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BY J.P. LAWRENCE

Stars and Stripes

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Nearly every day, trucks bring 20-foot-long shipping containers from Kandahar Airfield to vendors at the Kandahar Bush Bazaar, a market named after the U.S. presi-dent who launched the invasion of Afghanistan almost 20 years ago.

Most of the shipping contain-ers contain junk, but some 1,000 workers sort through everything in hopes of finding refrigerators, beds, stretchers — anything that U.S. and NATO troops withdraw-ing from Afghanistan don’t want

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Volume 79, No. 141 ©SS 2020 Monday, November 2, 2020

PACIFIC Rotator flight halted afterbird strikePage 3

FACES Hugh Lauriegets political inPBS miniseries8

MILITARY Air Force footballpays tribute tofallen graduatesPage 4

J.P. LAWRENCE/Stars and Stripes

Doors, sinks, mirrors and other items discarded by U.S. and NATO forces are seen at a bazaar where they are sold by locals in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Afghans find value in discarded military goods

BY MICHELLE YE HEE LEE

The Washington Post

At least 90 million Americans have already cast their ballots for the general election with three days left until Election Day, a historic early turnout that underscores vot-ers’ intense desire to be heard in a divisive election despite the voting challenges caused by the coronavi-rus pandemic.

The massive early turnout is roughly 65% of the 139 mil-lion votes cast in 2016, and it

SEE HISTORIC ON PAGE 10

Over 90 million ballots already cast ahead of historic Election Day

Record turnout

Vote-by-mail ballots are sorted at the Miami-Dade County Board of Elections, in Doral, Fla. Massive early turnout has essentially guaranteed that for the first time in history, a majority of votes will be cast before Election Day.

Lynne Sl adky/AP

‘ The American people are going out, and because of this, there are more goods. ’

Ehsan MohammedBazaar vendor

in Kandahar

that Afghans can sell. The troop drawdown means un-

certainty and insecurity, as the Taliban threatens Kandahar’s pe-riphery even while it negotiates peace terms. But it also means that business is booming for now. Scrap metal and plastic earn profits, and even the empty containers sell for about $800 for use as shops or of-fices, vendors said. Some sell exer-cise machines still in their original wrappers.

The bustling scene at Kandahar’s Bush Bazaar is a result of NATO troops and contractors throwing out tons of material, vendors said.

Bazaar vendor Ehsan Moham-

med has purchased 864 containers this year, up by almost a third from last year’s haul.

“The American people are going out, and because of this, there are more goods,” he said. “Right now, we are so busy.”

Vendors at Kabul’s Bush Bazaar, who receive goods from Bagram Airfield and other bases, also said more items have been thrown out from U.S. bases over the last two months.

“From everywhere there is a base, there has been an increase in goods,” said Homayun, a

SEE VALUE ON PAGE 4

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 2 F3HIJKLM Monday, November 2, 2020

T O D A YIN STRIPES

American Roundup ..... 14Classified .................. 13Comics ...................... 16Crossword ................. 16Faces ........................ 18Opinion ..................... 15 Sports .................. 19-24

BUSINESS/WEATHER

Military ratesEuro costs (Nov. 2)................................ $1.14Dollar buys (Nov. 2) ..........................€0.8335British pound (Nov. 2) .......................... $1.27Japanese yen (Nov. 2) ........................102.00South Korean won (Nov. 2) ............1,100.00

Commercial ratesBahrain (Dinar) ....................................0.3770British pound .....................................$1.2959Canada (Dollar) ...................................1.3318China (Yuan) ........................................6.6927Denmark (Krone) ................................6.3925Egypt (Pound) ....................................15.7013Euro ........................................$1.1644/0.8588Hong Kong (Dollar) ............................. 7.7537Hungary (Forint) .................................315.06Israel (Shekel) .....................................3.4066Japan (Yen) ...........................................104.68Kuwait (Dinar) .....................................0.3058Norway (Krone) ...................................9.5538Philippines (Peso).................................48.55Poland (Zloty) .......................................... 3.96Saudi Arabia (Riyal) ...........................3.7506Singapore (Dollar) ..............................1.3659South Korea (Won) ..........................1,138.95

Switzerland (Franc)............................ 0.9170Thailand (Baht) ..................................... 31.17Turkey (Lira) .........................................8.3756(Military exchange rates are those available to customers at military banking facilities in the country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check with your local military banking facility. Commercial rates are interbank rates provided for reference when buying currency. All figures are foreign currencies to one dollar, except for the British pound, which is represented in dollars-to-pound, and the euro, which is dollars-to-euro.

EXCHANGE RATES

INTEREST RATESPrime rate ................................................ 3.25Discount rate .......................................... 0.25Federal funds market rate ................... 0.093-month bill ............................................. 0.0930-year bond ........................................... 1.65

WEATHER OUTLOOK

Bahrain88/76

Baghdad93/69

Doha92/73

KuwaitCity

90/66

Riyadh89/60

Djibouti88/78

Kandahar75/39

Kabul73/41

MONDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST TUESDAY IN THE PACIFIC

Misawa50/36

Guam86/79

Tokyo61/45

Okinawa75/70

Sasebo59/46

Iwakuni59/37

Seoul52/37

Osan52/34 Busan

57/41

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

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

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

64/43

Ramstein67/49

Stuttgart70/51

Lajes,Azores65/59

Rota77/56

Morón82/53 Sigonella

74/53

Naples68/53

Aviano/Vicenza62/49

Pápa60/50

Souda Bay72/58

MONDAY IN EUROPE

Brussels65/45

Zagan63/54

Drawsko Pomorskie

60/48

Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings’ owner buys Dunkin’ Associated Press

NEW YORK — Dunkin’ dough-nuts and coffee is being combined with Buffalo Wild Wings and Ar-by’s sandwiches.

Inspire Brands Inc. said Fri-day that it is acquiring Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. for $11.3 billion, including the Dunkin’ Brands’ debt that Inspire will be taking on.

The private-equity firm will pay $106.50 in cash for all of Dunkin’ Brands’ shares, which closed Friday at $99.71. Dunkin’

Brands’ stock surged to an all-time high earlier last week after the company confirmed the two were in merger talks.

Dunkin’, based in Canton, Mass. , also owns the Baskin-Robbins ice cream chain. There are 12,500 Dunkin’ stores and 8,000 Baskin-Robbins outlets worldwide.

Atlanta’s Inspire Brands, which was founded in 2018, is rapidly joining the largest restaurant groups in the United States . In ad-dition to Buffalo Wild Wings and

Arby’s, it owns the Sonic burger chain, Jimmy John’s restaurants and Rusty Taco. It has annual sales of more than $14 billion.

The acquisition comes as the global pandemic has hammered restaurants’ sales. Dunkin’ Brands’s systemwide sales fell 1.3% in the third quarter after tumbling 21% in the second quar-ter, and the company said fran-chisees closed 553 restaurants permanently.

Inspire said it expects the deal to close by the end of the year.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 3Monday, November 2, 2020

BY WYATT OLSON

Stars and Stripes

FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — A soldier as-signed to the 25th Infantry Division was detained at a California airport Oct. 26 in con-nection with the vehicle-related death of a 73-year-old man in Hawaii earlier in the day.

The 26-year-old male soldier, who the Hono-lulu Police Department described as a suspect, was detained at the airport.

An arrest had not been made as of Thursday, Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman Sarah Yoro said in statement emailed to Stars and Stripes.

The soldier has not been publicly identified. Police declined to identify the city in Califor-nia where the soldier was detained.

“At this time, we can confirm that the suspect in question is assigned to the 25th Infantry Di-vision,” Maj. Tania Donovan, a spokeswoman for the 25th ID, said in an email to Stars and Stripes. “We are cooperating fully with the Honolulu Police Department regarding this matter.”

She deferred all further queries to the police, which is conducting the investigation.

The Honolulu Police Department’s Crimi-nal Investigation Division has classified the

incident as manslaughter and first-degree rob-bery, Yoro said.

The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office identified the 73-year-old as Todd M. White, a resident of Haleiwa on Oahu’s North Shore.

According to police, White was selling a piece of jewelry and met the younger man in a bank parking lot last Monday morning in Wahiawa, the small town adjacent to Schofield Barracks.

White’s wife accompanied him to the park-ing lot and apparently waited in their car while the men met.

An argument broke out between the men, and the 26-year-old got into his vehicle with the jewelry and started to drive away, accord-ing to police, who said White attempted to stop him by jumping onto the vehicle’s hood.

White’s wife followed with the couple’s car and collided with the other one.

White was thrown from the vehicle, injured and taken to a hospital where he was declared dead, police said.

Police found the vehicle abandoned in Aiea, a community west of central Honolulu, and de-termined that the suspect had boarded a flight at the Honolulu airport after selling the piece of jewelry at a pawn [email protected]: @WyattWOlson

BY JAMES BOLINGER AND THERON GODBOLD

Stars and Stripes

MARINE CORPS AIR STA-TION IWAKUNI, Japan — More than 150 passengers and 10 pets were forced to quarantine at an air station gym overnight Oct. 24 after a bird struck their Patriot Express flight aboard a Boeing 767.

The Patriot Express, common-ly called the rotator, is a Defense Department contract flight used by service members and families who are traveling between the United States and overseas bases for new assignments or leave.

Due to coronavirus mitigation measures, all the passengers had to be kept apart from the base population, base spokesman Maj. Joshua Diddams, told Stars and Stripes on Friday via email.

The Headquarters and Head-quarters Squadron executive of-ficer, Maj. Brian Jordan, had the

gyms prepared with food, baby formula, water, cots, shower fa-cilities and linens prior to the pas-sengers’ arrival, Diddams said.

Volunteers from the Preventa-tive Medicine detachment, Ma-rine Corps Community Services, the Red Cross, Chaplain Corps and the USO pitched in, too, Did-dams said. He said headquarters squadron commander Lt. Col. Jonathan Hutchinson even made a late-night run to 7-Eleven to get milk for the children.

After a 24-hour stay the passen-gers boarded the Patriot Express, which continued on to Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo and then to Seattle on Tuesday.

“This situation served as anoth-er opportunity to highlight the ca-pabilities and flexibility of MCAS Iwakuni,” Diddams said.

[email protected]: @[email protected] : @godboldtheron

BY MATTHEW M. BURKE AND AYA ICHIHASHI

Stars and Stripes

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base is in-vestigating how one of its F-15C Eagle fighter jets lost a small cap Thursday during a joint exercise over southern Japan.

The Air Force reported the incident shortly before noon Thursday to Japa-nese authorities at the Kyushu Defense Bureau, a Japan Ministry of Defense spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone Friday.

The hydraulic line filler cap, which is about 1.5 inches in diameter and 1 inch deep, is believed to have come un-attached and fallen while the jet was approaching the runway at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s Nyutabaru Air Base in Miyazaki prefecture, ac-cording to an 18th Wing statement Friday.

Maintenance crews noticed the cap missing during a post-flight inspection, the wing statement said. No injuries or damage were reported following the incident and no aircraft fluids were re-

leased, according to the wing.“The 18th Wing is looking into the

cause of the incident,” the wing state-ment said. “We are committed to con-ducting safe flying operations while training with our bilateral partners insupport of our alliance commitments.”

Nyutabaru Air Base is located on the eastern coast of Kyushu, approximate-ly 50 miles north of the island’s south-ernmost Kagoshima prefecture.

The ministry spokesman declined tosay where the jet was flying at the timethe part is believed to have fallen due to “operational security.”

Wing officials said they believe thepart fell within one or two miles of theapproach end of the runway.

“We asked the U.S. military to check and maintain their jets more thorough-ly and to take safety measures seri-ously to operate the jets,” the ministryspokesman said.

It’s customary in Japan for somegovernment spokespeople to speak tothe media on condition of [email protected]: @[email protected]: @AyaIchihashi

PACIFIC

Bird strike halts rotator flight

ANGELO SAGUM/U.S. Marine Corps

More than 150 service members and their families stayed overnight at the North Gym at the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni after their Patriot Express flight was struck by a bird Oct. 24 .

Hawaii soldier detained over death of man during dispute

Okinawa-based jet loses small part during flight over Japan

Associated Press

HONOLULU — State and fed-eral regulators have rejected a U.S. Navy plan to upgrade a fuel storage facility in Hawaii, asking for more information about pro-tection measures for the under-ground tanks.

The Hawaii Department of

Health and the federal Environ-mental Protection Agency issued a letter last Monday saying the military’s proposal for the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility “lacks detail, clarity, rationale and justification.”

The Navy submitted the plan in September 2019, five years after

a 27,000-gallon leak happened at the Honolulu storage site.

The agencies said the proposal does not go far enough toward protecting Oahu’s Southern Oahu Basal Aquifer from possible dam-age caused by the 20 underground tanks.

The Navy “has not demonstrat-

ed to the regulatory agencies that the proposed alternative is the most protective of the groundwa-ter and drinking water,” the letter said.

The agencies offered the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agen-cy “an opportunity to cure the deficiencies and resubmit the de-

cision document.”The Navy’s proposal for “dou-

ble-wall equivalency secondarycontainment” or removal of fuelfrom Red Hill around the year2045 requires further discussion and a more precise definitionof double-wall equivalency, theagencies said.

Navy’s Hawaii fuel tank plan update rejected by state, federal regulators


WAR/MILITARY

USAF football team honors fallen grads

Value: Afghan vendors sell items left behind by US and NATO forces after huge drawdown

BY KARIN ZEITVOGEL

Stars and Stripes

In a section of the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Falcon Stadium on Saturday, cutouts of nearly two dozen graduates who have passed away “watched” as the acade-my’s football team fell to Moun-tain West conference rival Boise State, 49-30.

The fallen grads’ cutouts are part of a program launched in September by the athletic depart-ment to raise money to support cadet athletes and ensure that coronavirus restrictions don’t mean the nearly 47,000-capac-ity stadium is empty for home games.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep everyone at the acad-emy safe while complying with state and local guidelines, but we also want to try to fill the stands,” Eric Silakowski, the athletic department’s associate director and executive director of devel-opment, told Stars and Stripes in a telephone interview from Colo-rado Springs, Colo., last Monday.

Days later, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark an-nounced that, because of rising infection numbers, cadets would not be required to attend the Oct. 31 football game.

Some did, anyway, and a sec-tion away from them, 22 fallen grads had been “seated” in the stands a day before the game.

One row held several members of the class of 1997. Capt. Luke Johnson, who died in 2002 when his F-16 crashed near Spangda-hlem Air Base as he prepared to

land after a night training mis-sion, was next to Maj. Jeffrey Percy, who died in 2015 when the Sabreliner he was flying was involved in a midair collision on approach to Brown Field in San Diego. Next to them were David

Ramsey and Dennis Rando, two of several cadets who died in the 1990s before graduating. Each cutout lists the fallen graduate’s name, the year they graduated and their last squadron at the academy.

Two fallen female grads, Capt, Kimberly Harmon Wielhouwer and 2nd Lt. Holly Adams, were among the fallen grads at the Boise State game.

The athletic department start-ed selling cutouts after coronavi-

rus restrictions led the academyto bar all but cadets from attend-ing home football games. Evenwhen all 4,000 cadets attend games, which was a requirementuntil last week when coronavi-rus restrictions were stepped up, they only filled 10% of FalconStadium.

The cutouts program got off to aroaring start, with more than 300 cutouts of cadets’ pets, friends, families and Falcons’ fans soldin the six days leading up to the game against Navy in early Oc-tober. After that game, which the Falcons won decisively, the As-sociation of Graduates told theathletic department they’d beencontacted by “lots of people ask-ing if they could buy a cutout tohonor a fallen grad,” Silakowskisaid.

By the end of October, a fewdozen fallen grad cutouts hadbeen sold. “A lot of people havereached out and said they’re real-ly interested in the idea but wantto work with the families, to berespectful,” Silakowski said.

The money raised from sell-ing the cutouts goes toward buy-ing equipment, renovating team rooms where athletes can getaway from the daily strains of cadet life, and ensuring the nutri-tional needs of cadet athletes aremet, Silakowski said.

And if the pandemic continuesto bar fans from attending sportsevents, cutout programs may be launched for the academy’s hock-ey, wrestling, and men’s and wom-en’s basketball programs, he said. [email protected]: @stripeszeit

FROM FRONT PAGE

shopkeeper in Kabul who goes by one name.

The U.S. has been pulling troops out of Afghanistan and shutting down bases as part of a Feb. 29 deal struck with the Tal-iban. While President Donald Trump has said he wants U.S. troops to be home from Afghani-stan by Christmas, U.S. com-manders say the plan is to reduce to 4,500 personnel by sometime in November.

The U.S. military issued a June 18 memo to contractor DynCorp International to plan on shutting down base services at Kandahar Airfield as part of the drawdown. The airfield where an estimated 30,000 troops and contractors once operated is now unrecog-nizable, several Afghan officials said.

“Everything has changed on the KAF,” said Massoud Pash-toon, director of civil aviation at Kandahar Airfield. Pashtoon recently visited the base to see which buildings and vehicles would be turned over to him once

U.S. troops leave. The smatter-ing of people, empty hangars and closed-down shops reminded him of a “desert.”

“Nothing was there,” Pashtoon said.

Each week, Pashtoon said trucks from the base bring ship-ping containers out to one of the gates to sell to locals. Vendors at Kandahar’s Bush Bazaar said subcontractors working on the base pick up and sell the best items from the U.S. and NATO shipping containers, and auction the rest to them.

But even if business is good, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Kandahar left some vendors wor-ried about their future.

“The U.S. army is leaving; all this is from them,” said one ven-dor, Nasirullah, who sells U.S. gasoline and diesel. “But if the Americans are gone, this is not good for the country.”

Insecurity has grown in the province since the Feb. 29 U.S.-Taliban deal, said Hayatullah Hayat, governor of Kandahar province.

The Taliban are now launch-ing attacks on the city’s out-skirts, Hayat said, and hundreds of families fleeing fighting throughout the province and in nearby Helmand are now living in threadbare tents with winter approaching.

The shrinking of the U.S. and

coalition presence in Kandahar has demoralized Afghan security forces, Hayat said.

Most troops are on “active de-fense” status and must wait for the militants to attack before fighting, Hayat said, and many are also dispirited by concessions to the Taliban, such as the release of 5,000 militant prisoners.

He said he used to fly out of Kandahar Airfield toward Kabul and look at the sprawling base be-

neath him, at the hundreds of air-planes and helicopters waiting on the runway to assist in the fightagainst the Taliban. But now, the hangars and runways are empty,he said.

“It gives you some sort ofthought that, ‘hey, we don’t have much support now,’ ” he said. Zubair Babakarkhail, Sadiq Reshtinay and Samiullah Popal contributed to this report. [email protected] Twitter: @jplawrence3

ERIC SILAKOWSKI/Air Force Academy

A member of the athletics department at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., sets up cutouts of fallen graduates in the stands of Falcon Stadium ahead of the Mountain West conference game Saturday against Boise State.

