoise waters of Eagle Beach – the very environment Bucuti is committed to preserving.

By working out on this new equipment, guests simultaneously work towards their personal wellness goals

be exact! Calculations are based on information from ElectricityPlans.com and this Forbes article.

while protecting the environment since there isn’t a need to draw electricity.

How it works Installing the new equipment is the same as traditional electricity-based workout machinery. Kilowatts generated by exercise are converted to AC power and sent back through Bucuti & Tara’s power grid to offset consumption. The innovative technology harnesses up to 74% of human energy and converts it to utility grade electricity. Resulting in carbon negativity, this new ECO-POWRTM equipment

lets guests produce more energy than traditional electric-powered gym machines consume.

Powered by human energy A single workout can produce 160 watt-hours of electricity. For comparison, on average, 100 watt-hours can power: • A 50” LED television for 4+ hours • Power mobile phone (fully drained and recharged daily) for 18 days • 12w LED lightbulb (60w equivalent) for 8+ hours • For fun, it can even power asking Amazon Echo to tell jokes – 25 of them to

Adding to the reward of guests knowing they’re reducing their carbon footprint while lowering energy consumption, Bucuti & Tara also integrated fun new metric tracking for guests’ workouts. In addition to tracking their own workout journey, the ECO-POWRTM cardio equipment featuring SA WELL+ technology lets guests see energy production tracking, even featuring a leaderboard portraying the top energy producers, both locally and globally.

Newest offering in comprehensive wellness program Wellness at Bucuti & Tara has long been rewarding.

A comprehensive program is staffed with wellness concierges who fully customize wellness itineraries. Servic-

es, instructors and personal trainers both onsite and offsite help health-focused guests pursue all the activities offered both at Bucuti & Tara and in Aruba. From private, onsite beach bootcamp, meditation and beach hut spa treatments, to offsite hiking, full moon yoga, watersports and even dance lessons, Bucuti’s wellness offerings are boundaryless.

Total wellness also includes dining. The resort’s Elements restaurant, popular on the food-forward Aruba dining scene, invites guests enjoy many healthy options including full menus of vegan/vegetarian, gluten free and world cuisine dishes. Additionally, Bucuti & Tara’s daily Healthy Hour, the first in the Caribbean, features nutrient-packed smoothies and mocktails served with a heart-healthy appetizer. To learn more, visit Bucuti.com.q

LOCAL A17

Wednesday 14 August 2019

A weekly calendar with a selection of what’s going on in Aruba Wednesday 14 Carnival Bingo • Feeling lucky tonight? Try your luck at Aruba’s hottest Bingo event of the week. Cash prizes, door prizes and fun guaranteed!!

• From 8:00PM • Crystal Theatre at Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino.

• Facebook: Crystal Theatre at Renaissance

Thursday 15 Passionate Violin tunes and Dinner • Bohemian Restaurant is different, unconventional and a rebel with a cause.

The cause is to make you feel king in this hidden garden with outstanding dishes that connect you to the European liaisons of Aruba. TONIGHT has an extra magic: the live Violinist Angela performs!

• From 6:00PM • In front of Barcelo Aruba • Facebook: Bohemian

Sunday 18 3rd edition of Honor to Connor ‘Steelband Celebration’ • Steelband Celebration honoring Aruba’s Legendary SteelPan Pioneer (the late) Edgar Connor, performances by different SteelBands and Steelpan solists and also a Carnival Costume Show.

• From 7:30PM-9:30PM • Edgar Connor Amphi-Theatre at Paseo Herencia Mall • Facebook: Sweet Pan Music

Monday 19 Date Night at BLT Steak • Treat your significant other with an unforgettable three-course dinner.

• Enjoy an exquisite menu at our modern American Steakhouse with a bistro-inspired setting and a vibrant bar and lounge scene.

• From 8:00 PM-11:00 PM • The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba • Facebook The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba Friday 16 Aruba International Regatta 2019 • From August 16-18, 3 days of parties, 2 days of races! Join the 10th edition of the Aruba International Regatta for spectacular Yacht Races, Sunfish Races, Beach Cat Races, Optimist Races, F11 races, Miniature Boat Races, Beach Parties and much more at Surfside Beach Aruba!

• From 5:00PM-9:00PM • Surfside Beachbar, Oranjestad • Facebook Regatta Saturday 17 Giovanni Classic 2019 • Local and International Bodybuilders will take part in a 2 day competition.

Amateur and professional participants will be competing in categories of IFBB ElitePro, Men’s Bodybuilding, Women’s Bikini, Women’s Body Fitness, Wellness Fitness. (Aug 17 &18) • From at 8:00AM-9:30PM • Cas di Culura (Aruba’s house of Culture), Oranjestad • Facebook Giovanni Classic

Tuesday 20 Bon Bini Festival • At the Bon Bini Festival the visitors will enjoy an evening filled with history, local arts & crafts, local food & drinks, poetry, film, live performance of folkloric & carnival music. The Popcorn Dancers will be presenting the folkloric dance rhythms & the carnival rhythm of Aruba.

• From 6:00PM-8:30PM • Historical Museum Aruba: Fort Zoutman & Willem III Toren • Facebook: Museo Historico Aruba: Fort Zoutman & Willem III

A18

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Boxing pays price chasing dollars in Saudi Arabia

By TIM DAHLBERG AP Sports Columnist There's nothing new about those who make their living in sports chasing every dollar they can.

NFL owners do it every time they threaten to devastate a city by moving a team to greener pastures. Baseball does it by signing lucrative broadcast agreement that make it more expensive — and sometimes impossible — to follow the team you love.

So in a perfect world, what Eddie Hearn is doing with the big heavyweight fight in Saudi Arabia he is promoting isn't particularly groundbreaking or outrageous. It has a rich history in boxing, most notably when Muhammad Ali led a caravan to what was then Zaire during Mobuto Sese Seko's dictatorship to knock out George Foreman in a 1974 fight that will live forever as the "Rumble in the Jungle."

Somehow, "Clash on the Dunes" just doesn't have the same ring. And it's not a perfect world, particularly in a country noted for human rights abuses.

Unfortunately, Hearn just doesn't seem to get it when asked why — outside of the obvious answer of money — Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr. will find themselves fighting their heavyweight title rematch on Dec. 7 in, of all places, Saudi Arabia.

Selling out to the highest bidder sometimes comes with a price of its own.

Continued on Page 23

1st in AL Central

Indians top BoSox 6-5 on Santana walk-off Cleveland Indians' Tyler Naquin catches a ball hit by Boston Red Sox's J.D. Martinez on the eighth inning of a baseball game, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019, in Cleveland. Martinez was out on the play.

Associated Press Page 18

SPORTS A19

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Doolittle gets through latest adventure, Nats edge Reds 7-6

By The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Trea Turner and Matt Adams homered, Erick Fedde pitched well after allowing a solo shot on the game's first pitch and depleted Washington held on to edge Cincinnati.

