Unheralded Medina Spirit gives Baffert 7th victory

FACES

Actor Lumbly returnsto heroic roots withrole on Marvel seriesPage 18

Volume 80 Edition 11 ©SS 2021 MONDAY, MAY 3, 2021 50¢/Free to Deployed Areas

stripes.com

MILITARY

Retiring Davidsonpasses Indo-PacificCommand reinsPage 3

MILITARY

US denies Iranianmedia reports ofprisoner dealPage 4

Unheralded Medina Spirit gives Baffert 7th victory ›› Kentucky Derby, Page 24

WASHINGTON — The Biden administra-

tion is charting a new course in an attempt to

end North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile

program, striking a balance between President

Donald Trump’s grand bargain, leader-to-

leader diplomacy and President Barack Oba-

ma’s arm’s length approach to the crisis, said

U.S. officials familiar with the plan.

The decision to pursue a phased agreement

that leads to full denuclearization follows a

monthslong review that was briefed to Presi-

dent Joe Biden last week by Secretary of State

Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Aus-

tin, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and

the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark

Milley.

The plan represents a rejection of the strate-

gy devised by Trump’s national security advis-

er, John Bolton, who insisted that the United

States hold out for a “go big or go home” agree-

ment — a deal that would remove all sanctions

in exchange for the full dismantlement of

North Korea’s weapons program.

That approach was flatly rejected by North

Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a 2019

Photo courtesy Republic of Korea Marine Corps

The Joint Security Area, the only portion of the Korean DMZ where North and South Korean forces stand face-to-face, is seen in this April 3,2017 photo. The JSA is used for diplomatic purposes and is occupied by both North and South Korea.

Striking the right balanceBiden administration forges new path on North Korea crisis in wake of Trump and Obama failures

BY JOHN HUDSON

AND ELLEN NAKASHIMA

The Washington Post

SEE BALANCE ON PAGE 12

NORTH KOREA

INSIDE

North Korea:Biden speech‘big blunder’for US Page 12

KABUL, Afghanistan — Resi-

dents of Afghanistan’s capital on

Sunday expressed fears of more

Taliban-fueled killing and vio-

lence in the coming months, a day

after foreign forces officially be-

gan a full withdrawal from the

country.

Taliban attacks that focused on

Afghan forces and civilians in-

creased throughout the past year,

but now many are worried that the

militant group will resume attacks

on foreign forces as they leave the

country by Sept. 11 — and that

those attacks will kill bystanders.

The Taliban have in recent

months issued vague warnings of

a reaction if the U.S. didn’t with-

draw its forces by May 1, which

the former Trump administration

agreed to do last year in a pact that

also called for the Taliban to come

to peaceful terms with the govern-

ment in Kabul. On Saturday, the

group said in a statement it would

“take every counteraction it

deems appropriate against the oc-

cupying forces.”

Talha Hairan, 33, who owns a

grocery store outside the fortified

Green Zone that houses NATO’s

Afghanistan headquarters and the

U.S. Embassy, has previously

SEE FEAR ON PAGE 4

In Kabul, fearof more attacksas US militarydeparts nation

BY PHILLIP WALTER

WELLMAN

Stars and Stripes

AFGHANISTAN

“It’s a routine now.Anything canhappen anywhere.”

Talha Hairan

Afghan grocery store owner,

on Taliban-fueled violence

PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Monday, May 3, 2021

BUSINESS/WEATHER

OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire

Warren Buffett warned people not

to think investing is an easy way to

make a fortune as he answered a

variety of questions at Berkshire

Hathaway’s annual meeting Sat-

urday.

Buffett said it can be tough to

pick the long-term winners. He

pointed out that in 1903, there

were more than 2,000 car compa-

nies, and nearly all of them failed

even though cars have trans-

formed the country since then.

“There’s a lot more to picking

stocks than figuring out what will

be an incredible industry in the fu-

ture,” said Buffett, who is known

for his remarkably successful in-

vesting record. “I just want to tell

you that it’s not as easy as it

sounds.”

Buffett has said that most peo-

ple will fare better by owning an

S&P 500 index fund instead of be-

tting on individual stocks. He said

many of the novice investors who

jumped into the market recently

and drove up the value of video

game retailer GameStop are es-

sentially gambling.

Buffett said the stock trading

platforms that allow people to buy

and sell stocks for free, such as

Robinhood, are only encouraging

that gambling.

Buffett spent several hours an-

swering questions Saturday after-

noon at an online version of Berk-

shire’s annual meeting, held on-

line for the second year in a row

due to the coronavirus pandemic,

alongside vice chairmen Charlie

Munger, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain.

Buffett warns investors not to gamble on stocksAssociated Press

Bahrain74/64

Baghdad67/45

Doha93/79

Kuwait City93/71

Riyadh97/69

Kandahar88/66

Kabul84/61

Djibouti86/80

MONDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

57/39

Ramstein59/44

Stuttgart68/37

Lajes,Azores65/58

Rota68/54

Morón71/48 Sigonella

79/60

Naples67/64

Aviano/Vicenza63/47

Pápa60/40

Souda Bay89/68

Brussels58/46

Zagan53/40

DrawskoPomorskie

49/38

MONDAY IN EUROPE

Misawa68/45

Guam88/80

Tokyo70/49

Okinawa72/64

Sasebo72/55

Iwakuni73/46

Seoul64/52

Osan67/52

Busan67/57

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

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

TUESDAY IN THE PACIFIC

WEATHER OUTLOOK

TODAYIN STRIPES

American Roundup ...... 11Classified .................... 13Comics .........................16Crossword ................... 16Faces .......................... 18Opinion ........................ 14Sports .................... 19-24

Military rates

Euro costs (May 3) $1.18Dollar buys (May 3) 0.8068British pound (May 3) $1.36Japanese yen (May 3) 106.00South Korean won (May 3) 1,079.00

Commercial rates

Bahrain (Dinar) .3770Britain (Pound) 1.3808Canada (Dollar) 1.2282China (Yuan) 6.4745Denmark (Krone) 6.1858Egypt (Pound) 15.6590Euro .8318Hong Kong (Dollar) 7.7670Hungary (Forint) 299.54Israel (Shekel) 3.2431Japan (Yen) 109.31Kuwait (Dinar) .3011

Norway (Krone) 8.3139

Philippines (Peso) 48.26Poland (Zloty) 3.79Saudi Arabia (Riyal) 3.7500Singapore (Dollar) 1.3309

South Korea (Won) 1,118.57Switzerland (Franc) .9135Thailand (Baht) 31.18Turkey (New Lira) �8.2783

(Military exchange rates are those availableto customers at military banking facilities in thecountry of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check withyour local military banking facility. Commercialrates are interbank rates provided for referencewhen buying currency. All figures are foreigncurrencies to one dollar, except for the Britishpound, which is represented in dollarstopound, and the euro, which is dollarstoeuro.)

INTEREST RATES

Prime rate 3.25Interest Rates Discount �rate 0.75Federal funds market rate �0.073month bill 0.0130year bond 2.30

EXCHANGE RATES

Monday, May 3, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3

JOINT BASE PEARL HAR-

BOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — Adm.

Philip Davidson took a parting

shot at Beijing on Friday as he

ended his 39-year Navy career

and handed the reins of U.S. In-

do-Pacific Command to the for-

mer head of the Pacific Fleet.

“Make no mistake, the Commu-

nist Party of China seeks to sup-

plant the idea of a free and open

international order with a new or-

der, one with Chinese character-

istics, one where Chinese national

power is more important than in-

ternational law,” he said during

an afternoon ceremony that in-

cluded remarks by Defense Sec-

retary Lloyd Austin and Army

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Beijing’s approach to the re-

gion includes efforts to “coerce,

corrupt and co-opt businesses, or-

ganizations and the people of the

Indo-Pacific,” Davidson said.

INDOPACOM’s new leader,

Adm. John Aquilino, who took

command of the Pacific Fleet in

May 2018, is expected to maintain

that hard line regarding China.

During his confirmation hear-

ing earlier this spring, he told

senators the United States needs

to bolster funding for the Pacific

Deterrence Initiative to better

challenge Beijing’s influence in

the region. He also warned that

China was increasing its stockpile

of nuclear weapons “faster than

anyone previously believed.”

Austin told the audience in so-

cially distanced seating that Da-

vidson had done “an absolutely

superb job — at the helm of this

organization.”

“He is a so-called ‘old salt’ —

the Navy’s longest serving sur-

face warfare officer,” he said.

Austin praised Davidson for

the 40 freedom-of-navigation op-

erations conducted under his

three years at

the helm. The

missions, in

which ships are

sent through

contested inter-

national waters,

are intended to

underscore

America’s support for open ac-

cess to shipping lanes.

The operations have been pri-

marily directed toward China and

its contested claims of sovereign-

ty over most of the South China

Sea.

Davidson, who will now retire

to a lake home in upstate New

York with his wife, Tracy, spoke

of the “symmetry” of ending his

long Navy run at Pearl Harbor.

He noted that behind him was

the USS Arizona Memorial, a bat-

tleship whose sinking propelled

America into World War II.

Docked nearby is the battleship

Missouri, on which instruments

of surrender were signed by the

Japanese in 1945 to end the war.

“My first tour was here, and

now my last,” he said, referring to

his inaugural Navy tour aboard

the frigate USS Badger. “I can’t

help but reflect on how special

this place is to me and my fam-

ily.”

As a lieutenant during oper-

ation Desert Storm against Iraq

in 1990-91, Davidson “bravely led

a team in support of amphibious

operations that held a major Iraqi

force in place on the Kuwaiti

coast,” Austin said. “That pre-

vented the enemy from attacking

our ground forces and helped

swiftly end the war. He earned

the Navy Commendation Medal

for Valor for that operation.”

Aquilino, a naval aviator,

earned his flight wings in 1986,

and has flown F-14 Tomcats and

F-18 Hornets, according to his of-

ficial biography. He deployed for

numerous operations, including

in support of Enduring Freedom

and Iraqi Freedom.

“He’s commanded a squadron,

a wing and a strike group, which

means he knows a thing or two

about leading American forces

into combat,” Austin told the au-

dience.

He commanded Carrier Strike

Group 2 while aboard the aircraft

carrier USS George H.W. Bush.

Davidson hands over reins of INDOPACOM BY WYATT OLSON

Stars and Stripes

[email protected] Twitter: @WyattWOlson

ANTHONY RIVERA/U.S. Navy

Adm. John Aquilino, left, relieves Adm. Philip Davidson, center, asleader of U.S. IndoPacific Command, during a ceremony at JointBase Pearl HarborHickam, Hawaii, on Friday. Defense SecretaryLloyd Austin looks on at right.

Aquilino

qualified for, before an eight-year

career in marketing and time as a

stay-at-home mom of three.

The Space Force, as a young

service with 5,000 guardians and

11,000 civilians, is building a fam-

ily-friendly culture, Raymond

said.

“It’s a quality of life issue and a

retention issue,” she said. “Our

spouses aren’t only underemploy-

ed; they are overqualified for

many jobs.”

Department of Defense pro-

grams such as Military One-

Source and the Military Spouse

Employment Partnership are

useful resources, Raymond add-

ed.

Military OneSource helps fam-

ilies find child care, cope with

stress, help children deal with a

parent's deployment, move to a

new duty station and find services

in the local and military commu-

nities.

The Military Spouse Employ-

ment Partnership connects spous-

es with hundreds of employers

who have committed to recruit,

hire, promote and retain military

spouses.

It has been easier for Julie Hop-

kins, a registered nurse, to find

work than for most military

spouses, she said.

However, she had to re-take

boards as a nurse during an as-

The half-year that Space Force

wife Julie Hopkins has spent

apart from her astronaut husband

is something many military

spouses can relate to.

Col. Mike Hopkins, 52, who

transferred from the Air Force to

the Space Force on the Interna-

tional Space Station in December,

splashed down off the Florida

coast in the SpaceX Crew Dragon

Resilience early Sunday morning.

His wife had been waiting in a

state of nervous excitement at the

couple’s home in Houston. Like

other military spouses, she’s used

to her husband taking controlled

risks at work. And she’s experi-

enced the other challenges of mil-

itary life, such as frequent moves,

service overseas and the struggle

to find work.

Mike first rode into orbit in Sep-

tember 2013. His current mission

began in November.

“As you get close to launch you

are nervous because a lot of things

have to go right,” Julie Hopkins,

51, told Stars and Stripes during a

telephone interview Friday. “It’s

very surreal until the engine

lights. It’s a little scary but excit-

ing.”

A fatal T-38 Talon jet crash at

Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.,

while Mike was training there as a

test pilot brought home the risks

that service members take, she

said.

Space Force guardians, like

other troops, spend time away

from family, but Mike Hopkins

was the first to leave Earth on

temporary duty.

NASA does a wonderful job of

family support, Julie Hopkins

said.

“He can call me every day and I

can email,” she said. “On week-

ends we do a private family video

conference.”

The Space Force is making its

own efforts to support space

spouses, according to Mollie Ray-

mond, wife of the Chief of Space

Operations Gen. John “Jay” Ray-

mond.

An Air Force wife almost 33

years before the Space Force

came into being in December

2019, Mollie Raymond has been

holding online meetings with

Space Force spouses to provide

them with information on employ-

ment and other challenges, she

said during a phone interview

April 20.

Raymond has experienced her

own struggles since becoming an

Air Force wife in 1987. When the

couple made their first move, to

Vandenberg Air Force, Calif., she

worked at an auto hobby store,

something she admits she was un-

signment in Canada and didn’t

work while based in Italy due to

the language barrier. It’s been

tough to get promoted or save for

retirement due to frequent

moves, Hopkins said.

Astronauts aren’t the only

Space Force guardians who spend

time away from family. The ser-

vice has some remote ground sta-

tions such as Diego Garcia in the

Indian Ocean, Raymond said.

“The challenge is to stay con-

nected,” she said. “It’s important

to build your support community

where you are and reach out to

others in the same situation.”

Military spouses often have a

lot on their plate, Hopkins said.

One of her sons, Lucas, 19, is

studying statistics at the Universi-

ty of Notre Dame while her oldest,

Ryan, 22, was due to commission

as an Air Force officer on Friday,

she said.

There is a lot of support for mil-

itary spouses, probably more than

most realize, said Hopkins, who

planned to give her husband a

“big hug” when he gets home.

“Everybody (in the military

community) can relate to how you

are feeling,” she said she would

tell new spouses. “Everybody is

away from home and their family

(but) it is an adventure.”

The idea of Space Force spous-

es blazing a trail was echoed by

Raymond.

“I’m excited for our Space

Force families to be a part of

something new and watch a ser-

vice grow and evolve,” she said.

Space Force spouses grapple withearthly challenges of military life

BY SETH ROBSON

Stars and Stripes

[email protected] Twitter: @SethRobson1

Julie Hopkins

The first member of the Space Force to leave the Earth, Col. MikeHopkins, poses with his wife, Julie, and sons Ryan and Lucas.

MILITARY


MILITARY

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will free

prisoners with Western ties in

Iran in exchange for billions of

dollars from the United States and

the United Kingdom, state televi-

sion reported Sunday. The U.S.

immediately denied the report,

while the U.K. did not respond.

The state TV report quoted an

anonymous official just as Su-

preme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kha-

menei began giving what author-

ities earlier described as an “im-

portant” speech. However, Kha-

menei did not immediately

discuss any proposed swap amid

negotiations in Vienna over Teh-

ran’s tattered nuclear deal with

world powers.

The official quoted by Iranian

state TV said a deal made be-

tween the U.S. and Tehran in-

volved a prisoner swap in ex-

change for the release of $7 billion

in frozen Iranian funds.

“The Americans accepted to

pay $7 billion and swap four Ira-

nians who were active in bypass-

ing sanctions for four American

spies who have served part of

their sentences,” state TV said,

quoting the official in an on-

screen crawl.

U.S. State Department spokes-

man Ned Price immediately de-

nied the Iranian state TV report.

“Reports that a prisoner swap

deal has been reached are not

true,” Price said. “As we have

said, we always raise the cases of

Americans detained or missing in

Iran. We will not stop until we are

able to reunite them with their

families.”

Price did not elaborate.

Tehran holds four known

Americans now in prison. They

include Baquer and Siamak Na-

mazi, environmentalist Morad

Tahbaz and Iranian-American

businessman Emad Shargi. The

state TV report did not immedi-

ately name the Iranians that Teh-

ran hoped to get the in swap.

State TV also quoted the official

as saying a deal had been reached

for the United Kingdom to pay

400 million pounds to see the re-

lease of British-Iranian woman

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The

office of Prime Minister Boris

Johnson referred calls to the For-

eign Office, which could not be

immediately reached.

Iran says captives deal made; US deniesAssociated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — A

searing blaze that roared through

dozens of fuel tankers on the

northern edge of the Afghan cap-

ital of Kabul killed seven people

and injured 14 others, the Interi-

or Ministry said Sunday.

Investigators were combing

through the tankers that lay in

smoldering ruins and a gas sta-

tion caught in the flames that lit

up the area late Saturday, said

ministry spokesman Tariq Arian.

There was no immediate indi-

cation of whether it was an acci-

dent or sabotage. It came on the

same day the U.S. and NATO offi-

cially began the final phase of a

withdrawal from Afghanistan,

ending a nearly 20-year military

engagement.

All 2,500-3,500 American sol-

diers and about 7,000 NATO al-

lied forces will be out of Afghan-

istan at the latest by Sept. 11, the

20th anniversary of the terrorist

attacks in the United States that

first brought them into the coun-

try.

Arian said the fire began when

a spark set a fuel tanker ablaze.

Nearby tankers were quickly en-

gulfed, sending giant flames and

plumes of smoke into the night

sky. The fire in the northern edge

of the city engulfed several

homes and a nearby gas station.

Several structures were de-

stroyed and electricity to much of

Kabul, which usually has only

sporadic power, was knocked

out.

Massive tanker firetears through Kabul

BY AMEEM AKHGAR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Afghan gov-

ernment forces face an uncertain

future and, in a worst-case scena-

rio, some “bad possible outcomes”

against Taliban insurgents as the

withdrawal of American and coa-

lition troops accelerates in the

coming weeks, the top U.S. mili-

tary officer said Sunday.

Gen. Mark Milley described the

Afghan military and police as

“reasonably well equipped, rea-

sonably well trained, reasonably

well led.” He cited Afghan troops’

years of experience against a re-

silient insurgency, but he declined

to say they are fully ready to stand

up to the Taliban without direct in-

ternational backing during a po-

tential Taliban offensive.

The chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, a veteran of the

war in Afghanistan, spoke in an in-

terview with Associated Press and

CNN reporters flying with him

from Hawaii to Washington just

hours after the formal kickoff of

the withdrawal.

Asked whether he believes the

Afghan forces can hold up under

increased strain, Milley was non-

committal.

“Your question: The Afghan ar-

my, do they stay together and re-

main a cohesive fighting force or

do they fall apart? I think there’s a

range of scenarios here, a range of

outcomes, a range of possibili-

ties,” he said. “On the one hand,

you get some really dramatic, bad

possible outcomes. On the other

hand, you get a military that stays

together and a government that

stays together.”

“Which one of these options ob-

tains and becomes reality at the

end of the day? We frankly don’t

know yet. We have to wait and see

how things develop over the sum-

mer.”

He said there is “at least still the

possibility” of a negotiated politi-

cal settlement between the gov-

ernment in Kabul and the Taliban.

This, he said, would avoid the

“massive civil war” that some fear

could happen.

Milley says Afghan forcescould face bad outcomes

Associated Press

been injured twice in nearby at-

tacks, once by a suicide bomb and

the other time by a rocket.

Hairan, a father of two whose

family has owned the store for 28

years, said he expects more at-

tacks. He takes security measures

but has become largely used to the

absence of security since 2001.