PHOTOS BY J.P. LAWRENCE /Stars and Stripes

Two workers untangle barbed concertina wire Saturday, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, at a bazaar where goods that once belonged to U.S. and NATO troops and contractors at Kandahar Airfield are sold to locals.

Amanullah, a vendor at a shop in Kandahar, Afghanistan, displays a new exercise machine, still in its plastic packaging, that he obtained from contractors working at Kandahar Airfield.


VIRUS OUTBREAK

BY JENNIFER H. SVAN

Stars and Stripes

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germa-ny — U.S. military bases in Ger-many last week announced new rules to try to keep the resurging coronavirus in check, as new in-fections rose at a record rate and the country prepared for a partial lockdown.

But while coronavirus rules im-posed by the military have in the past often been stricter than host-nation measures, this time some won’t be as stringent as those that will take effect around Germany starting Monday.

“There are going to be some dif-ferences for what we implement for this (military) community and what the surrounding popu-lace implements,” Brig. Gen. Jed J. Schaertl, U.S. Army Europe’s deputy commanding general for Mobilization and Reserve Af-fairs, said during a virtual town hall for U.S. Army Garrison Wi-esbaden Friday.

“The reason for that is, we have a different mission, a different function with our facilities than the outside community,” he said.

Since the pandemic began about seven months ago, “We’ve learned a lot,” Col. Bobby Thomp-son, 86th Mission Support Group commander at Ramstein Air Base, said in a virtual town hall

with wing leaders. “This time we’re taking a much more mea-sured response … so that we con-tinue to provide services to the community” and not further af-fect quality of life.

Dining facilities will offer takeout only and access may be restricted to fitness centers, but there will be “few if any closures” on base, he said.

Other military leaders echoed that. While the German govern-ment announced earlier week that gyms will close for a month as part of the effort to contain the virus, two U.S. military installa-tions, Spangdahlem Air Base and USAG Wiesbaden, said theirs will remain open.

At Spangdahlem, where 52nd Fighter Wing commander Col. David Epperson said he consid-ers gyms “mission essential,” they will only be available to ac-tive-duty service members.

“We will use strict hygiene and enable people to remain fit to fight,” Epperson told a virtual town hall Thursday. “But if we see ourselves becoming a hot spot … you can expect further restrictions.”

At Wiesbaden, gyms, outdoor basketball courts and playgrounds will remain open during Novem-ber, Col. Mario Washington, the garrison commander, said during the garrison’s town hall, which he

co-hosted with Schaertl.Although Germany has ordered

restaurants to close for all but takeout meals, Wiesbaden’s din-ing hall for soldiers will remain open for eat-in service, Washing-ton said.

But that will change if infection numbers go up, he said.

At Spangdahlem, food estab-lishments, including dining halls, will offer carry-out only, in line with host-nation guidance, Ep-person said.

Schools, day care facilities and playgrounds will stay open, but intramural and youth sports will be suspended, he said.

On Ramstein, schools and child care facilities would also remain open, Thompson said, unlike in the spring when the first wave of the virus hit Germany and stu-dents and teachers shifted to vir-

tual learning.In line with a German call to

avoid “unnecessary travel,” over-night trips for leisure purposes have been banned, the military leaders said.

The U.S. military’s hotel in the Bavarian resort town of Gar-misch-Partenkirchen, the Edel-weiss Lodge, said on its website it was “temporarily closing in com-pliance with host nation rules that go into effect Monday” but would accept reservations for arrivals after Nov. 30.

Spikes of illness in the mili-tary community have been tied to “poor discipline and bad choices, like group parties and travel to red areas,” said Brig. Gen. Josh-ua Olson, the 86th Airlift Wing commander at Ramstein.

“For the most part, we’ve been very disciplined,” he added, urg-

ing personnel to remain so headedinto the holiday and flu seasons.

The pandemic has interrupted the flu vaccine supply chain, said Col. Ryan G. K. Mihata, 86th Medical Group commander at Ramstein, and many members of the military community will have to wait for their flu shots. Ramstein has received about 30 percent of the flu vaccines it needs, but ex-pects more doses within the next two weeks, he said.

Landstuhl Regional MedicalCenter announced Friday thatsome upcoming flu vaccinationclinics have been canceled afterdeliveries of flu vaccine were delayed.

The vaccine is, however, avail-able for children 3 and under and adults 65 and older, Mihata said. [email protected]: @stripesktown

BY NANCY MONTGOMERY

Stars and Stripes

VICENZA, Italy — When Italy went into lockdown in February as the coronavirus hit, U.S. military bases generally followed the country’s lead in closing facilities and ordering movement restrictions.

As the second wave of the virus strikes the country, U.S. military actions are dif-fering from Italy in a few ways — particu-larly in keeping school classrooms open for now — as they balance Italian decrees and Defense Department guidelines.

Italy, in addition to closing bars and res-taurants after 6 p.m., has sent 75 percent of high school students home to complete their lessons online. But Vicenza High School, which closed for a day Monday after a student tested positive for the virus, remains open.

Italian gyms are also closed. But they’ll remain open on base to troops and DOD civilians, said Maj. Gen. Andrew Rohling, U.S. Army Africa’s new commander and the senior army officer in Vicenza, at a brief virtual town hall meeting Thursday.

“I know this year has been challenging and we’re all feeling fatigue,” he said. “I can’t predict how long this fight will last.”

U.S. Army Garrison Italy explained the difference in high school closures as a function of Italian high-schoolers relying

on public transportation, something Vi-cenza students don’t use.

Soldiers need to train in the gym, and “nuances” in the Italian decree make ex-ceptions for military training, USARAF spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of difference in how we’re acting now and how we were in February,” Dillon said.

In the Campania region, home to the U.S. 6th Fleet, off-base schools closed in Octo-ber after a spike in coronavirus cases. But the commander of Naval Support Activity Naples said Wednesday that Department of Defense Educational Activity classrooms would remain open.

“We are continually assessing the situ-ation,” Capt. Jim Stewart said in a virtual town hall meeting.

NSA Naples officials said in an email that they have “incorporated additional precautions such as mask usage, increased classroom spacing and meal service, and we are working daily with our medical professionals to keep our children safe.”

The naval base has also kept gyms and swimming pools open but only for active-duty service members.

Aviano Air Base in northeast Italy closed its gym and pool earlier last week, mirror-ing the country outside the gates. Its high school remains open.

Since schools reopened in September,

DODEA’s policy has been to close schools and send students to remote learning when a base is deemed to have sustained com-munity transmission of the virus, which is deemed Health Protection Condition Charlie.

The HPCON designation “is not a DODEA decision, that is an installation command decision,” said Stephen Smith, a DODEA spokesman.

Commanders decide the HPCON level after considering public health surveil-lance data, state or host nation and local authorities’ views, and public health com-mand advice.

A significant metric is the average number of new cases per 100,000 people over seven days. More than 50 cases per 100,000 indicates sustained community transmission, according to Defense De-partment guidance, and would seemingly move a base to HPCON Charlie and closed schools.

On Friday, Naples’ weekly average, which had been climbing daily, was 51.4 per 100,000, according to a New York Times database.

But “COVID case rates are among many factors we consider in regards to changing the HPCON status at our installations,” Lt. Cmdr. Edward Early, an NSA Naples spokesman, said in an email Friday. “Cur-rently, NSA Naples remains at HPCON B.”

Vicenza’s average was 42.1 per 100,000 on Friday.

In the Friuli Venezia Giulia region,where Aviano Air Base is located, the av-erage was 29.8 per 100,000 people.

The Defense Department guidance also says that commanders may take into con-sideration testing and tracing capabilities,and medical treatment capacities.

Commanders “may be more or lessstringent than surrounding community re-quirements based on mission and risk con-siderations,” the guidance says. The Armytown hall meeting did not discuss potentialschool closures, but some viewers wantedclarification.

“Knowing at what point that decision will become imminent is crucial to suc-cessful transition and (reduced) stress on all of us, including our military children,”one commenter wrote.

A garrison spokeswoman suggested con-tacting DODEA for information, which wasfollowed by a reply from a DODEA EuropeSouth District official.

“As per current DoD guidance, if aninstallation is in HPCON Charlie, schoolswill be closed to students, and we will transition to remote learning,” the officialwrote. [email protected]:@montgomerynance

Schools, gyms to remain open on US bases in Italy

US bases roll out new rules as cases in Germany surge

JENNIFER H. SVAN/Stars and Stripes

Army Staff Sgt. Kenric Duncan, 31, works his triceps on a machine in June at the Southside Fitness Center on Ramstein Air Base, Germany.


VIRUS OUTBREAK

BY MATT SEDENSKY AND MIKE STOBBE

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A president who downplayed the coronavi-rus threat, scorned masks and undercut scientists at every turn. Governors who resisted or rolled back containment measures amid public backlash. State lawmak-ers who used federal COVID-19 aid to plug budget holes instead of beefing up testing and contact tracing.

As a powerful new wave of infections sweeps the U.S. just ahead of Election Day, the nation’s handling of the nearly 8-month-old crisis has been marked by what health experts see as grave missteps, wasted time and squan-dered opportunities by leaders at all levels of government.

The result: The country could be looking at a terrible winter.

“The inconsistency of the re-sponse is what’s been so frustrat-ing,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia Uni-versity. “If we had just been disci-

plined about employing all these public health methods early and aggressively, we would not be in the situation we are in now.”

Though Redlener sees some of the new wave as inevitable, he estimates at least 130,000 of the nation’s more than 227,000 deaths could have been avoided had the country more widely embraced masks and social distancing.

Even if a Chinese-style lock-down wasn’t possible, Redlener said, a more modest approach like Canada’s, with a strong central message of caution in reopening and widespread mask-wearing and distancing, would have saved lives over the state-by-state and widely partisan approach.

Now the U.S. is seeing cases spike, especially in the Midwest and the Plains, with the country posting a record high number of new infections last week of nearly a half-million.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, likewise pointed to states’ varied responses to reopening for the rocketing case numbers.

“It was like a free-for-all,”

Fauci said in an online forum Wednesday.

Governors in many of the hard-hit states have been under fierce political pressure that has made it difficult to enact the kind of mea-sures public health officials say are necessary to stop the spread of the virus and keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.

In the early days of the out-break, governors were nearly universal in enacting aggressive restrictions to try to flatten the curve. But they quickly faced backlash from residents who were irate over the economic dev-astation and what they saw as an

infringement on their constitu-tional freedoms.

“This pandemic has been more politicized than any pandemic I’ve ever experienced or worked on or studied, and that’s a lot of pandemics,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a public health historian at the University of Michigan.

While some of the blame goes to local leaders and their support-ers, Markel said a large share belongs to Trump and other ad-ministration officials who have not supported governors taking tougher steps, have undercut and insulted infectious-disease experts, and have themselves re-fused to wear masks.

“That sets an example, whether you recognize it or not,” he said.

Redlener, too, questioned howit was that Trump “didn’t under-stand how many people followedhis advice” and said the presidenthas “blood on his hands.”

Cooler weather driving more people indoors where the virus is more easily spread are now com-bining with fatigue and angerover virus restrictions for a dan-gerous new stage.

“When you put those three to-gether, we shouldn’t be surprised what we’re seeing,” said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minne-sota expert on infectious diseasesand pandemic preparations.

BY JILL LAWLESS

Associated Press

LONDON — A new national lockdown in England may have to last longer than the planned four weeks if coronavirus infection rates don’t fall quickly enough, a senior government minister said Sunday.

The lockdown announced Sat-urday by Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to run from Thursday until Dec. 2. Johnson says it’s needed to stop hospitals from be-coming overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients within weeks.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said it was the government’s “fer-vent hope” that the lockdown would end on time, but that could not be guaranteed.

“With a virus this malignant, and with its capacity to move so quickly, it would be foolish to pre-dict with absolute certainty what will happen in four weeks’ time,” he told Sky News. “We’re going to review it on the 2nd of December but we’re always driven by what the data says.”

Under the new restrictions, bars and restaurants can only offer take-out, nonessential shops must close and people will only be able to leave home for a short list of reasons including exercise. Hairdressers, gyms, golf courses, swimming pools and bowling al-

leys are among venues that must shut down, and foreign holidays are barred.

Unlike during the U.K.’s first three-month coronavirus lock-down earlier this year, schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing businesses will stay open.

Britain has the worst virus death toll in Europe, with more than 46,700 dead. It passed 1 mil-lion confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday and confirmed an-

other 23,254 new infections on Sunday.

Like other European countries, virus cases in the U.K. began to climb after lockdown measures were eased in the summer and people began to return to work-places, schools, universities and social life. In recent weeks, new infections have been soaring across the continent, especially in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Spain and the U.K.

Johnson had hoped regional

restrictions introduced in Octo-ber, mostly in northern England, would be enough to push the numbers of new infections down. But government scientific advis-ers predict that on the outbreak’s current trajectory, the demand for hospital beds will exceed the capacity by the first week of De-cember, even if temporary hospi-tals are set up again.

“Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day,” Johnson said as he announced the lock-down during a televised news conference Saturday evening.

But owners of pubs, restau-rants, theaters and gyms all say the measures will be devastating.

A government program that has paid the wages of millions of furloughed employees during the pandemic has been extended during the new lockdown. Many businesses say that is not enough, especially in the arts, where most people work as freelancers.

Mark Davyd, chief executive of the Music Venue Trust, urged the government to offer the live events industry further finan-cial support, as has been done in France and Germany.

“We look forward to urgent details from ministers on the fi-nancial package that will protect businesses and livelihoods in this vital, world-leading British indus-

try,” he said.Also Sunday, the government

and Transport for London strucka deal to keep buses and subwaysrunning in the capital, where pas-senger numbers have collapsedbecause of the pandemic. Themix of grants and loans worth1.8 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) isearmarked to keep the system op-erating until the end of March.

Under the new restrictions, places of worship can stay openfor private prayer and funer-als, but not for communal ser-vices. That has drawn criticismfrom England’s top two Roman Catholic clergy, Cardinal Vincent Nichols and Archbishop Malcolm McMahon, who say the suspen-sion would cause “deep anguish.“

“Faith communities have played a vital role in sustainingpersonal, spiritual and mental health and encouraging vital charitable activities” during thepandemic, they said. “That criti-cal service towards the common good of all is created and sus-tained by communal worship.”

The new lockdown needs Par-liament’s approval and a vote is scheduled for Wednesday. Somemembers of Johnson’s Conserva-tive Party oppose tighter restric-tions because of the economicdamage they inflict, but the main opposition Labour Party says itwill vote for the new lockdown.

Grave missteps in US virus response as cases surge

British lockdown may last longer than 4 weeks

NOAH BERGER/AP

A shopper passes a sign urging customers to wear masks at a Brandy Melville store last week in San Francisco.

ALBERTO PEZZALI/AP

A view across a sparsely crowded Covent Garden in central London, Saturday.


VIRUS OUTBREAK

Halloween held from a distance amid pandemic

BY DENISE LAVOIE

Associated Press

Ghosts, skeletons, princesses and black cats roamed the streets, as usual, this Halloween, but they kept their distance, wore face coverings and carried hand sani-tizer in their quest for treats.

Like with everything else this year, the pandemic also left its mark on Halloween. Parades, parties and haunted houses were canceled due to bans on large gatherings and concerns that spooky celebrations could spread the coronavirus.

But across the U.S., parents and costumed kids found ways to pre-serve the essence of the holiday Saturday while also observing the rules of social distancing.

In the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Tomeka Ray took her 4-year-old daughter, Diamond, trick-or-treating in the after-noon. The girl, dressed as a prin-cess, wore her mask and carried sanitizer, with more of the dis-infecting gel in the car for good measure, Ray said, so “I wasn’t too worried.”

At one home neighbors had rigged a remote treat-delivery system fashioned out of a ventila-tion tube, with a cardboard cutout at the end colored to make it look like a dragon’s mouth.

“I like that. I really do. That’s the third house I’ve seen that has that,” Ray said.

Caden Korchuk, 11, and friend Jayden Schoning, 10, both dressed as skeletons, also appreciated get-ting their candy delivered from a distance.

“Everything out here is really cool because of all the chutes,” Korchuk said.

In Glen Allen, V a., just outside Richmond, neighbors left indi-vidually wrapped bags of candy on tables at the end of driveways to avoid having dozens of kids coming to their doors and stick-ing their hands in the same big, germy candy bowls.

Matt Cheadle, 35, a furniture designer, called it “extremely” so-cially distanced trick-or-treating.

Parker, his 5-year-old son, was going as Yoshi, the green dinosaur from the Mario Kart video game series, and the chance to show off his costume and get candy is all he’s talked about recently

“He’s already had so much taken away from him this year,” Cheadle said. “We think this is a small compromise for Halloween. The little kiddos will still dress up, they’ll still get to go drive-way to driveway, but not door to door.”

Halloween comes as corona-virus cases are surging in many parts of the country and health officials warn of the potential for even higher numbers this winter.

More than 230,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the country, and total U.S. cases surpassed 9 million on Friday. Over the past two weeks, more than 78,700 new virus cases have been reported each day on average, up from about 55,100 in mid-October, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Many cities and towns issued guidelines for celebrating Hal-loween safely.

New York City’s health depart-

ment recommended avoiding large groups, haunted houses and bobbing for apples — “Keep your spit to yourself,” it said in an advisory. Officials urged people instead to focus on safe activities

like pumpkin carving, home dec-orating, outdoor scavenger hunts and virtual costume parties.

Lots of festivities were can-celed, including the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, a

nearly 50-year tradition that typi-cally draws tens of thousands tothe streets of Manhattan. Orga-nizers staged a virtual puppet pa-rade instead.

In New Hampshire, wherecoronavirus cases are also onthe rise, emergency management officials in Coos County recom-mended residents not participatein door-to-door trick-or-treatingor group events. Trick-or-treat-ing was called off entirely in Pittsburg, a town of about 900 inthe northern part of the state.

Betsy Curtin of Clarks Summit, Pa., and her sons were also skip-ping it for safety’s sake. Instead, itwas a visit to their grandparents’ houses in costume — Alex, 7, asBatman and Charlie, 9, as Cap-tain America — then back home for pizza and a movie.

“I only bought Kit Kats for them, so I’ve officially ruined theirweekend,” Curtin said. “Hoping the grandparents come throughwith specialty chocolates.”

JACK HANRAHAN, ERIE TIMES-NEWS/AP

Samantha Ruiz-Bueno, left, passes out candy to Boaz Pettis, 6, of Millcreek Township, Pa., and his sister Callista Pettis, 8, during the Drive-thru Trunk or Treat event for kids at the Fairview United Methodist Church on Saturday, in Fairview, Pa.