Washington led 7-2 but blew most of that advantage before Sean Doolittle got his 27th save in 32 chances. He entered in the ninth with a 7-4 lead, but the struggling lefty closer's first pitch of the evening became Phillip Ervin's pinch-hit homer. The next batter singled, and came around on Joey Votto's two-out double off the wall in left. Doolittle finally ended things on Josh VanMeter's foul pop to third baseman Anthony Rendon. the Nationals opened a six-game homestand without three-time Cy Young

Award winner Max Scherzer, left fielder Juan Soto or first baseman Ryan Zimmerman — all injured — while second baseman Brian Dozier was ill and limited to pinch-hitting duty.

Washington trailed quickly as Jesse Winker drove a sinker from Fedde to left for his 16th homer — and third leading off a game this season.

Fedde (3-2) settled down and ended up going six innings, giving up two runs and six hits.

Anthony DeSclafani (7-7) took the loss.

DIAMONDBACKS 8, ROCKIES 6 DENVER (AP) — Jake Lamb, Nick Ahmed and Carson Kelly homered during a four-run sixth inning and Arizona beat Colorado.

Over the course of 13 pitches, Arizona went from trailing 6-3 to leading 7-6. Lamb

started the comeback with a solo shot off reliever Jake McGee. Ahmed later hit a two-run homer and Kelly followed with a solo shot off Chad Bettis (1-6).

It was the Diamondbacks' 27th comeback win of the season and keeps them in the thick of the wild-card chase.

Merrill Kelly (8-12) allowed four of his six runs in the first inning as he earned his first victory since June 12. Archie Bradley tossed a 1-2-3 ninth for his fourth save.

Trevor Story had two doubles and a solo homer for a Rockies squad that's gone 13-32 since June 21.

RAYS 10, PADRES 4 SAN DIEGO (AP) — Avisaíl García had a two-run home run among his three hits and Matt Duffy had four hits and three RBIs for Tampa Bay in its first game in San Diego since 2004.

Washington Nationals relief pitcher Sean Doolittle looks up as he comes off the field after a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Nationals Park, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019, in Washington.

The Nationals won 7-6.

Associated Press

The Rays won their fourth game in a row overall and their eighth straight on the road. Joey Lucchesi (7-7) took the loss. He allowed three runs and five hits in 4 2/3 innings, struck out six and walked three.

San Diego backup second baseman Ian Kinsler pitched the ninth, allowing a single, walking two

and hitting a batter, but not allowing a run. He was backed by a double play started by rookie shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. Kinsler hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth.

Austin Pruitt (2-0) held San Diego to one run and five hits in four innings while striking out four and walking none for the win.q

A20 SPORTS

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Santana homers in bottom of 9th, Indians top Red Sox 6-5

By The Associated Press CLEVELAND (AP) — Carlos Santana homered leading off the ninth inning to send the Cleveland Indians to a 6-5 win over the fast-fading Boston Red Sox on Monday night and back into firstplace in the AL Central.

After the Red Sox tied it in the top of the inning, Santana connected on a 2-2 pitch from Marcus Walden (7-2), driving it barely over the wall in left to give the Indians their biggest win this season.

The Indians moved past the idle Minnesota Twins and are alone in first for the first time since April 19.

José Ramírez hit a three-run homer and Franmil Reyes had a two-run shot as the Indians improved to a MLBbest 43-17 since June 4, when they trailed the Twins by 10 ½ games.

Down 5-1 after three innings, the Red Sox chipped away and finally tied it in the ninth on a two-out double by Xander Bogaerts off Indians closer Brad Hand (6-3).

But Santana bailed him out and added a new chapter to his own comeback sea-

Cleveland Indians' Carlos Santana celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the ninth inning in a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019, in Cleveland. The Indians won 6-5.

Associated Press

son with Cleveland.

J.D. Martinez and Jackie Bradley Jr. homered, but Boston lost for the 12th time in 15 games. The defending World Series champions came in trailing the New York Yankees by 16 games in the AL East and 7 ½ back in the wild-card race.

BLUE JAYS 19, RANGERS 4 TORONTO (AP) — Brandon Drury hit his first career grand slam, Justin Smoak had a two-run homer among his three extra-base hits, and Toronto routed Texas.

Bo Bichette had the first four-hit game of his career and Randal Grichuk had three hits, including a solo homer, as the Blue Jays won for the 10th time in 15 games.

Drury had five RBI, while Smoak and Grichuk each had four. Danny Jansen had a two-run homer.

Toronto scored eight runs in the fourth, its biggest inning since an eight-run outburst against Seattle on Sept. 20, 2016.

Nomar Mazara, Willie Calhoun and Rougned Odor hit solo home runs but Texas lost for the fifth time in six

games.

Ariel Jurado (6-8) allowed career-highs of eight runs and 11 hits in 3 2/3 innings.

Brock Stewart (2-0) pitched 5 1-3 innings, allowing three runs and five hits.

YANKEES 8, ORIOLES 5, 1ST GAME YANKEES 11, ORIOLES 8, 2ND GAME NEW YORK (AP) — Gleyber Torres hit three more home runs, including a pair of three-run drives in the night game that gave him 13 of New York's record 59 long balls against Baltimore this season, and the Yankees completed a doubleheader sweep.

The Yankees' winning streak against the Orioles is 14 games. Didi Gregorius hit a three-run homer in the first inning of the day game and had four RBIs. Urshela, Torres and Cameron Maybin added solo shots, all off Gabriel Ynoa (1-7).

Brett Gardner hit a threerun triple off Ty Blach (0-1) in the first inning of the night game and Mike Ford had a solo homer.

James Paxton (8-6) started the opener and won a third straight start. q

AP source: Holland, Nats agree in principle on minors deal

In this Aug. 28, 2018, file photo, Washington Nationals relief pitcher Greg Holland throws a pitch during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, in Philadelphia.

Associated Press

By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Sports Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Greg Holland and the Washington Nationals are giving it another go, the latest in a long series of moves aimed at helping the team's struggling bullpen.

Holland, who was with

Washington last season, and the Nationals reached an agreement in principle for him to return on a minor league contract, pending the completion of a successful physical exam, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press. The person con-

firmed the move to the AP on condition of anonymity Tuesday because nothing had been announced by the team.

The 33-year-old Holland was designated for assignment by the Arizona Diamondbacks last week. He was 1-2 with a 4.54 ERA and 17 saves in 22 chances this season and lost the job as Arizona's closer after a blown save in late July.

His ERA was 2.33 at the end of June but then began climbing as he allowed at least one earned run in seven of his last 13 appearances for the Diamondbacks.

"We took the role away from him — we thought it would take some pressure off him. But it didn't get better," Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said when the team let Holland go.

Holland is a three-time AllStar who led the National

League in saves in 2017 with 41 for the Colorado Rockies.

He joined Washington in August 2018 after being released by the St. Louis Cardinals, going 2-0 with a 0.84 ERA in 24 games for the Nationals the rest of the way.

Washington is leading the NL wild-card race even though its bullpen has been a problem throughout this year, particularly in the eighth inning. Its 6.05 ERA entering Tuesday is the worst in the NL. After Tanner Rainey allowed two runs in the eighth and closer Sean Doolittle gave up two more in the ninth as a 7-2 cushion became a 7-6 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Monday night, Doolittle acknowledged feeling worn down.

