The Full Belmonte, 9/8/2022
Shooting Spree Leaves 4 Dead in Memphis and Paralyzes City
The police arrested a 19-year-old who they said had carried out a string of shootings. Residents had been urged to stay indoors during the search.
“A string of shootings in Memphis that left four people dead and three others injured led the authorities on a feverish police manhunt that effectively closed down Tennessee’s second-largest city until the police announced late Wednesday night that they had captured a 19-year-old suspect.
At a news conference early Thursday morning, Mayor Jim Strickland condemned what he called a ‘senseless murder rampage.’ He said that he was ‘angry for our citizens who had to shelter in place until this suspect was caught. This is no way for us to live, and it is not acceptable. The people of our city were confronted with the type of violence no one should have to face.’
The Memphis Police Department identified the suspect in the rampage, which the authorities said included no fewer than eight crime scenes and crossed into neighboring Mississippi, as Ezekiel Kelly.” Read more at New York Times
Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon facing charges for duping donors
“Steve Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump, is expected to surrender for arraignment Thursday in New York City on new criminal charges involving an alleged fundraising scheme. The case is expected to echo aspects of a previous federal criminal case that accused Bannon and three co-defendants of conspiring to dupe donors who contributed more than $25 million to build a security wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Donors were told all of the money raised would go toward the construction project – but the federal indictment in that case alleged that Bannon and his co-defendants secretly siphoned off donations. Read more
•Multiple criminal cases entangle Bannon: Trump ally's legal troubles from the border wall fund to Jan. 6 contempt.” Read more at USA Today
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon speaks with reporters as he departs federal court on Friday, July 22, 2022, in Washington.Alex Brandon, AP
Las Vegas public official arrested on suspicion of murder in investigative reporter's death
“Five days after the violent slaying of investigative reporter Jeff German, police arrested an elected public official who had been the subject of a series of high-profile stories by the slain journalist that uncovered claims of bullying and retaliation. Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was arrested on suspicion of murder by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at his home in western Las Vegas just hours after investigators concluded a search of his property. Read more
•From Memphis: 4 dead, 3 injured after man goes on hourslong shooting spree.•A missing suspect in a deadly Canadian stabbing spree has died, authorities say.” Read more at USA Today
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police tow Clark County Public Administrator Rob Telles’ vehicle from his Las Vegas home on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. Police searched the property in connection with reporter Jeff German’s slaying. The vehicle matches the description released by authorities of a car tied to the killing.Rio Lacanlale/RGJ
“The Fed appears set to raise interest rates by another 0.75 percentage point this month.
Central-bank officials have done little to push back against market expectations of a third consecutive increase of that size, and Chairman Jerome Powell publicly pledged to reduce inflation even if it increases unemployment. Their policy meeting is Sept. 20-21. Meanwhile, in a speech at a banking conference, Fed Vice Chairwoman Lael Brainard said that rate rises will bring down inflation, but officials will eventually have to balance risks of stopping too soon with overtightening.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Justice Dept. Faces Tough Calls in Weighing Response to Trump Ruling
As the department decides whether to appeal the ruling on a special master, it is balancing a desire to speedily resolve the inquiry with the need to limit an expansive view of executive power.
By Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer
“WASHINGTON — The Justice Department faces a complex and consequential decision this week: whether to appeal all, part or none of a court order requiring it to turn over to an independent arbiter materials seized last month from Donald J. Trump’s home in Florida.
The ruling, issued by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on Monday, is more likely to delay than derail the investigation into Mr. Trump’s retention of highly classified documents belonging to the government. But the judge’s blunt, far-reaching defense of Mr. Trump’s rights as a former president poses a dilemma for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and his top officials, who until the ruling had controlled the public narrative surrounding the inquiry.
The case presents the department with several tough calls, requiring a careful balance between the desires to speedily resolve the investigation and to limit an expansion of executive power espoused by Mr. Trump’s team.