VAIL DAILY/AP

A sign indicates that residents of a house will not be handing out treats for Halloween during the coronavirus pandemic Friday in Minturn, Colo.


VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

Many travelers to NY must get tested to avoid quarantine

Associated Press

ALBANY — Starting Wednes-day, New York will require travel-ers from non-neighboring states to get a coronavirus test before, and after, they arrive in the state if they want to avoid a full 14-day quarantine.

New York for months had at-tempted to maintain a list of states with high COVID-19 infection rates, where travelers from those states would be required to quar-antine for 14 days upon arrival. It is now scrapping that effort amid a nationwide surge.

Instead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday that travelers from all non-neighboring states who don’t want to quarantine for two weeks must test negative for COVID-19 no more than three days before they enter New York.

Individuals arriving without proof of a negative test won’t be stopped from entering the state, but will be required to quaran-tine for 14 days.

Individuals who tested nega-tive will still have to quarantine for three days after they arrive and then take a second test. If that’s negative, they can stop quarantining.

Alaska

JUNEAU — The Alaska Leg-islative Council approved a mea-sure that requires lawmakers, employees and reporters to be screened for the coronavirus when entering the Capitol and to wear masks or face coverings in the building and other legislative offices.

The council also voted Thurs-day to keep the Capitol building closed to the public until at least January, when the next Legisla-ture convenes. Legislative staff and reporters will still be allowed into the building, KTOO Public Media reported.

The council’s chair, Sen. Gary Stevens, said that while the Leg-islature in January could change the policies, he anticipates they will not as long as the pandemic persists.

The council voted 9-1 to man-date face coverings and 8-2 to require screenings to enter the Capitol. Republican Rep. DeLena Johnson was the only person on the council to vote against both measures.

Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK — The number of deaths in Arkansas due to the illness caused by the coronavirus increased by 25 on Saturday and the number of reported cases rose by 1,316, according to the Arkan-sas Department of Health.

The department reported a total of 1,925 confirmed and prob-

able deaths due to COVID-19, and 112,190 cases since the pandemic began in March. The actual num-ber of cases in Arkansas is likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies sug-gest people can be infected and not feel sick.

The number of people hospital-ized declined by 16 from Friday to 652 and 100,067 people have recovered while there are 10,185 active cases, according to the department.

Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana re-ported more than 3,000 new coro-navirus cases for a third straight day Saturday as the state’s new COVID-19 cases and hospitaliza-tions continued to surge.

The Indiana State Department of Health also reported 46 newly recorded COVID-19 deaths, rais-ing the state’s pandemic death toll to 4,332, including confirmed and presumed coronavirus infections.

The 3,505 new infections re-ported Saturday came two days after the state agency reported 3,649 new infections. Those cases reported Thursday set a daily high of newly reported cases of COVID-19 and were the first time Indiana had recorded more than 3,000 positive coronavirus cases in one day. The state recorded 3,205 new infections Friday.

Indiana’s seven-day rolling av-erage for newly confirmed cases rose to 2,714, according to the health department’s daily update Saturday of its coronavirus dash-board. That is the highest level the state has seen during the pan-demic and more than triple the seven-day rolling average of 858 newly confirmed cases the agen-cy reported on Sept. 22.

Michigan

LANSING — Michigan re-ported a single-day record of new confirmed coronavirus cases Sat-urday: 3,792.

The state health department also said that there were 31 ad-ditional deaths, although 20 were from a records review and could have occurred days or weeks ago.

The number of people con-firmed to have been infected since March stands at nearly 179,000. More than 121,000 have recovered. There have been at least 7,340 deaths related to COVID-19.

Hundreds more are considered probable.

Nebraska

LINCOLN — Nebraska is re-porting nearly 1,500 new corona-

virus cases for just a single day and another high for the number of people hospitalized because of COVID-19.

The state Department of Health and Human services online virus tracker said that as of Fri-day evening, Nebraska has had 69,645 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. That was an increase of 1,495 cases since Thursday, or 2.2%.

The department also said that 584 people were hospitalized, an increase of 56 or 10.6% from the previous high Thursday of 528. The state has had more than 3,000 hospitalizations in all. The department reported that 76% of the state’s 827 ventilators were in use as of Friday.

The health department also re-ported an additional nine COVID-19-related deaths to bring the total to 646.

Oregon

SALEM — Oregon health au-thorities reported Saturday that 14 more people in the state have died from COVID-19, matching the highest death toll reported in a single day as the state struggles to contain the coronavirus.

The latest deaths occurred from Sept. 26, when an 80-year-old woman died in her home, through Friday, when a 66-year-old woman died at a hospital in Bend.

With the state’s total known virus death toll reaching 689, offi-cials tried to get trick-or-treaters to wait until next year to celebrate Halloween.

Authorities noted it is hard to keep 6 feet of distance when trick-or-treaters gather at doors, that handing out candy puts peo-ple in close contact, and frequent-ly touched surfaces like candy bowls and door knobs could have the virus on them.

The Oregon Health Authority on Saturday also reported 555 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19, a day after an-nouncing a record 600 additional cases. Fourteen deaths were also reported on July 28.

South Dakota

SIOUX FALLS — Active cases of the coronavirus in South Da-kota shot past 14,000 on Saturday as the state marked its fourth day with over 1,000 new cases.

The new figure of 14,373 active infections means that roughly one out of every 61 people in the state is infected with the corona-virus. South Dakota has posted the nation’s second-worst rate of virus spread per capita in the last two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.

The new high points in cases come as the state caps its dead-liest month of the virus yet. Ten more people died from COVID-19, bringing the number of deaths reported this month to 202. The state has recorded a total of 425 deaths over the course of the pandemic.

The number of people hospital-ized by the virus also set an all-time high with 415 people needing hospital care. The Department of Health reported that about 31% of hospital beds and 36% of ICU beds are available statewide.

Tennessee

MEMPHIS — After saying it may not provide updated COVID-19 case data this weekend as it upgrades its national electronic disease surveillance system, Ten-nessee reported an increase of more than 1,180 cases statewide on Saturday.

The Tennessee Department of Health announced in a news re-lease late Friday that it may not be able to update its virus case data on Saturday and Sunday due to the upgrade. Tennessee usu-ally updates the number of coro-navirus-related cases, deaths and other data on the department’s website on a daily basis.

The department’s website was updated Saturday afternoon. Tennessee reported an increase of 12 deaths, raising the state’s total to 3,353. The state has seen more than 260,600 cases since the pandemic began, health offi-cials said.

The upgrade will not affect testresult notification for patients, the health department said.

Texas

AUSTIN — The number of coronavirus cases reported bythe Texas health department surpassed 900,000 on Saturday,and more than 18,000 people inthe state have now died due to COVID-19, the illness caused bythe virus, according to the TexasDepartment of State HealthServices.

There were a reported 6,845new cases and 90 additionaldeaths to bring the totals to900,596 cases and 18,024 whohave died since the pandemicbegan in March.

The true number of cases in Texas is likely higher, though, be-cause many people haven’t beentested, and studies have suggest-ed that people can be infected and not feel sick.

The health department re-ported 102,769 active cases of the virus and that 782,006 people have recovered, while the num-ber of hospitalizations increased by 69 to 5,696.

Wisconsin

MADISON — Wisconsin re-ported an all-time high for newcoronavirus cases in a single day Saturday as 5,278 people testedpositive.

Deaths from the virus alsopassed 2,000 as the Department of Health Services reported 59 more deaths, bringing the total to2,031. The state saw more deathsduring October than any otherof the pandemic, with 704 of thestate’s 2,031 COVID-19 deathsmarked this month.

Wisconsin has the country’s fourth-worst rate of new infec-tions per capita over the last twoweeks, according to Johns Hop-kins researchers. There wereabout 927 new cases per 100,000 people.

Health officials reportedthat 229 more people werehospitalized.

KATHY WILLENS/AP

Arriving travelers walk by a COVID-19 travel advisory sign in the baggage claim area of Terminal B at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport.


NATION

Latest crew to mark 20 years of science in space

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The International Space Sta-tion was a cramped, humid, puny three rooms when the first crew moved in. Twenty years and 241 visitors later, the complex has a lookout tower, three toilets, six sleeping compartments and 12 rooms, depending on how you count.

Monday marks two decades of a steady stream of people living there. Astronauts from 19 coun-tries have floated through the space station hatches, including many repeat visitors who arrived on shuttles for short-term con-struction work, and several tour-ists who paid their own way.

The first crew — American Bill Shepherd and Russians Ser-gei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko — blasted off from Kazakhstan on Oct. 31, 2000. Two days later, they swung open the space sta-tion doors, clasping their hands in unity.

Shepherd, a former Navy SEAL who served as the station com-mander, likened it to living on a ship at sea. The three spent most of their time coaxing equipment to work; balky systems made the place too warm. Conditions were primitive, compared with now.

Installations and repairs took hours at the new space station, versus minutes on the ground,

Krikalev recalled.“Each day seemed to have its

own set of challenges,” Shepherd said during a recent NASA panel discussion with his crewmates.

The space station has since morphed into a complex that’s almost as long as a football field, with eight miles of electrical wir-ing, an acre of solar panels and three high-tech labs.

“It’s 500 tons of stuff zooming around in space, most of which never touched each other until it got up there and bolted up,” Shep-herd told The Associated Press. “And it’s all run for 20 years with almost no big problems.

Shepherd, 71, is long retired from NASA and lives in Vir-ginia Beach, V a. Krikalev, 62, and Gidzenko, 58, have risen in the Russian space ranks. Both were involved in the mid-October launch of the 64th crew.

With its first piece launched in 1998, the International Space Sta-tion already has logged 22 years in orbit. NASA and its partners contend it easily has several years of usefulness left 260 miles up.

The current residents — one American and two Russians, just like the original crew — plan to celebrate Monday’s milestone by sharing a special dinner, enjoying the views of Earth and remem-bering all the crews who came before them, especially the first.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Millions of Americans who have lost health insurance in an economy shaken by the coronavirus can sign up for taxpayer-subsidized coverage starting Sunday.

It’s not a new COVID relief program but the return of annual sign-up season under the Afford-able Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.” Open enrollment lasts through Dec. 15.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs HealthCare.gov, says premiums are down slightly on average for 2021 and most people will have at least three insurers from which to pick plans. Lower-income people and even middle-class families may qualify for tax credits that can greatly reduce what they pay monthly for premiums.

But President Donald Trump, unrelenting in his opposition to President Barack Obama’s signa-ture domestic program, is asking the Supreme Court to overturn

the entire law.Trump has been promising a

much better replacement since before taking office, but never came out with his plan. The jus-tices are scheduled to hear the case Nov. 10, and the administra-tion is doing little to promote sign-ups, having previously slashed the program’s ad budget.

Hard numbers on how virus-related job losses have affected health coverage are not available because the most reliable govern-ment surveys will not be out until next year. Estimates range from 5 million to 10 million newly un-insured people. That’s on top of 26 million uninsured last year, before the pandemic, or about 8% of the U.S. population.

More than 11 million people have coverage through Health-Care.gov and state-run health insurance markets offering sub-sidized private plans. The health law also covers 12 million people through its Medicaid expansion, adopted by all but 12 states.

Associated Press

MIAMI — Rain-heavy Tropi-cal Storm Eta strengthened on Sunday as it headed for a drench-ing collision with Central Amer-ica. The system ties the record for the most named storms in an Atlantic hurricane season.

Eta had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph Sunday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was centered about 345 miles east of the Nicaragua-Honduras border and was heading west-

ward at 15 mph.Forecasters expect Eta to be-

come a hurricane by Monday and it was forecast on Tuesday to hit the Nicaraguan coast, where a hurricane warning was posted.

Forecasters said central and northern Nicaragua into much of Honduras could get 15 to 25 inches of rain, with 35 inches in isolated areas.

Heavy rains also are likely in eastern Guatemala, southern Be-lize and Jamaica.

Eta is the 28th named Atlantic storm this season, tying the 2005record for named storms. Howev-er, this is the first time the Greekletter Eta is being used as a stormname because in 2005, after theseason ended meteorologists wentback and determined there was astorm that should have gotten aname, but didn’t.

Hurricane season still has amonth to go, ending Nov. 30. Andin 2005, Zeta formed toward theend of December.

Associated Press

ANTIOCH, Ill . — A visibly upset 17-year-old accused of fa-tally shooting two demonstra-tors in Wisconsin told officers at his local police station in Illinois where to find an assault rifle he said he had used just two hours earlier to shoot several people, according to police records.

Kyle Rittenhouse cycled through a range of emotions, cry-ing and vomiting several times, as he described to police what happened late on Aug. 25 after he traveled to Kenosha, ostensibly to protect businesses from protest-ers following the police shoot-ing of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, the Antioch Police Department records show.

“I shot two white kids,” Rit-tenhouse said, adding that he had “ended a man’s life.”

Rittenhouse walked into the Antioch Police Department with his mother shortly before 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 26, according to re-cords the department released to

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Chicago Tribune on Friday.

He is accused in the killing of two protesters and the wounding of a third. Rittenhouse faces a misdemeanor charge of underage firearm possession in Wisconsin, in addition to first-degree inten-tional homicide, which carries a life prison sentence. He was ex-tradited to Wisconsin on Friday.

Rittenhouse’s case has taken on a political edge, with some conservatives portraying him as a patriot who was exercising his right to bear arms during unrest. Others see him as a domestic ter-rorist who incited protesters by showing up wielding a rifle.

He started to cry after learn-ing from family members about negative social media comments over the shootings, the records say. He said he was hit in the head and neck with a baseball bat and skateboard. Medics found small scratches on his arm, but no bruising or cuts.

Rittenhouse also told police that the firearm he used was

in the trunk of his friend’s car, parked at the Rittenhouse’s fam-ily apartment in Antioch.

Police interviewed Ritten-house’s 18-year-old friend, whotold them he bought the rifle atan Ace Hardware in Ladysmith,Wis. , using money Rittenhousehad given him. The friend said therifle was only supposed to be usedfor hunting and that he stored it in a safe at his stepfather’s house inKenosha.

The stepfather told police thathis stepson told him he had found himself a job guarding a business.Rittenhouse also told police that he had been hired as security for a Kenosha business and that he carried the rifle to protect him-self. The owner of the business,Car Source, has told the Milwau-kee Journal Sentinel that he didnot hire any security.

Rittenhouse’s lawyers haveargued he was acting in self-de-fense. Rittenhouse told policethat he had been chased by a manwhom he had tried to stop hitting windows.

Annual open enrollment starts for ‘Obamacare’

Teen told police where to find gun used in Kenosha shootings

Tropical Storm Eta ties Atlantic named record

NAM Y. HUH/AP

Kyle Rittenhouse sits while listening during an extradition hearing in Lake County court on Friday in Waukegan, Ill.


NATION

BY RYAN J. FOLEY

Associated Press

IOWA CITY, Iowa — A surge in coronavirus cases across the country, including in key presi-dential battleground states, is creating mounting health and logistical concerns for voters, poll workers and political parties ahead of Election Day.

In Iowa, where both presiden-tial campaigns are competing feverishly, county officials said they were preparing for scores of confirmed or potentially infected people to vote curbside. It’s an option typically used by disabled people that must be available out-side every polling place.

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker, in Cedar Rapids, encour-aged people to cast their ballot but said they should take safety precautions at polling places to protect themselves and their neighbors.

“We can’t afford to have Elec-tion Day serve as a superspread-ing event across the state and country,” he said.

At a news conference this past week, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said his office had dis-tributed 145,000 gloves, 200,000 masks and 11,000 social-distanc-ing markers for use by voters and poll workers.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers sought to assure voters in the critical swing state that going to the polls would not be risky, even as officials announced more than 5,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday.

“For those who are voting in person now, I believe it’s safe,” Evers said, adding that polling places have adequate supplies to protect voters.

Across the country, Repub-licans worked to downplay any concerns that health risks will keep some of their voters home, after Democrats heavily promot-ed mail-in and early in-person balloting to their voters.

Republicans are counting on a huge Election Day turnout among their supporters to offset the big leads in early voting among Dem-ocrats in states that are pivotal to the presidential race.

“If you were worried about vot-

ing at the polls on Election Day, you’ve probably already voted,” said John March, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia.

Like many other states, Iowa last week reported its highest number of average daily new

cases and hospitalizations so far.In Cedar Rapids, public health

officials called a news conferenceFriday to express alarm at thespike in cases in Linn County, in-cluding a single-day high report-ed Thursday of more than 200.They urged residents to avoidgatherings while advising thosewho visit polling places to wearmasks, stay 6 feet apart and washtheir hands afterward.

Linn County auditor Joel Millersaid a woman who acknowledged she was positive for the virus voted curbside Thursday at amall where early voting is taking place, the first known infectedvoter in the county. Poll workers gave her a face shield and gloves and isolated everything she touched, he said.

Several other voters who wereawaiting test results or wanted toavoid the line for health reasons also used it, and county auditors were preparing for a major in-crease in the rarely-used optionTuesday.

Under curbside voting, resi-dents call a phone number for assistance from their vehicle and a bipartisan poll worker team is sent to help them cast ballots.

Miller, 65, said he is concernedabout contracting the virus after spending hours assisting vot-ers and was to get tested againSunday. He said he was worried about the virus spreading at poll-ing places Tuesday, noting thatvoters cannot be required to wearmasks.

“Heck yes, I’m concerned. I’mgoing to have 500 people working on Tuesday. I don’t want it on my conscience that somebody caughtCOVID at a polling place and gotsick,” he said. “It could happen. It could happen to me.”

Virus spike creates concerns for polling places

FROM FRONT PAGE

essentially guarantees that, for the first time in history, a majority of ballots will be cast before Election Day. The early turn-out puts the country on pace for record voter participation not seen in more than a century, and if the current rate holds, more than 100 million ballots will have been cast before Tuesday.

Democrats have had an edge in early voting, but that gap has narrowed in some key battleground states in recent days, including in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, according to data maintained by the U.S. Elections Project, a nonpartisan early-voting tracker. President Donald Trump has urged his voters to cast their ballots on Election Day, and his campaign is hoping that his supporters take heed and show up in full force to close that gap.

As anxiety intensifies ahead of Election Day, election officials are bracing for po-tential conflict at polling sites. On Satur-day, a march organized to encourage voting and in support of Black lives led to several arrests. Demonstrators, some as young as 3 years old, were reportedly sprayed with an irritant.

The record-breaking turnout has stunned election officials and campaign operatives alike, and it has upended the presidential campaigns’ expectations of

which states would be pivotal to their path to victory. Texas, for example, has led the country in early voting and has already surpassed its 2016 turnout; the number of ballots cast there so far has made the state competitive for the first time in decades.