He already has a careerhigh 27 saves, despite

blowing five chances, and has finished a career-high 47 games.

Doolittle has pitched in five of Washington's past seven games.

"I'm starting to feel it a little bit," Doolittle said. "These are the nights where you've got to dig deep and grind it out."

The Nationals repeatedly have cycled through relievers in a bid to fix things, including getting rid of two offseason acquisitions the club hoped would offer late-game assistance: Trevor Rosenthal and Kyle Barraclough.

Among the pitchers added during the course of the season are Fernando Rodney, Jonny Venters and three trade-deadline pickups: Daniel Hudson, Hunter Strickland and Roenis Elias, who is currently on the injured list.q

SPORTS A21

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Take 2: 15-year-old Coco Gauff gets US Open wild-card entry

By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer Coco Gauff will get a chance to try for an encore: The 15-year-old from Florida received a wildcard entry Tuesday for the U.S. Open's main draw.

It will be Gauff's second Grand Slam tournament.

She made a magical run to the fourth round at Wimbledon last month after getting a wild card into the qualifying rounds there.

Ranked just 313th at the time, Gauff became the youngest player to qualify for Wimbledon, upset fivetime champion Venus Williams in the first round and wound up losing at the All England Club to eventual title winner Simona Halep.

Gauff is currently No. 140 in the WTA rankings. She initially made a mark at age 13 by becoming the youngest U.S. Open junior finalist in history; she won the French Open junior title at 14. Age restrictions set up by the women's professional tour limit the number of tournaments someone who is 15 can enter and the number of wild-card invitations she can be offered — and Gauff already has accepted three wild cards elsewhere. But according to the WTA, the U.S. Tennis Association — which runs a Grand Slam tournament, and so is not overseen by the WTA or ATP tours — essentially can choose to ignore the eligibility rule and offer Gauff a wild card.

"I want to thank the USTA for the opportunity to participate in my home slam," Gauff said in a statement emailed by her agent. "I look forward to playing my first main draw at the U.S. Open."

Among the other players receiving wild cards from the USTA on Tuesday for the women's field at Flush-

ing Meadows in New York City were 2011 U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur — an Australian who was granted that country's reciprocal berth — and 17-year-old Caty McNally, an American who won the doubles title with Gauff and reached the singles semifinals at the Citi Open in Washington this month.

Gauff and McNally have said they plan to play doubles together at Flushing Meadows; that event's wild-card entries will be announced later. The pair won the U.S. Open junior doubles trophy together a year ago.

The draw for the U.S. Open is Aug. 22, and play in the year's last major tennis tournament begins Aug. 26.

Other women's wild cards went to Francesca Di Lorenzo, Whitney Osuigwe, Kristie Ahn and Katie Volynets of the U.S., along with 16-year-old Diane Parry of France, who got her country's reciprocal invitation.

Di Lorenzo, a 22-year-old from Ohio, is a past NCAA doubles champion now ranked 128th. Osuigwe, a 17-year-old from Florida, won a French Open junior title and is ranked 105th.

Ahn, a 27-year-old from New Jersey, finished first in the USTA's wild-card challenge, while Volynets, a 17-year-old from California, won the 18s national championship.

Nine wild cards for women's qualifying were also awarded, including to five-time Grand Slam doubles champion Bethanie MattekSands, 14-year-old Reese Brantmeier of Wisconsin, Vicky Duval, Shelby Rogers and Pan Am Games medalist Caroline Dolehide.

Juan Martin del Porto, the 2009 U.S. Open champion, pulled out of the tournament Tuesday because he

Cori "Coco" Gauff returns the ball as she and Catherine McNally played a doubles match against Anna Kalinskaya, of Russia, and Miyu Kato, of Japan, in the Citi Open tennis tournament, Friday, Aug. 2, 2019, in Washington.

Associated Press

is still recovering from surgery on his right kneecap.

That allowed Denis Kudla, a 26-year-old from Virginia who was the highestranked man to miss out on making the field via direct acceptance, to get into the main draw just hours after he was announced as a wild-card recipient.

So the USTA announced

that Kudla's wild card would now go to Chris Eubanks, a 23-year-old from Georgia. Others getting into the main draw include Americans Jack Sock, Bjorn Fratangelo, Marcos Giron, USTA wild-card challenge winner Ernesto Escobedo and 18s national champion Zachary Svajda, along with Antoine Hoang, who got

France's reciprocal entry.

The Australian federation has not announced who will get its men's wild-card invitation. Men awarded wild cards for qualifying include Sebastian Korda, the son of 1998 Australian Open champion Petr Korda, as well as last year's 18s national champion, Jenson Brooksby.q

A22 SPORTS

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Chiefs become destination with Mahomes, Reid combination

By DAVE SKRETTA AP Sports Writer ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs needed a playmaking safety and signed coveted free agent Tyrann Mathieu.

They needed help at cornerback and signed Bashaud Breeland and Morris Claiborne.

They had to address the pass rush and extended the contract of defensive end Frank Clark.

That aggressive approach to roster turnover speaks volumes about the job Chiefs general manager Brett Veach has done in Kansas City. But it also speaks volumes to the fact that the Chiefs, for years a franchise that struggled to lure top talent on the open market against higherprofile teams, has become a destination for players seeking playoff glory and Super Bowl rings.

"I wanted to come to a team that had great talent, great core players," explained Mathieu, who signed a $42 million, threeyear contract in March.

"Any time you can play for

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes warms up before an NFL preseason football game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019.

Associated Press

an organization that has a great history and obviously a great quarterback that's really going to take this league over, really by storm — really this was a no-brainer for me and my family."

In fact, that may be the biggest reason everyone seems to want to play in

Kansas City: the unique combination of an innovative players' coach in Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, whose record-setting debut as the starter portends postseason success for years to come.

"They've got a good ball club and the best offense

in the league," said Claiborne, a former first-round draft pick who signed a $3 million deal late last week.

The beauty of that mindset among players, at least from the Chiefs' perspective, is that it creates a snowball effect. Top players want to play for a good

team, making a good team even better.

The biggest pitfall of the Chiefs a year ago, when they lost to the Patriots in overtime in the AFC title game, was their muchmaligned defense. But consider their quartet of high-profile additions: All of them reside on that side of the ball, shoring up the biggest weakness.

They've made a team that has won three consecutive AFC West titles even stronger. "I just got finished playing with Aaron Rodgers," said Breeland, who played part of last season in Green Bay, "and to me (Mahomes) is like a younger version of Rodgers with a lot more attributes. Young guys are starting to propel differently these days.

He's an exciting player and I'm just ready to compete against him. I know that if I can ball against him at practice, then I can play against anybody."

Claiborne was recently suspended the first four games of the regular season for violating the NFL's substanceabuse policy. q

5 Russian weightlifters face new wave of doping charges MOSCOW (AP) — Five Russian weightlifters, all of them world or European championship medalists, face doping charges which could herald a new wave of cases across a range of sports.