Department officials are expected to oppose the judge’s call for the arbiter, known as a special master, by a midnight deadline on Friday. The question is whether they will mount a narrow approach geared at extracting relatively small concessions from the judge, to speed up the independent review, or if they plan a more comprehensive, riskier appeal to reverse what they see as a dangerous enhancement of presidential power.
Over the past several days, senior officials at the department have been huddling to game out options. They range from the relatively safe step of filing a motion with Judge Cannon, who was appointed as a federal judge in Florida by Mr. Trump, to reconsider all or part of her ruling; to requesting that the court limit the time and scope of the special master’s review; to the riskier move of appealing the ruling up to the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta, which is stocked with no fewer than six Trump appointees.
There is no easy path for Mr. Garland’s team.
The ruling would effectively shut down the government’s use of the documents for the criminal inquiry into whether the former president violated the Espionage Act and obstructed investigators by hoarding and concealing materials at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. It still allows the intelligence agencies to continue assessing the potential risks to national security caused by the insecure storage of highly classified documents around Mr. Trump’s private club and residence.
In an unusual move, Judge Cannon signaled her intention of granting Mr. Trump’s request for a special master before she issued her order, but its breadth forced the department to recalibrate its plans, officials familiar with the discussions said.
The decision also left many critical questions unanswered, including whether prosecutors can use information they have gathered after weeks of access to the seized trove to pursue other investigative leads, or whether they can continue to interview witnesses or subpoena documents not related to the more than 11,000 files retrieved during last month’s search.” Read more at New York Times
New malaria vaccine is world-changing, say scientists
By James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent
“A malaria vaccine with ‘world-changing’ potential has been developed by scientists at the University of Oxford.
The team expect it to be rolled out next year after trials showed up to 80% protection against the deadly disease.
Crucially, say the scientists, their vaccine is cheap and they already have a deal to manufacture more than 100 million doses a year.
The charity Malaria No More said recent progress meant children dying from malaria could end ‘in our lifetimes’.
It has taken more than a century to develop effective vaccines as the malaria parasite, which is spread by mosquitoes, is spectacularly complex and elusive. It is a constantly moving target, shifting forms inside the body, which make it hard to immunise against.
Last year, the World Health Organization gave the historic go-ahead for the first vaccine - developed by pharmaceutical giant GSK - to be used in Africa.
However, the Oxford team claim their approach is more effective and can be manufactured on a far greater scale.
Trial results from 409 children in Nanoro, Burkina Faso, have been published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases. It shows three initial doses followed by a booster a year later gives up to 80% protection.” Read more at BBC
FDA Approves New Botox Rival
Analysts say the drug, from Revance Therapeutics, poses a threat to the market-dominating antiwrinkle treatment because it promises to last longer
Revance plans to market Daxxify as a luxury item and emphasize its longer duration than Botox and other toxins.PHOTO: REVANCE THERAPEUTICS
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new antiwrinkle treatment that could be the most formidable challenger to date to market leader Botox.
For about two decades, Botox, now sold by AbbVie Inc., has dominated the aesthetic-drug market it helped pioneer, racking up tens of billions of dollars in sales and successfully fending off challengers.
The FDA’s approval of Revance Therapeutics Inc.’s Daxxify introduces a new rival that doctors and analysts said could succeed carving out a big slice of a lucrative and fast-growing market by promising to last two months longer than Botox’s four months.
The FDA approved Daxxify, also known as daxibotulinumtoxinA, for the temporary improvement of frown lines in adults, Revance said Thursday.
The decision, analysts and doctors said, should touch off a fierce battle between upstart Revance and industry giant AbbVie, which acquired Botox as the centerpiece of a $63 billion deal for its manufacturer in 2020.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Michigan GOP leaders encourage rule breaking at poll worker training session
By Bob Ortega, Audrey Ash, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Drew Griffin, CNN
“(CNN)The evening before Michigan's state primary, Wayne County GOP leaders held a Zoom training session for poll workers and partisan observers -- warning them about ‘bad stuff happening’ during the election and encouraging them to ignore local election rules barring cell phones and pens from polling places and vote-counting centers.