As the early-voting period comes to an end in most states Monday, some voters have taken extraordinary measures to make sure they can cast their ballots early, including waiting hours in line and travel-ing across the country to avoid problems with mail delivery. Their overwhelming demand to vote early comes despite the president’s attacks on the integrity of mail voting, and as spikes in positive coronavi-rus cases have exacerbated voters’ anxiety about potential exposure at busy polling places Tuesday.

“Obviously, this race is far from decided. But to the extent that President Trump is entering Election Day with a deficit, the degree of difficulty that he’s facing to sur-mount that deficit is substantially higher because of his tactical rejection of early voting,” said Tom Bonier, chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm.

Roughly two dozen states and Washing-ton, D.C., will allow early voting through Monday.

One of those voters who raced to get their ballots in before Tuesday was Joe LaMu-

raglia, 52, who drove more than 800 miles to Georgia from Massachusetts to vote in person because his absentee ballot never arrived. LaMuraglia, a registered Demo-crat from Savannah, Ga., has been living in Boston during the pandemic and requested his absentee ballot in early September. The election office had mailed it out on Sept. 18, he said, but the ballot was somehow sent to Virginia, where he has never lived.

When his ballot had not arrived as of Tuesday, he decided to drive to Georgia instead. After a 15-hour road trip, LaMu-raglia waited in line for 52 minutes at his early-voting site and finally cast his vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

“It’s too important to sit this one out,” he said. After voting, “I had a sense of re-lief, just this huge sigh of relief, that I got it done.”

At least 90,488,149 Americans had voted as of Saturday afternoon, including at least 32.9 million who cast votes in person, ac-cording to the U.S. Elections Project, run by Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida. In the 20 states where party registration data was avail-able, 45.9% were Democrats, 30.2% were Republicans and 23.3% had no party affili-ation, according to the tracker.

Nearly 28% of the early ballots nation-

ally were cast by voters who did not par-ticipate in the 2016 election, according to a TargetSmart analysis.

Black voters have turned out in largenumbers nationally and in some key battle-ground states, such as Georgia and NorthCarolina.

And voters under 30 have exceeded their 2016 early-voting rates in the majority of battleground states, amid signs that theymay be on track to massively turn out asthey did in the 2018 midterms, when theymore than doubled their rate of voting com-pared with the prior midterm election.

In Graham, N.C., a racially diverse crowd of about 400 people was making itsway from a Black church to an early-voting site when the group stopped at the Confed-erate monument where anti-racism activ-ists have clashed for months with white nationalists.

It was not immediately apparent from the outer edges what led law enforcementofficers to start arresting marchers. Gra-ham police said the department would notrelease the total number of arrests untilSaturday night and would not discuss thecharges individuals face until Monday.The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office didnot respond to an interview request.

Historic: Voters across the country overcome various obstacles to cast ballots

JOHN HART/AP

Evelio Mancera and his daughter, Jennifer Mancera, both residents of Madison, fill out their ballots on the first day of the state’s in-person absentee voting window for the Nov. 3 election outside the city’s City-County Building in Madison, Wis.


NATION

Candidates make final pitch in swing states

Study: Trump rallies may have led to over 700 COVID-19 deaths

Associated Press

BUTLER, Pa. — President Donald Trump is mounting one final test of whether the massive crowds that often show up at his signature rallies will translate into votes as he finishes the final 48 hours of his reelection cam-paign with a dizzying onslaught of events in the battleground states that could decide the race.

The president was scheduled to hold five rallies in five states on Sunday alone. He’ll hold seven more on Monday to close out the final full day of the campaign.

Down in the polls and at a cash disadvantage to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, Trump is turning to rallies to help keep his message in front of voters. But it’s unclear whether they will broaden his ap-peal beyond those already likely to vote for him. And the packed — often unmasked — crowds risk deepening the pandemic at a time when coronavirus cases are surg-ing across the U.S.

But Trump, still relishing his late-stage upset in the 2016 cam-paign, sees his showmanship as a central element of his outsider appeal that he hopes will resonate

again this year.“Let me ask you, is there a bet-

ter place to be anytime, anywhere than a Trump rally?” Trump asked a massive crowd Saturday in Butler, P a., that responded in roaring approval.

With more than 91 million votes already cast, Trump and Biden are out of time to reshape the race. Instead, they’re focusing on their base and making sure that any potential supporters have ei-ther already voted or plan to do so in person on Tuesday.

For Biden, that means paying close attention to Black voters who are a critical part of the co-alition he needs to build to win. His team is confident in Biden’s standing with women, college-ed-ucated voters and those who live in the suburbs.

But some Democrats worry that voters of color may not be ex-

cited about Biden and won’t show up in force to support him, which could be devastating in fiercely contested battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The challenge is exacerbated by the Democratic push this year to encourage voting by mail to prevent people waiting in long lines during a pandemic. But that runs counter to the tradition of some Black voters who prefer to vote in person on Election Day.

“Most Black voters in Philly have been skeptical of mail-in voting,” said Joe Hill, a veteran Democratic operative-turned-lobbyist from the city. “A lot of us have gotten our ballots already,” Hill said, but added, “Election Day has always been everything in Philadelphia.”

Biden was spending much of Sunday in Philadelphia encour-aging voters to turn out. He was

to participate in a “souls to the polls” event that’s aimed at en-couraging Black church congre-gations to organize and vote.

He held his first in-person campaign events with former President Barack Obama on Sat-urday in the predominantly Black cities of Detroit and Flint, Mich . Obama will also campaign for Biden on Monday in Georgia and in South Florida, another area of potential concern if Latino voters sit out the election.

As the largest city in a state that could decide the presidency, Philadelphia has always held spe-cial significance for Biden. Just 30 miles from his longtime home in Wilmington, Del. , Biden plant-ed his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia before the pandem-ic forced most of his staff to work remotely.

The city gets intense focus be-cause it’s such a deep trove of Democratic votes, especially non-white voters.

Democrat Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania by almost 45,000 votes four years ago even as she fell just 4,800 votes shy of Obama’s Philadelphia County total in 2012. Clinton’s bigger problem was that

she lost ground to Trump in other parts of the state beyond Phila-delphia and its suburbs.

According to an analysis by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, a nonparti-san political data expert, almost 2.3 million Pennsylvania voters had returned absentee ballots as of Friday out of almost 3.1 millionrequested. That’s a statewide re-turn rate of 74.2%.

Philadelphia’s return rate was atick higher, at 74.6%, but it had thehighest raw total of outstandingballots, with more than 101,000.Statewide, registered Democratsmaintained a solid advantage overRepublicans on returned ballots:1.54 million to about 520,000. In a separate analysis, the Democratic data firm TargetSmart found thatmore than 385,000 of the earlyDemocratic voters didn’t vote atall in 2016.

Across the state in Pittsburgh,Democratic consultant MikeMikus stressed that Philadelphiaisn’t Biden’s only path to flipping Pennsylvania. Mikus noted that Trump won a Pittsburgh-areacongressional district by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016.

BY MELISSA HEALY

Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump has described his campaign rallies as “fun,” “wonderful,” “the Greatest Show on Earth,” and, of course, “BIG.”

An effort to calculate whether those events have increased the spread of the coronavirus in the United States suggests that “con-tagious” and “deadly” would also apply.

A rigorous attempt to gauge the after-effects of 18 of the pres-ident’s reelection rallies, all held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests they have led to more than 30,000 additional cases and at least 700 additional deaths.

Those casualties would not have occurred if the campaign events had not taken place, ac-cording to a team of Stanford re-searchers. Media coverage of the rallies made clear there was little effort to follow guidelines about social distancing, and mask use was optional for attendees, who typically numbered in the thou-sands. (Indeed, face coverings were disparaged by the president on several occasions.)

Furthermore, the extra ill-nesses and deaths almost cer-tainly reached beyond the ardent Trump supporters who attended the rallies, rippling outward to ensnare others in their towns and

cities, the study authors said.“The communities in which

Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death,” the Stanford team concluded.

The study, led by economist B. Douglas Bernheim, was posted Friday on a website where social science researchers share pre-liminary work and seek feedback from other scholars.

On Saturday, the findings be-came fresh campaign fodder as the president stumped at four out-door rallies in Pennsylvania and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, held two drive-in events in Michigan with former President Barack Obama.

Biden spokesman Andrew Gates said the study supports Democrats’ long-standing charge that Trump’s gatherings have been “super-spreader rallies that only serve his own ego.”

The Trump campaign contends that attendees are exercising their First Amendment rights. They are required to submit to temper-ature checks and are given masks and hand sanitizer upon entering, according to campaign spokes-woman Courtney Parella.

“We take strong precautions for our campaign events,” Parella told Politico.

In a bid to determine whether the Trump assemblies really have served as super-spreading events, Bernheim and his col-

leagues focused on 18 rallies held between June 20 and Sept. 22. Three of those events were held indoors, further increasing the risk of coronavirus transmission.

In an interview, Bernheim made clear that patterns of coro-navirus infection vary widely from county to county. But after using an array of statistical meth-ods to make apples-to-apples com-parisons, he said the pattern was impossible to ignore: The mass gatherings likely set off chains of transmission that were long and random.

The researchers traced the ef-fects of those chains for up to 10

weeks following each event. Dur-ing that time, an infected rally-goer might pass the virus to her grocer, who may pass it to his teenaged son, who transmits it to his girlfriend, who could infect her piano teacher.

Roughly 1 out of every 150 such cases results in a death, current COVID-19 statistics suggest.

For their study, the Stanford economists used a technique called “predictive modeling.” Essentially, they sought to dis-tinguish the effects of the presi-dential rallies from the normal progression of the coronavirus outbreak by examining the tra-

jectories of COVID-19 cases anddeaths in counties that hosted Trump events and comparingthem with myriad similar coun-ties that were not visited by the president.

After the date of the rally, the growth in coronavirus infectionsin counties that had welcomedTrump diverged notably from the growth in counties that didn’t,the researchers found. The gapsvaried widely from rally to rally.But no reading of the statistical findings support the conclusionthat hosting a rally had no effect in driving up COVID-19 cases.

JACQUELINE LARMA/AP

Kyle Terry, 33, front left, stands at the head of the line of supporters waiting to attend a campaign rally for President Donald Trump at Lancaster Airport on Oct. 26 in Lititz, Pa.

‘ Election Day has always been everything in Philadelphia. ’

Joe Hillveteran Democratic operative-turned-lobbyist


WORLD

70-year-old pulled out alive in Turkey as quake toll rises

Powerful typhoon slams into Philippines, at least 10 dead

Suspect arrested after 2 killed in Quebec City

QUEBEC CITY — Police inQuebec City early Sunday ar-rested a man on suspicion of kill-ing two people and injuring fiveothers in a stabbing rampage on Halloween near the provincial legislature.

They say the man in his mid-20s was taken to a hospital. Que-bec police said in a tweet theirinitial information indicates the motive was personal.

Police had earlier warned resi-dents to remain indoors as theyhunted for a man dressed in me-dieval clothing and armed with abladed weapon who had left “mul-tiple victims.”

The five injured victims weretaken to a hospital, and a spokes-woman said their lives do not ap-pear to be in danger.

“Quebec is waking up after anight of horror. Words fail me to describe such a tragedy. I offermy condolences to the familiesof the victims,” Quebec PremierFrancois Legault tweeted.

Hong Kong lawmakers arrested over disruption

HONG KONG — Hong Kongpolice arrested seven people Sun-day over scuffles that broke out with security guards during afaceoff between pro-democracy and pro-Beijing lawmakers inthe city’s legislature earlier thisyear.

Those arrested include cur-rent and former lawmakers anda legislative aide, police said. All seven are from the pro-democ-racy camp.

A police statement said that sixmen and one woman had been de-tained on suspicion of contempt and interfering with legislativepersonnel. It wasn’t clear if thatreferred to other lawmakers or the security staff.

The statement said the arrestsare part of an investigation into a May 8 committee meeting inwhich pro-democracy lawmakersrushed toward the chairperson’sseat and a phalanx of securityguards shoved back. From The Associated Press

Associated Press

IZMIR, Turkey — Rescue workers extricated a 70-year-old man from a collapsed building in western Turkey on Sunday, some 34 hours after a strong earth-quake in the Aegean Sea struck Turkey and Greece, killing at least 71 people and injuring more than 900.

It was the latest series of re-markable rescues after the Friday afternoon earthquake, which was centered in the Aegean northeast of the Greek island of Samos. Search-and-rescue teams were working in nine toppled or dam-aged buildings in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, but appeared to be finding more bodies Sunday than survivors.

The earthquake was centered in the Aegean northeast of the Greek island of Samos. Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Man-agement Presidency (AFAD) raised the death toll Sunday in Izmir province to 69. The agency said 949 people were injured in Turkey, with more than 220 still receiving treatment Sunday. Two teenagers were killed Friday on Samos and at least 19 others were injured.

There was some debate over the magnitude of the earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey rated it 7.0, while Istanbul’s Kandilli In-stitute put it at 6.9 and Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Man-agement Presidency (AFAD) said it measured 6.6.

Ahmet Citim, 70, was pulled

out of the rubble in the middle of the night and was hospitalized. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted that Citim said: “I never lost hope.” The minister visited the survivor and said he was doing well.

The quake triggered a small tsunami that hit Samos and the Seferihisar district of Izmir, drowning one elderly woman. The tremors were felt across western Turkey, including in Istanbul as well as in the Greek capital of

Athens. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said 26 badly damaged buildings would be demolished in Izmir.

“It’s not the earthquake that kills but buildings,” he added, re-peating a common slogan.

Turkey has a mix of older buildings and cheap or illegal construction, which can lead to serious damage and deaths when earthquakes hit.

Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines — A super typhoon blew into the east-ern Philippines with disastrous force Sunday, killing at least 10 people and triggering volcanic mudflows that engulfed about 150 houses before weakening as it blew away from the country, of-ficials said.

Typhoon Goni blasted into the eastern island province of Catan-duanes at dawn from the Pacific with sustained winds of 140 mph and gusts of 174 mph, threatening some provinces still recovering from a deadly typhoon that hit a week ago.

Goni barreled through densely

populated regions and threatened to sideswipe Manila, which shut down its main airport, but shift-ed southward Sunday night and spared the capital, the govern-ment weather agency said.

At least nine people were killed in the hard-hit province of Albay, including a father and son. Villag-ers fled to safety as the typhoon approached, but the two appar-ently stayed put in the commu-nity in Guinobatan town where about 150 houses were inundated by volcanic mudflow.

“The child was found 15 kilo-meters (9 miles) away,” Albay Gov. Al Francis Bichara told DZMM radio, adding that the boy was swept away by mudflows and

found in the next town.He did not say whether there

were any other residents trapped by the rampaging mudflows in the community and added that downed wires made it hard for people to communicate. The Of-fice of Civil Defense reported that three Guinobatan residents were missing, but it was not im-mediately clear if they were from the mudflow-hit community.

The other deaths in Albay in-cluded a villager who was pinned by a fallen tree. One person was killed in Catanduanes province.

Ricardo Jalad, who heads the government’s disaster-response agency, had feared that the ty-phoon could wreak major dam-

age due to its enormous force. The Philippine weather agency reinforced those concerns, say-ing that within 12 hours after the typhoon’s landfall, people could face “catastrophic, violent winds and intense to torrential rainfall.”

Residents were warned of pos-sible landslides, massive flood-ing, storm surges of up to 16 feet and powerful winds that can blow away shanties. But after hitting a mountain range and repeatedly slamming into coastal provinces, the typhoon gradually weakened, although it remained potentially deadly as it blew out into the South China Sea, forecasters said.

TURKEY HEALTH MINISTRY/AP

Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca speaks with Ahmet Citim, rescued from the debris of his collapsed house, in Izmir, Turkey, on Sunday .


WORLD

Associated Press

PARIS — The pressure rises with each gruesome attack. After three in five weeks, France’s Muslims are feeling squeezed.

A spotlight of suspicion was trained on them again even be-fore the latest acts of extremist violence, including two behead-ings. President Emmanuel Ma-cron has forged ahead with his effort to rid Islam in France of extremists, part of a project he labels “separatism,” a term that makes Muslims wince.

Amid intensifying rhetoric and fresh attacks by outsiders, includ-ing the killings of three people Thursday at a Catholic church in Nice, Muslims in France have kept their heads down and chins up. But deep down, some are squirming, feeling they are being held responsible.

“It’s worrisome for Muslims,” said Hicham Benaissa, a sociolo-gist who specializes in Islam in the workplace. Within his net-work, he said, some “talk about leaving France. The situation is tense. There is fear.”

Islam is the second religion in France, which has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe. But the country’s esti-

mated 5 million Muslims have walked a delicate line in search of full acceptance in what for many is their nation of birth. Dis-crimination casts a shadow over some and is an outright barrier to mainstream life for others.

France’s cherished value of secularism, which is meant to en-sure religious freedom, has in re-cent years been used by the state to reign in customs practiced by some Muslims. The president’s proposed law may mean further tinkering with the 1905 secular-ism law born out of a conflict with the powerful Roman Catholic clergy.

Macron has prompted angry protests and calls for boycotts of French products this past week from South Asia to the Mideast. He is accused of spreading anti-Muslim sentiment, notably while eulogizing the teacher who was decapitated near Paris, by defend-ing the French right to caricatur-ize Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Samuel Paty was attacked out-side his school Oct. 16 by a teen-age refugee of Chechen origin for showing the caricatures in a civ-ics class. A young Tunisian man killed three people Thursday inside the basilica in the south-

ern city of Nice, beheading one woman, The series of bloodletting began Sept. 25 when a young Pak-istani refugee injured two people outside the former Charlie Hebdo newsroom office in Paris.

Words of solidarity from France’s Muslim leaders have been unfailing. The attack “touched brothers and sisters who were praying to their lord. I am deeply Christian today,” said the imam of Nice’s Ar-Rahma Mosque, Otman Aissaoui.

But, “once again we are stig-matized, and people move so fast to lump things together,” Aissaoui also said, reflecting the deepen-ing discomfort of France’s Mus-lims, most from former French colonies in North Africa.

Muslims “are neither guilty nor responsible ... We shouldn’t have to justify ourselves,” said Abdallah Zekri, an official of the French Council for the Muslim Faith.

The attacks and Macron’s “sep-aratism” plan, which includes a partial overhaul of the way Islam is organized in France, from the training of imams to manage-ment of Muslim associations, have drilled home the divide. They also have focused attention on the cherished value of secu-

larism — “laicite” in French — which is enshrined in the French Constitution but is still not clearly defined.

Rim-Sarah Alouane, a doctoral candidate at Toulouse Capitole University, researching religious freedom and civil liberties, is tougher. “Since the l990s, laicite has been weaponized and mis-used as a political tool to limit the visibility of religious signs, espe-cially Muslim ones,” she said.