“The main thing is that you have

to not think all the time about the

incidents and the attacks,’ Hairan

said. “It’s a routine now. Anything

can happen anywhere.”

At a nearby bakery, Zalmai Fa-

qirzada, 26, said “everyone was

worried” about the situation. He

shouted the words as he and his

colleagues busily prepared bread

that people would soon buy for

their iftar dinners, which mark the

end of the daily fast during the

Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Since the U.S.-Taliban deal was

signed over a year ago, targeted

attacks have increased in capital,

but the large explosions that were

once common became rare.

Many fear that could change.

It’s not just Afghans who are

concerned. The U.S. Embassy on

Tuesday ordered all employees

who are able to work remotely to

leave the country. Some nonprofit

and humanitarian groups have al-

so sent staff abroad.

Nasir Ahmad, 34, the owner of a

large grocery store in central Ka-

bul frequented by foreigners, said

he’s seen a marked drop in cus-

tomers in the past week.

There has been a noticeable up-

tick in helicopter and cargo plane

traffic, which Abdul Khabir, 35,

described as a sign that his coun-

try was being left behind.

Khabir, who said he worked for

the U.S. military for 10 years and

recently had his U.S. visa applica-

tion rejected, exchanges money

and sells phone cards on a busy

street outside the Green Zone.

“Everyone is concerned about

the withdrawal, and I know this is

the most dangerous place to work,

but what else can I do?” Khabir

said. “This is the only place I can

work.”

Khabir, like many people who

spoke with Stars and Stripes, said

he didn’t mind if the Taliban came

to power after foreign forces

leave, as long it brought an end to

fighting and ushered in peace.

Sadiqa Halim, 26, who teaches

at a girls school in Kabul’s affluent

Qala-e-Fathullah area, disagreed.

Halim worries that if the Taliban

come to power, they will stop girls

from going to school as they did in

the past, though the group has said

it won’t do so again.

But that’s a long-term worry,

Halim pointed out, saying most

people are predominantly con-

cerned with the months ahead.

“Nothing has changed when it

comes to peace” over the last two

decades, said Halim’s colleague

Fatima Ravi, 40, the headmaster

at the school. “We haven’t felt the

presence of the foreigners here in

Afghanistan in that regard.”

Nevertheless, that presence is

getting smaller. On Sunday, U.S.

troops turned over Camp Antonik

in Helmand province to Afghan

special operations soldiers on

Sunday morning, the Afghan De-

fense Ministry said. Camp Anto-

nik, renamed from the former

Camp Bastion, served as a base for

U.S. special operations troops.

The turnover came a day after

an attack on Kandahar Airfield,

which prompted a U.S. airstrike,

military officials said. No group

claimed responsibility for the at-

tack, which did not cause any in-

juries or damages.

PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN/Stars and Stripes

Zalmai Faqirzada, left, makes bread with colleagues at a bakery close to Kabul’s Green Zone on Sunday.

Fear: Many feel abandoned amid exitFROM PAGE 1

Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this [email protected]: @pwwellman


MILITARY

Some U.S. military personnel

and their families in Europe hit

the books during more than a year

of various coronavirus restric-

tions.

This year, 1,360 students re-

ceived diplomas from the Univer-

sity of Maryland Global Campus

Europe — about 200 more gradu-

ates than last year, an increase

university officials attribute in

part to students signing up for

more classes during lockdowns. A

pivot from in-person to live-

streaming instruction also opened

more courses for students across

UMGC Europe’s footprint in Eu-

rope, the Middle East and North

Africa, officials said.

Capt. Jawaan Thomas, 32, an

Army reservist on active duty

with a medical brigade in Sem-

bach, spent more time on his mas-

ter’s program in business admin-

istration “because I wasn’t travel-

ing,” he said.

Being in Germany during the

lockdowns “has been difficult, but

I had this extra project on the side

to occupy my time,” he said of his

studies.

Thomas was among more than

100 UMGC Europe graduates who

walked the stage Saturday on an

Army airfield as family and

friends honked horns from parked

cars.

The ceremony was the universi-

ty’s second drive-in movie style

graduation in less than a year, a

new normal in the current pan-

demic.

The unusual backdrop of Satur-

day’s ceremony on Clay Kaserne

shows “the unprecedented times

we’ve all been living in over the

last 18 months almost,” said Gen.

Christopher Cavoli, the com-

mander of U.S. Army Europe and

Africa and the keynote speaker.

“It’s certainly my first experi-

ence participating in a drive-

through graduation,” he said,

while commending the graduates

for “the long journey they took,”

spending weekends and late

nights “writing and rewriting and

proofreading plenty of essays and

on and on.”

More than 650 students earned

bachelor’s degrees, while nearly

550 associate's and more than 200

master’s degrees were awarded.

Air Force Master Sgt. Marlynn

Cruz, 31, earned straight A’s for

the first time while finishing her

accounting degree.

“I was able to be more focused

for sure,” said Cruz, who works in

finance at Ramstein Air Base and

began her studies eight years ago.

“There was no going out, no late

nights.”

Some graduating parents, how-

ever, said they struggled to bal-

ance their studies with helping

their kids with homework when

schools went remote. More than

50% of this year’s graduates have

children.

Jada Tarver, 37, a former sol-

dier from Wiesbaden, said due to

pandemic-related office closures,

she had to finish some of the 440

hours of field work required for

her degree in social work virtual-

ly.

“I’m also a mom and I work full

time. So, yeah, COVID fatigue is

real but I made it.”

Tony Cho, UMGC Europe vice

president, said when the pandem-

ic hit, the college tried to maintain

its on-site classes, particularly

downrange, where internet ser-

vice can be spotty. Before the pan-

demic, about 50% of UMGC Eu-

rope’s classes were online.

Staff worked to convert outdoor

spaces into classrooms, such as

the open pool deck of a swimming

pool at a base in Kuwait. Most on-

site classes eventually went re-

mote and were live-streamed,

which gave students in different

time zones more options, Cho said.

UMGC Europe hopes to bring

back on-site classes this fall. The

intent is to live-stream those class-

es, “so whoever wants to take it re-

mote, from the convenience of

their home, they can,” Cho said.

Spec. Joseph Yeboah, 25, a com-

bat engineer in Grafenwoehr who

earned an associate’s degree in

computer science, juggled five

classes with two weeks of field

training in Hohenfels.

Instructors gave him extra time

to finish assignments. He man-

aged four A’s and one B.

Lockdowns fuelsurge in UMGCgraduations

BY JENNIFER H. SVAN

Stars and Stripes

PHOTOS BY JENNIFER H. SVAN/Stars and Stripes

Jada Tarver, an Army spouse and substitute teacher, helps Capt. Jawaan Thomas, an Army reservist onactive duty, adjust the hood on his graduation gown on Saturday, at the class of 2021 commencementceremony for the University of Maryland Global Campus Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany.

[email protected]: @stripesktown

Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli,the commander of U.S. ArmyEurope and Africa, was thekeynote speaker.

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan —

Teenagers are zooming around a

newly renovated skate park at the

home of U.S. Forces Japan in

western Tokyo after convincing

the base commander to approve

the work.

The skate park, on the east side

of the base, was torn down last

year after damaged asphalt and

rusting equipment rendered it un-

safe. No funding was available to

restore the park.

However, Yokota High School

freshman and Boy Scout Thomas

Vogeley, 15, and Yokota Middle

School seventh-grader Ben Wel-

lons, 13, managed to reverse that

decision. Both are avid skaters

and Boy Scouts.

Vogeley, with Wellons’ help,

gathered nearly 250 signatures on

an online petition calling for a new

park or dedicated skate spot that

he presented to Col. Andrew

Campbell, commander of Yoko-

ta’s 374th Airlift Wing, in Febru-

ary.

The petition jump-started a pro-

ject to refurbish the skate park

that reopened April 9, Lt. Col.

Bradly Bucholz, commander of

the 374th Civil Engineer Squad-

ron, told Stars and Stripes in an

email April 21.

“Their getting involved and ad-

vocating for the needs of the com-

munity in a polite and diplomatic

fashion was a great initiative and

catalyst for outside-of-the-box

thinking that linked our training

mission to a community need and

brought the project to reality,” he

said.

Craftsmen from the squadron

removed and replaced the old

skate park asphalt, using the pro-

ject as an opportunity to practice

concrete finishing, a critical skill,

base spokesman 1st Lt. Stuart

Thrift said in the April 21 email.

He said the concrete is 5 inches

thick with wire mesh reinforce-

ment.

The engineers used concrete

and other materials left over from

previous projects to restore the

skate park at no cost to mission-re-

lated funding, he said.

In addition to a smooth concrete

surface, the renovated park in-

cludes improved drainage, light-

ing and a fence. Plans call for fur-

ther park improvements, includ-

ing larger ramps and obstacles,

and parts are on order to repair

the park’s lights, Thrift said.

On Friday afternoon, Wellons

and Vogeley were at the skate

park trying out some tricks on the

ramps and rails.

Both boys said they’re excited

about the new facility and looking

forward to watching skateboard-

ing in its first appearance at Olym-

pic Games in Tokyo this summer.

Wellons, who has been skating

about 18 months, was stoked to try

out some ollies and 180s.

“I’m pretty happy with it,” Vo-

geley said. “The concrete is awe-

some.”

Teens’ petition gets them new skate park at Yokota baseBY SETH ROBSON

Stars and Stripes

THERON GODBOLD/Stars and Stripes

Ben Wellons, 13, performs a trick at a renovated skate park at YokotaAir Base, Japan, on Friday.

[email protected] Twitter: @SethRobson1


MILITARY

WASHINGTON — Shivering in

freezing temperatures, about 50

U.S. soldiers braced for the worst.

Hundreds of Chinese soldiers

were about to launch a series of

bloody attacks on the hill the

Americans had just taken under

fire, and no reinforcements were

within a mile.

The clash that then-1st Lt. Ralph

Puckett and his soldiers experi-

enced that night on “Hill 205”

came at the outset of the Battle of

the Chongchon River, a pivotal

moment in which senior U.S. com-

manders were surprised by Chi-

na’s full-scale entry into the Ko-

rean War.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers died

in following days as they withdrew

hundreds of miles back into South

Korea in what the Army now de-

scribes as the longest retreat in

U.S. military history.

Puckett, who commanded the

Eighth Army Ranger Company,

was wounded by a hand grenade in

the first attack on the hill on Nov.

25, 1950, but stayed in command.

American and South Korean sol-

diers absorbed five more chaotic,

armed assaults through the night

before Puckett ordered his sol-

diers to withdraw the following

morning as the Chinese threat-

ened to overrun them.

“I had been wounded three

times by then, and I was lying there

in my foxhole unable to do any-

thing,” Puckett would later recall

for an oral history project. “I could

see three Chinese about 15 yards

away from me, and they were

bayoneting or shooting some of my

wounded Rangers who were in the

foxholes.”

More than 70 years later, Puck-

ett, 94, will receive the Medal of

Honor, the nation’s highest award

for valor in combat, for his actions.

President Joe Biden called Puck-

ett at home in Columbus, Ga., on

Friday to inform him of his deci-

sion to approve the award, said

John Lock, a retired Army officer

who began petitioning the Army

for reconsideration of Puckett’s

actions in 2003.

The Army credits Puckett with

leading his soldiers across an open

field to take the hill under intense

fire, braving enemy fire repeated-

ly to check on his soldiers after he

was wounded the first time, and di-

recting “danger close” artillery

strikes near his own position to

ward off advancing Chinese sol-

diers.

Puckett has said he told his sol-

diers to leave him behind after he

was incapacitated, but two pri-

vates first class, Billy Walls and

David Pollock, carried him to safe-

ty.

Puckett would go on to earn the

Distinguished Service Cross, the

nation’s second-highest award for

valor in combat, for his actions in

the battle. The recognition came

near the outset of a 22-year career

that also included a second Distin-

guished Service Cross and two Sil-

ver Stars for valor in Vietnam.

Puckett was awarded five Purple

Hearts for injuries suffered in

combat and two Bronze Star Med-

als with “V” device for valor.

With an upgrade to the Medal of

Honor, Puckett will be one of the

most highly decorated service

members for valor in U.S. military

history, Lock said.

Among those who assisted in

Puckett’s case were Sen. John

McCain, R-Ariz., who contacted

the Army on Puckett’s behalf a few

months before dying of cancer in

2018, and retired Gens. Joseph Vo-

tel and Stanley McChrystal, who

know Puckett through their mu-

tual service as Rangers, according

to documents that Lock provided

to The Washington Post.

“Then First Lieutenant Puck-

ett’s actions on Hill 205 in 1950 ex-

emplified personal bravery be-

yond the call of duty, risking his

own life as he drew enemy fire so

his men could locate, engage, and

destroy an enemy machine-gun

nest and kill a sniper,” Votel wrote

in a 2018 letter to Army officials in

support of Puckett’s nomination.

Puckett’s wife, Jean, said in a

phone interview that the family

hopes to visit the White House for a

ceremony. Considering her hus-

band’s advancing age and some

health problems, she expressed

concern about how long it was tak-

ing.

“He is not the one who has been

pushing it. It has been John and our

immediate family, who want him

to be able to receive it personally if

he is going to be awarded that med-

al,” she said, referring to Lock.

“He felt the Distinguished Service

Cross was honor enough.”

For years, Puckett has been a

spiritual and cultural leader of

sorts for the 75th Ranger Re-

giment, the elite fighting force that

specializes in raids, airfield sei-

zures and other difficult missions

in combat. As an “honorary colo-

nel” for the regiment, he traveled

overseas in his 80s with U.S. com-

manders, including to Iraq and Af-

ghanistan, and regularly met with

soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., the

home of both the Ranger Regiment

and much of Ranger School.

Votel, who retired as chief of

U.S. Central Command in 2019,

was commander of 1st Ranger Bat-

talion when he got to know Puckett

during an exercise in South Korea.

Puckett shared details about his

experiences fighting in the Korean

War, connecting to the soldiers

with his “down-to-earthiness,” he

said.

“He’s a very noble individual.

He adds a level of dignity, a level of

stalwartness, to everything that he

is a part of,” Votel said in an inter-

view. “He’s just really a revered

figure in the Ranger Regiment.”

Rangers’ mentorto receive Medalof Honor at 94

BY DAN LAMOTHE

The Washington Post

HENRY VILLARAMA/U.S. Army

Retired U.S. Army Col. Ralph Puckett stands alongside troops April 16 as they prepare to start a footmarch during the 2021 David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition at Fort Benning, Ga.

Family photo

Retired Col. Ralph Puckett isshown as an Army captain in1952. Puckett, 94, will receivethe Medal of Honor.

guarding national sovereignty, security

and development interests, as well as

maintaining regional peace and stability.

“We hope the outside world will view it

in an objective and rational way. In the

future, the Chinese navy will continue to

hold similar exercises as planned,” said

Gao.

BEIJING — China’s Shandong aircraft

carrier group recently conducted routine

annual exercises in the South China Sea,

the People’s Liberation Army said Sunday,

after Beijing criticized the U.S. for sending

Navy ships into the strategic area.

The Chinese Defense Ministry last week

urged the U.S. to restrain its front-line

forces in the air and seas near China. U.S.

reconnaissance aircraft and warships have

become more active around China since

President Joe Biden took office, it said.

The South China Sea is particularly con-

tentious because China’s smaller neigh-

bors also have competing claims to one of

the world’s busiest sea lanes, which Beij-

ing claims virtually in its entirety. China

has constructed several man-made islands

in the disputed waters in what the U.S.

says is a move to militarize the area.

Navy spokesperson Gao Xiucheng said

in a statement that the exercises were

completely legitimate and part of safe-

China’s carrier group conducts exercises in South China SeaAssociated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Some-

one in the U.S. Air Force apparently

watches the cartoon “Rick and Morty.”

An Air Force KC-10 Extender that flew

out of Al-Dhafra Air Base in the United

Arab Emirates on Sunday used the call

sign “PIKLRICK” on a mission that saw it

fly east over the Gulf of Oman, according

to flight-tracking data. The KC-10A is an

aircraft that refuels warplanes in flight.

The call sign appears to be a nod to an

episode in which one of the titular charac-

ters in the Cartoon Network show turns

himself into a pickle to escape a family

therapy session. In it, the typically foul-

mouthed, drunken scientist Rick Sanchez

shouts “I’m Pickle Rick!” as his grandson

Morty stares at him with a sad look.

Asked about the call sign, U.S. Air Force

spokeswoman Maj. Kay Magdalena Nis-

sen said it came from “no particular rea-

son other than a bit of morale for the

crew.”

“We acknowledge that the call sign is

not in accordance with our operational

guidance and we’ve provided that feed-

back to the airmen involved,” Nissen said.

US Air Force flight in Mideast uses call sign ‘Pickle Rick’Associated Press


VIRUS OUTBREAK

Only 22% of Italians and a quar-

ter of Germans have been vacci-

nated so far, compared with more

than 40% of the much larger U.S.

population, according to statistics

compiled by Oxford University’s

Our World in Data team.

The rollout to military commu-

nities in Europe has been slow

compared with bases in the United

States and the population at large.

But a recent boost in vaccine

availability has helped relieve

supply pressure and speed things

up for military members in Eu-

rope.

The single-dose Johnson &

Johnson vaccine was back in use

at military clinics in Europe after

a pause to allow investigators to

look into reports linking it to rare

but sometimes deadly blood clots.

Medical providers will be on

hand at vaccination sites where

the J&J shot, also known as Jans-

sen, is being administered to dis-

cuss patients’ concerns, Erickson

said.

The two-dose Moderna vaccine

will also be available at most plac-

es where the J&J vaccine is being

offered, but at different times, she

said.

“The Defense Health Agency

has directed that we need to sep-

arate the vaccines by place and

time,” Erickson said. “During a

given time frame, they’re only ad-

ministering one vaccine. It may be

one day they’re doing Moderna;

the next day they’re doing Jans-

sen.”

Individuals will know when

they book their appointment for a

first dose of the vaccine which shot

they will be receiving, she said.

EUCOM expects to receive

more of the two-dose Pfizer vac-

cine next month. It is the only shot

authorized for use in teens aged 16

and older, and Pfizer last month

asked the U.S. Food and Drug Ad-

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germa-

ny — The U.S. military in Europe

has ramped up its COVID vacci-

nation effort, pledging that anyone

who wants the shot will be able to

have a first dose by June, officials

said Friday.

“We are moving very quickly to

get shots in arms,” said Lt. Col. El-

izabeth Erickson, the command

surgeon for U.S. European Com-

mand.

Nearly 150,000 doses have been

administered to the U.S. military

community in Europe, and EU-

COM expects to receive about

20,000 vaccine doses per week for

the foreseeable future, she said.

Some locations, including Ram-

stein Air Base in Germany and

Aviano Air Base in Italy, have

started inoculating local nationals

as vaccine supplies have become

more readily available.

Ramstein became the first U.S.

air base in Europe to start vacci-

nating local nationals Thursday

when it inoculated some 300 Ger-

mans who work at the installation.

The U.S. military provided all the

doses of the vaccine and supplies

for the inoculation effort at the

base, and local health care provid-

ers from the Kaiserslautern area

helped to administer the shots, of-

ficials said.

“Vaccinating our local national

population alongside our U.S. pop-

ulation will help protect the entire

community,” said Brig. Gen. Josh

Olson, commander of the 86th Air-

lift Wing at Ramstein.

COVID inoculations were ad-

ministered Friday at Aviano to lo-

cal nationals over the age of 60

who work at the base, Staff Sgt. Va-

lerie Halbert, a spokeswoman for

the 31st Fighter Wing, said. Hal-

bert was unable to say how many

Italians received the shot.

ministration to extend the shot’s

emergency use authorization to

adolescents as young as 12.

The Moderna and Johnson &

Johnson shots are authorized for

use, starting at age 18.