The International Weightlifting Federation said Tuesday that evidence against the five lifters, including Olympic bronze medalist Ruslan Albegov, comes from new investigations by the World Anti-Doping In this file photo dated Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012, Ruslan Albegov Agency into widespread of Russia competes during men's over 105-kg weightlifting comdrug use in Russian sports. petition at the 2012 Summer Olympics, in London.

Associated Press "This important development shows justice being hesitation in taking the brought to those that may vided by WADA." IWF president Tamas Ajan right decisions," said Ajan, have cheated their sport," WADA told The Associat- said the alleged offens- weightlifting's leader since ed Press in e-mailed com- es occurred "some years 2000, in a statement. "While ago" and should be seen the IWF has done so much ments Tuesday.

"The Agency awaits more as part of efforts to clean to begin a bright new such announcements up weightlifting, which was chapter for our sport, we from federations that have responsible for dozens of will also do what we can to commenced results man- doping cases at recent pursue historical cases of doping." Albegov is a twoagement on the basis of Olympics. evidentiary packages pro- "We have not shown any time world champion who

won bronze in July in a test event for next year's Olympics in Tokyo.

The others are world champion Tima Turiyeva and double European champions Oleg Chen and David Bedzhanyan, as well as Egor Klimonov, who won European championship silver in April.

Russia was banned entirely from weightlifting at the 2016 Olympics when the IWF said its doping problem brought the sport into disrepute. For next year's Olympics in Tokyo, Russia is among 17 countries hit with new doping-related restrictions on the size of their squads.

WADA has been analyzing a vast archive of data obtained in January from the anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, where cases were routinely covered up for years. WADA has started handing over its results to sports federations. It also

obtained a batch of stored drug-test samples in April.

WADA is letting sports federations take the lead on charging their own athletes, but if it feels the governing bodies are failing to act on strong evidence, it could bring its own doping charges against individual Russians.

The lab data was crucial to bans for two Russians in the winter sport of biathlon in June. The International Biathlon Union handed Alexander Chernyshov and Alexander Pechyonkin longer bans because it deemed their conduct was aggravated by being part of an "organized doping scheme."

WADA president Craig Reedie said at the time that he expects more than 100 new doping cases to be brought across various Russian sports. Only a small fraction has so far been announced.q

SPORTS A23

Wednesday 14 August 2019

In this July 26, 2019, file photo, Phoenix Mercury's Brittney Griner competes in the skills challenge during the WNBA All-Star festivities in Las Vegas.

Associated Press

WNBA suspends Brittney Griner 3 games for fight; 4 others punished

By DOUG FEINBERG NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA has suspended Mercury center Brittney Griner three games for her role in a fight in the Dallas-Phoenix game Saturday that resulted in six players getting ejected.

The league punished Griner on Tuesday for throwing punches, escalating the incident and pushing Wings forward Kayla Thornton's face with an open hand.

Dallas' Kristine Anigwe was suspended two games for instigating the initial alter-

cation with Griner and taking an open-handed swing at her. Thornton also was suspended two games for her role in the scuffle.

Phoenix's Diana Taurasi and Dallas' Kaela Davis were suspended a game apiece for leaving the bench area during the altercation.

With 6:25 left in the fourth quarter, Griner and Anigwe got tangled up in the lane and a scuffle ensued.

Griner had to be restrained by an official at midcourt, where she was still trying to get at Dallas players.q

/arubatoday/

Boxing promoters Eddie Hearn and managing partner of Skill Challenge Entertainment Omar Khalil shake hands, during a press conference at The Savoy Hotel, London, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019.

Associated Press Continued from Page 18

"That's well beyond my head as a sports organizer," Hearn said Monday in London as questions swirled about the propriety of holding the heavyweight championship of the world in a country that is at odds with the rest of the world in so many ways. He later added, "We knew the criticism we may face when we announced the fight."

It would be hard not to know. A quick glance at news sites not controlled by the Saudi government shows that despite recent relaxations on rules banning women from driving and attending sporting events, there are still reports of serious human rights abuses in the country. There are also questions about how high up in the Saudi government the plan to kill Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was put together.

But boxing promoters — actually, most people in sports — tend to gloss over those kinds of issues when there is money involved.

And the Saudis, Hearn said, offered more money than could have been generated at the Principality Stadium in Wales — where Ruiz didn't want to fight — or at Madison Square Garden,

where Ruiz scored a major upset over the previously undefeated Joshua in their June 1 fight.

Still, Hearn would have served himself better had he not tried to pretend he's merely a sportsman and that political things are too complicated for him to worry about.

If he needs a quick lesson, Amnesty International calls it "sportwashing," which basically means the use of big sporting events to burnish a country's image. And, no doubt, the rematch in a temporary outdoor stadium in Diriyah, on the outskirts of the capital, Riyadh, is a big event that would have drawn 80,000 rabid boxing fans in Wales.

Hearn said he was unfamiliar with the term. He came prepared with his talking points at hand, saying other organizations like the WWE, Formula One and golf's European Tour had staged successful events recently in the country.

They made money, so why shouldn't he?

Why, even women will be allowed inside the temporary 12,000-seat stadium.

Isn't that progress enough?

The argument being made is that sports are different, sports should stand on their own and sports — even

boxing — should somehow be pure. It's nonsense, of course, as evidenced when Russian President Vladimir Putin spent billions to host a tainted Olympics in Sochi and the Chinese did the same in 2008 to deliver the message they were a world power.

Ali and Foreman were used in Zaire, too, to try and show the world that Mobuto wasn't such a bad guy even as the dictator looted his impoverished country to pay for the fight.

Just how much the Saudis paid has not been revealed, though Hearn said it wasn't the $40 million some speculated. What they'll get for their money is an intriguing heavyweight rematch, though Hearn tries to sell it as far more.

"I think it's going to be mindblowing for the sport of boxing," he said. "This could change boxing forever. This will be a boxing event that will go down in history."

It will, but probably for all the wrong reasons. The only vision Hearn has is the same vision that has ruled boxing for more than a century — pure greed.

This is a money grab, nothing more and nothing less.

Hearn would serve himself — and boxing — better if he owns that now.q

A24

Wednesday 14 August 2019

HEALTH Not by Bread Alone

Dr. Viana Foods made from wheat and other grains are staples in North American and European diets. We have been programmed to have grain products be our diet foundation.

Shifting our eating habits towards breads and other processed flour products has been easier for government agencies and the food industry to manage. Less refined grains, often in combination, as with granola cereals and whole wheat breads fortified with bran, coarse flours, and other additives are now eaten in large quantities because they have been presented as ‘health’ foods. Unfortunately, wheat and its close relatives, barley, rye and oats have been proven to cause health problems in the diets of many people. Wheat intolerance or allergies rank second only to milk allergies when

we review our patient’s medical complaints. It could be that in the Bible’s Luke 4:4, which says: “Not on bread alone shall man be living, but on every declaration of God”, has relevance in today’s world. By the way, the bread of this time was usually made from the less offensive, whole grain millet, not wheat.