“The state needs to make sure to respect and fully embrace itsdiversity and not consider it athreat,” she said.

Benaissa doesn’t underesti-mate the “ideological offensive”of political Islam, but says a fero-cious public debate is reducingIslam to a single fear.

“Islam is not Islamism, a Mus-lim is not an Islamist. An Islamistis not necessarily a jihadi,” hesaid.

French Muslims feel pressure rise after attacks

EMRAH GUREL/AP

A protester in Istanbul holds a poster Friday with a caricature of France’s President Emmanuel Macron, depicting him as a devil .


nual fireworks show on Dec. 31.“Las Vegas has always been a

bucket list New Year’s Eve desti-nation, and we are going to make sure that remains the case — cel-ebrating putting 2020 in the rear-view mirror in an “Only Vegas” way,” Authority CEO Steve Hill said.

Transamerica Pyramid sold for $650 million

CA SAN FRANCISCO — The Transamerica

Pyramid, one of San Francisco’s iconic buildings, sold for $650 million eight months after a sales agreement was reached.

New York investor Michael Shvo, Deutsche Finance America and other investors bought the building from Aegon, owner of namesake insurance company Transamerica Corp., the San Francisco Chronicle reported .

The building, the second tallest in the city, had never been previ-ously sold.

Debris falls down fromskyscraper; no one hurt

NY NEW YORK — Debris fell from a supertall

skyscraper nearing completion in New York City as the top of a crane spun in the wind , but no one was injured, officials said.

Video posted to social media showed the top of the crane re-volving in a full circle in rainy weather at the building, which has

topped out at over 1,400 feet, on West 57th Street in Manhattan.

The crane is stable and is being evaluated, Buildings Department spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said in an email. The crane is designed to spin in the wind, he said, but inspectors are trying to determine what caused debris to fall.

2 found with explosives amid recent ATM thefts

PA PHILADELPHIA — Two men were

charged with possessing explo-sives after the van they were in was searched in Philadelphia as officials investigated bombings of cash machines across the city in recent days, the state attorney general announced.

Philadelphia police saw a group of 10 to 15 vehicles in a hotel park-ing lot at the edge of the city and followed them as they left once police arrived, the office of Attor-ney General Josh Shapiro said in

a news release. The convoy tried to ram a

parking lot barricade, and police followed the vehicles on an inter-state highway and into the down-town area, the release said.

The van was pulled over and searched by police and agents from the federal Bureau of Alco-hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Ex-plosives. They discovered “illegal explosives that bear the street vernacular ‘quarter or half sticks of dynamite,’ a handheld propane tank torch, a taser and various tools including: electric drills, bolt cutters, and machetes,” ac-cording to the attorney general’s office.

Suspect hurt when gun fires during pat down

MN ST. PAUL — A sus-pect was wounded

when his handgun fired during a pat down search by police in St. Paul, according to authorities.

The incident happened when

patrol officers saw two men act-ing suspiciously, police said. Oneof the men was detained and when officers were patting himdown, they discovered he had a handgun.

Officials said at some point thegun discharged and struck theman in the leg. His injuries aren’tbelieved to be life threatening.

Police: Mom pretended baby was in stolen car

IL CHICAGO — A Chicago mother was charged with

filing a false police report after she said her SUV had been stolenwith her 7-month-old son inside— a detail she later admitted sheadded to accelerate the hunt forthe vehicle, police said.

The child was found, un-harmed, at the home of a baby-sitter and Sadie Owens, 30, wascharged with the felony count.

According to authorities,Owens told police she had left herson in her SUV while she ran into a convenience store on the city’s Southwest Side only to return andfind that her SUV was gone.

Police found the vehicle a cou-ple of hours later but did not findthe child.

They said Owens admitted to filing a false report, telling po-lice that “some lady” had told herthat police would find her vehiclemuch quicker if she told them her son was inside.

AMERICAN ROUNDUPWalmart returns guns to US store displays

NY NEW YORK — Walmart has reversed

course, announcing it is return-ing ammunition and firearms to their displays in its U.S. stores.

The nation’s largest retailer said it had removed the items from displays due to “civil unrest” in some areas of the country. Guns and ammunition, however, had remained for sale at the stores, just not visible to shoppers.

“After civil unrest earlier this week resulted in damage to sev-eral of our stores, consistent with actions we took over the summer, we asked stores to move firearms and ammunition from the sales floor to a secure location in the back of the store in an abundance of caution,” Walmart said in a statement. “As the current inci-dents have remained geographi-cally isolated, we have made the decision to begin returning these products to the sales floor today.”

Guard, 11 inmates injured in bus crash

PA CONEWAGO — A state Department of Correc-

tions bus that was carrying 38 inmates was involved in a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike , leaving a corrections officer and 11 inmates with minor injuries.

State police said the crash in the turnpike’s eastbound lanes in Conewago Township occurred when one of the vehicle’s tires “suddenly deflated” and the bus struck a concrete barrier before coming to a stop in the left lane.

Pregnant woman pushes labor aside to cast vote

FL ORLANDO — A preg-nant Florida woman

didn’t let labor stop her from casting her vote in the presiden-tial election, refusing to go to the hospital until she filled out her ballot.

Officials with the Orange Coun-ty Supervisor of Elections said the woman was already in labor when she arrived at the polling site with her husband , news out-lets reported.

Elections employee Karen Bri-ceno Gonzalez said the husband asked for a ballot for his wife and later told the staff that she was in the car, in labor and refusing to go to the hospital until she was able to vote.

Briceno Gonzalez said she rushed outside to give the woman her ballot and check her ID. The staffer thought the woman would fill it out later, but while doing some controlled Lamaze breath-ing, the woman filled the ballot out right away.

New Year’s fireworks show canceled this year

NV LAS VEGAS — The annual fireworks show

on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas was canceled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said in a state-ment that it would cancel its an-

Snow bound

The amount in pounds of expired, unused and unwanted drugs collected in New England. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration held the 19th National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Oct. 26. The volume of drugs collected increased

by a factor of more than four since the first such event in September 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. Massachusetts and Maine each accounted for more than 40,000 pounds of prescription drugs and vaping devices, the Justice Department said.

THE CENSUS

115K

KELSEY BRUNNER, THE ASPEN (COLO.) TIMES/AP

From wire reports

Oscar Azevedo does a one-footed melon grab in Aspen, Colo. Azevedo says he is a local rapper known as “OsKillah” and a substitute teacher at Aspen Middle School. Azevedo has been snowboarding for almost 20 years and this is his fifth winter in the Roaring Fork Valley.

Monday, November 2, 2020 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 15

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BY HOWARD KOHN

Special to the Los Angeles Times

I am a prodigal of Midwestern farm country, and, yes, I recognize the irony that this year I’ve been leaving home in a rush each morning for the

enjoyment of growing food on a spare acre in a Washington, D.C., suburb, the kind of work I hated as a boy in Michigan.

The pandemic made me a farmer again. Ordinarily a crew of parents and children would have done the sowing and reaping, and I would have been their muse, impart-ing what wisdom remains from my boy-hood. Because of the virus, however, the crew was disbanded, and suddenly the acre of “demonstration garden” on the mu-nicipal grounds of Takoma Park, Md., was all mine, an odd sequel for someone who had abandoned his history.

My great-grandfather, embarking from Germany, was the first in the Kohn family to arrive in America, settling in Michigan in 1883, and for the next three generations the Kohns hoed fields and milked cows by hand. The farm did not pass to my genera-tion. I did not take it over, and my father sold our 120 acres to a neighbor who was accumulating farmland for a massive en-terprise reliant on 8-ton tractors.

By then I had already left for a modern life, and, while the loss of our farm brought me remorse, I never returned to it, never accepted my birthright.

An acre in Takoma Park is not a farm, of course. Laid out for appearance’s sake, its neatly assembled vegetable beds run between paths of flagstone and borders of quarried rocks, amid the comings and go-ings of city hall and within earshot of State Route 410, brakes and horns disturbing the peace, and joggers and bikers keeping pace with the slug of cars.

Yet I’ve been constantly reminded that garden work can be authentic farm work. It strains your muscles, and the constant

conflict with cold and hot, wind and rain, is exhausting, too.

The first salvo of spring was a wintry mix pelting on black smears of mud. Nothing could be planted. To busy myself I hauled manure from a horse stable and piled it in a garden corner as future compost.

Finally, the weather was right for seeds. When seedlings popped, I put collars around them to protect against pestifer-ous birds. Every day I weeded. For a while everything flourished, but then came summer with astonishingly hot, dancing air. Temperatures packed a heat of 2.5 de-grees Fahrenheit higher than average in our region. I did my best with hoses and a sprinkler.

When I was growing up in the 1950s the climate was not as unpredictably rash, but the need to adjust to it was the same. My father’s last thought at bedtime was usu-ally about the weather. What would tomor-row bring?

One September a tornado rolled up our rows of navy beans, ruining the harvest. The storm blew in so fast we were caught flat-footed in the field. I was 10 years old and suffused with the thrill of our own escape. Not until later did I realize that a winter job in the Pioneer sugar beet fac-tory that my dad had to resort to, a job that gave him pneumonia, was the true consequence.

This is always the risk: A harvest is gained only after months of work, and yet the outcome isn’t within your control. You require nature’s smile.

I look back now with awe at how well and how often my father and mother met with success. We ate sweet corn and scalloped potatoes and berry pies and rhubarb cus-tard, all homegrown. We ate big-smelling meats from animals we butchered and that my mom cooked on a woodstove. Some-times we had extra, and we would give it away to people we knew through Beaver

Zion Lutheran Church.For cash, we took beans and wheat in a

wagon to a grain elevator and took milk from our Holsteins to a cheese factory.The men who purchased our goods werefriends from church.

That was farming as I knew it. Over thedecades I watched from afar as family farming was consigned to museums. I sawout airplane windows the square miles offarm estates grow vaster and vaster. Theroute to markets grew longer and longer to the point that this year, when the virusdisconnected parts of it, crops rotted in the fields.

This is industrial farming. Ask these in-dustrialists about the people in their busi-ness they feel closest to, and they mightmention the gaudily jacketed brokers in the futures pit at the Chicago Board of Trade, although the brokers gave up theirjackets and the Chicago pits for computers five years ago.

It is quite the gap between them andmy dad. Before he died, he and I talkedabout his decision to live out his life on thehomestead. During four-and-a-half yearsof World War II, he had seen Tunisia andSicily and other ports and could have used the GI Bill to go anywhere. “What brought you back?” I asked one day.

He did not answer directly, but I recall him saying, “The time I like best is whenthe fields are empty.”

“Why?” I wasn’t sure I understood.“It’s when the crops are in.”The crops on my acre have been com-

ing in for weeks now — tomatoes, peppers,squash, potatoes, a catalog of vegetables —and I’ve been giving them away to peoplewho suffered misfortune in the pandemic.It seemed the least I could do after what the pandemic gave back to me.Howard Kohn is the author of “The Last Farmer: An American Memoir” and “Who Killed Karen Silkwood?”

BY RAMESH PONNURU

Bloomberg Opinion

Every new president in the last 30 years has come to office with his party holding a majority in both houses of Congress. Three of

those four new presidents lost that power quickly. One or both houses of Congress flipped to the opposition two years later as voters reacted to what they considered the president’s excesses. The exception was George W. Bush, whose party lost Congress six years after his election, a delay that probably had to do with the shock of the 9/11 attacks in his first year in office.

With the exception of that period, we have not had more than two years of con-secutive unified control since Ronald Rea-gan’s election in 1980. Modern Americans have not seemed to like one-party govern-ment — or, at least, the median modern American hasn’t.

Most of the polling suggests that Joe Biden will be our next president, but gives Republicans a better chance of holding the Senate. Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, and Joni Ernst, of Iowa, are in tight races; if they keep their seats, Republicans will probably retain the majority. There is a possibility, then, that Biden becomes the first president since 1989 to take office with a hostile Senate majority.

Split control, combined with today’s level of polarization, could create serious prob-lems: How long would it take for Biden to get his Cabinet confirmed if Mitch McCon-nell stays majority leader?

But the election of Biden alongside a Re-publican Senate could also end the cycle of

partisan overreach followed by backlash that we have gone through so many times over the last generation. Expanding the Supreme Court to put more liberals on it would be off the table. So, probably, would be ending the Hyde Amendment to allow taxpayer funding of abortion. There would be no return to fining people for not buying health insurance. In all of these cases, a Republican Senate would spare Americans from policies that, according to polls, they don’t want. (Biden might not really want some of them either.) It would also likely mean the death of some of Biden’s ambitious health care ideas, which are more popular when briefly described but have the poten-tial to push people out of insurance plans they like. Bipartisan negotiations over is-sues such as COVID relief might well bear more fruit if McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are dealing with Biden instead of the un-predictable Donald Trump.

The former vice president would, how-ever, be able to make good on his central campaign promise, the one that both he and a decisive bloc of voters seem to care most about: the promise not to be Trump.

Biden is simultaneously running on “the most progressive platform of any major party nominee in history” (as former Pres-ident Barack Obama describes it) and “a return to normalcy” (as a progressive jour-nalist puts it). A Republican Senate would mean voters got the part of that package that they want.

One might think that this outcome would appeal particularly to those Republicans who left the party out of disgust with Trump. But some of them instead believe that Republicans must lose at every level

as punishment for going along with Trump,and to create a new, de-Trumpified GOP.

“Burning down” the party in the hopethat something better will rise from itsashes is doubly mistaken. It ignores the col-lateral damage: A lot of left-wing policies would get enacted in the process of this re-building. And any viable center-right party is going to be made up mostly of people— voters, staffers, politicians — who madetheir peace with Trump. There are too fewAmericans who are neither part of the pro-gressive coalition nor Trump supportersfor it to be any other way.

Republicans have not exactly been pro-files in courage with respect to Trump . Butsome perspective is in order. The key deci-sion Senate Republicans made was wheth-er to support Trump’s removal from officeafter the House impeached him. There was a strong case for removal. But manyRepublicans sincerely believed the central argument against impeachment: that a president should not be removed unless he has committed a crime such as perjury.

That argument may be mistaken, but ithas been made every time in our history that a president has faced impeachment.Only one senator in U.S. history, Mitt Rom-ney, has voted to remove a president of his own party.

There would be a certain justice for Re-publicans in losing the Senate after going all in for Trump. But voters might find themselves, in short order, coming to re-gret some of the results.Bloomberg Opinion columnist Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review . This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

The pandemic made me a farmer again

Some Biden voters may prefer a Republican Senate


FACES

Associated Press

Everyone’s going to streaming, includ-ing Judge Judy. The broadcast televisionstaple’s next act will be with IMDb TV, Amazon’s free digital service.

Judith Sheindlin, whose long-running syndicated courtroom show “Judge Judy” will end production in 2021, will be dispensing her tart brand of justice on an exclusive show in the U.S. for IMDb TV, it was announced Oct. 29.

“I’m over the moon to be in business with Amazon Studios, and continuing this incredible journey with them on a new platform is so exciting,”Sheindlin, 78, said in a statement.

The title and debut date for the court-room show weren’t announced.

It will “feature no-nonsense, expedi-tious Judge Sheindlin’s signature adju-dication style with a new array of cases, litigants and judgments,” according to theannouncement.

IMDb, an online database for informa-tion about actors, film, TV and other enter-tainment platforms, launched its streaming service, now called IMDbTV, in January 2019. Previously released movies and TV shows including “Lincoln” and “Lost” areits staple, but it’s adding original contentsuch as Sheindlin’s show.

Johansson, Jost marry in private ceremony

Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost havetied the knot a year after engagement.

Meals on Wheels America announced Oct. 29 on Instagram that Johansson andJost married over the weekend in an inti-mate ceremony. The post said the couple’swedding followed the COVID-19 safety precautions as “directed by the CDC.”

The actress and “Saturday Night Live”star got engaged in 2019 after dating twoyears.

Johansson, 34, was previously marriedto actor Ryan Reynolds and journalistRomain Dauriac. She and Dauriac sharea daughter named Rose, who was born in2014.

This is the first marriage for the 38-year-old Jost, who is the co-anchor of “SNL’s”Weekend Update.

BY LYNN ELBER

Associated Press

On screen, Hugh Laurie has been by turns irascible (“House”), vil-lainous (“The Night Manager”) and a comedic delight (“Jeeves

& Wooster”). In a conversation about his latest project, PBS’ “Roadkill,” he proved equally versatile.

“Roadkill,” which premiered Sunday stateside, is a worthy showcase for the wry, self-deprecating actor. In writer-producer David Hare’s four-part drama, Laurie plays Peter Laurence, a conserva-tive British politician with an overactive lust for life.

The latter gets him in a world of trou-ble, as does his unorthodox approach to policy that alarms his party. Hare has said the drama was partly inspired by what he called the “shamelessness” of the 21st century, with politicians among the notable offenders.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Laurie discusses his character in “Roadkill” and working on “House.” An-swers have been edited for length and clarity.

AP: According to Hare, your charac-ter in ‘Roadkill’ isn’t based on a specific political figure. Does that reflect how you approached the role?

Laurie: Yes. I tried to step on the cracks, as it were, in the pavement and not actually base it on anybody in the cur-rent British political scene or any other political scene. I absolutely salute David Hare’s very fierce defense of the idea that a playwright can just tell stories. When you look at Netflix or Amazon or Apple now, almost everything starts with “based on a true story,” as if we are not really capable of managing the idea of fic-tion anymore. David is adamant that he is allowed to tell a story, that these are just fictional characters. These are creations of his own imagination, and I suppose, to a lesser extent, mine.

Your character is pretty much a cad, if an engaging one. Is that a fair description?

He is a cad, but there is something at-tractive about him. I think his energy, his vitality are attractive. His optimism, his ability to cast an eye on the future and imagine that the future will be a better place than the present. That’s becoming an increasingly rare ability these days.

Peter is introduced as politically suc-cessful, with a messy personal life for which he’s unapologetic. Did that make for an especially interesting role?

Absolutely. I was drawn to the possibil-ity of spending some part of my day free of all the usual lead weights that we all

drag around with us, in terms of guilt or regrets or missed opportunities, and to in-habit a man who really has almost none of those feelings, who scarcely looks in the rearview mirror. I think one of the things that David was so keen to write about was the deaths of the idea of disgrace and shame and scandal, that almost nothing seems to hold people back anymore. We seem to have passed into an age where it’s not that all is forgiven, but not much more is expected. It’s arguable whether that’s healthy or unhealthy. I honestly don’t know the answer.

You starred in “House” for eight sea-sons and also in short-run series includ-ing “Roadkill” and “The Night Manager.” Do you prefer sticking with a show and character, or moving on?