As more and more people get

vaccinated, the number of corona-

virus cases in U.S. military com-

munities has dropped, Erickson

said.

“The more people we have vac-

cinated, the less virus that is circu-

lating in the community,” she said.

“That decreases the risk of the

virus mutating and having new

variants,” Erickson said, encou-

raging “as many people as possi-

ble to get vaccinated to allow us to,

hopefully, move out of the pan-

demic and get back to normal

life.”

Stars and Stripes reporters Norman Llamas andKarin Zeitvogel contributed to this [email protected]: @stripesktown

Military in Europe increases pace of vaccinationsBY JENNIFER SVAN

Stars and Stripes

TOKYO — U.S. military travel-

ers returning to Japan should

avoid downloading COVID-19

tracking applications or signing

pledges to follow tracking proce-

dures, according to a policy update

Friday by Yokota Air Base in west-

ern Tokyo.

But don’t pick that hill to die on,

the senior enlisted leader for U.S.

Forces Japan said recently. If air-

port authorities insist that return-

ing travelers download apps and

sign a pledge, do so rather than

spend time arguing the case.

“Just because you have the right

to cross a crosswalk and you have

the right of way, do you really want

to step in front of a car?” Command

Chief Master Sgt. Richard Wine-

gardner Jr. said April 22 on Amer-

ican Forces Network Radio.

Do not create an international

incident, Winegardner said. In-

stead, download the app and sign

the pledge and then delete and dis-

regard them later.

At Japan’s international air-

ports, the Ministry of Health, La-

bour and Welfare requires anyone

entering the country to install

tracking apps like the Overseas

Entrants Locator, install Skype or

WhatsApp for video calls and set

their smartphones to save location

information, according to the min-

istry website.

Japan requires a 14-day quaran-

tine period of new travelers to en-

sure they are not carrying the coro-

navirus. The apps help Japanese

authorities enforce the quarantine.

“The airport quarantine will

check your smartphone when you

arrive in Japan,” according to the

ministry. Travelers without a

phone may be asked to rent one at

their own expense. Arriving with-

out the apps already downloaded

may mean delays at the airport.

But Yokota, headquarters of

U.S. Forces Japan, said anyone

covered by the status of forces

agreement is “not required to

download COVID-19 tracking ap-

plications nor sign pledges to fol-

low [government of Japan] CO-

VID-19 procedures.”

SOFA establishes the rights,

privileges and responsibilities of

U.S. forces and of individual U.S.

service members, Defense De-

partment civilians and their fam-

ilies in Japan. People covered by

SOFA may travel to and from Ja-

pan with the appropriate approval

even though Japan has generally

banned incoming foreigners dur-

ing the coronavirus pandemic.

Operational security is one rea-

son U.S. forces should avoid those

apps, according to the amended re-

striction-of-movement policy

signed Friday by Yokota com-

mander Col. Andrew Campbell.

Restricted movement is what the

U.S. military calls the minimum

14-day quarantine Japan requires

of all arriving travelers.

“Some evidence suggests for-

eign entities have collected user lo-

cation information and smart-

phone data from similar applica-

tions,” the policy states. “Because

of this risk, SOFA individuals are

discouraged from downloading

such software/apps.”

Winegardner suggested show-

ing the airport authorities the SO-

FA passport stamp and explaining

that the app requirement does not

apply. If that fails, he suggested go-

ing with the flow.

“It’s not worth that extra time at

the airport,” he said. “It’s not worth

dying on the stake for saying, ‘You

can’t make me do this.’ Just under-

stand, it’s not a requirement.

Please don’t make your stand at the

airport alone and afraid.”

US troops exempt from Japan’s tracking apps, but with limitationsBY JOSEPH DITZLER

Stars and Stripes

[email protected]: @JosephDitzler


VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

MOBILE, Ala. — With demand

for COVID-19 vaccinations lag-

ging at an immunization clinic set

up at the Alabama Cruise Termi-

nal, an official said the site could

shut down soon as the cruise in-

dustry prepares to restart.

The Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention issued guide-

lines recently that would allow

companies that meet certain

benchmarks to resume operating

around mid-July, and officials are

hopeful Carnival Cruise Lines can

resume its trips to the western Ca-

ribbean from Mobile.

The city’s cruise terminal near

downtown is currently being used

as a mass vaccination site by the

Mobile County Health Depart-

ment, but Health Officer Dr. Bert

Eichold told WALA-TV he ex-

pects the operation to wrap up in

the next couple of weeks.

“The mega-clinic site seems to

be decreasing in demand, so we

will be out of that facility when the

cruise industry starts back,” he

said. “It was a great site. The city

was a great partner. Good use of

space.”

More than 22% of the residents

of Mobile County are fully vacci-

nated, according to CDC statis-

tics. But the county, with about

413,000 residents, also has one of

the higher levels of community

disease transmission in Alabama,

according to the state.

The area tourism agency said

cruises account for 35,000 hotel

nights and $150 million annually,

and the more than yearlong shut-

down of the industry has taken a

chunk out of the local economy.

“It’s been a big blow. Tourism’s

never, ever seen what they’ve

seen in terms of disaster in the

economy, from travel, or the lack

of travel,” said David Clark, chief

executive of Visit Mobile.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson,

who has pushed for a resumption

of cruising, said he was happy the

CDC had provided the industry

with a roadmap for resuming

business.

Alaska ANCHORAGE — Alaska Gov.

Mike Dunleavy on Friday ended

the state’s COVID-19 disaster dec-

laration, saying the state is in such

a good position that he doesn’t

need emergency powers be-

stowed by the Legislature.

Dunleavy acted on the recom-

mendation of health commission-

er Adam Crum, who concluded

the emergency disaster declara-

tion is no longer necessary.

Last month, Alaska became the

first state in the nation to make

COVID-19 vaccinations available

to anyone over the age of 16 who

lives or works in the state. Of the

state’s 733,391 residents, 255,876

are considered by the state to be

fully vaccinated.

Dunleavy also signed a bill that

the governor’s office said ensures

the continuation of COVID-19 fed-

eral relief to impacted Alaskans

and liability protections for Alas-

ka businesses.

Arizona PHOENIX — Arizona on Satur-

day reported 1,047 additional con-

firmed daily cases, the largest sin-

gle-day increase in three weeks

amid a rising trend in new cases

and a slowing in additional deaths.

The additional cases and 14 ad-

ditional deaths reported Saturday

on the state’s coronavirus dash-

board increased Arizona’s pan-

demic totals to 863,571 cases and

17,388 deaths.

COVID-19-related hospitaliza-

tions in recent days have hovered

above 600, with 635 as of Friday,

after ranging between 500 and 600

during most of April, according to

the dashboard. The numbers re-

main well below the pandemic

peak of 5,082 on Jan. 11.

Arizona’s seven-day rolling av-

erage of daily new cases rose over

the past two weeks from 624 on

April 15 to 736 on Thursday, while

the state’s rolling average of daily

deaths dropped from 16.2 to 12.3

during the same period, according

to Johns Hopkins University data.

Georgia ATLANTA — Georgia’s gover-

nor is removing many remaining

requirements for social distanc-

ing and masked employees from

businesses, saying that the state’s

efforts to control COVID-19 have

been successful even as its vacci-

nation rate lags and federal offi-

cials continue to warn that the in-

fection rates remain relatively

high.

While Gov. Brian Kemp was

touring the Mexican border in

Texas on Friday, the Republican’s

office released a new executive

order that takes effect Saturday

and runs through May 30. But

public health experts fear another

surge, possibly driven by more in-

fectious variants of the virus.

More than 6 million doses of

vaccines have been given in Geor-

gia, but the state ranks 44th in dos-

es administered per capita to peo-

ple 18 and older.

Georgia still ranks among the 10

worst states per capita for newly

reported deaths and among the 10

worst states per capita for hospi-

talized COVID-19 patients. There

was a big increase in school-based

clusters in mid-April, right after

Easter, when many students got

their spring break. One Augusta

elementary school sent all its in-

person students home for a week

on Friday, citing high COVID-19

infections.

IndianaINDIANAPOLIS — Gamblers

will have to keep wearing face

masks inside Indiana’s casinos at

least through the end of May.

Updated health guidelines is-

sued by the Indiana Gaming Com-

mission said operators of the 13

state-licensed casinos decided to

keep the mask rule in place to

stem COVID-19 spread even

though Gov. Eric Holcomb lifted

the statewide mask mandate as of

April 6.

The casino rules require cus-

tomers to wear masks except

when eating, drinking or smoking

while seated at a slot machine, bar

or restaurant table. Gamblers

must wear masks at table games

and employees are required to

have masks on at all times.

The gaming commission said

casinos will review whether to

continue the mask requirement

past June 1.

MississippiJACKSON — Mississippi Gov.

Tate Reeves on Friday erased

most restrictions he had set to try

to slow the spread of the coronavi-

rus.

The Republican governor left

one restriction in place — a man-

date for students who are 6 or ol-

der to wear masks in schools for

the rest of the current academic

year. The school year ends within

the next few weeks in most parts

of the state.

The governor’s new executive

order removes capacity restric-

tions for sports events. Previous-

ly, indoor arenas could only fill

two-thirds of their seats to allow

for social distancing. School sport-

ing events and other activities

were limited to 50% capacity for

both indoor and outdoor events.

Now, both indoor and outdoor

school activities are no longer un-

der capacity restrictions.

Reeves had already removed

mask requirements in public

spaces and all capacity restric-

tions for restaurants, bars and oth-

er businesses.

The governor said he still en-

courages people to wear face cov-

erings, maintain social distance

and wash their hands while

around other people. He said peo-

ple who feel sick or have symp-

toms of COVID-19 should not at-

tend social events.

Missouri CARTHAGE — A gathering

that traditionally has drawn tens

of thousands of Vietnamese Ca-

tholics from across the United

States to southwest Missouri has

been canceled for a second

straight year because of the pan-

demic.

The Joplin Globe reported that

the city of Carthage and the Con-

gregation of the Mother of the Re-

deemer in Carthage have decided

that the risk of COVID-19 trans-

mission is still too great to hold the

Marian Days celebration. Before

2020, the event had taken place in

the city every year since 1978,

reuniting families and friends

separated after the fall of Saigon.

The Rev. John Paul Tai Tran,

provincial minister of the congre-

gation, said the decision not to

hold the celebration during the

first week of August was again dif-

ficult.

Carthage police Chief Greg

Dagnan said the leaders of the

congregation met with city offi-

cials Tuesday about the event, but

had pretty much decided before-

hand that it would still be too dan-

gerous.

Nebraska OMAHA — A Nebraska com-

munity college is using federal

COVID-19 relief funds to pay for

tuition and books for high school-

ers from the state to take courses

this summer.

The Omaha World-Herald re-

ported that officials at the Metro-

politan Community College hope

their newly approved offer will

pull in thousands of students. The

college saw about a 15% drop in

summer enrollment from 2019 to

2020, said Bill Owen, the college’s

vice president for strategic initia-

tives.

Typically, high school students

who enroll in a program called

CollegeNow that is designed for

high school students to jump-start

their college education pay $33

per credit hour — half the full rate.

While students will be allowed

to attend courses for free this

summer, they will be responsible

for tools or other required suppli-

es.

WashingtonREPUBLIC — About 10% of the

population of Republic, a small

city in north-central Washington,

has tested positive for COVID-19

in an outbreak traced to large in-

door events last month at the local

Fraternal Order of Eagles hall.

Ferry County Memorial Hospi-

tal officials have confirmed more

than 100 cases, with one reported

death, since the April 9-11 events,

including a membership drive

that featured dinner, live music

and a 1980s-themed karaoke

night. Some patients have had to

be transferred to Wenatchee and

Yakima because of a lack of ca-

pacity at the 25-bed hospital — the

only hospital in a 50-mile radius —

and other closer facilities.

The county previously had rela-

tively few COVID-19 cases, and

many in the conservative, rural

community saw mask mandates

as infringing on their liberty. Less

than one-quarter of the county’s

residents have received a vaccine

to date, according to the health

district, but officials said the out-

break has increased interest in it.

The situation should serve as a

warning to other communities

about the danger of large indoor

events with unvaccinated people,

they said.

JOHN LOCHER/AP

Crowds walk along the Las Vegas Strip on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Mobile looking toreturn of cruisesby mid-summer

Associated Press


VIRUS OUTBREAK

NEW DELHI — With Indian

hospitals struggling to secure a

steady supply of oxygen, and more

COVID-19 patients dying amid the

shortages, a court in New Delhi

said it would start punishing gov-

ernment officials for failing to de-

liver the life-saving items.

On Sunday, India recorded a

slight drop in new infections with

392,488 from a high of 401,993 in

the previous 24 hours. It also re-

ported 3,689 additional deaths,

bringing the total to 215,542. Ex-

perts believe both figures are an

undercount.

The government has been using

the railroad, the air force and the

navy to rush oxygen tankers to

worst-hit areas where over-

whelmed hospitals are unable to

cope with an unprecedented surge

in patients gasping for air.

Twelve COVID-19 patients, in-

cluding a doctor, on high-flow ox-

ygen, died Saturday at a hospital in

New Delhi after it ran out of the

supply for 80 minutes, said S.C.L.

Gupta, director of Batra Hospital.

The Times of India newspaper

reported another 16 deaths in two

hospitals in southern Andhra Pra-

desh state, and six in a Gurgaon

hospital on the outskirts of New

Delhi because of the oxygen short-

age.

With the government unable to

maintain a steady supply of ox-

ygen, several hospital authorities

sought a court intervention in the

Indian capital where a lockdown

has been extended by a week to

contain the wave of infections.

“Water has gone above the head.

Enough is enough,” said New Del-

hi High Court, adding it would

start punishing government offi-

cials if supplies of oxygen allocat-

ed to hospitals were not delivered.

“We can’t have people dying,’’

said Justices Vipin Sanghi and

Rekha Patil.

The court said it would start con-

tempt proceedings.

New Delhi recorded 412 deaths

in the past 24 hours, the highest

since the pandemic started.

The army opened its hospitals to

civilians in a desperate bid to con-

trol the massive humanitarian cri-

sis. Prime Minister Narendra Mo-

di’s government also gave emer-

gency financial powers to the ar-

my set up new quarantine

facilities and hospitals and buy

equipment.

The military also called up 600

doctors who had retired in the past

few years. The navy deployed 200

nursing assistants in civilian hos-

pitals, a government statement

said.

On Saturday, India said all

adults 18 and over could get shots.

Since January, nearly 10% of Indi-

ans have received one dose, but

only around 1.5% have received

both, although the country is one of

the world’s biggest producers of

vaccines.

India has so far given more than

156 million vaccine doses. Some

states have already said they don’t

have enough for everyone, and

even the ongoing effort to inocu-

late people above 45 is sputtering.

The United States, Britain, Ger-

many and several other nations

are rushing therapeutics, rapid vi-

rus tests and oxygen to India,

along with some materials needed

for India to boost its domestic pro-

duction of COVID-19 vaccines.

Indian court urgesgovernment to helpstruggling hospitals

BY ASHOK SHARMA

Associated Press

R S IYER/AP

Indian policemen check the credentials of commuters as they enforce a weekend lockdown to curb thespread of coronavirus Sunday in Kochi, Kerala state, India.


NATION

GREEN BAY, Wis. — A gun-

man killed two people at a Wiscon-

sin casino restaurant and serious-

ly wounded a third before he was

killed by police late Saturday, in

what authorities said appeared to

be a targeted attack.

Brown County Sheriff’s Lt. Ke-

vin Pawlak said investigators be-

lieve the gunman was seeking a

specific person he was angry at.

“He was targeting a specific vic-

tim who was not there, but he de-

cided to still shoot some of the vic-

tim’s friends or co-workers, it ap-

pears,” Pawlak said.

Neither the gunman nor the

shooting victims were immediate-

ly identified.

Pawlak wasn’t sure if the shoo-

ter was a former employee of the

restaurant, but said “it appears

there’s some relationship that had

to do with employment.”

“Whether or not they all worked

there, we’re still working on,” he

said.

The wounded person was being

treated at a Milwaukee hospital,

Pawlak said.

The attack happened around

7:30 p.m. at the Oneida Casino, op-

erated by the Oneida Nation on the

western side of Green Bay, with

the casino tweeting that an active

shooter was on the scene.

Jawad Yatim, a witness, said he

saw at least two people shot.

“I know for sure two, because it

happened right next to us, literally

right next to us,” Yatim said. “But

he was shooting pretty aggressive-

ly in the building, so I wouldn’t

doubt him hitting other people.”

Yatim said the shooting began

in a casino restaurant.

“We got the hell out of there,

thank God we’re OK, but obvious-

ly we wish the best for everybody

who’s been shot,” he said.

Attorney General Josh Kaul

tweeted shortly before 10 p.m. that

the scene was “contained. There is

no longer a threat to the communi-

ty.”

Gambler Max Westphal said he

was standing outside after being

evacuated for what he thought

was a minor issue.

“All of a sudden we hear a mas-

sive flurry of gunshots — 20 to 30

gunshots for sure,” Westphal told

WBAY-TV. “We took off running

towards the highway ... There had

to have been 50 cop cars that came

by on the highway. It was honestly

insane.”

Gov. Tony Evers issued a state-

ment late Saturday saying he was

“devastated” to hear about the

shooting.

“Our hearts, thoughts, and sup-

port go out to the Oneida Nation,

the Ashwaubenon and Green Bay

communities, and all those affect-

ed by this tragedy.”

The Oneida tribe’s reservation

lies on the west side of the Green

Bay area.

Gunman slain after 2

killed at Wis. casinoBY MIKE ROEMER

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Newsmax apol-

ogized on Friday for airing false

allegations that an employee for

Dominion Voting Systems ma-

nipulated machines or tallies on

Election Day to the detriment of

former President Donald

Trump.

Eric Coomer, security director

at the Colorado-based firm, in

turn dropped Newsmax from a

defamation lawsuit.

The conservative news net-

work, in a statement published

on its website and to be read on

TV, said that while it aired the ac-

cusations against Coomer made

by Trump’s lawyers and support-

ers, it found no evidence that

they were true.

Newsmax, which ran Domin-

ion’s denials of the accusations

when they were made, also said it

had found no evidence that

Coomer had spoken to “Antifa”

or any partisan organization.

“We would like to apologize for

any harm that our reporting of

the allegations against Dr. Coom-

er may have caused to Dr. Coom-

er and his family,” the network

said. He said in his lawsuit that

he had gone into hiding because

of death threats.

Coomer’s lawsuit also targets

the Trump campaign, lawyers

Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Po-

well, columnist Michelle Malkin,

the website Gateway Pundit, Col-

orado activist Joseph Oltmann

and One America News Network.

Those claims are continuing, a

spokeswoman said.

Newsmax apologizes to Dominionworker for false election allegations

BY DAVID BAUDER

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Re-

publicans booed Sen. Mitt Rom-

ney but ultimately rejected a mo-

tion to censure him Saturday for

his votes at President Donald

Trump’s impeachment trials.

The measure narrowly failed,

798 to 711, in a vote by delegates to

the state GOP convention, The

Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Romney drew heavy boos when

he came to the podium earlier in

the day.

Davis County delegate Don

Guymon, who authored the reso-

lution, said Romney’s votes to re-

move Trump from office “hurt the

Constitution and hurt the party.”

“This was a process driven by

Democrats who hated Trump,”

Guymon said. “Romney’s vote in

the first impeachment embold-

ened Democrats who continued to

harass Trump.”

The proposal, among several

platform changes debated Satur-

day, also sought to praise the other

members of Utah’s congressional

delegation for their support of the

former president.

Others warned supporting the

censure risked defining the party

around Trump instead of the con-

servative principles most dele-

gates treasure.