Grains are popular foods because of their ability to react with live yeast to form the rising or lightness and taste. The component that allows this reaction to take place is proteins in the grains collectively called “gluten”. The cereal grains, wheat, rye, oats and barley all contain similar proteins. In many people, especially in individuals with blood types O and A, gluten reacts by exciting our immune responses especially in the gastrointestinal

tract. In other words, many people are allergic to gluten. Grains can present many other problems including negative reactions to the grain contaminated with pesticides, preservatives, and molds.

But, that will be another article.

Celiac Disease is the best-recognized form of gluten allergy and is also called gluten intolerance.

Actually, I am not the only medical professional who believes that every person with type O blood is gluten intolerant and, thus, on the waiting list to develop type II diabetes. Symptoms of celiac disease can range from diarrhea, weight loss, and malnutrition, to isolated nutrient deficiencies with no gastrointestinal symptoms. The disease is thought to be highest among people of Northern European descent, but we now know that it also affects Hispanic, Black and Asian populations equally as well. Those affected suffer damage to their intestines when they eat specific food-grain antigens that are found in wheat, rye, barley or oats.

The gastrointestinal tract is the primary target organ; however hidden symptoms may show as irritable bowel syndrome with iron deficiency anemia, with little or no diarrhea. Dr. Kelly, of the Boston University Hospital, in a clinic pathological review of celiac disease stated that: “...there is increasing evidence that most people with gluten sensitivity have latent celiac disease with such mild manifestations (in the digestive tract) that the diagnosis is never made.

Wheat intolerance or allergies are associated with a variety of autoimmune disorders, carcinomas of the gastrointestinal tract and lymphomas. Increased incidences of

diabetes, autoimmune thyroid disease, sarcoidosis, vasculitis, pulmonary fibrosis, encephalopathy and cerebellar atrophy have been reported in celiac patients. This is serious stuff. This relationship re-stated as simple as possible says “cereal grains cause cancer”! Now, the implications are more easily understood.

We have had patients with inflammatory arthritis that improved dramatically when we removed milk and grain products, especially wheat, from their diet. The occurrence of pain in joints, particularly the hands, with slight swelling, stiffness and loss of mobility is the early presentation of allergic arthritis; can occur strictly as a manifestation of gluten allergy.

High cholesterol, skin disorders, obesity and its dangerous health consequences can all be effects of wheat allergies. If any of these symptoms are a problem, a visit to your clinical nutritionist could help you safely change your diet and regain your optimal health.

Get the Point! We have known about the disease bearing consequences of eating wheat and other grains for years already. Why have you not been informed by public health organizations? What about fiber? Brown (whole grain) rice, which is not known to cause health problems in any blood type is full of nutritious B Vitamins and eaten daily, keeps your colon clean and healthy. If you want to check what food and chemical intolerances are negatively affecting your good looks and health, check in with a Certified Clinical Nutritionist or holistic physician trained in nutrition.

Who knows, the bread or the cancer you avoid might be yours.q

BUSINESS A25

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Facing pressure, Trump delays tariffs on some Chinese goods

By PAUL WISEMAN and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writers WASHINGTON (AP) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Responding to pressure from businesses and growing fears that a trade war is threatening the U.S. economy, the Trump administration is delaying some import taxes it planned to impose on Chinese goods and is dropping others altogether.

The announcement Tuesday from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative was greeted with relief on Wall Street and by retailers who have grown fearful that the new tariffs would wreck holiday sales.

The administration says it still plans to proceed with 10% tariffs on about $300 billion in Chinese imports â&#x20AC;&#x201D; extending its import taxes on just about everything China ships to the United States in a dispute over Beijing's strong-arm trade policies.

Most of the new tariffs are scheduled to kick in Sept. 1.

But under pressure from retailers and other businesses, President Donald Trump's trade office said it would delay until Dec. 15 the 10% tariffs on some Chinese imports, including such popular consumer goods as cellphones, laptops, video game consoles, some toys, computer monitors, shoes and clothing.

The administration is also removing other items from the tariff list entirely, based on what it called "health, safety, national security and other factors."

The news sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring more than 400 points at midday. Shares of Apple, Mattel and shoe brand Steve Madden, which stand to benefit from the delayed tariffs, particularly shot up on the news.

The delay seemed timed to cushion, until after the holiday shopping season, the financial and perhaps political impact of escalating tariffs on consumer goods, which would likely force retailers to raise prices.

Trump acknowledged as much in an exchange with reporters in New Jersey, saying he was delaying the

tariffs so they wouldn't affect the critically important Christmas shopping season. He also noted that the stock market rallied on the news.

Hun Quach, vice president of international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, welcomed the administration's delay in the new tariffs on many consumer goods, saying it "will mitigate some pain for consumers through the holiday shopping season."

Separately, China's Ministry of Commerce reported that top Chinese negotiators had spoken by phone with their U.S. counterparts, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and planned to talk again in two weeks.

Together, the news of negotiations and tariff delays provided at least a respite after weeks of heightened U.S.-China trade tensions.

The relief might prove only temporary, though, if the tariffs eventually take full effect and Beijing retaliates against U.S. exports.

The Trump administration is fighting the Chinese regime over allegations that Beijing steals trade secrets, forces foreign companies to hand over technology and unfairly subsidizes its own firms. Those tactics are part of Beijing's drive to become a world leader in such advanced technologies as artificial intelligence and electric cars.

But 12 rounds of talks have failed produce any resolution. Frustrated with the lack of progress, Trump raised the tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25% in May and said Aug. 1 that he'd impose 10% taxes on an additional $300 billion on Sept. 1.

On Sunday, economists at Goldman Sachs downgraded their economic forecasts, citing the impending tariffs on consumer goods. And economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have raised their odds of a recession in the next year to roughly 33%, up from about 20%.

"We are worried," Michelle Meyer, head of econom-

In this March 6, 2019, file photo a staff member works on a mobile phone production line during a media tour in Huawei factory in Dongguan, China's Guangdong province. Huawei Technologies Co. is one of the world's biggest supplier of telecommunications equipment.

Associated Press

ics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, wrote Friday.

"We now have a number of early indicators starting to signal heightened risk of recession."

Goldman said the tariffs on China have increased uncertainty for businesses, which will likely cause them to pull back on hiring and investing in new equipment or software. Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods have also weighed down stock prices lower, which could depress spending by wealthier Americans, Goldman found.

"It's pretty clear that the problem with (Trump's) tariff tactics is it's bad for the economy," said David Dollar, a China specialist at the Brookings Institution and a former official at the World Bank and U.S. Treasury.

"You try to use the weapon but then you get blowback on your own people."

Despite the exchanges between the U.S. and Chinese

negotiators, the prospects for negotiations remain dim. A substantive deal would require China to scale back its aspirations to become a tech superpower. And relations between the countries have been strained by mistrust.

The call "has the effect of creating a better environment. It sounds like they're moving ahead and making plans to meet," Dollar said.