‘None of the constraints that they're putting on this are legal,’ former state senator Patrick Colbeck told trainees on the August 1 call.
As far as cell phones, ‘I would say maybe just hide it or something, and maybe hide a small pad and a small pen or something like that because you need to take accurate notes,’ Cheryl Costantino, the GOP county chairwoman and host of the call, told participants.
Some participants raised concerns about being tossed out if they broke the rules. ‘That's why you got to do it secretly,’ Costantino replied.
Wayne County GOP chair Cheryl Costantino.
While volunteer partisan observers have always been trained by political parties and non-profit groups in Michigan, the Wayne County GOP had also invited poll workers -- people hired and paid by the local clerk's office. They are in charge of running the election, and their responsibilities can include checking voter IDs, counting ballots, and even securing voting equipment at the end of the day. Poll workers are required to engage in non-partisan training overseen by the local clerk and are only identified as Republicans for the purposes of making sure there is equal representation of both major parties working the election, according to the Michigan Bureau of Elections.
During the Wayne County training call, obtained by CNN, the presumption that Democrats cheat -- thus justifying Republican rule-breaking -- permeated the discussion. It offers a snapshot of one of the ways Trump-backing, MAGA-minded conspiracy theorists are intervening in the election process across the country, sometimes encouraging poll workers or volunteer observers to violate election rules in hopes of finding evidence that Democrats might be doing the same.
It's an approach election experts fear could spur chaos and conflict in November's mid-term elections and in 2024.
‘There is no exception to following the laws; there is no 'two wrongs make a right,’ said Wendy Weiser, a vice president at The Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks potential insider threats to the election process. Weiser said the center is seeing a spread in efforts by election deniers to infiltrate and manipulate the voting and vote counting process.
‘If poll workers are not committed to following the law, to following the directions of election officials, to protecting the integrity of the election process, they can do serious harm,’ Weiser said.
Concerns mount over partisan election training
Like its counterparts in fellow battleground states Arizona and Pennsylvania, Michigan's Republican Party has conspiracy believers pushing for influence over the election process at all levels, from candidates for statewide office down to poll workers and observers. As CNN has previously reported, that's partly due to a strategy by Trump allies of ceaselessly recruiting conspiracy-minded MAGA volunteers for rank-and-file party positions.
Earlier this year, unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley called on Michigan poll workers to unplug election equipment ‘if you see something you don't like happening.’ In June, Kelley was charged with trespassing and other crimes in connection with the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Ryan Kelley speaks to a reporter after a March for Medical Freedom event in Lansing, Michigan, on June 15, 2022.
The Michigan GOP group Election Integrity Force, which Colbeck helped start, pushes baseless claims about the 2020 election that feed suspicions about the fairness of upcoming elections. In a July session, as first reported by Politico, members of the group coached poll workers and observers to call 911 and bring law enforcement into election-related complaints.
The mounting efforts to influence poll workers have prompted concerns over election disruptions, forcing the state to establish a code of conduct for those individuals, said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Poll workers who don't adhere to the rules will be removed ‘by the local clerk, if they violate the law ... or in any way interfere with the administration of fair and secure elections,’ Benson told CNN.
The GOP has ‘made a concerted effort to put election deniers in positions where they can gum up the works, afterward, if they don't win,’ said Jeff Timmer, former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party.
The training sessions are providing a thinly veiled, read-between-the-lines instructions that essentially show ‘people how to break the law without expressly telling them to break the law, in most cases,’ said Timmer, an advisor to the Lincoln Project, a political action committee founded in 2019 by Republicans and former Republicans opposed to Trump.
Both Costantino and Colbeck, the trainers on the Wayne County call, have actively promoted 2020 election conspiracies that amount to make-believe.