I would have to say that “House” is one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever done. I never felt, and I certainly don’t think the writers ever felt, that they’d run out of things to do with that character. Well, until the point when they did, and when they did, they stopped. I did that for lon-ger than it would have taken me to actu-ally become a real doctor, which is rather galling to contemplate. And yet, as a gen-eral rule, new things are obviously excit-ing and challenging. And it’s always good to stay challenged.

BY MICHAEL CAVNA

The Washington Post

A decade ago, as the Obama administration oversaw imple-mentation of the Recovery Act, Chris Lu would see Joe Biden in meetings, witnessing how the then-vice president spoke and moved and comported himself. So when he watches “Saturday Night Live’s” newest A-list politi-cal impersonator this season, he knows from experience: Jim Car-rey is no Joe Biden.

“Smart political comedy always has an element of truth,” Lu, who served as a senior Obama White House aide, says via email. “Like any politician, Biden certainly has particular traits that can be caricatured, but he’s absolutely not the maniacal figure that Car-rey is portraying.”

After the first four episodes of SNL’s 46th season, much of the so-cial media response to the come-dian became a weekend routine: Fans praised Carrey’s abundant comedic gifts. They tuned in to see whether Carrey has dialed back his incandescent energy to play Biden. Then they waxed nos-talgic for two of the show’s previ-ous Biden impersonators, Jason Sudeikis and Woody Harrelson.

An over-the-top impression might appear to be a frivolous concern in these dire times. But some voters say they crave their comic relief in this polarizing and anxious and exhausting year; it is as if many of them want their mainstream political humor, at least, to resemble a common reality.

Sean O’Connor, a Hollywood writer and comedian, weighed

in during a recent cold open of “Saturday Night Live,” as Car-rey appeared with finger guns ablazin’ in his kinetic and frenetic impersonation.

“I’m almost certain that Jim Carrey has never watched a video of Joe Biden,” tweeted O’Connor , attracting several thousand “likes” and a flurry of like-mind-ed replies — some of them con-vinced that Carrey is channeling some of his iconic screen char-acters (ranging from “In Liv-ing Color” to “The Mask”) more than the Democratic presidential nominee.

“I love Jim Carrey. He’s one of the greatest impressionists ever,” O’Connor told The Washing-ton Post shortly before the final Trump-Biden debate, which was spoofed Oct. 24 on “SNL.” “The true problem is his energy is to-

tally wrong for Biden. Biden isn’t manic craziness — he’s kind of slow and boring.”

Rob Rogers, a Pennsylvania-based political cartoonist, says part of the difficulty may lie in the candidate’s own qualities.

“I find that the easier someone is to caricature in a cartoon, the easier they are to impersonate onstage,” says the two-time Pu-litzer finalist. “Nixon, easy. Clin-ton, easy. W., easy. Trump, easy. Obama was harder for me, and for ‘SNL.’

“Biden is tough to caricature, for me at least, because there is nothing easy to grab onto,” says Rogers, noting that the same challenge might apply to imper-sonation: “Carrey gets certain things right — like the general tone of his voice, creepiness, etc. — but not the whole thing.”

‘Judge Judy’ moves to streaming service

Not everyone loves Carrey’s Biden impression on ‘SNL’

PBS/AP

Hugh Laurie gets political in ‘Roadkill’

‘House’ actor is a British politician beset by scandal in PBS miniseries

Sheindlin

NBC

Comedian Jim Carrey has been impersonating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on “Saturday Night Live” for several weeks.


Go to the American Forces Network website for the most up-to-date TV schedules.myafn.net

Sports on AFN

Auto racing

Deals

Tennis

Pro soccer

Golf

SCOREBOARD/SPORTS BRIEFS

Saturday’s transactionsBASEBALL

Major League BaseballAmerican League

BOSTON RED SOX — Activated LHP Ed-uardo Rodriquez, OF Andrew Benintendi, RHP Colten Brewer, LHP Kyle Hart, INF Dustin Pedroia and LHP Chris Sale from 60-day IL.

NEW YORK YANKEES — Announced RHP Tommy Kahnle refused an outright assignment to Scranton/Wilkes Barre (IL) and elected free agency.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS — Activated RHP Trent Thornton from the 60-day IL.

National LegueARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS — Released

1B Kevin Cron.CHICAGO CUBS — Exercised 2021 club

option on 1B Anthony Rizzo. Declined 2021 club option on INF Daniel Descalso.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS — Assigned OF Terrance Gore outright to Oklahoma City (PCL).

MIAMI MARLINS — Activated RHP Jeff Brigham, 2B Isan Diaz, OF Harold Ramirez, RHP Elieser Hernandez and RHP Jordan Holloway from the 60-day IL.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES — Declined club option on RHP Chris Archer.

FOOTBALLNational Football League

BUFFALO BILLS — Placed CB Cam Lew-is on injured reserve.

CHICAGO BEARS — Activated WR Dwayne Harris from practice squad.

CLEVELAND BROWNS — Activated WR KhaDarel Hodge from injured reserve.

DENVER BRONCOS — Placed TE An-drew Beck on injured reserve.

DETROIT LIONS — Signed TE Isaac Nauta. Waived RB Bo Scarbrough.

GREEN BAY PACKERS — Elevated S Henry Black from practice squad. Signed WR Seth Roberts to practice squad.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS — Signed C Cole Toner and RB Troymaine Pope.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS — Activated WR Michael Pittman from injured reserve. Waived WR Daurice Fountain.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS — Activated CB Cameron Dantzler from reserv/COVID-19. Activated LB Troy Dye from injured reserve. Activated CB Chris Jones from exemption. Activated C Brett Jones, DB Luther Kirk and DT Hercules Mata’afa from practice squad.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS — Activated DB Cody Davis and LB Josh Uche from injured reserve. Activated DL Tashawn Bower and WR Isaiah Zuber from prac-tice squad. Signed DE Nick Thurman from practice squad. Placed WR Julian Edelman and OL Justin Herron on injured reserve.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS — Signed WR Tommylee Lewis.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES — Placed LB Nathan Gerry and DE Genard Avery on in-jured reserve. Waived TE Hakeem Butler.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS — Placed NT Chris Wormley on injured reserve.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Placed RB Jeff Wilson on injured reserve.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS — Waived OG John Molchon.

TENNESSEE TITANS — Signed CB Ka-reem Orr to practice squad. Placed CB Kristian Fulton and OLB Derrick Rob-erson on injured reserve. Elevated RB D’Onta Foreman and CB Breon Borders from practice squad.

Draft Top 250NASCAR-Xfinity Series

SaturdayAt Martinsville Speedway

Martinsville.Lap length: 0.53 miles

(Start position in parentheses)1. (10) Harrison Burton, Toyota, 250

laps, 51 points.2. (6) Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet, 250, 45.3. (2) Noah Gragson, Chevrolet, 250, 53.4. (8) Jeb Burton, Chevrolet, 250, 33.5. (4) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 250, 49.6. (24) Riley Herbst, Toyota, 250, 31.7. (5) Chase Briscoe, Ford, 250, 31.8. (11) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 250,

31.9. (7) Brandon Jones, Toyota, 250, 37.10. (1) Austin Cindric, Ford, 250, 41.11. (9) Ryan Sieg, Chevrolet, 250, 26.12. (3) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 250, 39.13. (14) Brett Moffitt, Chevrolet, 250, 0.14. (39) JJ Yeley, Ford, 250, 0.15. (23) Jeremy Clements, Chevrolet,

250, 22.16. (15) Tommy Joe Martins, Chevrolet,

250, 21.17. (34) Timmy Hill, Toyota, 250, 0.18. (12) Brandon Brown, Chevrolet, 250,

19.19. (13) Josh Williams, Chevrolet, 250,

18.20. (38) Mason Diaz, Toyota, 250, 17.21. (25) Joe Graf Jr, Chevrolet, 250, 16.22. (19) Jesse Little, Chevrolet, 249, 15.23. (22) Myatt Snider, Chevrolet, 249,

14.24. (35) Stefan Parsons, Toyota, 249,

13.25. (27) Colby Howard, Chevrolet, 248,

12.26. (36) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet,

248, 19.27. (16) Alex Labbe, Chevrolet, 247, 10.28. (20) Jeffrey Earnhardt, Chevrolet,

246, 9.29. (26) Kody Vanderwal, Chevrolet,

246, 8.30. (33) Kyle Weatherman, Chevrolet,

246, 7.31. (28) Donald Theetge, Chevrolet, 245,

6.32. (37) Carl Long, Toyota, 244, 5.33. (29) BJ McLeod, Toyota, 239, 4.34. (17) Ryan Vargas, Chevrolet, 233, 3.35. (30) Gray Gaulding, Chevrolet, elec-

trical, 230, 0.36. (21) Bayley Currey, Chevrolet, acci-

dent, 178, 0.37. (32) Chad Finchum, Toyota, engine,

120, 1.38. (18) Matt Mills, Toyota, garage, 103,

1.39. (31) Josh Reaume, Chevrolet, sus-

pension, 62, 0.Race Statistics

Average Speed of Race Winner: 61.672 mph.

Time of Race: 2 hours, 7 minutes, 56 seconds.

Margin of Victory: 0.355 seconds.Caution Flags: 10 for 63 laps.Lead Changes: 11 among 6 drivers.Lap Leaders: A.Cindric 0-42; N.Gragson

43-63; H.Burton 64; J.Yeley 65-69; H.Burton 70-80; N.Gragson 81-82; H.Burton 83-92; R.Chastain 93-123; A.Allmendinger 124-184; H.Burton 185-190; A.Allmendinger 191-197; H.Burton 198-250

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Led, Laps Led): H.Burton, 5 times for 81 laps; A.Allmendinger, 2 times for 68 laps; A.Cindric, 1 time for 42 laps; R.Chastain, 1 time for 31 laps; N.Gragson, 2 times for 23 laps; J.Yeley, 1 time for 5 laps.

Wins: C.Briscoe, 9; A.Cindric, 5; H.Burton, 4; J.Haley, 3; J.Allgaier, 3; B.Jones, 3; N.Gragson, 2; A.Allmendinger, 2.

Top 16 in Points: 1. C.Briscoe, 4000; 2. A.Cindric, 4000; 3. J.Haley, 4000; 4. J.Allgaier, 4000; 5. N.Gragson, 2259; 6. R.Chastain, 2235; 7. B.Jones, 2232; 8. H.Burton, 2211; 9. R.Sieg, 2181; 10. M.Annett, 2159; 11. B.Brown, 2145; 12. R.Herbst, 2124; 13. J.Clements, 637; 14. A.Labbe, 593; 15. J.Williams, 585; 16. D.Hemric, 543.

Bermuda ChampionshipsSaturday

At Port Royal Golf CourseSouthampton, Bermuda

Purse: $4 millionYardage: 6,842; Par: 71

Third RoundDoc Redman 65-71-67—203 -10Ryan Armour 64-70-70—204 -9Wyndham Clark 66-68-70—204 -9Kramer Hickok 67-68-69—204 -9Matt Jones 68-71-66—205 -8Brian Gay 70-68-67—205 -8Ollie Schniederjans 66-70-69—205 -8Adam Schenk 69-71-66—206 -7Doug Ghim 64-74-68—206 -7Kiradech Aphibarnrat 71-66-69—206 -7David Hearn 68-72-67—207 -6Anirban Lahiri 68-70-69—207 -6Ryan Brehm 68-74-65—207 -6Peter Malnati 63-74-70—207 -6Russell Knox 67-74-67—208 -5Stewart Cink 66-74-68—208 -5Will Zalatoris 69-72-67—208 -5Michael Gligic 68-71-69—208 -5Mark Anderson 69-70-69—208 -5Beau Hossler 71-68-69—208 -5Emiliano Grillo 66-72-70—208 -5Luke Donald 69-68-71—208 -5Roger Sloan 67-70-71—208 -5Johnson Wagner 66-74-69—209 -4Hank Lebioda 68-72-69—209 -4Maverick McNealy 69-71-69—209 -4Will Gordon 69-72-68—209 -4Sepp Straka 70-70-69—209 -4Andrew Putnam 69-73-67—209 -4Padraig Harrington 67-71-71—209 -4Scott Piercy 67-70-72—209 -4Denny McCarthy 70-67-72—209 -4 Aaron Wise 68-73-69—210 -3Troy Merritt 69-70-71—210 -3Chesson Hadley 68-71-71—210 -3Scott Stallings 68-73-70—211 -2Vaughn Taylor 65-75-71—211 -2Rasmus Hojgaard 70-71-70—211 -2Peter Uihlein 72-67-72—211 -2John Senden 68-74-69—211 -2Kevin Tway 68-74-69—211 -2D.A. Points 70-72-69—211 -2Seamus Power 69-74-68—211 -2

MLSEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GAx-Philadelphia 13 3 5 44 41 18x-Toronto FC 12 4 5 41 30 23x-Columbus 10 5 5 35 31 17x-Orlando City 9 3 8 35 35 21x-NY City FC 10 8 3 33 28 20x-New York 8 8 5 29 25 25x-New England 7 6 8 29 22 20x-Nashville 7 6 8 29 21 19Montreal 7 12 2 23 30 40Chicago 5 9 7 22 28 33Inter Miami CF 6 12 3 21 22 32D.C. United 5 10 6 21 20 34Atlanta 5 12 4 19 20 28Cincinnati 4 13 4 16 11 32

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GAx-Sporting KC 11 6 3 36 36 25x-Seattle 10 4 5 35 38 18x-Portland 10 5 5 35 44 33x-Los Angeles FC 9 7 4 31 44 35FC Dallas 8 5 7 31 27 21x-Minn. United 8 5 6 30 31 24San Jose 7 8 6 27 31 45Vancouver 8 13 0 24 24 43Real Salt Lake 5 8 7 22 24 31Houston 4 9 9 21 29 38Colorado 5 6 4 19 26 26LA Galaxy 5 11 3 18 24 41

Note: For the 2020 season, MLS deter-mines standings using points per game.

Saturday’s gamesFC Dallas 3, Houston 0Chicago 1, Nashville 1, tie

Sunday’s gamesPhiladelphia at ColumbusCincinnati at AtlantaNew York at New York City FCOrlando City at MontrealD.C. United at New EnglandMinnesota at Sporting Kansas CityMiami at Toronto FCSeattle at ColoradoVancouver at PortlandReal Salt Lake at LA GalaxyLos Angeles FC at San Jose

Wednesday’s gamesColumbus at Orlando CityChicago at MinnesotaFC Dallas at NashvilleColorado at PortlandSeattle at LA Galaxy

Sunday, Nov. 8New York City FC at ChicagoAtlanta at ColumbusMontreal at D.C. UnitedCincinnati at MiamiToronto FC at New YorkNashville at Orlando CityNew England at PhiladelphiaColorado at HoustonPortland at Los Angeles FCFC Dallas at MinnesotaSporting Kansas City at Real Salt LakeSan Jose at SeattleLA Galaxy at Vancouver

Vienna OpenSaturday

At Wiener StadthalleVienna

Purse: $1,409,510Surface: Hardcourt indoor(seedings in parentheses):

Men’s SinglesSemifinals

Andrey Rublev (5), Russia, def. Kevin Anderson, South Africa, 6-4, 4-1, ret.

Lorenzo Sonego, Italy, def. Daniel Ev-ans, Britain, 6-3, 6-4.

Men’s DoublesSemifinals

Lukasz Kubot, Poland, and Marcelo Melo (3), Brazil, def. Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies, Germany, 4-6, 6-4, 10-8.

Nov. 21895 — Belmar, ridden by Fred Taral,

wins in the Belmont Stakes by a head over favorite Counter Tenor. The race is run under the jurisdiction of the West-chester Racing Association, because the New York Jockey Club had closed out its affairs.

1958 — Chicago and Los Angeles es-tablish an NFL attendance record when 90,833 fill the L.A. Coliseum to see the Rams beat the Bears 41-35.

1985 — Gordon Brown has 214 yards and quarterback Steve Gage has 206 to become the first teammates to each rush for more than 200 yards as Tulsa beats Wichita State 42-26.

1986 — Minnesota’s Tommy Kramer passes for 490 yards and four touch-downs but the Vikings still lose to the Washington Redskins in overtime, 44-38.

1990 — The Golden State Warriors beat the Denver Nuggets 162-158 at Mc-Nichols Arena. The 320 points set an NBA record for the most points scored by two teams in a non-overtime game.

1991 — Nevada makes the biggest comeback in NCAA football history, over-coming a 35-point deficit in the third quarter and rallying to beat Weber State 55-49.

1996 — A.J. Pitorino of Hartwick rush-es for an NCAA all-divisions record 443 yards on 45 carries in a 42-14 win over Waynesburg.

2007 — Washington misses all 16 of its 3-point shots, an NBA record for most at-tempts without making one, in a 103-83 loss at Boston.

2013 — Quinn Epperly of Princeton sets an NCAA record by opening with 29 straight completions, and accounts for 401 total yards and six TDs in a 53-20 win over Cornell.

2014 — Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlis-berger throws for six touchdowns for the second consecutive week, setting an NFL mark in a 43-23 win over Baltimore. Roethlisberger’s 12 touchdown passes over the last two games breaks the mark of 11 set by Tom Flores for Oakland in 1963 and matched by New England’s Tom Brady in 2007.

2016 — The Chicago Cubs win their first World Series championship since 1908 when Ben Zobrist hits a go-ahead double in the 10th inning, beating the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in a thrilling Game 7 delayed by rain early. Chicago is the first club to overcome a 3-1 Series deficit since the 1985 Kansas City Royals.

AP sportlight

Associatred Press

CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs picked up their $16.5 mil-lion option for Anthony Rizzo on Saturday, bringing back the popular first baseman after he struggled during the pandemic-shortened season.

The 31-year-old Rizzo hit just .222 this year for his lowest bat-ting average since his first year in the majors in 2011. But he has been one of the majors’ most pro-ductive sluggers since he was acquired in a 2012 trade with San Diego. He’s also a key club-house leader for the NL Central champions.

Rizzo would have been owed a $2 million buyout had the Cubs declined his option.

The Cubs also declined their $3.5 million option for infielder Daniel Descalso, who missed last season because of a left ankle sprain. The 34-year-old Descalso is owed a $1 million buyout.

Rizzo hit at least 25 homers and drove in at least 101 runs for four consecutive years from 2015-18. He has 228 homers in nine seasons with the Cubs, ranking eighth in franchise history.

Rizzo hit 11 homers and 24 RBIs in 58 games this year. He is a finalist for his fourth Gold Glove Award.

In other MLB news:� Chris Archer’s $11 million

option for 2021 has been declined by the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the 32-year-old right-hander became a free agent.

Archer was a two-time All-Star with the Rays, then was traded to the Pirates on July 31, 2018 .

Archer disappointed with the Pirates, going 6-12 with a 4.92 ERA in 33 starts, including 3-9 with a 5.19 ERA in 2019.