Still, the best possible outcome, he said, would be a "mini-deal" in which China agrees to buy more American products and narrow the gaping U.S. trade deficit with China. In exchange, perhaps the United States would lift some sanctions on the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which the U.S. sees as a national security risk.

So far, Trump's tariffs have failed to get President Xi Jinping to yield to the U.S. demands on the thornier issues of intellectual property

theft and coerced technology transfers. And the taxes on imports are increasingly drawing resistance in the United States.

"I don't think we're any closer to a deal," said Scott Kennedy, who analyzes China's economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I don't think there will be any deal during the Trump administration."

The decision to delay the tariffs "shows that the two economies are interdependent and that interdependence benefits many Americans" by providing affordable goods, Kennedy said. "It's not so easy to penalize China or disengage."q

A26 COMICS

Wednesday 14 August 2019

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CLASSIFIED A27

Wednesday 14 August 2019

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Doane University in Crete will offer the three-course program, which will be taught in part by chemistry professor Andrea Holmes.

She told the Omaha WorldHerald that the industry is growing rapidly, citing jobs across the country for cultivators, technicians, scientists, geneticists, administrators, salespeople, marketers and advertisers.

Nebraska lawmakers cleared the way this past spring for a limited number of farmers to grow hemp.

Hemp is a low-THC version of the cannabis plant. THC is the compound that gives marijuana its high.

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A28 SCIENCE

Wednesday 14 August 2019

In this July 19, 2019, file photo, protesters continue their opposition vigil against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope at Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Associated Press

Students protesting Hawaii telescope can Study: Asian carp could find study remotely plenty of food in Lake Michigan

In this June 13, 2012, file photo, Asian carp, jolted by an electric current from a research boat, jump from the Illinois River near Havana, Ill. Associated Press

HILO, Hawaii (AP) — University of Hawaii students protesting the construction of a $1.4 billion telescope are expected to have class options allowing them to remain on the mountain, a report said.

The plan to start construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the Big Island has been thwarted for more than three weeks by a group of Native Hawaiian activists who say the construction will further desecrate a mountain that already has more than a dozen observatories.

A list of more than 200 courses students can take either online or via distance learning has become available, The Hawaii TribuneHerald reported Monday.

The majority of the remote classes for student demonstrators are offered through UH-Manoa, while others are offered by the UH-Hilo and Hawaii Community College.

Course topics include Ha-

waiian religion, mythology, culture and language, Pacific Island literature, business, creative writing, and philosophy. Nontraditional classroom environments, like distance learning, online classes and research field work, are common across UH campuses, said spokesman Dan Meisenzahl. Justina Mattos, an assistant professor of performing arts at UH-Hilo, is one of the educators offering a remote course. Teachers can create independent study courses during the university add/drop period, while students can also earn credit for doing independent projects, Mattos said.

"While I will continue to not really speak out to one side or the other, I do feel a personal responsibility to help enable any of the protectors who are in college to be able to continue doing what they feel they need to do without impacting their college education," Mattos said.q

By JOHN FLESHER AP Environmental Writer TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Asian carp are likely to find enough food to spread farther if they establish breeding populations in Lake Michigan, reinforcing the importance of preventing the invasive fish from gaining a foothold, scientists said in a paper released Monday.

A study led by University of Michigan researchers found that despite a drop-off in plankton, the tiny plants and animals on which bighead and silver carp typically feed, the lake has enough dietary options to sustain individual fish that venture away from nutrient-rich shoreline areas where most would congregate.

That improves their prospects for colonizing large sections of Lake Michigan and eventually spreading to the other Great Lakes, said Peter Alsip, an ecological modeling data analyst and lead author of the paper published in the journal Freshwater Biology."Our study indicates that the carp can survive and grow in much larger areas of the lake than previous studies suggested," Alsip said.

Asian carp were imported in the late 1960s to gobble up algae in Deep South

sewage lagoons and fish farms. They escaped into the Mississippi River and have migrated northward, branching into dozens of tributaries.

Prolific breeders and voracious eaters, the invaders compete with native fish for food and habitat. They have become the primary fish species in the Illinois River, which forms part of an aquatic pathway that leads to Lake Michigan through a Chicago-area network of rivers and canals.

Authorities have long debated how to keep them out of the Great Lakes, where fishing is a $7 billion industry. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this year proposed equipping the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois, with noisemakers, electric barriers and other deterrents at a cost of at least $778 million.

Some experts have questioned whether the carp would venture from shallow bays and wetland areas into the lake's deeper waters, where filter-feeding zebra and quagga mussels have coated the bottomlands and consumed huge volumes of plankton and nutrients such as phosphorus.

But the University of Michi-

gan team said earlier studies underestimated the carps' dietary flexibility.

They have shown a willingness to feed on other organic material drifting in the water column — including excrement from the mussels, Alsip said.

He and his colleagues modeled levels of food availability and water temperatures to estimate the well-being of bighead and silver carp when eating mixtures of plankton and non-living organic material, or "detritus," at different depths.

They concluded that the lake, with its average depth of 280 feet (85 meters), has enough of the mussels' fecal pellets to keep the carp from starving and even enable them to grow while seeking other fertile territory, such as Wisconsin's Green Bay, Alsip said.

"It definitely increases their chance of surviving the journey," he said. Duane Chapman, a fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, led previous studies that raised doubts about whether Asian carp could find enough food in most of Lake Michigan. They focused on the availability of microscopic plant life in areas near the surface that could be observed with satellite data, he said.q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Wednesday 14 August 2019

NFL teaming with Jay-Z on entertainment and social activism

By BARRY WILNER AP Pro Football Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL and Jay-Z's entertainment and sports representation company are teaming up for events and social activism.

The league not only will use Jay-Z's Roc Nation to consult on its entertainment presentations, including the Super Bowl halftime show, but will work with the rapper and entrepreneur's company to "strengthen community through music and the NFL's Inspire Change initiative."

Inspire Change was created by the league after an agreement with a coalition of players who demonstrated during the national anthem to protest social and racial injustice in this country. Those demonstrations

Police investigate report of attack on comedian Andy Dick NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Comedian Andy Dick says he was assaulted outside a New Orleans nightclub after performing in the French Quarter. City police say they're investigating "a possible assault involving an individual identified as Andy Dick."

Dick tells The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate that someone punched him early Saturday, knocking him out for 15 minutes.

The comedian and musician is known for his role on the 1990s NBC-TV show "NewsRadio." He was performing at a nightspot before the alleged assault.

Dick says an ambulance took him to a hospital, where he was observed for what he described as a "possible brain bleed."

Robert Couvillion, who promoted the show, says the performer didn't have any reason to expect to be attacked. He says he was "flabbergasted" by what happened.q

were sparked by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem in 2016.

NFL owners agreed to contribute up to $89 million over six years toward causes players were supporting. Commissioner Roger Goodell sees the partnership with Roc Nation as a significant step in several directions.

"Roc Nation is one of the most globally influential and impactful organizations in entertainment," Goodell said. "The NFL and Roc Nation share a vision of inspiring meaningful social change across our country.