In the lead up to the 2020 election, Colbeck posted on Facebook that Democrats were conspiring to commit electoral fraud and ‘manipulating the vote tallies transmitted from county election boards to the state board of canvassers.’
While serving as a poll challenger at a counting center in Detroit, Colbeck claimed he saw vote-tabulation machines connected to the internet. He submitted an affidavit to that effect for a lawsuit that Costantino filed a week after the election, seeking to stop the results from being certified and requesting an audit.
Costantino's lawsuit, backed by Trump, drew national attention to her claims of election fraud. But a state circuit court judge dismissed the suit, stating that ‘no evidence supports Mr. Colbeck's position.’ Noting Colbeck's Facebook posts, Judge Timothy Kenny said that his ‘predilection to believe fraud was occurring undermines his credibility as a witness,’ before concluding that Costantino's interpretation of events was ‘incorrect and not credible.’
Costantino filed an appeal, which was denied.
Colbeck's continuing claims that machines hooked to the internet flipped votes in 2020 led Dominion Voting systems to demand a retraction from him last year, stating that his claims ‘are not just false but have been repeatedly debunked by bipartisan election officials, actual election security experts, judges, and numerous Trump administration officials and allies.’
Colbeck also has tried to get copies of election files and Dominion software, zeroing in on Canton Township -- a part of his former state Senate district. Canton Township Clerk Mike Siegrist, a Democrat, wrote in an August memo to the town's board of trustees that his office denied those parts of Colbeck's public-records requests because releasing the files would ‘violate our contracts with Dominion and jeopardize future elections.’
Colbeck did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.” Read more at CNN
South Carolina Judge Rules Against Use of Firing Squad and Electric Chair
The judge sided with death row inmates in declaring the punishments cruel and unusual.
Sept. 7, 2022
“A judge in South Carolina ruled on Tuesday that the state’s planned use of a firing squad and an electric chair for executions was unconstitutional, deeming the methods cruel and unusual, giving relief to four death row inmates who had sued the state.
The decision, by Circuit Court Judge Jocelyn Newman, is likely to be appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, according to The State, a newspaper in Columbia, S.C.
With South Carolina unable to acquire the drugs necessary for lethal injection, state lawmakers last year approved a law that would require death row inmates to choose between the electric chair or a firing squad, with electrocution the default if they declined to choose. But Judge Newman sided with the inmates, writing in her opinion that the state had failed to prove that the execution methods would produce painless deaths.
‘In 2021, South Carolina turned back the clock and became the only state in the country in which a person may be forced into the electric chair if he refuses to elect how he will die,’ Judge Newman wrote in her opinion. ‘In doing so, the General Assembly ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency.’” Read more at New York Times
Obama portraits unveiled
Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
“President Biden restored a White House tradition today by hosting former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama for their official White House portrait unveiling.
Why it matters: Wednesday's ceremony marks the Obamas' first visit as a couple to the White House since leaving office in 2017 — and brings back a bipartisan tradition that was last held in 2012, Axios' Erin Doherty reports.
Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Obama thanked Sharon Sprung, who painted the portrait of Michelle Obama, ‘for capturing everything I love about Michelle: her grace, her intelligence and the fact that she’s fine.’
He also thanked Robert McCurdy, who painted his portrait, for ‘taking on a much more difficult subject and doing a fantastic job with mine.’
Michelle Obama thanked the staff who she said made the White House feel like home.
‘As odd of a home as this can be, as wonderful as it can be, it is a special place because we raised our girls here and it means so much to come back to friends.’” Read more at Axios
The new iPhone models are an evolutionary offering after the iPhone 12 brought 5G cellular capability for the first time.
PHOTO: APPLE
Apple unveiled its iPhone 14 lineup as well as updates to its Watch and AirPods Pro earbuds.