“If the point of all this is to let

Mitt Romney know we’re dis-

pleased with him, trust me, he

knows,” said Salt Lake County

delegate Emily de Azavedo

Brown. “Let’s not turn this into a

Trump or no Trump thing. Are we

a party of principle or a party of a

person?”

Attempt to censure Romney forTrump impeachment votes fails

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

SpaceX safely returned four as-

tronauts from the International

Space Station on Sunday, making

the first U.S. crew splashdown in

darkness since the Apollo 8

moonshot.

The Dragon capsule parachut-

ed into the Gulf of Mexico off the

coast of Panama City, Fla., just

before 3 a.m., ending the second

astronaut flight for Elon Musk’s

company.

It was an express trip home,

lasting just 6½ hours.

The astronauts, three Ameri-

can and one Japanese, flew back

in the same capsule — named Re-

silience — in which they

launched from NASA’s Kennedy

Space Center in November.

“We welcome you back to plan-

et Earth and thanks for flying

SpaceX,” SpaceX’s Mission Con-

trol radioed moments after

splashdown. “For those of you en-

rolled in our frequent flyer pro-

gram, you’ve earned 68 million

miles on this voyage.”

“We’ll take those miles,” said

spacecraft commander Mike

Hopkins. “Are they transferra-

ble?” SpaceX replied that the as-

tronauts would have to check

with the company’s marketing

department.

Within a half-hour of splash-

down, the charred capsule — re-

sembling a giant toasted marsh-

mallow — had been hoisted onto

the recovery ship, with the astro-

nauts exiting soon afterward. NA-

SA and SpaceX managers mar-

veled at how fast and smooth the

operation went. The company’s

senior adviser, Hans Koenig-

smann, said “it looked more like a

race car pit stop than anything

else.”

Hopkins was the first one out,

doing a little dance as he emerged

under the intense spotlights.

“It’s amazing what can be ac-

complished when people come to-

gether,” he told SpaceX flight

controllers at company head-

quarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

“Quite frankly, you all are chang-

ing the world. Congratulations.

It’s great to be back.”

The 167-day mission was the

longest for a crew capsule

launching from the U.S. The pre-

vious record of 84 days was set by

NASA’s final Skylab station astro-

nauts in 1974.

BILL INGALLS, NASA/AP

Support teams work around the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resiliencespacecraft shortly after it landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast ofPanama City, Fla., on Sunday.

4 astronauts returnin rare night entry

BY MARCIA DUNN

Associated Press


AMERICAN ROUNDUP

240-pound sturgeon, age100, caught in river

MA DETROIT — Now

that’s a whopper — a

very old whopper!

A 240-pound sturgeon that

could be more than 100 years old

was caught in the Detroit River by

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The “real life river monster”

was nearly 7 feet long, the agency

said on Facebook, where the photo

was shared more than 24,000

times by late afternoon.

“Based on its girth and size, it is

assumed to be a female and that

she has been roaming our waters

over 100 years. She was quickly

released back into the river” after

being weighed and measured, the

Fish and Wildlife Service said.

The typical lifespan is 55 years

for a male sturgeon and 70 to 100

years for females, according to the

Michigan Department of Natural

Resources.

Rangers find marijuanagrow in national park

CA DEATH VALLEY —

Federal park rangers

discovered a large illegal marijua-

na grow in Death Valley National

Park near the border between Cal-

ifornia and Nevada, authorities

said.

The 40-acre grow was found in

Jail Canyon, a rarely visited ca-

nyon on the western side of the Pa-

namint Mountains, the National

Park Service said in a news re-

lease.

The illegal grow is one of hun-

dreds that authorities have found

in Death Valley over the last dec-

ade, officials said, and marijuana

grow sites can damage or destroy

parts of the national park.

While California legalized mari-

juana in 2016, it remains prohibit-

ed on federal lands.

State’s favorite guessinggame ends in twist

AK NENANA — The ice

has gone out on the Ta-

nana River, ending the annual Ne-

nana Ice Classic, one of Alaska’s

most famous guessing games.

Ice classic manager Cherrie

Forness said the game ended at

12:50 p.m. Friday when the ice

shifted and the clock inside a tri-

pod set up on the river ice tripped.

When the ice goes out, the tripod

usually starts going downriver or

toward the south bank. This year,

it went the other direction, upriv-

er, apparently just enough to trip

the mechanism that stopped the

clock.

It’s not known how many people

paying $2.50 per ticket correctly

guessed the day, hour and minute

the ice went out.

Wu-Tang Clan impostergets prison for scams

GA AUGUSTA — A Geor-

gia man was sentenced

to more than eight years in federal

prison for using stolen credit

cards to live large in hotels and

limousines while claiming to have

ties to the hip hop group Wu-Tang

Clan.

Walker Washington of Augusta

was sentenced to 100 months in

prison after pleading guilty to con-

spiracy to commit wire fraud, Da-

vid H. Estes, acting U.S. attorney

for the Southern District of Geor-

gia, said in a news release.

U.S. District Judge Dudley H.

Bowen also ordered Washington,

53, to pay about $300,000 to 19

businesses defrauded in the

scheme, according to the release.

Police praised for haltingscam on grandmother

MA DRACUT — Three

Massachusetts police

officers and a dispatcher are earn-

ing praise for preventing a Florida

grandmother from losing $25,000

to a scammer.

Dracut Sgt. Lawrence Flynn, Lt.

Wilmer Buote, Detective Megan

Farley and dispatcher Andrew

Talmacci went into action when a

woman called Dracut and Miami

police and said her mother had

sent the money to an address in

Dracut, Chief Peter Bartlett told

The Sun of Lowell.

The woman told police her

mother had received a call from

someone claiming that her grand-

son had been arrested and needed

$25,000 for a lawyer so he could be

released.

The package had not yet been

delivered, so the officers inter-

cepted it.

Young wrestler takes 1stplace in world contest

HI HONOLULU — A new

world wrestling cham-

pion is a 9-year-old girl from Ha-

waii.

Kaiulani Diamond Kekahuna of

Waianae won first place at the

World of Wrestling 2021 Reno

Worlds in the 65-pound weight

class April 17, KHON-TV report-

ed.

The third-grader at Kameha-

meha Schools Kapalama campus

competed in the 9 and under divi-

sion. She defeated Mireya Barra-

za of New Mexico in the quarterfi-

nal, Harley Miller of Oklahoma in

the semifinal and Mylah Henebry

of Idaho in the final, the Honolulu

news station reported.

She is trained in folk style, frees-

tyle and Roman Greco wrestling

by the Golden Back wrestling club.

FBI seeks forfeiture of 19 dogs taken in seizure

VA CHARLES CITY —

Federal authorities are

seeking the forfeiture of more

than a dozen pit bulls seized in Vir-

ginia during the investigation of a

multistate narcotics and dog fight-

ing network, according to court

documents.

The dogs were recovered by the

FBI, Drug Enforcement Adminis-

tration and Virginia law enforce-

ment agencies carrying out feder-

al search warrants in Sussex

County and Charles City County in

November, according to court re-

cords obtained by the Richmond

Times-Dispatch.

Now, federal officials are for-

mally asking the court to termi-

nate the unidentified suspects’

rights to 19 of the 41 dogs reco-

vered, according to a complaint

for forfeiture filed Monday. A civil

forfeiture warrant for the dogs

was entered in U.S. District Court

in Richmond, the Times-Dispatch

reported.

Man arrested after theftof thousands in chips

WA RIDGEFIELD — A

Kelso man who is

banned from a casino in southwest

Washington is accused of stealing

$12,500 in chips after a casino

break-in.

Police said Lucas Bunn entered

the ilani Casino Resort while dis-

guised in a gray wig and construc-

tion vest, The Columbian report-

ed.

Clark Regional Emergency Ser-

vices Agency advised authorities

that a man was in the casino’s high

limits area using a drill to break

into the chips table, according to

an affidavit of probable cause.

The man, thought to be Bunn,

ran when security approached

him, the affidavit said. A respon-

ding Clark County sheriff’s deputy

advised he was chasing the man

near a gas station and he was de-

tained shortly after, according to

the affidavit.

Man assaulted, spit onofficers during arrest

IA PLEASANT HILL — A

central Iowa man faces a

bevy of charges after being ac-

cused of attacking several officers

as they tried to arrest him on sus-

picion of driving drunk with his

young child in the back seat, police

said.

Christopher Greenwood, 33,

was confronted after witnesses

called police to report his pickup

truck hitting curbs and driving in-

to a ditch, Des Moines station

WHO-TV reported.

Pleasant Hill officers soon

found his truck crashed into a pole

and noticed a young girl in a boost-

er seat in the back seat. Police said

the girl was not injured.

When officers tried to arrest

Greenwood on suspicion of drunk-

en driving, police said, he head-

butted, kicked and spit on the offi-

cers.

JAKE MAY, THE FLINT (MICH.) JOURNAL/AP

Dashawn Brockway, 5, smiles as he plays in the backyard with his sister Ryanna Brockway, 8, in Flint, Mich.

Head over heels

THE CENSUS

10M The approximate amount in dollars won by a New Mexicotourist from a Las Vegas slot machine jackpot. The South

Point Hotel Casino & Spa said the Megabucks payout of $10.5 million wasNevada’s largest jackpot of the year. The player won on a $5 wager, accordingto a news release that said the winner did not want to be publicly identified.

From The Associated Press


NATION

SEOUL, South Korea — North

Korea on Sunday warned the

United States will face “a very

grave situation” because Presi-

dent Joe Biden “made a big blun-

der” in his recent speech by call-

ing the North a security threat and

revealing his intent to maintain a

hostile policy against it.

Last week, Biden, in his first ad-

dress to Congress, called North

Korea and Iran’s nuclear pro-

grams “serious threats” to Amer-

ican and world security and said

he’ll work with allies to address

those problems through diploma-

cy and stern deterrence.

“His statement clearly reflects

his intent to keep enforcing the

hostile policy toward the DPRK as

it had been done by the U.S. for

over half a century,” Kwon Jong

Gun, a senior North Korean For-

eign Ministry official, said in a

statement. DPRK stands for the

Democratic People’s Republic of

Korea, the North’s official name.

“It is certain that the U.S. chief

executive made a big blunder in

the light of the present-day view-

point,” Kwon said. “Now that the

keynote of the U.S. new DPRK

policy has become clear, we will

be compelled to press for corre-

sponding measures, and with

time, the U.S. will find itself in a

very grave situation.”

Kwon still didn’t specify what

steps North Korea would take, and

his statement could be seen as an

effort to apply pressure on the Bi-

den administration as it’s shaping

up its North Korea policy.

The White House said Friday

that administration officials had

completed a review of U.S. policy

toward North Korea, saying Biden

plans to veer from the approaches

of his two most recent predeces-

sors as he tries to stop North Ko-

rea’s nuclear program. Press sec-

retary Jen Psaki did not detail

findings of the review, but sug-

gested the administration would

seek a middle ground between

Donald Trump’s “grand bargain”

and Barack Obama’s “strategic

patience” approaches.

Kwon’s statement didn’t men-

tion Psaki’s comments.

After a series of high-profile nu-

clear and missile tests in 2016-17,

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

launched summit diplomacy with

Trump on the future of his grow-

ing nuclear arsenal. But that di-

plomacy remains stalled for about

two years over differences in how

much sanctions relief North Ko-

rea could win in return for limited

denuclearization steps.

In January, Kim threatened to

enlarge his nuclear arsenal and

build more high-tech weapons tar-

geting the U.S. mainland, saying

the fate of bilateral ties would de-

pend on whether it abandons its

hostile policy. In March, he con-

ducted short-range ballistic mis-

sile tests for the first time in a year,

though he still maintains a mora-

torium on bigger weapons launch-

es.

“If Pyongyang agrees to work-

ing-level talks, the starting point

of negotiations would be a freeze

of North Korean testing and devel-

opment of nuclear capabilities

and delivery systems,” Leif-Eric

Easley, a professor at Ewha Uni-

versity in Seoul, said. “If, on the

other hand, Kim shuns diplomacy

and opts for provocative tests,

Washington will likely expand

sanctions enforcement and mili-

tary exercises with allies.”

Also Sunday, an unidentified

North Korean Foreign Ministry

spokesman vowed a strong, sepa-

rate response to a recent State De-

partment statement that it would

push to promote “accountability

for the Kim regime” over its

“egregious human rights situa-

tion.” He called the statement a

preparation for “all-out show-

down with us.”

Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo

Jong, also slammed South Korea

over anti-Pyongyang leaflets

floated across the border by a

group of North Korean defectors

in the South. The group’s leader,

Park Sang-hak, said Friday thathe

sent 500,000 leaflets by balloon

last week, in a defiance of a new,

contentious South Korean law that

criminalizes such action.

“We regard the maneuvers

committed by the human waste in

the South as a serious provocation

against our state and will look into

corresponding action,” Kim Yo

Jong said in a statement.

She accused the South Korean

government of “winking at” the

leaflets. Seoul’s Unification Minis-

try responded later Sunday, say-

ing it opposes any act that creates

tensions on the Korean Peninsula

and it will strive to achieve better

ties with North Korea.

Easley said the North Korean

statements by Kwon and Kim Yo

Jong show that “Pyongyang is try-

ing to drive a wedge between

South Korea and the United

States” ahead of the May 21 sum-

mit between Biden and South Ko-

rean President Moon Jae-in.

N. Korea warns USof ‘grave situation’over Biden speech

BY HYUNG-JIN KIM

Associated Press

summit in Hanoi that collapsed af-

ter U.S. officials made clear they

would not lift sanctions unless

Pyongyang put its entire nuclear

program on the table.

“We are not seeking a grand

bargain or an all-or-nothing ap-

proach,” a senior administration

official said in an interview Thurs-

day. “What we’ve settled on is

what we think is a calibrated,

practical approach to diplomacy

with the North with the goal of

eliminating the threat to the Unit-

ed States.”

The administration has begun

sharing the review’s results with

allies and partners, including Ja-

pan and South Korea, as well as

members of Congress, who were

frequently consulted over the last

several months, officials said.

The specifics of the proposal

Washington will put forward re-

main unclear, and U.S. officials

are not using familiar terms that

previous U.S. administrations

have used, such as a “step-by-

step” agreement.

“We are not putting those kinds

of labels on our approach,” a U.S.

official said.

The conclusion of the review

comes amid increasing U.S. con-

cerns that North Korea may be

considering a fresh provocation,

such as the testing of another long-

range intercontinental ballistic

missile, or a submarine-launched

ballistic missile.

U.S. officials said they planned

to convey the new strategy to

North Korean officials, but ac-

knowledged that it was not likely

to change the regime’s near-term

calculus regarding nuclear provo-

cations.

“We do not think what we are

contemplating is likely to forestall

provocation from the North,” said

the senior official, who like others

interviewed, spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity because of the

subject’s sensitivity. “We fully in-

tend to maintain sanctions pres-

sure while this plays out.”

One of the many challenges fac-

ing U.S. officials is whether they

can create momentum behind a

phased approach that exchanges

partial sanctions relief for partial

denuclearization until the pro-

gram is fully dismantled. One U.S.

official said the effort is a “careful,

modulated diplomatic approach,

prepared to offer relief for partic-

ular steps” with an “ultimate goal

of denuclearization.”

That would differ from the Oba-

ma administration’s approach,

which withheld serious diplomat-

ic engagement with North Korea

until it changed its behavior and

ceased its nuclear provocations.

“If the Trump administration

was everything for everything,

Obama was nothing for nothing.

This is something in the middle,”

the official said.

The Biden administration first

reached out to North Korea

through several channels starting

in mid-February before it had

completed its policy review. North

Korea’s first vice foreign minister

dismissed the outreach as a “de-

laying-time trick.” In March, the

regime fired two short-range mis-

siles during Blinken’s first trip to

the Asia-Pacific, and shot two bal-

listic missiles into the sea near Ja-

pan days later.

The removal of economic sanc-

tions is a key priority for Kim, who

conceded last year that his coun-

try faced “two crises at the same

time”: the spread of the coronavi-

rus and crippling U.S. and United

Nations sanctions banning many

of its exports, including textiles,

coal and iron ore. The virus also

forced the regime last year to

close the border with China,

which accounts for about 90% of

the country’s external trade.

One key question is what role

China will play in the diplomacy,

given its economic and political

leverage over North Korea.

U.S. relations with Beijing re-

main tense amid a growing list of

disagreements related to trade,

human rights and security. A se-

nior U.S. official said the Biden ad-

ministration will seek to “work

with China as we move forward,

both in terms of supporting our

diplomatic efforts as well as on liv-

ing up to our common obligations

to enforce U.N. sanctions.”

The first meeting between the

Biden administration and its Chi-

nese counterparts in March re-

sulted in an usual display of bitter

comments, and China has recoiled

at the U.S. accusation that it is car-

rying out genocide against Uygh-

ur Muslims.

Strong disagreements over hu-

man rights could also cause ten-

sion in the U.S. approach to North

Korea.

The Biden administration is ex-

pected to appoint a special envoy

for human rights in North Korea, a

position that would presumably

spotlight the Kim regime’s brutal

repression of its citizens through

mass surveillance, torture and po-

litical-prisoner camps. A senior

U.S. official declined to comment

on the impact the envoy might

have, but noted that there is a

“statutory requirement” for that

position to exist.

KCNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses with what some experts say is a possible nuclear warhead mockup in this undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on March 9, 2016.

Balance: Administration seeking ‘calibrated,practical approach’ in dealing with N. KoreaFROM PAGE 1


WORLD

BERLIN — At least 93 police officers

were injured and 354 protesters were de-

tained after traditional May Day rallies in

Berlin turned violent, the city's top security

official said Sunday.

More than 20 different rallies took place in

the German capital on Saturday and the vast

majority of them were peaceful. However, a

leftist march of 8,000 people through the

city’s Neukoelln and Kreuzberg neighbor-

hood, which has seen clashes in past dec-

ades, turned violent. Protesters threw bot-

tles and rocks at officers, and burned gar-

bage cans and wooden pallets in the streets.

“Violence against police officers and a

blind, destructive rage has nothing to do

with political protest,” Berlin state interior

minister Andreas Geisel said.

Geisel condemned the throwing of bottles

and rocks, the burning barricades on the

streets and especially the violence toward

police.

“The high number of injured officer leav-

es me stunned. I wish all of those who were

injured in the line of duty a quick recovery,”

he said.

There’s a nightly curfew in most parts of

Germany because of the high number of cor-

onavirus infections, but political protests

and religious gatherings are exempt from

the curfew.

In France, May Day marches in Paris and

the southern city of Lyon were also marred

by scattered violence, with riot officers tar-

geted by small groups of violent demonstra-

tors who tossed projectiles and trash bins.

Police made 56 arrests — 46 of them in Paris,

the Interior Ministry said Sunday. It said six

officers suffered injuries, three of them in

Paris.

The CGT labor union that organized the

main Paris march said violent demonstra-

tors also targeted its marchers at the end of

the rally, showering them with projectiles,

blows and homophobic, sexist and racist in-

sults. The union said 21 of its participants

were injured, four seriously.

May Day rallies turn violent in Berlin, FranceAssociated Press

MARKUS SCHREIBER/AP

Police officers stand in front of a fire setup by demonstrators during a May Dayrally Saturday in Berlin, Germany.

JERUSALEM — Officials came

under growing scrutiny Sunday for

ignoring warnings about safety

lapses at one of Israel’s most visited

holy sites, as the country mourned

45 ultra-Orthodox Jews killed in a

stampede at a festival there.

The disaster at Mount Meron also

heated up the debate over the role of

the ultra-Orthodox minority in Is-

rael and the refusal of some of its

leaders to acknowledge the author-

ity of the state. The festival had

drawn some 100,000 people, most of

them ultra-Orthodox Jews, after

powerful ultra-Orthodox politic-

ians reportedly pressured Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and

others to lift attendance restric-

tions.