We are thrilled to partner with Roc Nation and look

forward to making a difference in our communities together."

While the entertainment portion of the deal is important — Roc Nation's stable includes Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Shakira and, of course, Jay-Z — much emphasis from both the league and the representation group is being placed on the social relations aspect of the agreement. For Inspire Change to succeed, it must have strong roots within the communities that are most affected by the issues the players want addressed: criminal justice reform; relationships with police; economic growth opportunities; and educational progress.

In this July 23, 2019, file photo, Jay-Z makes an announcement of the launch of Dream Chasers record label in joint venture with Roc Nation, at the Roc Nation headquarters in New York.

Associated Press

"With its global reach, the National Football League has the platform and opportunity to inspire change across the country," said Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter. "Roc Nation has shown that entertainment and enacting change are not mutually exclusive ideas — instead,

we unify them. This partnership is an opportunity to strengthen the fabric of communities across America."

Jay-Z has been a strong supporter of Kaepernick, who has not played in the NFL the past two seasons and is not with a team now.q

A30 PEOPLE

Wednesday 14 August 2019

& ARTS

Q&A: Francis Ford Coppola on 'Apocalypse Now' 40 years later NEW YORK (AP) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; If filmmaking is a war, then "Apocalypse Now" was very nearly Francis Ford Coppola's Waterloo.

The battles Coppola fought while making his 1979 epic nearly destroyed him. A typhoon wrecked a major set. Harvey Keitel was replaced by Martin Sheen.

Coppola searched desperately for an ending.

He worked even harder to coax a few lines out of Mar-

lon Brando. But out of that tumult Coppola created a masterpiece. And 40 years later, "Apocalypse Now" has never looked so good.

Coppola has supervised a 4K restoration of the film and, for the second time, tweaked the cut. Having perhaps gone too far in his 2001 "Redux," which added 53 minutes, "Apocalypse Now Final Cut," which opens in theaters Friday and on home video August

27, splits the difference at 183 minutes.

In its present and restored form, the majesty and madness of "Apocalypse Now" is more vivid and hallucinatory than ever. Coppola considers it the definitive version. It completes a four decade journey turning what was almost a mess into the masterwork he envisioned from the start.

In a recent interview, Coppola, 80, spoke about

was drugs and it was rock 'n' roll so it was more of a West Coast ambiance to the war. In addition, there were many sort of odd contradictions that related to the morality involved. There was a line I was once read that's not in the film but to me it sums up the meaning of the movie. It was: "We teach the boys to drop fire on people yet we won't let them write the word 'f---' on their airplanes because it's

In this Sunday, April 28, 2019 file photo, director Francis Ford Coppola attends a screening of the "40th Anniversary and World Premiere of Apocalypse Now Final Cut" during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at the Beacon Theatre, in New York. The film releases in theaters on Aug. 15.

Associated Press

"Apocalypse Now" then and now, why he was "terrified" after making it and why he has trouble letting go of his films. ___ AP: Did you consciously want to put your stamp on the war movie?

Coppola: The Vietnam War was different than other American wars. It was a West Coast sensibility rather than an East Coast sensibility. In war movies before "Apocalypse," there was always a sort of Brooklyn character, an East Coast and Midwest personality. In "Apocalypse Now," it was LA and it was surfing and it

obscene."

AP: Eleanor Coppola, your wife, wrote in her "Notes" that you took on some of Kurtz' megalomania while making "Apocalypse Now." Coppola: Whenever I made a movie, I was always personally compared to the main character.

When I was doing "The Godfather," I was Michael Corleone, Machiavellian and sly. When I made "Apocalypse Now," I was the megalomaniac. When I made "Tucker," I was the innovative entrepreneur. The truth of the matter is all my life if I have been anything I've been enthusiastic and

imaginative. I don't have talent that I wish I had. My talent was more enthusiasm and imagination and a kind of prescient sense, a sense of knowing what's going to happens before it happens.

AP: Did you emerge from "Apocalypse Now" a different filmmaker?

Coppola: Yeah, but no more than I was after the extreme experience of the "Godfather" movie. Every film I have made has been a new sheet of paper. I rarely would repeat a style.

Every movie I worked on, I came out of it being a different person.

AP: Is going back to your films to get them just right for you part of preserving your legacy? Do you think about how you want you and your work to be remembered?

Coppola: I'm not so crazy about my legacy. I want people to know that I liked little kids and I was a good camp counselor when I was a camp counselor in 1957, that I have a family with wonderful children that I find so fascinating and very talented. But ultimately, to me, the greatest legacy you can have is that someone somewhere saw one of the things you did and it inspired them to do something that goes and then inspired someone else in the future. In a way, it's a form of immortality.

AP: Today, most directors would only have the opportunity of "Apocalypse Now"-like scale in a superhero film. Do you sympathize for them?

Coppola: Absolutely. I feel now we have this bifurcated cinema in our country being of independent films where we have the most wonderful wealth of talent and then the industry films which are pretty much superhero films. One has too much money â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the studio, Marvel comic-type movies.

They're basically making the same movie over and over again, and seducing all of the talent. Everyone is hoping to get a small part in one of those movies because that's where the money is. q

PEOPLE & ARTS A31

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Concerts canceled, investigation opened into Placido Domingo

By JOCELYN GECKER Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two music companies canceled appearances

by Placido Domingo and the Los Angeles Opera said Tuesday it would launch an investigation in response to an Associated Press story in which numerous women accused the opera legend of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior spanning decades.

Domingo has been general director of the LA Opera since 2003 and previously served as the company's artistic director, jobs that gave him the power to cast roles and — his accusers say — make, or break, careers.

Some of the women told the AP that Domingo used his power at the LA company and elsewhere to try to pressure them into sexual relationships, with several saying that he dangled jobs and then sometimes punished them professionally if they refused his advances.

On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Opera announced they would cancel upcoming performances featuring the star, regarded as one of the greatest opera singers of all time.

New York's Metropolitan Opera said it would await the results of LA Opera's investigation "before making any final decisions about Mr. Domingo's future at the Met," where he is scheduled to appear next month.

The 78-year-old Domingo is one of the industry's most powerful figures and more than three dozen people in the opera world told the AP that his behavior has long been an open secret.

The accusers who spoke to the AP — all but one of whom requested anonymity — said they had feared speaking out previously would kill their careers due to his immense standing.

Domingo issued a statement to the AP calling the allegations "deeply troubling and, as presented inaccurate," adding "I believed that all of my inter-

In this Friday, July 12, 2019, photo, Placido Domingo speaks during a news conference about his upcoming show "Giovanna d'Arco" in Madrid, Spain.

Associated Press

predated the merger.

"The Kennedy Center did not receive any documented complaints about Mr. Domingo's behavior prior to WNO's affiliation with the Kennedy Center, and we have not received any since then," the statement said, adding that the company has "zero tolerance policies with regard to harassment, discrimination or abuse of any kind, and we take allegations of this nature very seriously."