Archer reported discomfort in the neck/shoulder during spring training and had season-ending surgery June 2 with Dr. Robert Thompson .

� Outfielder Nick Castellanosdecided not to opt out and is keep-ing the remainder of his contract with the Cincinnati Reds thatguarantees $48 million for thenext three seasons.

The 28-year-old hit .225 with 14 homers and 34 RBIs in the pan-demic-shortened season, his first with the Reds after signing a $64million, four-year contract as a free agent.

Burton wins again to disrupt Xfinity playoffs

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Har-rison Burton played the spoilerfor a second consecutive week bywinning Saturday at MartinsvilleSpeedway to disrupt the NAS-CAR Xfinity Series playoffs.

Burton, eliminated from theplayoffs in the round of 12, be-came the youngest winner in Martinsville history at 20 years,22 days. It broke the mark set byhis father, Jeff, in 1990 when he was 23.

It was Burton’s fourth win of the season and, just like last week, spoiled the championship picture.

Burton’s back-to-back wins pre-vented Noah Gragson and RossChastain from advancing to next week’s Xfinity Series champion-ship race at Phoenix. The titlewill instead be decided betweenChase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier and Justin Haley.

In other auto racing news:� Lewis Hamilton overcame a

sluggish start to win the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on Sundayfor a record-extending 93rd For-mula One victory.

Hamilton beat Mercedesteammate Valtteri Bottas by 5.7 seconds .

Renault driver Daniel Ricciar-do placed third for a second po-dium of an impressive season.

Briefl y

Cubs pick up option for $16.5M on Rizzo

CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/AP

The Cubs picked up their $16.5 million option for Anthony Rizzo, right, on Saturday. Chicago is bringing back the popular first baseman after he struggled during the pandemic-shortened season.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 20 F3HIJKLM

BY TOM CANAVAN

Associated Press

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Before getting the New York Giants job, Joe Judge was men-tored by two of the football’s best active coaches: Nick Saban of Alabama and Bill Belichick of the Patriots.

It probably wouldn’t be wrong to add a third name to the group: Tom Brady.

The four-time Super Bowl MVP worked with Judge for eight seasons in New England and they shared three Super Bowls, some great memories, and a lot of knowledge.

Judge and Brady will be on different sidelines Monday night when the NFC South-leading Bucs (5-2) face Judge and his struggling Giants (1-6) at MetLife Stadium.

Judge said working with Brady was enlightening, especially last season when he added a receivers coach job to his role as Patriots special teams coordinator.

“I learned a lot of ball being around him,” Judge said. “How he sees it through a player’s per-spective. The things that come up in a game and how he handles it. Hearing the way he kind of picks receivers’ brains throughout a practice, or things he may see pre-snap. I got a lot of knowledge just listening to him talk to other guys on the team.”

The 38-year-old Judge said it is not surprising Brady is playing well at 43, noting the 2000 — yes, 2000 — sixth-round draft pick is an intelligent, fierce competitor who works hard and takes care of his body.

“He’s been in all of the situa-tions, however you slice it up, as many times as you can possibly imagine, whether that’s through practice or games,” Judge said. “This guy is fluent in football.

“Look, he’s a great player.”Stopping him is the Giants’ job,

along with generating an offense against a Tampa Bay defense ranked third in the league.

“The only thing that really gets me excited is winning games,” Brady said. “It’s competing hard every week in practice and see-ing us improve. We’ve got a lot of hard-working guys and I think that’s really been a reflection of our progress since the beginning of the year. I would really want to see us continue to improve it.”

Quite a rollAfter a slow start with his new

team, Brady has thrown 15 touch-down passes against one inter-ception over his last five games. If he’s surprising himself at all, Brady isn’t saying.

“Football is the ultimate team sport. From a quarterback’s standpoint, so much is trust and confidence in the receiver posi-tion, the tight end position. The line’s doing an incredible job of blocking,” he said. “My job is to throw to the guys who are open, and they’ve got to make the plays. I think when you see great pro-duction, it’s really a reflection of an entire offensive unit.”

Line movesWith third-year left guard Will

Hernandez testing positive for COVID-19 late Wednesday night, it’s uncertain who plays Monday.

Three other starters — left tackle Andrew Young, center Nick Gates and right tackle Cam Flem-ing — did not practice on Thurs-day. The only starter on the field was right guard Kevin Zeitler.

Judge is hopeful all will be able to play, although Hernandez will probably miss his first game as a Giant.

The easiest fix would be to start either veteran Spencer Pul-ley or rookie Shane Lemieux at guard. New York also could start Pulley at center and move Gates to guard. However, everything could change with more positive results.

Stingy defenseWhile the impact of adding

Brady is undeniable, the Bucs kept the core of what is now a dominant defense. They placed a franchise tag on 2019 NFL sacks leader Shaquil Barrett and re-signed tackle Ndamukong Suh and linebacker Jason Pierre-Paul.

The result: Tampa Bay has the No. 1 rushing defense, yielding an average 74.1 yards. it is second with 25 sacks and tied for third with 12 takeaways.

Linebacker Devin White said there’s a lot of room for growth.

“Last week, (defensive coor-dinator) Todd Bowles said we played average. We played well enough to win, but we played av-erage on defense,” White said .

Jones’ firstDaniel Jones is always going to

have fond memories of his first game against the Bucs. It came last year and was his first career start. Jones made it memorable, throwing for two touchdowns and running for two more, including the winning score on a late scram-ble up the middle in the 32-31 win over Tampa Bay. New York rallied from an 18-point halftime deficit, although the Buccaneers missed a late makeable field goal.

The No. 6 pick in the 2019 draft, Jones finished 23-for-36 for 336 yards and ran for 28 yards .

Bucs wideoutsBucs WR Chris Godwin, who’s

already missed two games with a hamstring injury and a third due to a concussion, broke a finger on a TD catch last week . WRs Mike Evans (ankle) and Scotty Miller (hip/groin) have been hampered much of the season but have not missed any games. Antonio Brown was signed last week as an “insurance policy,” according to coach Bruce Arians. He will be serving the final game of an eight-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.

Monday, November 2, 2020

BY JANIE MCCAULEY

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr cast his vote, then spent some of his own time Saturday greeting others who visited the ballot drop-off location at Chase Center.

Kerr handed out blue, War-riors-themed “I Voted” stickers to match the one on his gray sweatshirt.

“It’s an easy way to vote, I just dropped my ballot off,” Kerr said. “We’re trying to remind everybody not only of the impor-tance of voting, but we’re trying to make it as easy as possible to exercise your vote. It’s important for ev-erybody to have that right and to have easy access.”

He posed for pho-tos with fans, stood in for selfies and talked some basketball, too, of course. But most of all, Kerr wanted to support the early voters and en-courage others to take to the polls as Tuesday’s election nears.

The Warriors’ former practice facility in downtown Oakland — now used for their youth camp operations — will be a voting place through Tuesday as well as at the team’s G League arena in Santa Cruz.

“It’s just a good way for us as a company, as a team, an orga-nization, to remind people we’re not just a basketball team. We’re hopefully an asset to the commu-nity and we want to be able to help people, and hopefully win a bunch of games in the process and keep everybody entertained, but we’d like to think that we’re an impor-tant part of the community,” Kerr said. “And we need to prove that by doing things like this.”

Members of Kerr’s family also stopped by the first-year arena to turn in their ballots Saturday.

An outspoken NBA face on is-sues such as gun violence, police brutality and racial injustice,Kerr applauded the youth work-ing to make positive change.He walked in an Oakland peacemarch this past spring.

His father, Malcolm, president of the American University ofBeirut, was murdered in Beirut

when Kerr was 18and a freshman atthe University ofArizona.

In March 2018,Kerr took part in the OaklandMarch for OurLives. Earlier thatsame month, hejoined DemocraticCongressmen Ro Khanna and MikeThompson — chairof the House GunViolence Preven-tion Task Force — and studentsfrom throughoutthe South Bay dur-ing a town hall at

Newark Memorial High Schoolto discuss gun violence in schoolsand cheered the efforts of youthnationwide.

Kerr said it isn’t hard to do dou-ble duty right now as a basketball coach and a voice as a public fig-ure with a platform for those who don’t have one.

“I think in some ways the bal-ance is presented to us, given what’s happening around thecountry,” Kerr said. “I know thatwhen I played, players and coach-es were never — maybe not never— rarely asked about politics and voting.”

“But the times are different. Our country is in turmoil and ev-erybody plays a role,” he said. “Ifwe’re truly a democracy, then ‘We the People,’ that’s the key phrase,right, in the Constitution, ‘We thePeople.’ So, who’s that? That’s us.It’s not somebody making deci-sions for us, it’s us making deci-sions about who we’re going to elect to help lead our country.”

NFL/NBA

Giants’ Judge says he’s learned a lot by coaching Brady

American ConferenceEast

W L T Pct PF PABuffalo 5 2 0 .714 174 178Miami 3 3 0 .500 160 113New England 2 4 0 .333 115 143N.Y. Jets 0 7 0 .000 85 203

SouthTennessee 5 1 0 .833 188 153Indianapolis 4 2 0 .667 157 115Houston 1 6 0 .143 166 217Jacksonville 1 6 0 .143 154 220

NorthPittsburgh 6 0 0 1.000 183 118Baltimore 5 1 0 .833 179 104Cleveland 5 2 0 .714 200 221Cincinnati 1 5 1 .214 163 194

WestKansas City 6 1 0 .857 218 143Las Vegas 3 3 0 .500 171 197Denver 2 4 0 .333 116 153L.A. Chargers 2 4 0 .333 149 154

National ConferenceEast

W L T Pct PF PAPhiladelphia 2 4 1 .357 163 196Dallas 2 5 0 .286 176 243Washington 2 5 0 .286 133 165N.Y. Giants 1 6 0 .143 122 174

SouthTampa Bay 5 2 0 .714 222 142New Orleans 4 2 0 .667 180 174Carolina 3 5 0 .375 179 193Atlanta 2 6 0 .250 209 224

NorthGreen Bay 5 1 0 .833 197 159Chicago 5 2 0 .714 138 140Detroit 3 3 0 .500 156 165Minnesota 1 5 0 .167 155 192

WestSeattle 5 1 0 .833 203 172Arizona 5 2 0 .714 203 146L.A. Rams 5 2 0 .714 176 124San Francisco 4 3 0 .571 181 136

Thursday’s gameAtlanta 25, Carolina 17

Sunday’s gamesIndianapolis at DetroitL.A. Rams at MiamiLas Vegas at ClevelandMinnesota at Green BayN.Y. Jets at Kansas CityNew England at BuffaloPittsburgh at BaltimoreTennessee at CincinnatiL.A. Chargers at DenverNew Orleans at ChicagoSan Francisco at SeattleDallas at Philadelphia

Monday’s gameTampa Bay at N.Y. Giants Open: Houston, Jacksonville, Arizona,

WashingtonThursday, Nov. 5

Green Bay at San FranciscoSunday, Nov. 8

Baltimore at Indianapolis Carolina at Kansas City Chicago at Tennessee Denver at Atlanta Detroit at Minnesota Houston at Jacksonville N.Y. Giants at Washington Seattle at Buffalo Las Vegas at L.A. Chargers Miami at Arizona Pittsburgh at Dallas New Orleans at Tampa Bay

Monday, Nov. 9New England at N.Y. Jets Open: Cincinnati, Cleveland, L.A.

Rams, Philadelphia

NFL injury reportNEW YORK — The National Football

League injury report, as provided by the league (DNP: did not practice; LIMITED: limited participation; FULL: Full partici-pation):

MONDAYTAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS at NEW

YORK GIANTS — BUCCANEERS: DNP: WR Chris Godwin (finger). LIMITED: TE Rob Gronkowski (shoulder), WR Scott Miller (hip, groin), DE Jason Pierre-Paul (knee), S Antoine Winfield (shoulder, groin). GI-ANTS: DNP: RB Devonta Freeman (ankle). LIMITED: S Adrian Colbert (shoulder), CB Darnay Holmes (neck), WR Sterling Shepard (shoulder, toe), FULL: WR C.J. Board (concussion), T Cameron Fleming (not injury related), C Nick Gates (not injury related), G Shane Lemieux (not injury related), C Spencer Pulley (not injury related), T Andrew Thomas (not injury related).

Scoreboard

JANIE MCCAULEY/AP

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr hands out “I Voted” stickers at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday.

Warriors’ Kerr electsto help out at ballot drop-off at the arena

‘ We’re trying to remindeverybody not only of the importance of voting, but we’re trying to make it as easy as possible to exercise your vote. ’

Steve KerrWarriors coach

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • F3HIJKLM PAGE 21

Associated Press

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Outside of Michi-gan State’s football program, few expected the Spartans to beat No. 13 Michigan.

The people who mattered, though, had all the confidence they needed to pull off the upset.

Rocky Lombardi threw for 323 yards, including 196 to Ricky White, and three touchdowns to help Michigan State stun the Wolverines 27-24 on Saturday.

“I know we were three-touchdown under-dogs, but everybody on this team knew going into the game that we had a chance and we had a good chance,” Lombardi said.

The Spartans (1-1, 1-1 Big Ten) appeared to be the better team all afternoon on both sides of the ball in Mel Tucker’s debut as coach in the rivalry.

Tucker became just the second Michigan State coach to beat Michigan in his first at-tempt, joining Alabama coach Nick Saban, who did it in 1995. The former Colorado coach started his career as a graduate assistant for Saban at Michigan State in 1997.

“Just to be mentioned in the same breath with coach Saban is humbling for me,” Tucker said. “But it’s more about our players and our staff coming together.”

The Wolverines (1-1, 1-1) were favored to win by 20-plus points and ended up needing a late score to avoid losing by double digits.

Jim Harbaugh’s team never led and didn’t appear to have much energy in front of fam-ily and friends in their mostly empty stadium that holds 110,000-plus fans when there isn’t

a pandemic.Running back Hassan Haskins scored

on a 2-yard run with 37 seconds left to help Michigan pull within three points. The on-side kick was recovered by Spartans running back Connor Heyward. Lombardi converted

a fourth-and-2 from the Michigan 36 with asneak to seal the victory. Lombardi completed17 of 32 passes and Heyward caught two of his TD passes. White, who averaged 24.5 yardson eight reception , also scored on a catch in a breakout performance from a freshman.


Top 25 fared No. 1 Clemson (7-0) beat Boston Col-

lege 34-28. Next: at No. 4 Notre Dame, Saturday.

No. 2 Alabama (6-0) beat Mississippi State 41-0. Next: at LSU, Saturday, Nov. 14.

No. 3 Ohio State (2-0) beat No. 18 Penn State 38-25. Next: vs. Rutgers, Saturday.

No. 4 Notre Dame (6-0) beat Georgia Tech 31-13. Next: vs. No. 1 Clemson, Sat-urday.

No. 5 Georgia (4-1) beat Kentucky 14-3. Next: vs. No. 10 Florida, Saturday.

No. 6 Oklahoma State (4-1) lost to Tex-as 41-34 OT. Next: vs. Kansas, Saturday.

No. 7 Cincinnati (5-0) beat Memphis 49-10. Next: vs. Houston, Saturday.

No. 8 Texas A&M (4-1) beat Arkansas 42-31. Next: at South Carolina, Saturday.

No. 9 Wisconsin (1-0) did not play. Next: vs. Purdue, Saturday.

No. 10 Florida (3-1) beat Missouri 41-17. Next: vs. No. 5 Georgia, Saturday.

No. 11 BYU (6-0) vs. Western Kentucky. Next: at No. 25 Boise State, Friday.

No. 12 Miami (5-1) did not play. Next: at NC State, Friday.

No. 13 Michigan (1-1) lost to Michigan State 27-24. Next: at No. 17 Indiana, Sat-urday.

No. 14 Oregon (0-0) did not play. Next: vs. Stanford, Saturday, Nov. 14.

No. 15 North Carolina (4-2) lost to Vir-ginia 44-41. Next: at Duke, Saturday.

No. 16 Kansas State (4-2) lost to West Virginia 37-10. Next: vs. No. 6 Oklahoma State, Saturday.

No. 17 Indiana (2-0) beat Rutgers 37-21. Next: vs. No. 13 Michigan, Saturday.

No. 18 Penn State (0-2) lost to No. 3 Ohio State 38-25. Next: vs. Maryland, Sat-urday.

No. 19 Marshall (5-0) at FIU, post-poned. Next: vs. UMass, Saturday.

No. 20 Coastal Carolina (6-0) beat Georgia State 51-0. Next: vs. South Ala-bama, Saturday.

No. 21 Southern Cal (0-0) did not play. Next: vs. Arizona State, Saturday, Nov. 14.

No. 22 SMU (6-1) beat Navy 51-37. Next: at Temple, Thursday.

No. 23 Iowa State (4-2) beat Kansas 52-22. Next: vs. Baylor, Saturday.

No. 24 Oklahoma (4-2) beat Texas Tech 62-28. Next: vs. Kansas, Saturday.

No. 25 Boise State (2-0) beat Air Force 49-30. Next: vs. No. 11 BYU, Friday.

Saturday’s scoresEAST

Indiana 37, Rutgers 21Ohio St. 38, Penn St. 25Wake Forest 38, Syracuse 14West Virginia 37, Kansas St. 10

SOUTHAbilene Christian 20, Mercer 17Alabama 41, Mississippi St. 0Appalachian St. 31, Louisiana-Monroe

13Auburn 48, LSU 11Clemson 34, Boston College 28Coastal Carolina 51, Georgia St. 0Duke 53, Charlotte 19FAU 24, UTSA 3Florida 41, Missouri 17Georgia 14, Kentucky 3Louisiana Tech 37, UAB 34, 2OTMississippi 54, Vanderbilt 21Notre Dame 31, Georgia Tech 13Rice 30, Southern Miss. 6Tulane 38, Temple 3Virginia 44, North Carolina 41Virginia Tech 42, Louisville 35

MIDWESTCincinnati 49, Memphis 10Iowa St. 52, Kansas 22Michigan St. 27, Michigan 24Northwestern 21, Iowa 20Purdue 31, Illinois 24

SOUTHWESTCent. Arkansas 52, Missouri Western

10Louisiana-Lafayette 44, Texas State 34Oklahoma 62, Texas Tech 28SMU 51, Navy 37Stephen F. Austin 64, Western St. (Col.)

7TCU 33, Baylor 23Texas 41, Oklahoma St. 34, OTTexas A&M 42, Arkansas 31Troy 38, Arkansas St. 10UCF 44, Houston 21

FAR WESTBoise St. 49, Air Force 30San Jose St. 38, New Mexico 21

Scoreboard

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Ridder runs, passes No. 7 Bearcats past No. 16 MustangsAssociated Press

DALLAS — Desmond Ridder had an upset stomach that briefly sent him to the injury tent. On the field, the Cincinnati quarterback was nothing but trouble for SMU.