On Sunday, a group of retired po-

lice commissioners called on the

prime minister to launch an inde-

pendent commission with wide-

ranging powers to investigate. The

body would have the authority to

probe senior politicians and deci-

sion-makers, going beyond a Jus-

tice Ministry inquiry now under-

way that is looking into possible mis-

conduct by police officers at the site.

The increasingly acrimonious

blame game comes during a politi-

cal power struggle between Neta-

nyahu and former allies-turned-

foes bent on toppling him. After in-

conclusive elections in March, Ne-

tanyahu's chances of forming a rul-

ing coalition and staying in power

seem to be waning. His ultra-Ortho-

dox political allies would feature

prominently in any Netanyahu-led

government.

The stampede, the deadliest civil

disaster in Israel's history, took

place early Friday during a festival

called Lag BaOmer on Mount Me-

ron in northern Israel. The site is be-

lieved to be the burial place of prom-

inent second century sage Rabbi

Shimon Bar Yochai. The annual

springtime celebrations are

marked by the lighting of large bon-

fires, singing and dancing.

Officials scrutinized as Israel mourns 45 killed in festival stampedeAssociated Press


Max D. Lederer Jr., Publisher

Lt. Col. Marci Hoffman, Europe commander

Lt. Col. Richard McClintic, Pacific commander

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stripes.com

OPINION

“We delivered justice to Osama

bin Laden, and we degraded

the terrorist threat of al-Qaida

in Afghanistan,” Joe Biden declared in his

speech to Congress on Wednesday. And that,

he explained, was why we can now withdraw

the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan, as he

announced earlier this month.

Yes, bin Laden is dead — thanks to a daring

raid by U.S. special operations forces 10 years

ago in Pakistan. But the president’s statement

misses the mark. Its founder might have left

the scene, but al-Qaida hasn’t gone away —

and that has clear implications for our strate-

gy in Afghanistan and across the world.

Transnational terrorist groups, especially

those maintaining affiliates worldwide, are of-

ten greater than the sum of their parts. One

decade after bin Laden’s death, his organiza-

tion — including affiliates such as Somalia’s

al-Shabab and Syria’s Hurras al-Din — now

boasts between 30,000 to 40,000 fighters glob-

ally and maintains a presence in more coun-

tries than it did on 9/11. A celebrated martyr to

his followers, bin Laden remains an enduring

symbol for jihadi sympathizers from the

Maghreb to Mindanao. His legacy suggests

that his goal of spreading al-Qaida’s ideology

worldwide has been achieved.

Twenty-five years after bin Laden’s fatwa

declaring war against the United States, al-

Qaida survives, even as Washington and its al-

lies yearn to move on from two decades of the

so-called global war on terrorism. But al-Qai-

da’s persistence raises legitimate concerns

that a calendar-based withdrawal in Afghan-

istan will lead to a replay of what happened in

Iraq in 2011. Just three years after pulling out

its troops, the United States was forced to re-

turn to deal with the rise of Islamic State and a

state-building project that had attracted more

than 40,000 foreign fighters from more than

110 countries.

Proponents of withdrawal suggest that al-

Qaida has only several hundred fighters in Af-

ghanistan, despite its more robust franchise

groups in the Middle East and Africa. But

once the United States is out of Afghanistan,

al-Qaida will have an opportunity to regener-

ate its networks, particularly if the Taliban

come to militarily dominate large swaths of

Afghanistan, as many expect. The Taliban

have never broken with al-Qaida, and al-Qai-

da fighters even embed in Taliban fighting

units. Taliban sponsorship of al-Qaida and its

affiliates creates the potential for an al-Qaida

revival in the region.

In addition to what remains of its core in Af-

ghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaida has branch-

es in India and Kashmir — al-Qaida in the In-

dian Subcontinent and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-

Hind, respectively. If jihadis in Afghanistan

can generate momentum, it could lead to an

influx of foreign fighters, resuscitating a

group looking for a lifeline.

By the time Navy SEALs killed bin Laden

in May 2011, some analysts had written him

off as a marginalized figure who spent his

time in hiding with little impact on the day-to-

day operations of al-Qaida’s global network.

But we now know that bin Laden actually re-

mained an active leader, providing important

input on tactics, operations and strategy. A re-

view of the documents found in his Abbotta-

bad compound demonstrates that he func-

tioned as a hands-on leader until his last days.

Yet even though he was still involved in group

decision-making, his actual degree of com-

mand-and-control was limited by al-Qaida’s

decentralized structure and the challenge of

communicating with affiliate leaders quickly

and efficiently.

Removing bin Laden had little impact on al-

Qaida’s affiliates in the Sahel. Both al-Qaida in

the Islamic Maghreb and Jama’at Nasr al-Is-

lam wal Muslimin remain highly active and

continue to recruit new members to conduct

terrorist attacks with impunity in countries

such as Mali and Niger.

In its earliest days, al-Qaida proved it could

operate as a hybrid entity, with its leadership

spread among different countries. Both be-

fore and after bin Laden’s removal, al-Qaida’s

senior leadership remained involved in plan-

ning operations. Midlevel commanders were

empowered to execute the organization’s

strategic vision as they saw fit. The group has

overcome significant challenges related to the

Arab Spring protests and internecine conflict

with ISIS. Al-Qaida has adapted, shifting its

focus to establishing political legitimacy in

West Africa and the Arabian Peninsula,

adopting the parochial grievances of local

tribes and clans.

In reviewing lessons learned from the past

two decades of counterterrorism operations,

the preponderance of evidence suggests that

targeting individual leaders has its limits.

We’ve learned that it’s more effective to focus

on disrupting terrorist networks by focusing

on dismantling supply lines, attacking logis-

tical capabilities and denying militants the

ability to enjoy external support, including fi-

nancing and sanctuary. This doesn’t mean

that killing high-value targets is ineffective,

but rather that decapitation is merely one of

many tactics that should be used as part of a

wider strategy.

Killing bin Laden 10 years ago was an im-

portant milestone. But it was more symbolic

than impactful, more tactical than strategic.

The United States might be leaving Afghan-

istan, but al-Qaida remains, long after bin La-

den is gone.

Bin Laden is long gone, but al-Qaida is thrivingBY COLIN P. CLARKE

Special to The Washington Post

Colin P. Clarke is the director of research and policy at TheSoufan Group.

President Joe Biden’s address to

Congress focused rather heavily on

domestic matters, particularly his

$2.3 trillion “infrastructure” pack-

age. We didn’t hear much about foreign af-

fairs. That’s because he’s put them on the

backburner to press forward with his “trans-

formative,” and unprecedentedly expensive,

domestic agenda.

We’ve seen this approach to governing be-

fore — from Lyndon B. Johnson, arguably one

of the nation’s least successful modern presi-

dents.

It’s a path that doesn’t seem to be working

out too well for Biden, either. At the mark of his

first 100 days in office, he is polling poorly with

almost half the electorate, despite an obsequi-

ous press lauding his every move. If Biden

wants to avoid the race for the bottom in presi-

dential rankings, he will have to rethink his ap-

proach to both domestic and foreign challeng-

es and, just as importantly, how he balances

both.

Thus far, the White House has pressed an

agenda to radically remake America. Federa-

lizing elections, expanding the welfare state,

and massively expanding the size, reach and

authority of the federal government are just

the tip of the iceberg. Meanwhile, major for-

eign policy problems have gotten short shrift.

While the administration has been heavy on

globalist rhetoric, its actions have been limit-

ed pretty much to reversing Trump policies on

climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.

A recent example of this lackluster foreign

policy is the U.S. response to Russia’s massive

military buildup near Ukraine. Finger-wav-

ing and the lame promise of a convening a

summit to talk things over won’t keep the Rus-

sian bear at bay.

Clearly, rather than deal with foreign

threats, the president wishes to concentrate

on jamming through the most radical domes-

tic agenda in modern history.

In this, history repeats. After his unexpect-

ed elevation to the Oval Office, Lyndon John-

son put together his Great Society agenda, an

ambitious splurge of federal spending and ex-

pansive bureaucracy meant to eliminate pov-

erty and end racism. To come up with the mon-

ey needed to launch the Great Society, John-

son tried to relegate the Cold War to a second-

tier issue. He sent a small number of troops to

South Vietnam to keep the North Vietnamese

at bay. But the main idea was to spend just

enough on “guns” to avoid suffering a humili-

ating loss (as had happened to President Har-

ry Truman when China went communist un-

der his watch), while funneling huge amounts

of money into Great Society programs.

But the incremental approach in Vietnam

failed to deter the North Vietnamese. The war

just kept getting bigger, even as Johnson spent

like a drunken sailor on his domestic agenda.

Meanwhile, the domestic economy went into a

tailspin.

Worse, the Great Society proved to be any-

thing but great. The pseudo-socialist experi-

ment failed abysmally, leading to a sharp de-

cline of race relations and the near collapse of

American inner cities, as described well in

Amity Shlaes’ “The Great Society: A New His-

tory” (2020).

Johnson’s time in the Oval Office left Amer-

ica angry, divided and dissolute — weaker at

home and disrespected abroad. We shouldn’t

assume it can’t happen again.

We live in an age of great power competi-

tion, one in which Russia and China are grow-

ing increasingly aggressive. Foreign policy

cannot be put on hold in this environment. Yet

when it comes to addressing these adversar-

ies, Biden’s instinct seems to be to start with

the minimalist, most passive position and

work from there. So he scolds Russia, but im-

mediately offers talks and demurs from send-

ing U.S. ships into the Black Sea. In Afghanis-

tan, he decides, against military advice, to pull

out and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, Biden races blindly ahead with

domestic policies that are increasingly prov-

ing divisive. Domestic discord and political vi-

olence are getting worse, not better. Like

Johnson, Biden is proving more skilled at driv-

ing Americans apart than bringing them to-

gether, making our homeland a more troubled

and unwelcoming place.

Will Biden channel LBJ’s ghost and prioritize poorly?BY JAMES JAY CARAFANO

Tribune News Service

James Jay Carafano is vice president of The Heritage Founda-tion’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.



ACROSS

1 Vat

4 Arcade pioneer

9 Prattle

12 “I love,” to Livy

13 Actress

Sarandon

14 Spanish gold

15 Satisfactory

17 Musician Yoko

18 Nintendo console

19 Part of TLC

21 School break

24 “No seats” signs

25 Scull need

26 Spanish aunt

28 Smooth fabric

31 Shade provider

33 Pt. of speech

35 Video-

streaming site

36 Red Cross

founder Barton

38 Moment

40 Untruth

41 Lion’s locks

43 Social blunders

45 “Call Me Maybe”

singer Carly Rae

47 Transcript no.

48 — Dhabi

49 Film fan

54 Dict. info

55 Less friendly

56 Aviate

57 Canine cry

58 Spassky’s game

59 French assent

DOWN

1 Greek cross

2 Diamond arbiter

3 Droid

4 Help

5 Libya neighbor

6 Tempe sch.

7 Flat floaters

8 Draws a con-

clusion

9 “Great idea!”

10 “Rule, Britannia!”

composer

11 Rude dude

16 Have bills

20 TV host Trevor

21 Campus mil.

group

22 — Grey tea

23 Patisserie

offering

27 Billboards

29 “Would — to

you?”

30 Worn-down

pencils

32 Historic times

34 Ratatouille

ingredients

37 Lacking vigor

39 Antics

42 Son of Cain

44 “Terrif!”

45 “Gotham”

actress —

Pinkett Smith

46 Hairstylist José

50 Compete

51 Flying saucer

52 Winter ailment

53 Memo letters

Answer to Previous Puzzle

Eugene Sheffer CrosswordFra

zz

Dilbert

Pearls B

efo

re S

win

eN

on S

equitur

Candorv

ille

Carp

e D

iem

Beetle B

ailey

Biz

arr

o



FACES

When Marvel Studios reached out

to Carl Lumbly to ask if he would

be interested in joining the Cap-

tain America mythos with a key

role in the Disney+ series “The Falcon and the

Winter Soldier,” the veteran actor couldn’t

help but think about how often roles of a super

nature have come his way over his career.

“I frankly have been delighted, if not a little

surprised, by the number of times that I’ve got-

ten an opportunity to play superheroes,”

Lumbly said to The Washington Post.

Lumbly, 69, is one of the rare actors who has

performed through many eras of superheroes

on-screen. Well before the genre became

mainstream — and almost a quarter century

before Chadwick Boseman graced the screen

as the ultimate Black superhero, the Black

Panther — Lumbly was putting on a mask and

fighting crime in front of the camera. He has

recognized how the Black superhero has

evolved — and why “Falcon” is an important

milestone.

In 1994, he starred in “M.A.N.T.I.S.” as a sci-

entist who was paralyzed by police gunfire and

builds a high-tech suit to fight crime, corrup-

tion and racism. Debuting just two years after

the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles, the

show was produced by Sam Raimi — who

would go on to direct the original “Spider-

Man” trilogy and help give birth to the modern

superhero era of cinema — and developed by

Sam Hamm, who had a hand in writing Tim

Burton’s “Batman” and “Batman Returns.”

“M.A.N.T.I.S.” did not create a television su-

perhero boom, however — it was canceled af-

ter one season.

The Justice League came calling in 2001

with what would go on to be a cult hit animated

series. Lumbly was the voice of J’onn J’onzz,

the Martian Manhunter, alongside some of su-

perhero animation’s greatest vocal talents, in-

cluding Kevin Conroy (Batman), Tim Daly

(Superman), Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Wom-

an) and Phil LaMarr (Green Lantern).

In “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” he

was asked to be Marvel Studios’ first Black su-

per-soldier, Isaiah Bradley, with an origin sto-

ry that would serve as a prelude to Sam Wilson

(Anthony Mackie) becoming Captain Ameri-

ca.

Lumbly had perhaps the most impactful mo-

ment in “Falcon,” looking Mackie’s Sam Wil-

son in the eye before Sam’s ascension to the

role of Captain America and telling him he

wanted no part of it. Bradley felt what the Unit-

ed States had done to him in making him a su-

per-soldier and then locking him away for dec-

ades to hide the secret of his superpowered ex-

istence was an unforgivable act.

“You think things are different? You think

times are different?” he asked Sam. “They will

never let a Black man be Captain America.

And even if they did, no self-respecting Black

man would ever wanna be.”

Lumbly equates the scene with the conver-

sation many Black Americans were having as

Barack Obama became president, about the

fears for his safety given America’s history

with Black men with power. Bradley repre-

sents the old guard of Black men who would

never trust the United States. Mackie’s Falcon

has hope for a brighter and more inclusive fu-

ture, thinking more of positive possibilities and

not inevitable responses.

“Because of efforts of people who put their

head down and kept moving forward it leads

this generation today to a place where Anthony

Mackie [as Sam] can have agency and make a

decision” to become Captain America, Lumbly

said. “Isaiah had no agency. And with that

agency comes responsibility. He’s thoughtful

about it. It means something to him.”

When asked if his time as Isaiah Bradley is

complete, Lumbly says that it’s up to Marvel.

“I like Marvel,” Lumbly said. “If there’s

more, I’m here. If there’s not, I loved being

here.”

Marvel Studios and Disney+

Carl Lumbly, right, is Isaiah Bradley, a former soldier with a connection to the legacy of Captain America in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

Return of the veteran superheroBY DAVID BETANCOURT

The Washington Post

Lumbly’s pivotal part on Marvel series comes decades after his first crime-fighting role

The Billboard Music Awards

nominations hit a much higher

note for The Weeknd than the

Grammys did.

The R&B superstar, who shock-

ingly didn’t receive a single Gram-

my nod in 2021 despite having a

prolific musical year, leads all

nominees at

this month’s

Billboard cere-

mony as a final-

ist in 16 catego-

ries.

His nomina-

tions, which

were unveiled

April 29, in-

clude top artist, top male artist and

top Hot 100 artist, while his album

“After Hours” is up for top Bill-

board 200 album and top R&B al-

bum.

The singer, whose real name is

Abel Tesfaye, vowed to boycott fu-

ture Grammys following this

year’s snub. “After Hours”

peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard al-

bum chart last year, while the

song “Blinding Lights” reached

the top spot on the singles chart.

Other top nominees for the 2021

Billboard Music Awards, which

take place May 23 at the Microsoft

Theater in Los Angeles, include

rapper DaBaby, who received the

second-most nominations with 11,

and Gabby Barrett, who led all fe-

male artists with nine.

The Weeknd, meanwhile, is

joined in the coveted top artist cat-

egory by Drake, Taylor Swift, Pop

Smoke and Juice WRLD.

Juice WRLD died at age 21 from

a seizure linked to drugs. The

Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Pop Smoke

was shot to death in 2020 in Holly-

wood Hills at age 20.

Other notable nominees at next

month’s award ceremony include

Megan Thee Stallion, who is a fi-

nalist in seven categories, includ-

ing top female artist. Swift is also

nominated in that category, as are

Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa and Bil-

lie Eilish.

Billboard Musicgives The Weeknd16 nominations

From wire reports

The Weeknd

A gentle check-in from longtime friend

Michael B. Jordan helped pave the way for

Lauren London’s return to work after the

death of her fiance Nipsey Hussle two years

ago.

“Well, Mike reached out to me personally

and I was like, ‘I don’t know, Mike. I don’t

know if it’s time for me to get back,’” she re-

called in a recent interview. “I wasn’t sure if

I felt ready.”

London plays Jordan’s wife in “Tom

Clancy’s Without Remorse,” and the cou-

ple’s relationship in the script drew her in.

Her character’s death is the catalyst for the

rest of the film, with Jordan’s character

seeking revenge against Russian ex-mili-

tary forces who killed her and members of

his Navy SEALS team.

“The character ... was real and it was gen-

uine: their love, her passing ... but still guid-

ing him and being with him rang true for

me.”

Filming the same year as Hussle’s death,

London called the process cathartic.

“(It was) one of many things that helped

in my healing,” she said. “I got to cry a lot. I

was away from my children for 11 days, so I

try to hold on really strong in front of them,

and so the 11 days away allowed me to really

be alone and grieve.

“I think when something really tragic

happens to you, you’re not sure your place-

ment in the world afterwards, and doing

this film and being able to work again made

me feel like I had something to give again,”

London said.

London, who starred in films like “ATL”

and the popular TV series “The Game,”

said now that she’s back to work, she’s

pursuing new projects, but her outlook is

much different now.

“I want to be more in a ownership posi-

tion. I want to create content that now aligns

with my voice and purpose.”

“Without Remorse” is now airing on

Amazon Prime Video.

‘Without Remorse’ role proved cathartic for grieving actressBY GARY GERARD HAMILTON

Associated Press

NADJA KLIER, AMAZON/AP

Michael B. Jordan, left, and LaurenLondon play husband and wife in “TomClancy’s Without Remorse.”


SCOREBOARD

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

NCAA FCS PlayoffsFirst Round

Saturday, April 24South Dakota St. 31, Holy Cross 3 S. Illinois 34, Weber St. 31 Delaware 19, Sacred Heart 10 Jacksonville St. 49, Davidson 14 James Madison 31, VMI 24 North Dakota 44, Missouri St. 10 North Dakota St. 42, E. Washington 20 Sam Houston 21, Monmouth 15

QuarterfinalsSunday, May 2

South Dakota St. (61) �vs. S. Illinois (63)Delaware (60) vs. Jacksonville St. (102)James Madison (60) vs. North Dakota

(51)North Dakota St. (72) vs. Sam Houston

(70)Semifinals

Saturday, May 8TBD

FinalsSunday, May 16

TBD

TENNIS

Madrid Open

SaturdayAt Caja Magica

MadridPurse: Euro 2,614,465

Surface: Red clayMen’s SinglesQualification

Yoshihito Nishioka (2), Japan, def. PabloCuevas, Uruguay, 64, 64.