Retired mezzo-soprano Patricia Wulf, the sole accuser to allow her name to be used, told the AP that Domingo behaved inappropriately with her when she worked at the Washington Opera. Even after she repeatedly rebuffed his advances, she said, his per-

actions and relationships were always welcomed and consensual."

The LA Opera said it would hire outside counsel to investigate the "concerning allegations" against Domingo.

"Placido Domingo has been a dynamic creative force in the life of LA opera and the artistic culture of Los Angeles for more than three decades," the company said in a statement.

"Nevertheless, we are committed to doing everything we can to foster a professional and collaborative environment where all our employees and artists feel equally comfortable, valued and respected."

Three women quoted in the story detailed encounters that they said occurred while working with Domingo at LA Opera, including one woman who told the AP that he stuck his hand down her skirt after urging her to come sing an aria for him at his apartment.

In canceling its invitation for Domingo to sing at its Sept.

18 opening gala, the Philadelphia Orchestra issued a statement saying: "We are committed to providing a safe, supportive, respectful, and appropriate environment for the orchestra and staff, for collaborating artists and composers, and for our audiences and com-

sistence continued and he would often knock on her dressing room door, causing her to fear emerging if he was in the hallway.

Wulf recalled the compassion of a male colleague who offered to stand up for her if she wanted to report him. "They're not going to fire him — they'll fire me," she remembered telling him.

Too fearful to complain about Domingo at the time, Wulf said she spoke out now to end the culture of silence about abuse in the opera world.

"I'm stepping forward because I hope that it can help other women come forward, or be strong enough to say no," she said.q

munities."

The San Francisco Opera said it would scrub a soldout Oct. 6 concert featuring Domingo, which had been to mark his 50th anniversary with the company. It was promoted as a "special one performanceonly event" with "one of the most influential singing actors in the history of opera" and was one of several gala events this year to celebrate his legendary career.

The Met held a black-tie dinner in April for Domingo, where seats started at $2,500. He is scheduled to play the lead of "Macbeth" in three Met shows in September and October.

"We take accusations of sexual harassment and abuse of power with extreme seriousness," the opera house said in a statement, noting that "Mr. Domingo has never been in a position to influence casting decisions for anyone other than himself" at the Met. At the Salzburg Festival in Austria, where Domingo is scheduled to appear Aug. 31 — his next scheduled performance — festival president Helga RablStadler said organizers agreed he should appear as planned.

"I have known Placido Domingo for more than 25

Retired opera singer Patricia Wulf poses for a portrait in her home in rural northern Virginia, Friday, July 12, 2019.

Associated Press

years," Rabl-Stadler said in a statement. "In addition to his artistic competence, I was impressed from the very beginning by his appreciative treatment of all festival employees."

"I would find it factually wrong and morally irresponsible to make irreversible judgments at this point," she said.

Domingo served as artistic director for the Washington Opera from 1996-2003 and as the company's general director from 2003 to 2011, during which time its name was changed to Washington National Opera. In 2011, the company merged with the Kennedy Center.

In a joint statement to AP, the institutions said the allegations against Domingo

A32 FEATURE

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Greta Thunberg's sailing adventure no pleasure cruise

By JO KEARNEY and DANICA KIRKA Associated Press PLYMOUTH, England (AP) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Greta Thunberg's twoweek voyage to the United States will be no pleasure cruise.

The 16-year-old climate change activist who has inspired student protests around the world will leave Plymouth, England, later this week bound for New York in a high-tech but decidedly low-comfort sailboat.

Highlighting the urgency of cutting carbon emissions, the young Swede last month announced that while she would not fly to environmental conferences, she'd found a way to get there without hurting the planet. Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson of Monaco's late Prince Rainier III and American actress Grace Kelly, and fellow yachtsman Boris Herrmann offered her passage on a racing yacht as she travels to U.N. climate summits next month in New York and in Santiago, Chile, in December.

"It's not very luxurious, it's not very fancy but I don't need that. I need only a bed and just the basic things," Thunberg told The Associated Press. "So I think it will be fun, and I also think it will be fun to be isolated and not be so limited."

Sailing on the 60-foot (18-meter) Malizia II, outfitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate electricity, Thunberg will make a zero-carbon trans-Atlantic journey.

But to call it a no-frills passage would be an understatement. The sailboat is built for high-speed, offshore racing, with weight kept to a minimum. The only alterations for the voyage are fitting curtains in front of the bunk and adding mattresses for comfort.

There is no toilet or fixed shower. There's a small gas cooker and the food will be freeze dried.

Inside, the yacht resembles the interior of a tin can. It is dark and gray, with no windows below deck.

Herrmann, who is skippering the boat, will take turns with

Greta Thunberg poses for a picture on the boat Malizia as it is moored in Plymouth, England Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019.

Associated Press

Casiraghi steering the craft.

He described life on board as a mixture of camping and sailing, with a thin mattress and sleeping bag the only comforts.

"It's a very simple life and then the rest of the day depends on the wind," Herrmann told the AP. "It can be calm and smooth and going along and you can read a book, or it can be really rough and you hold on and try to fight seasickness and can be really

hard."

Casiraghi and Herrmann's Team Malizia was founded to sail the biggest ocean races â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Vendee Globe 2020 and The Ocean Race 2021. They also developed the Malizia Ocean challenge, a science and education project aimed at teaching children about climate change and the ocean. Their vessel has an onboard sensor that measures CO2 levels in seawater, a measure of how

atmospheric carbon is changing the oceans.

Thunberg became a global celebrity last year when she refused to go to school in the weeks before Sweden's general election to highlight the impact of climate change and to put pressure on politicians to do something about it. She continued her school strike on Fridays after the election, spurring thousands of young people around the world to follow suit. Since

A view below deck of the boat Malizia, with a sleeping bunk shown on the left side, in Plymouth, England Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019.

Associated Press

then, she's met the pope, spoken at Davos and attended anti-coal protests in Germany. She is now taking a year off school to attend the events in North and South America and meet with some of the people most affected by climate change. She decided not to fly to New York because of the emissions caused by air travel and plans to use the least carbon-intensive methods of travel available as she continues her trip.

"By this journey I hope to increase awareness among people, to spread information and communicate the science about what is really going on so people can understand what is really going on with the climate and ecological crisis," she said. "That is what I am hoping to achieve with everything and that will also lead to international opinions so that people come together and put pressure on the people in power so that they will have to do something."

Rising levels of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, are already increasing global temperatures, according to the UN. This will lead to shifting weather patterns that threaten food production and rising sea levels, though scientists hope that by curbing emissions catastrophic consequences can be avoided.

Thunberg will be accompanied on her trans-Atlantic voyage by her father, Svante, and filmmaker Nathan Grossman of B-Reel Films, who will document the journey. She's brought audiobooks and has notebooks to fill.

Beyond that, everything depends on the wind.

The Atlantic Ocean in hurricane season can be a rocky place. Herrmann plans a southern route since three of the five sailors on board have no experience. During a trial run in the Bay of Plymouth on Monday, Thunberg said she was seasick for "five minutes" when the boat stood still."Of course, I will be a little bit seasick," she said. "But I don't think I will be very seasick."q