“For a third year, the tech giant nudged customers to models with 5G-capable technology. The company focused on safety features for the new phones and smartwatches, such as sensors that can detect car crashes and alert authorities. Apple kept starting prices the same compared with a year ago for both base and high-end phone models.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Bay State's wave
Delegate Lynn Bishop listens to a speech by Maura Healey during the state's Democratic Party convention in June. Photo: Michael Dwyer via AP
“Massachusetts is poised to become the first state with a female governor and lieutenant governor serving simultaneously, Axios' Sophia Cai and Mike Deehan report.
Zoom in: Women are likely to win five of the six statewide executive positions in Massachusetts after last night's primaries.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Maura Healey is heavily favored to win.
Both of the lieutenant governor nominees are women:Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll (D) and former state Rep. Leah Cole Allen (R).
Zoom out: Voters in three other states — Republicans in Arkansas and Democrats in Oklahoma and Ohio — nominated women for governor and lieutenant this year, per Rutgers University.” Read more at Axios
Europe Says Putin’s Gas Power Is Weakening
In Germany and elsewhere, leaders are growing more confident that months of work to stockpile and line up alternate energy sources may help them blunt Russia’s weaponization of exports.
By Melissa Eddy, Erika Solomon and Anton Troianovski
“BERLIN — Not long after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, another mobilization began. European energy ministers and diplomats started jetting across the world and inking energy deals — racing to prepare for a rough winter should Russia choose to cut off its cheap gas in retaliation for Western sanctions.
Since then, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has fiddled with the gas tap to Europe repeatedly. Through Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled gas monopoly, Russia has vastly reduced supplies or suspended them for days at a time — until last week, when it announced that it would indefinitely halt flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that supplies Germany, and through it, much of Europe.
Yet when the blow finally came, it provoked more ridicule than outrage among European leaders, who say that by now they would expect nothing less from Mr. Putin and that they have accepted that the era of cheap Russian gas is over, unimaginable as that might have seemed just months ago.
In some corners, even as Europe’s leaders scramble to blunt the blow from lower gas supplies and higher prices, there is a growing sense that perhaps Russia’s weaponizing of gas exports is a strategy of diminishing returns — and that Mr. Putin may have overplayed his hand.” Read more at New York Times
Second Suspect in Saskatchewan Killings Dies After Capture
After a four-day manhunt, the police arrested Myles Sanderson, a suspect in a stabbing rampage that left 10 dead in the Canadian province. He was pronounced dead at a hospital after going into ‘medical distress,’ the police said.
“MELFORT, Saskatchewan — The second of two brothers sought by the police after a stabbing rampage in western Canada that killed 10 people died on Wednesday after he was taken into police custody, the authorities said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police initially announced that the man, Myles Sanderson, had been captured on a highway near the town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan, at about 3:30 p.m.
But at a news conference about four and a half hours later, Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore of the mounted police in Saskatchewan said that Mr. Sanderson had gone into ‘medical distress’ shortly after his arrest and was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Saskatoon, where he was pronounced dead.
An independent investigation will review the death and the police’s conduct, Assistant Commissioner Blackmore said.” Read more at New York Times
Lawmakers Press Biden to Track U.S. Aid Tied to Civilian Harm in Yemen
Democrats and Republicans want the administration to do more to ensure that American military aid to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates does not contribute to civilian casualties.
“WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to do more to ensure that U.S. military support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates does not contribute to civilian harm in Yemen, following an internal watchdog report that said the United States has failed to assess how its aid is tied to such casualties.
The report, released publicly in June, after The New York Times disclosed its existence, found that while the Pentagon oversaw $54.6 billion of military aid to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from 2015 to 2021, top security officials failed to collect sufficient data and evidence on civilian casualties or monitor the use of American-made weapons.
In a pair of letters to the State Department and Pentagon, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, called the administration’s inaction to determine the extent to which U.S. military support has led to civilian harm in Yemen ‘an unacceptable failure.’” Read more at New York Times
“CAIRO — Egypt became the latest Arab country on Wednesday to demand that Netflix drop content that runs counter to its ‘societal values,’ an escalation of a battle by regional authorities on Western-produced television shows and films that depict gay and lesbian characters onscreen.