Gianluca Mager, Italy, def. Egor Gerasimov (9), Belarus, 64, 63.

Lorenzo Musetti, Italy, def. Radu Albot(14), Moldova, 63, 64.

Roberto Carballes Baena, Spain, def.Emil Ruusuvuori (8), Finland, 62, 63.

PierreHugues Herbert, France, def. Tennys Sandgren (4), United States, 63, 62.

Marcos Giron, United States, def. ThiagoMonteiro (11), Brazil, 64, 67, 76.

Marco Cecchinato, Italy, def. FrancesTiafoe (5), United States, 76, 62.

Carlos Taberner, Spain, def. JordanThompson (3), Australia, 36, 76, 62.

Juan Ignacio Londero, Argentina, def.Laslo Djere (1), Serbia, 63, 36, 62.

Federico Delbonis (12), Argentina, def.Bernabe Zapata Miralles, Spain, 76, 76.

Arthur Cazaux, France, def. SebastianKorda (6), United States, 76, 64.

Alexei Popyrin (10), Australia, def. Federico Coria, Argentina, 67, 64, 63.

Stefano Travaglia (7), Italy, def. CarlosGimeno Valero, Spain, 57, 61, 75.

Pablo Andujar (13), Spain, def. MikhailKukushkin, Kazakhstan, 63, 64.

Women’s SinglesRound of 32

Ashleigh Barty (1), Australia, def. Tamara Zidansek, Slovenia, 64, 16, 63.

Anastasija Sevastova, Latvia, def. Johanna Konta (15), Britain, 63, 63.

Iga Swiatek (14), Poland, def. Laura Siegemund, Germany, 63, 63.

Petra Kvitova (9), Czech Republic, def.Angelique Kerber, Germany, 64, 75.

Ons Jabeur, Tunisia, def. Sloane Stephens, United States, 46, 61, 63.

Veronika Kudermetova, Russia, def. KikiBertens (7), Netherlands, 64, 63.

Paula Badosa, Spain, def. Jil Teichmann,Switzerland, 57, 61, 62.

Belinda Bencic (8), Switzerland, def. Bernarda Pera, United States, 36, 61, 76 (5).

Women’s DoublesRound of 32

RalucaIoana Olaru, Romania, and Nadiia Kichenok, Ukraine, def. Zhaoxuan Yang,China, and Ekaterina Alexandrova, Russia,75, 63.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Russia, andJelena Ostapenko, Latvia, def. YaroslavaShvedova, Kazakhstan, and Makoto Ninomiya, Japan, 61, 57, 107.

Vera Zvonareva and Elena Vesnina, Russia, def. Lucie Hradecka, Czech Republic,and Laura Siegemund, Germany, 63, 64.

Renata Voracova, Czech Republic, andNao Hibino, Japan, def. Shuko Aoyama andEna Shibahara (4), Japan, 76 (4), 46, 107.

BMW OpenSaturday

At MTTC IphitosMunich

Purse: Euro 419,470Surface: Red clay

Men’s SinglesSemifinals

JanLennard Struff (7), Germany, def.Ilya Ivashka, Belarus, 64, 61.

Nikoloz Basilashvili (5), Georgia, def.Casper Ruud (2), Norway, 61, 62.

Estoril OpenSaturday

At Clube de Tenis do Estoril �Estoril, Portugal

Purse: Euro 419,470Surface: Red clay

Men’s SinglesSemifinals

Cameron Norrie, Britain, def. Marin Cilic(6), Croatia, 76 (5), 75.

Albert RamosVinolas (7), Spain, def.Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (8), Spain,61, 64.

Men’s DoublesSemifinals

Dominic Inglot and Luke Bambridge, Britain, def. Gonzalo Escobar, Ecuador, andAriel Behar, Uruguay, 63, 64.

AUTO RACING

Truck Wise Power 200

NASCAR TruckSaturday

At Kansas SpeedwayKansas City, Kan.

Lap length: 1.50 miles(Start position in parentheses)

1. (2) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 140 laps, 0points.

2. (34) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 140, 0. 3. (7) Austin Hill, Toyota, 140, 46. 4. (17) Christian Eckes, Toyota, 140, 33. 5. (1) John H. Nemechek, Toyota, 140, 50. 6. (6) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 140, 36. 7. (9) Zane Smith, Chevrolet, 140, 36. 8. (15) Raphael Lessard, Chevrolet, 140,

29. 9. (4) Johnny Sauter, Toyota, 140, 28. 10. (3) Ben Rhodes, Toyota, 140, 37. 11. (5) Chandler Smith, Toyota, 140, 26. 12. (26) Bayley Currey, Chevrolet, 140, 0. 13. (20) Hailie Deegan, Ford, 140, 25. 14. (10) Stewart Friesen, Toyota, 140, 32. 15. (13) Tyler Ankrum, Chevrolet, 140, 22. 16. (16) Austin Wayne Self, Chevrolet,

139, 21. 17. (29) Grant Enfinger, Chevrolet, 139,

20. 18. (18) Tanner Gray, Ford, 139, 19. 19. (30) Chase Briscoe, Ford, 139, 0. 20. (31) Ryan Truex, Chevrolet, 139, 17. 21. (22) Timothy Peters, Chevrolet, 139,

16. 22. (25) Timmy Hill, Chevrolet, 139, 0. 23. (11) Carson Hocevar, Chevrolet, 139,

14. 24. (12) Matt Crafton, Toyota, 139, 19. 25. (23) Chase Purdy, Chevrolet, 138, 12. 26. (21) Danny Bohn, Toyota, 138, 11. 27. (32) Bret Holmes, Chevrolet, 138, 10. 28. (14) Derek Kraus, Toyota, 138, 15. 29. (19) Spencer Davis, Ford, 137, 8. 30. (36) Jordan Anderson, Chevrolet, 137,

0. 31. (28) Dawson Cram, Chevrolet, 137, 6. 32. (8) Sheldon Creed, Chevrolet, 136, 21. 33. (24) Kris Wright, Chevrolet, 135, 4. 34. (40) Cj McLaughlin, Toyota, 133, 3. 35. (27) Spencer Boyd, Chevrolet, 133, 2. 36. (35) Tate Fogleman, Chevrolet, 130, 1. 37. (39) Jennifer Jo Cobb, Chevrolet, elec

trical, 106, 1. 38. (38) Jesse Iwuji, Chevrolet, garage,

73, 1. 39. (37) Norm Benning, Chevrolet, ga

rage, 42, 1. 40. (33) Ryan Reed, Chevrolet, garage,

27, 1.

Race Statistics

Average Speed of Race Winner: 119.585mph.

Time of Race: 1 hour, 45 minutes, 22 seconds.

Margin of Victory: 0.665 seconds. Caution Flags: 5 for 25 laps. Lead Changes: 14 among 7 drivers. Lap Leaders: J.Nemechek 011; S.Creed

1225; K.Busch 2637; S.Creed 3839;K.Busch 4063; J.Nemechek 6468; K.Busch6974; S.Creed 7599; K.Busch 100;B.Rhodes 101102; C.Eckes 103105; J.Sauter 106118; K.Busch 119132; R.Chastain133138; K.Busch 139140

Genesys 300

IndyCar �Saturday

At Texas Motor SpeedwayFort Worth, Texas.

Lap length: 1.5 miles(Start position in parentheses)

1. (3) Scott Dixon, DallaraHonda, 212laps, Running.

2. (15) Scott McLaughlin, DallaraChevrolet, 212, Running.

3. (11) Pato O'Ward, DallaraChevrolet,212, Running.

4. (1) Alex Palou, DallaraHonda, 212,Running.

5. (13) Graham Rahal, DallaraHonda,212, Running.

6. (10) Josef Newgarden, DallaraChevrolet, 212, Running.

7. (6) Jack Harvey, DallaraHonda, 212,Running.

8. (16) Alexander Rossi, DallaraHonda,212, Running.

9. (12) Takuma Sato, DallaraHonda, 212,Running.

10. (5) Simon Pagenaud, DallaraChevrolet, 212, Running.

11. (23) Tony Kanaan, DallaraHonda,212, Running.

12. (19) Ed Jones, DallaraHonda, 212,Running.

13. (18) Felix Rosenqvist, DallaraChevrolet, 212, Running.

14. (2) Will Power, DallaraChevrolet,212, Running.

15. (14) Pietro Fittipaldi, DallaraHonda,212, Running.

16. (21) Ryan HunterReay, DallaraHonda, 212, Running.

17. (17) Ed Carpenter, DallaraChevrolet,212, Running.

18. (22) Dalton Kellett, DallaraChevrolet, 212, Running.

19. (9) Marcus Ericsson, DallaraHonda,211, Running.

20. (8) Rinus Veekay, DallaraChevrolet,211, Running.

21. (24) Conor Daly, DallaraChevrolet,211, Running.

22. (4) Colton Herta, DallaraHonda, 190,Did not finish.

23. (20) James Hinchcliffe, DallaraHonda, 158, Did not finish.

24. (7) Sebastien Bourdais, DallaraChevrolet, 55, Did not finish.

Race Statistics

Average Speed of Race Winner: 173.036mph.

Time of Race: 01:45:51.3417. Margin of Victory: 0.2646 seconds. Cautions: 2 for 29 laps. Lead Changes: 3 among 2 drivers.

Saturday’s TransactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

CHICAGO WHITE SOX — Activated RHPLance Lynn from the 10day IL. OptionedOF Luis González to alternate training site.

CLEVELAND INDIANS — Placed RF Franmil Reyes on the paternity list. Recalled RFDaniel Johnson from alternate trainingsite.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS — Optioned 1BRyan McBroom to alternate training site.Recalled LHP Kris Bubic from Omaha (TripleA East). Placed RHP Kyle Zimmer onthe 10day IL. Recalled RHP Jake Newberryfrom Omaha (TripleA East).

NEW YORK YANKEES — Placed RHP Darren O’Day on the 10day injured list, retroactive to April 30. Recalled RHP MichaelKing from alternate site.

SEATTLE MARINERS — Recalled RHPWyatt Mills from alternate training site.Designated C Jacob Nottingham for assignment.

TAMPA BAY RAYS — Optioned RHPsLouis Head and Trevor Richards to Durham (TripleA East). Activated LHPs RichHill and Cody Reed from the 10day IL.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS — Acquired RHPPaxton Schultz from Milwaukee as playerto be named later.

National LeagueATLANTA BRAVES — Recalled CF Chris

tian Pache from alternate training site.Placed CF Guillermo Heredia on the 10dayIL, retroactive to April 30.

CHICAGO CUBS — Optioned LHP KyleRyan to Iowa (TripleA East). Recalled RHPKeegan Thompson from alternate trainingsite.

COLORADO ROCKIES — Placed RHP Antonio Senzatela on the 10day IL, retroactive to April 30. Recalled LHP Lucas Gilbreath from alternate training site.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS — Recalled LHPAlex Vesia from alternate training site.Optioned RHP pitcher Edwin Uceta to alternate training site.

MILWAUKEE BREWERS — Placed C OmarNarvaez 10day IL. Recalled C Mario Feliciano from alternate training site.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES — Activated SSDidi Gregorius from the 10day IL. Optioned C Rafael Marchan to alternatetraining site. Recalled CF Mickey Moniakfrom alternate training site. Placed CF Romain Quinn on the 10day IL.

BASKETBALLNational Basketball Association

CLEVELAND CAVALIERS — Signed FMfiondu Kabengele for the remainder ofthe season.

Women’s National BasketballAssociation

LAS VEGAS ACES — Announced C KateCain cleared waivers.

MINNESOTA LYNX — Announced F AlexWittinger cleared waivers.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Exercised theirfifthyear option on T Mike McGlinchey forthe 2022 season.

HOCKEYNational Hockey League

ANAHEIM DUCKS — Recalled G LukasDostal and LW Maxim Golod from San Diego (AHL) loan. Assigned G Olle Erikssonand RW Jacob Perreault to San Diego(AHL).

BOSTON BRUINS — Recalled G JeremySwayman from the minor league taxisquad.

BUFFALO SABRES — Recalled G UkkoPekka Luukkonen from the minor leaguetaxi squad.

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS — Recalled RWJohn Quenneville from Rockford (AHL)loan.

COLORADO AVALANCHE — Recalled DDan Renouf from Colorado (AHL) loan.Reassigned G Jonas Johansson to Colorado (AHL) from the taxi squad and Gs AdamWerner and Hunter Miska from Colorado(AHL) to the taxi squad.

DETROIT RED WINGS — Recalled C JoeVeleno from the minor league taxi squad.

MONTREAL CANADIENS — Recalled CsAlex Belzile and Ryan Poehling from Laval(AHL) loan and placed on taxi squad.

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS — Recalled DWyatte Wylie from Lehigh Valley (AHL)loan to taxi squad. Reassigned D EgorZamula to Lehigh Valley (AHL).

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS — Assigned GMax Lagace to WilkesBarre/Scranton(AHL).

SAN JOSE SHARKS — Loaned D JacobMiddleton to San Jose (AHL) from taxisquad.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — Recalled GChristopher Gibson from the minor leaguetaxi squad. Signed G Hugo Alnefelt to anentrylevel contract.

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS — Assigned DMartin Marincin and G Veini Vehvilainento Toronto (AHL).

SOCCERNational Women’s Soccer League

NWSL — Suspended Chicago Red StarMF Morgan Gautrat onegame for unsportsmanlike conduct in a match on April27 against OL Reign and Kansas City F Mariana Larroquette onegame for unsportsmanlike conduct in a match on April 26against Houston Dash.

DEALS SOCCER

MLS

Eastern Conference

W L T Pts GF GA

New England 2 0 1 7 5 3

New York City FC 2 1 0 6 8 2

Orlando City 1 0 2 5 4 1

Montreal 1 0 2 5 6 4

Atlanta 1 1 1 4 4 3

New York 1 2 0 3 5 5

Inter Miami CF 1 1 0 3 4 4

D.C. United 1 2 0 3 3 6

Nashville 0 0 2 2 4 4

Columbus 0 0 2 2 0 0

Toronto FC 0 1 1 1 4 6

Philadelphia 0 2 1 1 1 4

Chicago 0 2 1 1 3 7

Cincinnati 0 2 1 1 2 10

Western Conference

W L T Pts GF GA

San Jose 2 1 0 6 8 4

Real Salt Lake 2 0 0 6 5 2

LA Galaxy 2 0 0 6 6 4

Austin 2 1 0 6 4 3

Los Angeles FC 1 0 2 5 4 2

Seattle 1 0 1 4 5 1

FC Dallas 1 1 1 4 5 4

Vancouver 1 0 1 4 3 2

Houston 1 1 1 4 4 4

Kansas City 1 1 1 4 4 5

Portland 1 2 0 3 3 6

Colorado 0 1 1 1 1 3

Minnesota United 0 3 0 0 1 7

Saturday, May 1

New York 2, Chicago 0Real Salt Lake 3, Sporting Kansas City 1Columbus 0, Montreal 0, tieLos Angeles FC 1, Houston 1, tieNew England 2, Atlanta 1Orlando City 3, Cincinnati 0New York City FC 2, Philadelphia 0Austin 1, Minnesota 0FC Dallas 4, Portland 1San Jose 4, D.C. United 1

Sunday, May 2

Miami at NashvilleLA Galaxy at SeattleColorado at Vancouver

Valspar ChampionshipPGA Tour

SaturdayAt Innisbrook ResortCooperhead Course

Palm Harbor, Fla.Purse: $6.9 million

Yardage: 7,340; Par: 71Third Round

Keegan Bradley 64-66-69—199 -14 Sam Burns 67-63-69—199 -14 Max Homa 66-68-66—200 -13 Ted Potter, Jr. 67-73-63—203 -10 Abraham Ancer 67-70-66—203 -10 Joaquin Niemann 68-68-67—203 -10 Cameron Tringale 69-67-67—203 -10 Charley Hoffman 68-66-70—204 -9 Brandt Snedeker 69-69-67—205 -8 Bubba Watson 70-67-68—205 -8 Troy Merritt 68-69-68—205 -8 Scottie Scheffler 73-67-66—206 -7 Louis Oosthuizen 73-67-66—206 -7 Viktor Hovland 69-69-68—206 -7 Vaughn Taylor 70-67-69—206 -7 Jason Kokrak 67-69-70—206 -7 Hank Lebioda 66-69-71—206 -7 Justin Thomas 69-71-67—207 -6 Bronson Burgoon 71-68-68—207 -6 Bo Van Pelt 71-67-69—207 -6 Kevin Na 68-69-70—207 -6 Danny Lee 70-67-70—207 -6 Matthew NeSmith 70-69-69—208 -5 Camilo Villegas 71-68-69—208 -5 Corey Conners 70-68-70—208 -5 Charles Howell III 70-68-70—208 -5 Pat Perez 68-68-72—208 -5 Jason Dufner 70-71-68—209 -4 Denny McCarthy 72-69-68—209 -4 Wyndham Clark 69-72-68—209 -4 Ian Poulter 69-71-69—209 -4 Russell Knox 69-70-70—209 -4 Kyoung-Hoon Lee 69-69-71—209 -4 Scott Stallings 67-69-73—209 -4 Tom Lewis 70-65-74—209 -4 Sungjae Im 68-67-74—209 -4 Zach Johnson 68-67-74—209 -4 Charl Schwartzel 70-65-74—209 -4 Jimmy Walker 72-69-69—210 -3 Vincent Whaley 69-71-70—210 -3 Ryan Palmer 70-70-70—210 -3 Jhonattan Vegas 70-69-71—210 -3 Scott Brown 67-72-71—210 -3 Chase Koepka 68-70-72—210 -3 Henrik Norlander 69-69-72—210 -3 Kyle Stanley 68-70-72—210 -3 Kramer Hickok 67-74-70—211 -2 J.T. Poston 68-73-70—211 -2

Alex Noren 73-68-70—211 -2 Ryan Moore 66-74-71—211 -2 Keith Mitchell 70-70-71—211 -2 Adam Schenk 71-69-71—211 -2 Paul Casey 68-71-72—211 -2 Michael Gligic 69-68-74—211 -2 Lucas Glover 69-65-77—211 -2 Byeong Hun An 70-71-71—212 -1 Luke Donald 69-72-71—212 -1 Wesley Bryan 69-71-72—212 -1 Branden Grace 69-68-75—212 -1 Brandon Hagy 74-67-72—213 EHenrik Stenson 71-70-72—213 ETyler Duncan 70-71-72—213 EPeter Uihlein 73-68-72—213 EDoc Redman 68-72-73—213 EDustin Johnson 71-68-74—213 EJ.B. Holmes 70-71-74—215 +2 Joseph Bramlett 71-70-74—215 +2 Beau Hossler 68-72-75—215 +2 Patton Kizzire 66-75-76—217 +4

HSBC World ChampionshipLPGA Tour

SaturdayAt Sentosa Golf Club

Tanjong Course

Singapore

Purse: $1.6 millionYardage: 6,772; Par: 72

Third RoundXiyu Lin 67-68-67—202 -14 Hannah Green 71-66-66—203 -13 Inbee Park 64-69-70—203 -13 Gaby Lopez 68-71-65—204 -12 In Gee Chun 71-69-66—206 -10 Lydia Ko 69-68-69—206 -10 So Yeon Ryu 67-69-70—206 -10 Madelene Sagstrom 69-70-68—207 -9 Amy Yang 68-69-70—207 -9 Hyo Joo Kim 67-68-72—207 -9 Patty Tavatanakit 70-70-68—208 -8 Sophia Popov 67-70-71—208 -8 Amy Olson 71-70-68—209 -7 Gerina Piller 72-67-70—209 -7 Carlota Ciganda 69-67-73—209 -7 Moriya Jutanugarn 71-70-69—210 -6 Ally Ewing 72-66-72—210 -6 Celine Boutier 73-69-69—211 -5 Brittany Altomare 68-71-72—211 -5 Caroline Masson 67-70-74—211 -5 Angela Stanford 74-70-68—212 -4 Minjee Lee 69-73-70—212 -4 Nicole Broch Larsen 72-69-71—212 -4 Megan Khang 72-69-71—212 -4 Emily Kristine Pedersen 71-70-71—212 -4 Chella Choi 71-70-71—212 -4

Charley Hull 69-72-71—212 -4 Su Oh 68-72-72—212 -4 Jodi Ewart Shadoff 70-68-74—212 -4 Hee Young Park 65-68-79—212 -4 Wei-Ling Hsu 71-71-71—213 -3 Brittany Lincicome 74-67-72—213 -3 Jasmine Suwannapura 71-70-72—213 -3 Marina Alex 69-72-72—213 -3 Pornanong Phatlum 69-71-73—213 -3 Katherine Kirk 69-71-73—213 -3 Bronte Law 70-68-75—213 -3 Ariya Jutanugarn 74-74-66—214 -2 Jin Young Ko 71-76-67—214 -2 Shanshan Feng 68-70-76—214 -2 In Kyung Kim 73-72-70—215 -1 Jeongeun Lee6 68-74-73—215 -1 Mel Reid 70-70-75—215 -1 Lizette Salas 73-72-71—216 EAlena Sharp 73-72-71—216 EAzahara Munoz 73-71-72—216 EAngel Yin 71-73-72—216 EA Lim Kim 74-70-73—217 +1 Jing Yan 72-72-73—217 +1 Nasa Hataoka 74-72-72—218 +2 Annie Park 71-68-79—218 +2 Sung Hyun Park 78-71-70—219 +3 Jaye Marie Green 75-73-71—219 +3 Eun-Hee Ji 73-75-71—219 +3 Yu Liu 74-73-72—219 +3 Georgia Hall 73-73-73—219 +3 Jenny Shin 76-69-74—219 +3 Sarah Schmelzel 70-74-75—219 +3 Anna Nordqvist 74-73-73—220 +4 Cheyenne Knight 70-74-76—220 +4 Cydney Clanton 75-71-75—221 +5 Mi Hyang Lee 75-71-75—221 +5 Nanna Koerstz Madsen 72-74-75—221 +5 Danielle Kang 72-73-76—221 +5 Ashleigh Buhai 72-76-74—222 +6 Mirim Lee 71-77-74—222 +6 Kristen Gillman 74-75-74—223 +7 Hinako Shibuno 76-73-76—225 +9 Amanda Tan 76-76-77—229 +13

GOLF

PRO BASEBALL

MLB CalendarJuly 1113 — Amateur draft, Denver. July 13 — AllStar Game, Denver. July 25 — Hall of Fame induction, Coo

perstown, N.Y. Aug. 12 — New York Yankees vs. Chicago

White Sox at Dyersville, Iowa. Aug. 22 — Los Angeles Angels vs. Cleve

land at Williamsport, Pa. Dec. 1 — Collective bargaining agree

ment expires, 11:59 p.m. EST.


NHL

East Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

x-Pittsburgh 52 34 15 3 71 178 142

x-Washington 51 32 14 5 69 175 152

x-N.Y. Islanders 51 31 15 5 67 143 114

Boston 50 30 14 6 66 150 123

N.Y. Rangers 52 26 20 6 58 167 139

Philadelphia 51 22 22 7 51 144 186

New Jersey 51 17 27 7 41 136 178

Buffalo 52 13 32 7 33 126 185

Central Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

x-Carolina 51 34 10 7 75 166 121

x-Florida 53 34 14 5 73 175 148

x-Tampa Bay 51 34 14 3 71 170 130

Nashville 52 28 22 2 58 142 146

Dallas 51 21 17 13 55 140 133

Chicago 51 22 23 6 50 146 167

Detroit 53 18 26 9 45 117 162

Columbus 52 16 25 11 43 123 172

West Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

x-Vegas 50 36 12 2 74 168 110

x-Colorado 49 33 12 4 70 171 120

x-Minnesota 50 32 14 4 68 162 135

St. Louis 49 23 19 7 53 147 154

Arizona 52 22 24 6 50 139 163

San Jose 51 20 26 5 45 138 176

Los Angeles 49 19 24 6 44 130 147

Anaheim 52 16 29 7 39 116 166

North Division

GP W L OT Pts GF GA

x-Toronto 51 33 13 5 71 172 133

Edmonton 49 30 17 2 62 158 131

Winnipeg 50 27 20 3 57 153 143

Montreal 50 23 18 9 55 145 145

Calgary 50 22 25 3 47 132 144

Ottawa 51 19 27 5 43 141 177

Vancouver 45 19 23 3 41 119 147

x-clinched playoff spot

Friday’s games

Montreal 5, Winnipeg 3 Colorado 3, San Jose 0 Los Angeles 2, Anaheim 1 Arizona 3, Vegas 0

Saturday’s games

Boston 6, Buffalo 2 Detroit 1, Tampa Bay 0, SO N.Y. Islanders 3, N.Y. Rangers 0 Carolina 2, Columbus 1, OT New Jersey 4, Philadelphia 1 Toronto 5, Vancouver 1 Pittsburgh 3, Washington 0 Montreal 3, Ottawa 2, OT Florida 5, Chicago 4 Minnesota 4, St. Louis 3, OT Nashville 1, Dallas 0, OT Colorado 4, San Jose 3 Anaheim 6, Los Angeles 2 Edmonton 4, Calgary 1 Vegas 3, Arizona 2, OT

Sunday’s game

Tampa Bay at Detroit

Monday’s games

Boston at New Jersey Chicago at Carolina Dallas at Florida N.Y. Islanders at Buffalo Nashville at Columbus Pittsburgh at Philadelphia Toronto at Montreal Washington at N.Y. Rangers Winnipeg at Ottawa Anaheim at St. Louis Vegas at Minnesota Edmonton at Vancouver Los Angeles at Arizona Colorado at San Jose

Tuesday’s games

Boston at New Jersey Chicago at Carolina N.Y. Islanders at Buffalo Pittsburgh at Philadelphia

Edmonton at Vancouver

Scoring leadersThrough Saturday

GP G A PTS

Connor McDavid, EDM 48 28 56 84

Leon Draisaitl, EDM 48 24 43 67

Mitchell Marner, TOR 50 18 44 62

Patrick Kane, CHI 50 15 46 61

Nathan MacKinnon, COL 44 19 42 61

Brad Marchand, BOS 47 27 33 60

Auston Matthews, TOR 46 36 24 60

Jonathan Huberdeau, FLA 52 18 40 58

Artemi Panarin, NYR 40 17 39 56

Mark Stone, LV 48 19 37 56

Sidney Crosby, PIT 50 20 36 56

Mark Scheifele, WPG 50 19 36 55

Mikko Rantanen, COL 44 27 28 55

Jake Guentzel, PIT 51 22 31 53

Aleksander Barkov, FLA 46 24 28 52

Scoreboard

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Anthony

Beauvillier scored twice and Se-

myon Varlamov stopped 28 shots

for his league-leading seventh shut-

out of the season as the New York

Islanders beat the rival Rangers 3-0

Saturday night to clinch a playoff

spot for the third straight year.

Mathew Barzal added a break-

away goal and Josh Bailey had

three assists to help the Islanders

beat the Rangers for the sixth time

in eight meetings this season, in-

cluding the last three by a com-

bined 13-1 margin.

The 33-year-old Varlamov, who

had three shutouts against the

Rangers at Madison Square Gar-

den, added another as the Islanders

dominated from start to finish.

Alexandar Georgiev finished

with 22 saves for the Rangers.

Bruins 6, Sabres 2: Craig Smith

scored three goals to help host Bos-

ton win for the ninth time in 11

games.

The Bruins remained in fourth

place in the East Division, a point

behind the third-place Islanders,

who beat the Rangers 3-0. Boston’s

next point will clinch a playoff

berth. It also will earn a spot if the

fifth-place Rangers don’t win all of

their final four games.

Devils 4, Flyers 1: Mackenzie

Blackwood stopped 30 shots as vis-

iting New Jersey got its third

straight win.

Jesper Bratt, Janne Kuokkanen,

Nico Hischier and Yegor Sharan-

govich all scored for the Devils,

who had lost 10 straight games be-

fore this recent stretch during a

four game series against the Flyers.

Hurricanes 2, Blue Jackets 1

(OT): Dougie Hamilton scored on a

breakaway 4:07 into overtime to lift

host Carolina past Columbus.

Goalie Alex Nedeljkovic picked

up the assist on the winning play as

the Central Division-leading Hurri-

canes extended their points streak

to 10 games.

Wild 4, Blues 3 (OT):Kevin Fiala

scored 2:16 into overtime and Min-

nesota rallied to beat visiting St.

Louis.

Nico Strum and Jonas Brodin

scored late in the third period to

force overtime for the Wild, who

won for the first time in three

games. Mats Zuccarello had a goal

and an assist.

Avalanche 4, Sharks 3: Nathan

MacKinnon bounced back from a

rare scoreless night with a goal and

an assist to lead host Colorado.

Mikko Rantanen scored his 28th

of the season and added an assist

for the Avalanche. Andre Burakov-

sky and Patrik Nemeth also scored,

and Devan Dubnyk stopped 22

shots against his former team.

Panthers 5, Blackhawks 4: An-

thony Duclair had two goals and an

assist and visiting Florida won its

third straight.

Aleksander Barkov scored his

team-leading 25th goal and had an

assist. Nikita Gusev and Owen Tip-

pett also scored as the Panthers im-

proved to 8-2-1 in its last 11 and re-

mained two points behind first-

place Carolina in the Central Divi-

sion.

Predators 1, Stars 0 (OT): Erik

Haula scored at 3:32 of overtime to

give the host Nashville its third win

in four games.

Golden Knights 3, Coyotes 2

(OT): Jonathan Marchessault

scored on a power play at 3:04 of

overtime, Marc-Andre Fleury

moved into a tie for the third on the

NHL’s all-time wins list and Vegas

won at Arizona.

Penguins 3, Capitals 0: Bryan

Rust scored two unassisted goals,

Tristan Jarry made 23 saves and

Pittsburgh won at Washington to

regain first place in the East Divi-

sion.

Canadiens 3, Senators 2 (OT):

Cole Caufield scored his first NHL

goal 2:25 into overtime and host

Montreal rallied to beat Ottawa.

Maple Leafs 5, Canucks 1: Aus-

ton Matthews scored twice to raise

his NHL-leading goal total to 38 as

host Toronto won its fifth straight.

Oilers 4, Flames 1: Connor

McDavid had a goal and two assists

to lead host Edmonton to a win.

Ducks 6, Kings 2: Ryan Miller

made 23 saves to win the final home

start of his 18-year NHL career, and

Anaheim ended a 23-game streak

without a home regulation victory.

FRANK FRANKLIN II/AP

New York Islanders left wing Anthony Beauvillier looks to pass during the second period of the Islanders’30 defeat of the Rangers Saturday in Uniondale, N.Y. The win clinched a playoff spot for the Islanders.

Islanders blank Rangersto secure spot in playoffsBeauvillier scores twice, Varlamov has 28 saves in team’s shutout victory

Associated Press

ROUNDUP

DETROIT — Sam Gagner

scored to end an eight-round

shootout and Thomas Greiss

stopped 33 shots, lifting the De-

troit Red Wings to a 1-0 win over

the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sat-

urday.

The defending Stanley Cup

champion Lightning were in con-

trol all afternoon, but it didn’t

show up on the scoreboard in reg-

ulation or overtime.

“We did everything we could to

win that game,” Tampa Bay

coach Jon Cooper said. “I’ll take

that game all over again. Tip your

hat to the goaltenders, including

ours.”

In the shootout, both teams

scored with their first two shoo-

ters before four in a row were de-

nied. Greiss stopped just enough

shots in the shootout to help his

rebuilding and banged-up team

beat one of the best in the league.

The Lightning’s Curtis McEl-

hinney made 15 saves over three

periods and overtime.

Detroit’s defense was stingy

throughout the game, including

early in the first when Danny De-

Keyser lay on the ice to take away

a scoring chance.

“We’re not playing for the play-

offs, but we had guys laying out to

block shots with three games

left,” coach Jeff Blashill said.

When the pucks did get past the

Red Wings’ skaters, Greiss stop-

ped them with some impressive

kick and glove saves.

Tampa Bay also missed oppor-

tunities such as Ondrej Palat fail-

ing to take advantage of having

the puck and an open net at the

end of an odd-man rush during a

4-on-4 situation.

“I got a couple big breaks

where they had a 2-on-1 and

couldn’t put the puck in the net,”

Greiss acknowledged.

Red Wingsslip pastLightningin shootout

BY LARRY LAGE

Associated Press

PAUL SANCYA/AP

Red Wings defenseman MarcStaal, left, and Lightning centerBrayden Point, right, chase thepuck in the Red Wings’ 10shootout win Saturday.


NBA

Eastern Conference

Atlantic Division

W L Pct GB

x-Brooklyn 43 21 .672 —

x-Philadelphia 42 21 .667 ½

New York 35 28 .556 7½

Boston 34 30 .531 9

Toronto 26 38 .406 17

Southeast Division

W L Pct GB

Atlanta 35 30 .538 —

Miami 34 30 .531 ½

Charlotte 31 32 .492 3

Washington 29 35 .453 5½

Orlando 20 44 .313 14½

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Milwaukee 39 24 .619 —

Indiana 30 33 .476 9

Chicago 26 38 .406 13½

Cleveland 21 43 .328 18½

Detroit 19 45 .297 20½

Western Conference

Southwest Division

W L Pct GB

Dallas 36 27 .571 —

Memphis 32 31 .508 4

San Antonio 31 31 .500 4½

New Orleans 29 35 .453 7½

Houston 16 48 .250 20½

Northwest Division

W L Pct GB

x-Utah 46 18 .719 —

Denver 43 21 .672 3

Portland 35 28 .556 10½

Oklahoma City 21 43 .328 25

Minnesota 20 45 .308 26½

Pacific Division

W L Pct GB

x-Phoenix 45 18 .714 —

L.A. Clippers 43 22 .662 3

L.A. Lakers 36 27 .571 9

Golden State 32 32 .500 13½

Sacramento 26 37 .413 19

x-clinched playoff spot

Saturday’s games

Charlotte 107, Detroit 94 Golden State 113, Houston 87 Miami 124, Cleveland 107 Indiana 152, Oklahoma City 95 Atlanta 108, Chicago 97 Orlando 112, Memphis 111 New Orleans 140, Minnesota 136, OT Dallas 125, Washington 124 Utah 106, Toronto 102 Denver 110, L.A. Clippers 104

Sunday’s games

Brooklyn at Milwaukee Portland at Boston Miami at Charlotte New York at Houston Philadelphia at San Antonio Phoenix at Oklahoma City Sacramento at Dallas Toronto at L.A. Lakers

Monday’s games

Indiana at Washington Orlando at Detroit Golden State at New Orleans Portland at Atlanta New York at Memphis Philadelphia at Chicago Denver at L.A. Lakers San Antonio at Utah

Tuesday’s games

Charlotte at Detroit Phoenix at Cleveland Brooklyn at Milwaukee Dallas at Miami Golden State at New Orleans Sacramento at Oklahoma City Toronto at L.A. Clippers

Leaders

Through Saturday

Scoring

G FG FT PTS AVG

Curry, GS 56 572 316 1751 31.3

Beal, WAS 55 607 374 1707 31.0

Rebounds

G OFF DEF TOT AVG

Capela, ATL 57 275 552 827 14.5

Gobert, UTA 63 210 635 845 13.4

Assists

G AST AVG

Westbrook, WAS 57 627 11.0

Young, ATL 56 527 9.4

Scoreboard

OKLAHOMA CITY — Domantas Sabonis

had a triple-double in the first half and the Indi-

ana Pacers flirted with the most lopsided victory

in NBA history before beating the Oklahoma

City Thunder 152-95 on Saturday night.

Sabonis finished with 26 points, 19 rebounds

and 14 assists, and the Pacers scored their most

points in a game since joining the NBA in 1976.

They led by 67 points with 4:12 remaining, be-

fore the Thunder scored the game’s next 10

points. The NBA’s largest victory margin re-

mains 68, set by Cleveland against Miami in

1991.

The Pacers’ previous record was 150 points

against Denver in 1982. Indiana shot 65.5% from

the field — the highest percentage for an oppo-

nent in Thunder history.

Sabonis returned after missing six straight

games with a sore lower back. He finished the

first half with 22 points, 11 rebounds and 11 as-

sists for his seventh triple-double of the season

the 11th of his career.

Hornets 107, Pistons 94: LaMelo Ball re-

turned from a 21-game absence with 11 points,

leading host Charlotte over Detroit.

A leading candidate for Rookie of the Year,

Ball had surgery to repair a broken wrist sus-

tained on March 20. The point guard played 28

minutes and added eight rebounds and seven as-

sists, including a nifty underhand pass from his

own backcourt to Miles Bridges.

Nuggets 110, Clippers 104:Nikola Jokic had

30 points and 14 rebounds, Michael Porter Jr.

scored 25 points and Denver won at Los Angeles

to take over the third seed in the Western Con-

ference.

The Nuggets, who are a half-game in front of

the Clippers at 43-21, have won five straight and

are 9-1 since Jamal Murray went down with a

torn ACL in his left knee on April 12. Murray,

who is rehabbing in Los Angeles, was at the

game.

Mavericks 125, Wizards 124: Dorian Fin-

ney-Smith hit a go-ahead three-pointer in the fi-

nal seconds, Luka Doncic ended his longest

stretch without a triple-double since his rookie

season and host Dallas won a thriller over Wash-

ington.

Doncic finished with 31 points, 12 rebounds

and a career-high 20 assists, the last to Finney-

Smith in the right corner for the lead with 9.2

seconds remaining.

Warriors 113, Rockets 87: Stephen Curry

bounced back from a rough first half with 23 of

his 30 points in the third quarter, and Golden

State won at Houston.

Curry was just 2-for-12 in the first half, then

didn’t even need to play in the fourth quarter af-

ter the Warriors outscored the Rockets 39-12 to

take an 88-67 lead.

Magic 112, Grizzlies 111: Cole Anthony

made a three-pointer with 0.1 seconds remain-

ing, giving him a career-best 26 points and Or-

lando a victory over visiting Memphis.

Anthony, a rookie who hit a game-winning

shot earlier in the season against Minnesota,

drilled the high-arching shot over the out-

stretched arm of Grizzlies guard Kyle Anderson.

Jazz 106, Raptors 102: Bojan Bogdanovic

scored 34 points — including six three-pointers

— to lead host Utah over Toronto.

Jordan Clarkson added 15 points for the Jazz,

Joe Ingles chipped in 15 points and nine assists

while Rudy Gobert added 13 points and 16 re-

bounds. Utah won for just the second time in five

games.

Hawks 108, Bulls 97: Trae Young scored 33

points, Clint Capela had 20 points and 11 re-

bounds and host Atlanta snapped a three-game

slide with a victory over undermanned Chicago.

Heat 124, Cavaliers 107: Kendrick Nunn

scored 22 points and Duncan Robinson had 20,

helping visiting Miami move into a tie for sixth

place in the Eastern Conference.

Sabonis leads Pacers’ rout of Thunder

SUE OGROCKI/AP

Indiana Pacers forward Domantas Sabonis,right, is fouled by Oklahoma City Thunderguard Theo Maledon in the Pacers’ 15296victory Saturday in Oklahoma City.

Associated Press

ROUNDUP

MINNEAPOLIS — Zion William-

son scored seven of his 37 points in

overtime and the New Orleans Pel-

icans came back to beat the Minne-

sota Timberwolves 140-136 on Sat-

urday.