The content, in the official telling, is anathema to their majority-Muslim societies.
Egypt’s warning to Netflix, Disney+ and other streaming services, issued by its government media regulator, came a day after six Gulf Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates called on Netflix to take down ‘offensive content’ on its local streaming sites. They said in a statement that such programs ‘contradict Islamic and societal values and principles.’
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar also joined in the Gulf countries’ request. Egypt’s statement used similar language, warning the streaming services that ‘legal action will be taken in the event of broadcasting content that conflicts with societal values.’
While the Arab authorities avoided spelling out the offending scenes, they have in recent years repeatedly banned or criticized entertainment that shows same-sex romance or what, under the traditional, conservative standards that still hold sway across much of the region, could be considered promiscuous behavior.” Read more at New York Times
Snapchat removes Maori tattoo filters after outcry
By Zubaidah Abdul Jalil
BBC News
Image caption, Face tattoos, or moko, have been a part of Maori culture for generations
“Social media platform Snapchat has removed a feature which allowed users to apply traditional Maori tattoos on their faces.
The filters were pulled after their discovery prompted an outcry in New Zealand's indigenous Maori community.
Maoris consider tattoo art as sacred, and it is taken as an important marker of the wearer's identity.
The move follows local media reports that the filters were proliferating on social media.” Read more at BBC
"Zero down" mortgages gain ground
Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
“More banks are offering mortgages that don't require some first-time buyers to save up a large down payment — part of an effort to close the racial and ethnic homeownership gap, Emily Peck writes in Axios Markets.
Why it matters: These programs allow lenders to target neighborhoods that are largely Black or Hispanic. The banks use what's called a special purpose credit program (SPCP) that permits lenders to discriminate in order to help disadvantaged borrowers.
Bank of America last month announced ‘zero down payment’ loans for first-time homebuyers in predominately Black and Hispanic neighborhoods who meet certain income requirements.
Two other banks, JPMorgan Chase and TD Bank, offer similar programs. If they were adopted widely in both the public and private sectors, programs like these could truly make a dent in the racial homeownership gap. But so far they haven't been.
How it works: Bank of America's ‘zero down payment’ loans technically require a down payment, but the bank is offering grants of as much as $15,000 to cover it.
So buyers don't have to come up with the down payment. But they're not borrowing the entire cost of the home, and wind up with some equity off the bat.
That's distinct from the zero-down loans that, along with questionable underwriting standards, helped make such a mess in the run-up to the Great Recession.
What's happening: The programs are gaining traction now partly because of the renewed focus on racial equity coming out of the protests of 2020 and because of the White House's support, said Liam Reynolds of the Urban Institute, who co-wrote a piece about these types of programs.
Back in 2020, BofA and JPMorgan both pledged to spend billions of dollars on racial equity.” Read more at Axios
Sue Bird Sheds ‘Happy Tears’ as She Ends W.N.B.A. Career
Bird, 41, the Seattle Storm guard, had said she would retire after this season. The Storm fell to the Las Vegas Aces in the W.N.B.A. semifinals on Tuesday.
“Seattle Storm fans wanted one more year. Sue Bird gave it to them.
She slicked back her signature ponytail, laced up her custom Nike sneakers and added to her legend with a farewell tour.
When the Storm set a W.N.B.A. single-game assists record for the regular season with 37, eight of them were hers. She stretched her formidable margin as the league’s career leader in assists and inched higher on the steals and 3-point lists. She helped the Storm make the playoffs for the 16th time in the 19 seasons she played.
And then she was done.
The Las Vegas Aces beat the Storm, 97-92, in Game 4 of their semifinal series on Tuesday to advance to the W.N.B.A. finals. For Bird, 41, who had said in June that she would retire after the season, the loss on her home court marked the end of an incredible career. As fans cheered and chanted ‘Thank you, Sue,’ Bird stood on the court and cried….