Lonzo Ball had a career-high 33

points, tying a career best with eight

three-pointers, and grabbed 11 re-

bounds. Willy Hernangomez added

12 points and 12 rebounds. His fol-

low shot with 21 seconds left com-

pleted New Orleans’ comeback

from down 10 in the fourth quarter

to force overtime.

“We’ve had games where we’ve

won good,” Pelicans coach Stan Van

Gundy said. “We’ve had games

where we’ve given up leads like to-

night, but this team has never quit

on anything.”

Anthony Edwards scored 29

points for Minnesota, which had its

four-game winning streak snapped.

Karl-Anthony Towns had 28 points

and 14 rebounds, and D’Angelo Rus-

sell finished with 17 points and 11 as-

sists.

The Timberwolves were trying

for their longest winning streak

since January 2018 in Jimmy But-

ler’s first season with the team.

“It just bogged down,” Minnesota

coach Chris Finch said of the closing

stretch in the fourth. “I think guys

were just looking to do things all by

themselves a little bit too much and

we just got to trust the ball move-

ment.”

New Orleans closed with a 14-4

run over the final 4:22 of the fourth

to force overtime and then William-

son went to work in the extra ses-

sion. Williamson added nine re-

bounds and eight assists, while three

Timberwolves players fouled out

while trying to guard Williamson.

With Ball leading the way, New

Orleans finished 14-for-36 from be-

yond the arc.

Williamson carries Pelicans in OTSeven of team-high 37in extra period cap rallyin win over Timberwolves

BY BRIAN HALL

Associated Press

STACY BENGS /AP

New Orleans forward Zion Williamson (1) shoots against the Minnesota Timberwolves’ KarlAnthonyTowns, left, and Jarred Vanderbilt during the Pelicans’ 140136 overtime win Saturday in Minneapolis.


KENTUCKY DERBY/SPORTS BRIEFS

Protests force Man. Uto postpone game

Manchester United’s Premier

League game against Liverpool

was postponed on Sunday in Man-

chester, Englad, after supporters

stormed into the stadium and onto

the pitch as thousands of fans

gathered outside Old Trafford to

demand the Glazer family owner-

ship sells the club.

Long-running anger against the

American owners has boiled over

after they were part of the failed

attempt to take United into a Eu-

ropean Super League. United and

Liverpool players were unable to

travel to the stadium.

Busch makes up for

restart to win truck race Kyle Busch blew a restart in

overtime that should have cost

him a race he’d dominated at Kan-

sas Speedway. Given a second

chance, Busch corrected his mis-

take and earned the 61st Truck Se-

ries win of his career Saturday in

Kansas City, Kan.

The win Saturday night was the

fifth straight for Kyle Busch Mo-

torsports and manufacturer Toyo-

ta has won all seven Truck Series

races this year. Busch has won

twice this year. Busch won the

first two stages and led a race-high

59 of the 140 laps.

Dixon wins again in

IndyCar race in Texas Scott Dixon finished first in a

race of two New Zealanders, the

veteran six-time IndyCar cham-

pion ahead of the series rookie

racing in his debut on an oval

track.

“Definitely the most happy I’ve

ever been finishing second,” Scott

McLaughlin said.

It was another dominating vic-

tory for Dixon at Texas Motor

Speedway in Fort Worth, winning

Saturday night in the first of two

races on consecutive days at the

series’ first oval this season. He

passed Chip Ganassi Racing

teammate and polesitter Alex Pa-

lou at the start of the third lap and

went on to lead 206 of 212 laps.

BARRINGTON COOMBS/AP

Fans hold up a banner as theyprotest against the Glazer family,owners of Manchester United,before their match againstLiverpool was canceled Sunday.

BRIEFLY

Associated Press

loun on his outside. Hot Rod Charlie was com-

ing fast outside of Mandaloun, with 5-2 favorite

Essential Quality giving chase on the far out-

side.

“I kept waiting for all those horses to pass

him,” Baffert said. “When he got to the eighth

pole, we said, ‘This guy has got a shot.’ ”

Velazquez knew he had plenty of horse left.

“We got to the 16th pole and he put his ears

down and kept fighting,” the jockey said. “I

was so proud of him.”

In the paddock, Baffert watched in amaze-

ment as one of the least heralded Derby run-

ners of his long career dug in at the front.

“You could tell he was laying it down and

Johnny was riding hard,” Baffert said. “He was

just relentless.”

Medina Spirit led all the way and ran 1 ¼

miles in 2:01.02. He paid $26.20, $12 and $7.60.

The victory was worth $1.86 million.

Velazquez earned his fourth Derby victory

aboard the colt that was purchased as a year-

ling for $1,000 and was a bargain-basement

buy at $35,000 for current owner Amr Zedan of

Saudi Arabia. By comparison, Zedan recently

paid $1.7 million for an unraced 2-year-old.

“He doesn’t know how much he cost,” Baff-

ert said, “but what a little racehorse.”

Baffert punched his right arm in the air after

watching the finish on the video board. He was

buried in celebratory hugs by his wife, Jill, and

youngest son, Bode. Jill Baffert had reason to

celebrate earlier, when a horse she co-owns

and is trained by her husband won a $500,000

race on the undercard.

“I’m really, really surprised,” the 68-year-

old trainer said of Medina Spirit.

It wasn’t false modesty. Baffert had been

low-key about his chances after two of his best

horses — Life Is Good and Concert Tour —

were derailed along the Derby trail.

Medina Spirit isn’t the typical high-priced

talent with a fancy pedigree in Baffert’s Cali-

fornia barn.

“I cannot believe he won this race,” the

trainer said. “That little horse, that was him, all

guts. He’s always shown that he’s been an over-

achiever. His heart is bigger than his body.”

Medina Spirit has never finished worse than

second in six career starts and two of his three

losses came to Life Is Good, who likely would

have been the Derby favorite had he not been

injured.

“I’ve rehearsed this speech in the shower

and treadmill,” Zedan said. “Never thought I

was going to do it, but here I am.”

Medina Spirit broke sharply out of the gate

while Essential Quality and 9-2 second choice

Rock Your World bumped shortly after the

start.

“We were done,” Rock Your World’s trainer

John Sadler said. “No chance.”

Essential Quality was five horses wide in

both the first and second turns before taking

aim at Medina Spirit in the stretch and coming

up short in fourth place.

“He didn’t get the greatest trip,” trainer

Brad Cox said of the favorite. “That can hap-

pen when you start from the 14-hole.”

Mandaloun — Cox’s other entry — finished

second and returned $23.00 and $13.40. Hot

Rod Charlie, partly owned by five former

Brown University football players, was anoth-

er half-length back in third and paid $5.20 to

show.

Trainer Todd Pletcher saddled four run-

ners, with his highest finish being ninth with

Known Agenda. Sainthood was 11th, Bourbon-

ic 13th and Dynamic One 18th.

Baffert won back-to-back, having tied Ben

Jones with his sixth victory last year when the

race was run in September without spectators

because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The seven wins? I can’t believe I won two,”

Baffert said. “That’s what I love about this

business: Nobody knows for sure.”

A week earlier, Baffert sat in front of the Ar-

kansas Racing Commission appealing a 15-day

suspension that was part of his punishment for

a pair of drug positives involving two of his

horses from May 2020. He was successful, with

the commission voting unanimously to reduce

his fines and overturn the suspension.

“I’m just so grateful I can still compete at this

level,” Baffert said.

PHTOOS BY JEFF ROBERSON/AP

John Velazquez, riding Medina Spirit, right, leads Florent Geroux on Mandaloun, Flavien Prat riding Hot Rod Charlie and Luis Saez on EssentialQuality to win the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, Saturday, in Louisville, Ky.

Jockey John Velazquez holds the winner’strophy after his fourth Kentucky Derby victory, Saturday, in Louisville, Ky.

Colt: Medina Spirit most unlikelyof Baffert’s seven Derby winnersFROM PAGE 24


MLB

American League

East Division

W L Pct GB

Boston 17 11 .607 _

Toronto 13 12 .520 2½

Baltimore 13 14 .481 3½

New York 13 14 .481 3½

Tampa Bay 13 15 .464 4

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Kansas City 16 9 .640 _

Chicago 15 11 .577 1½

Cleveland 12 13 .480 4

Minnesota 9 16 .360 7

Detroit 8 20 .286 9½

West Division

W L Pct GB

Oakland 16 12 .571 _

Houston 15 12 .556 ½

Seattle 15 13 .536 1

Los Angeles 13 12 .520 1½

Texas 12 16 .429 4

National League

East Division

W L Pct GB

Philadelphia 13 14 .481 _

Washington 11 12 .478 _

New York 10 11 .476 _

Atlanta 12 15 .444 1

Miami 11 15 .423 1½

Central Division

W L Pct GB

Milwaukee 17 10 .630 _

St. Louis 15 12 .556 2

Cincinnati 12 14 .462 4½

Pittsburgh 12 14 .462 4½

Chicago 12 15 .444 5

West Division

W L Pct GB

San Francisco 16 11 .593 _

Los Angeles 16 12 .571 ½

San Diego 16 12 .571 ½

Arizona 14 13 .519 2

Colorado 10 17 .370 6

Friday’s games

N.Y. Yankees 10, Detroit 0Houston 9, Tampa Bay 2Boston 6, Texas 1Toronto 13, Atlanta 5Cleveland 5, Chicago White Sox 3Minnesota 9, Kansas City 1Baltimore 3, Oakland 2Seattle 7, L.A. Angels 4St. Louis 7, Pittsburgh 3Washington 2, Miami 1, 10 inningsPhiladelphia 2, N.Y. Mets 1Cincinnati 8, Chicago Cubs 6Milwaukee 3, L.A. Dodgers 1Arizona 7, Colorado 2San Diego 3, San Francisco 2

Saturday’s games

N.Y. Yankees 6, Detroit 4Kansas City 11, Minnesota 3Houston 3, Tampa Bay 1Chicago White Sox 7, Cleveland 3Baltimore 8, Oakland 4Texas 8, Boston 6Toronto 6, Atlanta 5, 10 inningsL.A. Angels 10, Seattle 5Washington 7, Miami 2Chicago Cubs 3, Cincinnati 2N.Y. Mets 5, Philadelphia 4St. Louis 12, Pittsburgh 5San Diego 6, San Francisco 2Colorado 14, Arizona 6Milwaukee 6, L.A. Dodgers 5, 11 innings

Sunday’s games

Detroit at N.Y. YankeesAtlanta at TorontoHouston at Tampa BayCleveland at Chicago White SoxKansas City at MinnesotaBoston at TexasBaltimore at OaklandL.A. Angels at SeattleMiami at WashingtonSt. Louis at PittsburghChicago Cubs at CincinnatiL.A. Dodgers at MilwaukeeColorado at ArizonaSan Francisco at San DiegoN.Y. Mets at Philadelphia

Monday’s games

Texas (Dunning 1-1) at Minnesota (Mae-da 1-2)

Cleveland (Civale 4-0) at Kansas City (Ju-nis 1-1)

Tampa Bay (Wacha 1-1) at L.A. Angels(Ohtani 1-0)

Toronto (Matz 4-1) at Oakland (Montas2-2)

Baltimore (TBD) at Seattle (TBD)Milwaukee (Houser 2-2) at Philadelphia

(Moore 0-1)L.A. Dodgers (Buehler 1-0) at Chicago

Cubs (Hendricks 1-3)N.Y. Mets (TBD) at St. Louis (Wainwright

0-3)San Francisco (Sanchez 1-1) at Colorado

(Márquez 1-2)Pittsburgh (Anderson 2-2) at San Diego

(TBD)

Scoreboard

PHILADELPHIA — Michael Conforto hit a

tiebreaking home run in the ninth inning and

the New York Mets benefited from a very ques

tionable call by the second base umpire to beat

the Philadelphia Phillies 54 Saturday night.

Conforto led off the ninth by connecting

against Hector Neris (13).

Conforto also had a tworun double in a four

run first inning against former teammate Zack

Wheeler. The Mets squandered the 40 lead but

recovered to win for just the fourth time in 12

games — even after center fielder Brandon

Nimmo and third baseman J.D. Davis exited

with hand injuries.

Alec Bohm tied it with a tworun homer for

the Phillies, who have alternated wins and loss

es in their past 10 games. Philadelphia hasn’t

won consecutive games since a threegame

sweep of Atlanta to open the season.

With one out in the bottom of the seventh, sec

ond base umpire Jose Navas ruled Andrew

McCutchen ran out of the baseline to avoid an

attempted tag by shortstop Francisco Lindor on

what became an inningending double play. Re

plays showed McCutchen ran in a straight line

from first to second.

Phillies slugger Bryce Harper, sitting out af

ter getting hit in the face by a pitch Wednesday,

was ejected for arguing from the top step of the

dugout.

Trevor May (21) pitched a scoreless eighth

and Edwin Díaz struck out two in a perfect ninth

for his third save. New York relievers have

thrown 19 straight scoreless innings.

Nationals 7, Marlins 2:Patrick Corbin ended

his 10game losing streak, pitching seven solid

innings and leading host Washington over Mia

mi.

Josh Bell hit a basesloaded double and drove

in four runs, Yan Gomes had a tworun homer

and Josh Harrison had three hits as the Nation

als won their third in a row.

Corbin (13), who opened the season on the

COVID19 injured list and began the afternoon

with a 10.47 ERA in four starts, limited the Mar

lins to two runs and four hits.

White Sox 7, Indians 3: Tim Anderson hit a

grand slam, Leury García drove in three runs

from the No. 9 spot in the lineup and host Chica

go beat Cleveland.

Lance Lynn (21) allowed three runs in five

innings in his return from the injured list for the

White Sox, who have won seven of nine.

Cubs 3, Reds 2:Nick Hoerner hit a goahead

single in the sixth inning and visiting Chicago’s

bullpen shut down Cincinnati.

Hoerner drove in Javier Báez with one of his

three hits, a twoout single off reliever Sean

Doolittle to complete the Cubs’ comeback from

a 20 deficit.

Rex Brothers (10) struck out all three batters

he faced in the sixth, the first three of eight

strikeouts piled up by five Chicago relievers in

five innings.

Royals 11, Twins 3: Andrew Benintendi hit

two homers, Salvador Perez homered and

drove in three runs, and visiting Kansas City

cruised past Minnesota.

Danny Duffy (41) continued his strong start

to the season in helping the AL Centralleading

Royals bounce back from Friday night’s 91

loss. He allowed one run and two hits in seven

innings while striking out seven.

Astros 3, Rays 1: Jose Urquidy scattered

four hits over seven shutout innings and visiting

Houston made an early lead stand up.

Jose Altuve doubled on the first pitch of the

game, leading to a threerun inning. The Astros

got three hits in the first inning and only one

more the rest of the game.

Orioles 8, Athletics 4: Matt Harvey won his

third straight start and Baltimore took advan

tage of host Oakland’s sloppy play to score six

runs in the third inning.

The Athletics made two errors and threw a

pair of wild pitches to help the Orioles break

loose.

Harvey (31) allowed two runs and four hits in

52⁄�3 innings. It marked the first time since 2018

with Cincinnati that the former AllStar had

won three starts in a row.

Yankees 6, Tigers 4: Jameson Taillon

earned his first win in exactly two years, Aaron

Judge had three hits and three RBIs, and host

New York beat Detroit.

Gleyber Torres also drove in three runs as the

Yankees won for the sixth time in seven games.

Blue Jays 6, Braves 5 (10):At Dunedin, Fla.,

Randal Grichuk lined an RBI single in the 10th

inning, George Springer hit his first two homers

with the Blue Jays, and Toronto rallied to beat

Atlanta.

Grichuk won it with two outs and the bases

loaded when he hit an 01 pitch from Nate Jones

(02) into center field.

The Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. connected for

his ninth home run this season.

Rangers 8, Red Sox 6: Isiah KinerFalefa

homered and had an RBI triple among his trio of

hits, and Willie Calhoun’s three hits included a

tworun homer as host Texas topped Boston.

Ian Kennedy whiffed all three hitters in the

ninth for his sixth save in six opportunities.

Cardinals 12, Pirates 5: Jack Flaherty

pitched six solid innings to keep his record per

fect and Paul DeJong hit a threerun homer in

the first to send visiting St. Louis over Pitts

burgh.

Flaherty (50) struck out nine while winning

his fifth straight start. He gave up three runs on

six hits and two walks.

DeJong’s drive off Trevor Cahill (13) capped

afourrun first and helped the Cardinals win for

the seventh time in nine games.

Padres 6, Giants 2: Blake Snell earned his

first win for San Diego, backed by Manny Ma

chado’s early threerun homer against visiting

San Francisco.

Snell (10) gave up one earned run and five

hits in five innings, striking out six.

Rockies 14, Diamondbacks 6: Dom Nuñez

launched a grand slam, Trevor Story had three

hits that included a tworun homer and visiting

Colorado pounded out 18 hits in a win over Ari

zona.

It was a good start to May for the Rockies, who

had the most losses in the National League dur

ing April with a 917 record.

Brewers 6, Dodgers 5 (11): Travis Shaw

homered and hit a gamewinning single, and

host Milwaukee scored three runs in the 11th in

ning to beat scuffling Los Angeles.

In the 11th, Drew Smith hit a tworun triple off

Drew Rasmussen to give the Dodgers a 53 lead.

The Brewers loaded the bases with no outs af

ter Alex Vesia (01) started the inning with two

walks. Mitch White gave up a sacrifice fly to

Kolten Wong, an RBI single to Avisail Garcia

and the gameending hit to Shaw.

Angels 10, Mariners 5: Jared Walsh home

red in consecutive innings, and Los Angeles

star Mike Trout hit his 28th long ball in Seattle.

Walsh followed Trout’s 10th career firstin

ning homer in Seattle with a solo shot, then add

ed a tworun drive in the second that made it 80.

The Angels have won four of six.

Trout is the only Mariners opponent with

more than 20 home runs in Seattle.

ROUNDUP

Questionable call helps out Mets

LAURENCE KESTERSON / AP

The Phillies’ Andrew McCutchen, right, and manager Joe Girardi dispute a call at second basewith umpire Phil Cuzzi during the seventh inning on Saturday against the New York Mets inPhiladelphia. McCutchen was called out on the play for running out of the base line.

Conforto homers in ninthafter basepaths rulinghalts Phillies’ seventh

Associated Press

Top: Medina Spirit, right, with John Velazquez aboard, leads the field around the first turn on the way to winning the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs onSaturday, in Louisville, Ky. Above: Hall of Fame Trainer Bob Baffert collected his record 7th victory, most of any trainer in the race’s history.

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL CONROY, TOP, AND JEFF ROBERSON, ABOVE/AP

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — John Velazquez was in

a familiar place, in the lead aboard Medina

Spirit in the Kentucky Derby and holding off

the stretch bid of three challengers. This time,

Bob Baffert couldn’t believe what he was see-

ing.

Medina Spirit won by a half-length on Satur-

day, giving Baffert his seventh victory, the

most of any trainer in the race’s 147-year histo-

ry.

The jockey and trainer — both Hall of Fam-

ers — teamed up eight months ago to win a pan-

demic-delayed Derby in September with Au-

thentic, who raced to an early lead and hung on.

That wasn’t so surprising.

This one was.

Sent off at 12-1 — astronomical odds for a colt

trained by the white-haired, two-time Triple

Crown winner — Medina Spirit was in a street

fight thundering down the stretch.

The dark brown colt was pressed by Manda-

Unheralded colt Medina Spirit gives Baffert record 7th win in historic raceBY BETH HARRIS

Associated Press

SEE COLT ON PAGE 22

KENTUCKY DERBY

“I cannot believe he won this race. That little horse, thatwas him, all guts. ... His heart is bigger than his body.”

Bob Baffert

Hall of Fame trainer, on Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit

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Unheralded Medina Spirit gives Baffert 7th victory