The Storm drafted her No. 1 overall in 2002 out of UConn before the W.N.B.A.’s sixth season. She immediately became Seattle’s franchise leader in assists, with 191 that year. She came in second for the Rookie of the Year Award, but she and the player who beat her — Indiana’s Tamika Catchings — became the first rookies ever named to the All-W.N.B.A. first team.
Over the next 20 years, Bird would pile up honors, including a record 13 W.N.B.A. All-Star selections and five Olympic gold medals with the United States. Last year, she was voted to the W25, the W.N.B.A.’s list of the top 25 players ever as the league celebrated its 25th anniversary….
Bird, who is engaged to the women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe, is one of the most visible gay professional athletes. For most of the W.N.B.A.’s history, its most prominent stars were not openly gay, and players have said that they felt pressured to conform to heterosexual standards of femininity. But Bird is among a wave of stars — including Brittney Griner, Seimone Augustus, Elena Delle Donne and Diana Taurasi — who have been open about their sexuality and spoken about L.G.B.T.Q. rights and acceptance.
Bird has also used her platform as one of the league’s biggest stars to support social justice causes, especially regarding Black women. And as the W.N.B.A. continues to push for the release of Griner, who has been detained in Russia on drug charges since February, Bird has been vocal.” Read more at New York Times
Frances Tiafoe Rolls On to the Semis
Tiafoe backed up a win over Rafael Nadal with a quarterfinal victory over Andrey Rublev, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (0), 6-4.
“There are so many different kinds of pressure that tennis players can exert on their opponents over the course of a match.
Blasting massive serve after massive serve. Hitting deep. Hounding the baseline to push the opponent into the back of the court. Rushing the net and standing tall there, unafraid, just 35 feet away. There is even the pressure of the scoreboard that comes with early leads in games, or of the softest drop shots that can land like uppercuts to the gut.
An ability to get a crowd of more than 20,000 to raise the decibel count to uncomfortable levels at the crucial moments also helps.
Frances Tiafoe, who used all those skills and more in his tight three-set win over Andrey Rublev of Russia on Wednesday, has another tool, too. On hot, sweaty afternoons, when he changes his shirt, he sits bare-chested in his chair for a good bit, the muscles rippling across his back, showing off a physique more befitting a mixed martial arts octagon than a tennis court.
To beat him, opponents have to get through that, which can stick in the mind during those critical tests of nerve known as tiebreakers. Tiafoe won, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (0), 6-4, in a match that was so even for so long, except when Tiafoe surged during the tiebreakers, as he has done for 10 days. He has played six tiebreakers in this tournament and has won them all, including a 7-0 gem against Rublev in the second set Wednesday.
‘Best tiebreaker I will ever play,’ Tiafoe said after the match. ‘Ridiculous.’
No American man has won the U.S. Open or any Grand Slam singles title since 2003, when Andy Roddick, who was on hand Wednesday to watch Tiafoe, lifted the trophy in New York. (The N.B.A. star Bradley Beal, a Tiafoe fan and friend who plays for his beloved Washington Wizards, was there, too.)” Read more at New York Times
Anne Garrels, Fearless NPR Correspondent, Dies at 71
She reported on conflicts around the world and for a time was the only American broadcast journalist reporting from Baghdad during the U.S. ‘shock and awe’ bombing campaign in 2003.
“Anne Garrels, an international correspondent for NPR who reported from the front lines of major conflicts around the world, including during the American ‘shock and awe’ bombing of Baghdad in 2003, died on Wednesday at her home in Norfolk, Conn. She was 71.
Her brother, John Garrels, said the cause was lung cancer.
Ms. Garrels started her journalism career in television at ABC News. But it was at NPR, where she worked for more than two decades, that she made her name covering strife and bloodshed across the globe. She became known for conveying how momentous events, like wars, affected the people who lived through them. Her backdrops included the Soviet Union, Tiananmen Square, Bosnia, Chechnya, the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan.” Read more at New York Times