Ridder ran for 179 yards on only eight carries and scored three touchdowns, in-cluding a 91-yarder in the fourth quarter. He also threw for 126 yards and a score to help the No. 7 Bearcats beat the No. 16 Mustangs 42-13 on Saturday night in a showdown of unbeaten teams.

Cincinnati (4-0, 2-0 American Athletic

Conference) played its first game since Oct. 3. The Bearcats had an open date the following weekend and then had their scheduled Oct. 17 home game against Tulsa moved to Dec. 5 because of posi-tive COVID-19 cases at Cincinnati and the quarantining of athletes at the school.

Ridder completed 13 of 21 passes. He had scoring runs of 15, 32 and 91 yards, and threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Josh Whyle to open the scoring.

“We see it every single day,” Bearcats coach Luke Fickell said. “I was just wait-ing for some more people to be able to see

it. He really showed what he is when it’s re-ally tough. He does his best job when the heat is on.”

The 91-yard touchdown run down the left sideline, with no one ahead of him during the final 60 yards, gave Cincinnati a 35-13 lead with 4:26 to play and finally put away an SMU team that threatened to get back in the game earlier in the quarter.

“We just didn’t do routine things that we typically do to give us a chance to at least be in the game,” Mustangs coach Sonny Dykes said. “I bet you we dropped 10 balls. When you do that, it doesn’t give you a

chance to be competitive in the ballgame.”Gerrid Doaks applied the finishing

touch on the Bearcats’ next possession with his 35-yard touchdown run with 2:03left. Doaks ran for 105 yards on 20 carries,with another touchdown run of 1 yard.

Shane Buechele threw a 9-yard touch-down pass to Rashee Rice, and Chris Nag-gar kicked field goals of 26 and 22 yards forSMU (5-1, 2-1). The Mustangs fell short of opening with six straight wins for the sec-ond straight season.

The Mustangs went into the game rankedfourth in total offense among FBS teams.

Spartans stun No. 13 Wolverines

Associated Press

STILLWATER, Okla. — Josh-ua Moore didn’t have a catch in regulation.

Sam Ehlinger didn’t care. His 15-yard touchdown pass to Moore in overtime helped Texas knock off previously unbeaten and sixth-ranked Oklahoma State 41-34 on Saturday.

Moore was Texas’ leader in catches and receiving yards and touchdowns heading into the game, so Ehlinger was confident that he would come through. Moore’s only reception gave the Longhorns the lead for good.

“Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games, regardless of when that is and re-gardless of what’s happened ear-lier in the game,” Ehlinger said. “He did a great job.”

Texas linebacker Joseph Ossai

sealed the victory by sackingOklahoma State quarterbackSpencer Sanders on fourth down in overtime. Ossai finished with12 tackles, six tackles for loss,three sacks and a forced fumble.

Oklahoma State (4-1, 3-1 Big12) outgained Texas 530 yards to287, but the Cowboys turned theball over four times and saw theirhopes to reach the College Foot-ball Playoff take a major blow.

Same goes for the entire Big12.

Oklahoma State entered the game as the only remaining un-beaten team in Big 12 play. Now,the race is jumbled and Texas(4-2, 3-2) is back in the picture to possibly play in the conferencechampionship game. Sanderspassed for career highs of 400 yards and four touchdowns, but he fumbled twice and threw aninterception .

SUE OGROCKI/AP

Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger threw three touchdown passes, including the 15-yard game-winner, in a 41-34 overtime defeat of No. 6 Oklahoma State in Stillwater, Okla., on Saturday.

Longhorns knock off No. 6 Cowboys in OT

CHRIS OSORIO/AP

Michigan State cornerback Chris Jackson (12) pulls Michigan wide receiver Giles Jackson out of bounds in the Spartans’ 27-24 win Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •PAGE 22 F3HIJKLM

Associated Press

CLEMSON, S.C. — Freshman DJ Uiag-alelei already made Clemson history byleading the biggest comeback in the his-tory of Death Valley. He’ll get the chance to make even more next week with TrevorLawrence ruled out for the showdown withNo 4 Notre Dame due to COVID-19.

Uiagalelei stepped in for Lawrence onSaturday and rallied the top-ranked Tigersto a 34-28 victory over Boston College (4-3, 3-3) after they fell behind by 18 points.

Rattled at facing the Fighting Irish? Thekid from California sure doesn’t sound likeit.

“It’s the same mindset that I had thisweek,” Uiagalelei said. “Start watchingsome film tomorrow to get ready for an-other game.“

Smooth and calm, Uiagalelei lookedready-made for any challenge after lead-ing Clemson back from 28-10 deficit, arally that surpassed a 17-point comebackfrom 35-18 down at home in a win overVirginia in 1966.

“Being down 18 is not a lot of points,”Uiagalelei said. “We all had complete con-fidence in ourselves that if we could exe-cute, we’d get back in it.”

Travis Etienne became the AtlanticCoast Conference’s career rushing leaderand his second TD put the Tigers (7-0, 6-0)ahead for good. A jarring week for Clem-son ended with its 28th straight win overleague competition, 10th straight over theEagles and 27th in a row at home.

“LETS GO!!! So happy for this team.Great win. Miss being there more thananything. @DJUiagalelei did your thingproud of you,” Lawrence posted on Twittershortly after the win.

Etienne ran for 84 yards, pushing himto 4,644 in his four seasons and past NorthCarolina State’s Ted Brown (4,602) as theACC’s all-time leader.

Etienne also had seven catches for 140yards. Cornell Powell had a game-high 11 receptions for 105 yards.


FROM BACK PAGE

30-for-41 for 342 yards, two touchdowns, no picks and a 30-yard touchdown run.

Clemson heads to No. 4 Notre Dame next week still unbeaten.

Uiagalelei will get the start in South Bend, too. Swinney ruled out Lawrence, who tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week. The coach said Lawrence was feeling good, but put to rest any speculation that the golden boy could go from isolation to playing in the biggest game of Clemson’s season in 24 hours — which appeared to be the best-case scenario for the Tigers.

The Fighting Irish figure to pose a tougher test for Uiagalelei. Maybe.

Put it this way: Notre Dame will go into the game with a three-year starter at quar-terback in Ian Book and it would be hard to argue Clemson doesn’t still have the ad-vantage at that position. Uiagalelei would probably be starting this season at 75% of Power Five schools. And that’s a conserva-tive estimate.

This has been major college football during most of the College Football Play-off era. Clemson and Alabama are in their own tier. Ohio State is there now, too.

The Buckeyes and Justin Fields were never threated at No. 18 Penn State. Fields, the presumptive No. 2 quarterback in the next draft behind Lawrence, passed for 318 yards and four touchdowns.

“He is talented and it’s not just Justin. It’s all the pieces around him as well,” said Nittany Lions coach James Franklin, who at one time had a verbal commitment from Fields to attend Penn State out of high school.

That didn’t pan out and it has left the Nit-tany Lions in the college football’s best of the rest tier with Notre Dame and others.

LSU crashed the college football’s exclu-sive party last year by getting maybe the greatest individual performance by a col-lege quarterback ever from Joe Burrow.

It is has become crystal clear that was a one-off.

Georgia has pushed to be in the same class as Clemson and Alabama. The re-cruiting rankings say yes, but the results on the field say the Bulldogs are no closer to joining the club since Tua Tagovailoa ripped a national title away from them on second-and-26 three seasons ago.

Elite teams have elite offenses guided by elite quarterbacks.

Clemson currently has two on its roster.“I’ve been preparing for this ever since I

got to Clemson,” Uiagalelei aid.Fields went to Georgia out of high school,

but transferred to Ohio State and the gap between the Buckeyes and and Nittany Lions has been growing ever since. Mean-while, Georgia is now starting a former walk-on at quarterback.

There will be a lot of games played be-tween now and Jan. 1 when the College Football Playoff semifinals are scheduled. Some will be touted as having playoff implications.

The reality is you don’t need more than one hand to count the national title con-tenders. In fact, you just need three. Clem-son, Alabama and Ohio State are in a class by themselves.

Lies, damn lies and opening week re-sults: Week 1 of the Big Ten season was a mirage.

Michigan’s exciting new offense, the one that tore up Minnesota? Turns out Minne-sota’s defense is bad enough to make Tau-lia Tagovailoa look like his older brother.

Michigan State’s opening-day disaster against Rutgers, portending a long first season for new coach Mel Tucker? Turns out if the Spartans don’t give the ball away seven times, they might be pretty decent.

The Wolverines’ loss at the Big House to their in-state rivals could be the low point of Jim Harbaugh’s tenure. Losing to Ohio State is tough, but being on the wrong end against the Spartans triggers an existen-tial crisis among Michigan fans.

What is Michigan football if it can only beat Michigan State half the time, which is what Harbaugh has done in six seasons.

Looking ahead: Next weekend’s sched-ule looks like not only the largest of this strange season, but maybe the best — if it remains intact. First off, the Mid-Ameri-can Conference opens with a full slate Wednesday night. On Friday night, No. 11 BYU is at No. 25 Boise State. No. 10 Florida faces No. 5 Georgia in a subdued but im-portant World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Oklahoma State at Kansas State is still a pivotal Big 12 game. Michigan goes to No. 17 Indiana in a game that could push Wolverines fans’ angst to new heights.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Elite: Everyone else playing for fourth place‘ I’ve been preparing for this ever since I got to Clemson. ’

DJ UiagaleleiClemson quarterback, after making his fi rst start in place of Tigers’ Heisman-favorite starter

Trevor Lawrence, who was ruled out due to a positive COVID-19 test on Thursday

Uiagalelei rallies No. 1 Clemson to win over BC

Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Justin Fields doesn’t need the energy of 110,000 people mostly rooting against him in a stadium to put on a show.

The Ohio State quarterback is just fine shredding defenses in front of a more inti-mate gathering.

Justin Fields passed for 318 yards and four touchdowns, two to Chris Olave, and the No. 3 Buckeyes beat No. 18 Penn State 38-25 on an eerily quiet Saturday night at what is usually one of the most raucous set-tings in college football.

“I just think it’s the work from the off-season, I just think me and the receivers being on the same page, that’s why we’re having so much success now,” Fields said.

Jeremy Ruckert also caught a pair of touchdowns, Master Teague II ran for an-other and Ohio State generated 526 yards of offense in their 15th straight Big Ten win and 10th straight on the road against a ranked opponent.

The Buckeyes (2-0) didn’t take long to break the game open and hand the Nittany Lions (0-2) their first 0-2 start since 2013.

“We try to run a lot of plays,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said. “I thought we did a good job controlling the ball and having balance on offense.”

The Buckeyes didn’t need to run a lot of

plays to get a lead.Garrett Wilson took an opening sweep

62 yards to set up Teague III’s short touch-down run two plays later.

Ohio State only needed five plays on their next drive to take a 14-0 lead when Fields zipped a 26-yard pass over corner

Joey Porter Jr.’s shoulder to Olave in the end zone.

“We really couldn’t get them off-sched-ule,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “And with a quarterback like that and their offensive personnel, not getting them off schedule is going to be challenging.”

Ohio State beats rivalPenn State

BARRY REEGER/AP

Ohio State tight end Jeremy Ruckert, right, celebrates with Chris Olave following his fourth-quarter touchdown reception against Penn State in State College, Pa., Saturday.

JOSH MORGAN/AP

Tigers freshman D.J. Uiagalelei stepped in for QB Trevor Lawrence Saturday and rallied top-ranked Clemson to a 34-28 victory over Boston College.


COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Buechele propelsNo. 22 Mustangs past Midshipmen

BY SCHUYLER DIXON

Associated Press

DALLAS — In one week, Shane Buechele went from his worst passer efficiency rating in two seasons at SMU to his best.

The Mustangs enjoyed a pretty good bounce-back as well.

Buechele threw three touch-down passes, Ulysses Bentley IV and Tyler Lavine ran for two scores apiece and No. 22 SMU re-bounded from its first loss with a 51-37 victory over Navy on Satur-day night.

The Mustangs (6-1, 3-1 Ameri-can Athletic) scored 30 consecu-tive points from late in the second quarter to early in the fourth, a run that started with 10 points in the final 7 seconds of the first half.

“I didn’t see any one-handed catches or any miraculous tackles or any of that,” SMU coach Sonny Dykes said. “I just saw 11 guys doing their job and playing hard and doing what they’re supposed to do. When we do that, this is a good football team.”

After the first of Buechele’s two scoring tosses to Rashee Rice with 7 seconds to go before half-time, Nelson Smith fumbled a handoff and the Mustangs’ Gary Wiley won the scramble for the loose ball at the Midshipmen 18 with a second remaining. Chris Naggar’s 34-yard field goal made it 31-17.

“Bad decision on my part,” Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “I shouldn’t have put them in that situation, just hand them the ball. (We should have) just taken a knee.”

SMU should have been pinned inside its 5 for their first posses-sion of the second half, but the Midshipmen’s Devin Mathews

stepped on the goal line while bat-ting a bouncing punt back toward the field. The Mustangs took over at the 20, and Buechele later con-nected with Austin Upshaw for a42-yard TD.

A week after finishing with a passer efficiency rating below 100for the first time in two seasons at SMU, Buechele was at 207.5 afterthe graduate transfer from Texascompleted 23 of 28 passes for 300yards with no interceptions.

“This is one of those gamesthat really helps when you havean experienced quarterback be-cause Navy’s going to show you so many different looks defen-sively,” Dykes said. “We gave him a lot when it came to checking to runs and checking in and outof certain things versus certainlooks. I thought he executed pret-ty flawlessly.”

Smith had 55 yards rushingand a touchdown by early in the second quarter but finished with54 for the Midshipmen (3-4, 3-2)as SMU controlled the triple-op-tion attack in the second half a week after giving up 313 yards rushing in a 42-13 loss to No. 7 Cincinnati.

“You’re disappointed becauseyou work really hard to have achance to play a big game like thatand didn’t play your best,” Dykes said. “It’s always good to see yourguys respond like you hope theywill, and they did.”

Ulysses Bentley finished with 149 yards on 25 carries and set upRice’s second TD with a 61-yard catch when he came out of thebackfield as Buechele was fakinga run up the middle and the quar-terback hit him in stride.

Lavine put SMU in front for the first time at 21-14 on a 10-yard run midway through the secondquarter.

BY PAT GRAHAM

Associated Press

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Jack Sears’ first throw as a starting quarterback in two years went for a 75-yard touchdown.

That’s not a bad way to make an instant impression with his new teammates.

Sears threw three touchdown passes and ran for another score while filling in for starter Hank Bachmeier, Avery Williams scored on an 88-yard kickoff re-turn and No. 25 Boise State beat Air Force 49-30 on Saturday night.

“Jack’s a cool customer,” Boise State coach Bryan Harsin said. “He’s got it. He’s got that energy about him.”

The last time Sears started a game was 2018 — when he was a redshirt freshman at South-ern California. He threw for 235 yards and two TDs that day against Arizona State.

In between then and Saturday, he’s had quite a journey: playing backup for the Trojans and sit-ting out last season to focus on his degree before transferring to the Broncos. He played a few snaps in a blowout win last weekend against Utah State — throwing three passes — but nothing like his performance Saturday, with Bachmeier not making the trip for an unspecified reason.

Asked about when he found out he was starting, Sears played coy. He did say the decision wasn’t sprung on him. Sears made the most of his chance by finishing 17-for-20 for 280 yards and no turnovers.

Simply following Harsin’s advice.

“Coach preached to let loose.

Have a good time and just trust your training, trust your abili-ties,” Sears said. “I think that’s why I was able to play so freely tonight.”

CT Thomas hauled in two of Sears’ TD passes, including a tone-setting 75-yarder on the game’s first play. Boise State (2-0, 2-0 Mountain West) has captured 11 straight games over league foes. It’s its longest streak since joining the league in 2011.

Backup tailback Andrew Van Buren scored on a pair of short runs as he stepped in for George Holani, who appeared to be banged up in the first quarter and didn’t carry the ball again.

The Falcons (1-2, 0-2) saw its nine-game home winning streak snapped. The last team to win at Falcon Stadium? Boise State, in 2018.

Brandon Lewis rushed for 112 yards and a score, while fullback Matthew Murla added two scores for a dinged-up Air Force offense. They entered the game missing leading rusher Timothy Jackson and tailback Kadin Remsberg for

undisclosed reasons. The Falcons had quarterback Haaziq Daniels leave the game in the first quarter after being shaken up on a hit. He was replaced by Warren Bryan, who rushed for 87 yards on a day when Air Force gained 415 yards on the ground.

“Boise played a great game. Not to take anything away from them, but we’ve just got to execute bet-ter,” Lewis said. “Everybody has to hit their assignment as well. I don’t think we did that good enough, especially in the second half. We’ve got a lot to improve on.”

The Broncos saw the lead trimmed to 35-24 early in the fourth quarter. The Falcons elect-ed to kick to the electric Williams, who stepped out of a tackle and darted down the sideline. It was his sixth return for a score (four on punts, two on kickoffs).

“I’m a dominant punt returner, but I want to show my versatility in every game and in every way as well,” Williams said. “I didn’t let my coaches down today.”

BRANDON WADE/AP

SMU running back Ulysses Bentley IV (26) carries the ball as Navy defensive tackle Jackson Perkins (96) closes in during SMU’s 51-37 win Saturday in Dallas.

PHOTOS BY DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/AP

Above: Boise State linebacker Ezekiel Noa, left, pursues Air Force quarterback Warren Bryan, who had to come in after Haaziq Daniels, the Falcons’ starting quarterback, was shaken up in the first quarter. Below: Boise State backup quarterback Jack Sears threw three touchdowns and ran for another to lead the Broncos to a 49-20 win Saturday night at Air Force.

Backup plan: Sears delivers No. 25 Broncos over Falcons

S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S Monday, November 2, 2020 F3HIJKLM

SPORTS Clubhouse continuityNL Central champ Cubs bringingback popular 1B Rizzo » Page 19

BY RALPH D. RUSSO

Associated Press

The gap between the truly elite pro-grams and the rest of college football was never more apparent Saturday as No. 1 Clemson gave a glimpse of life after Trevor Lawrence in Death Valley

and No. 3 Ohio State toyed with what was supposed to be the toughest opponent on its schedule.

In a season wracked with uncertainty and un-

predictability brought on by trying to play through the pandemic, Clemson simply replaced the best quarterback prospect college football has had in years with its latest phenom and future NFL first-round draft pick.

DJ Uiagalelei took a little while to get going, but a scary half for Clemson’s defense against Bos-ton College forced Dabo Swinney to unleash the five-star freshman. He delivered a monster game:

SEE ELITE ON PAGE 22

TOP 25 TAKEAWAYS

No. 1 Clemson glimpses life after Lawrence; No. 3 Ohio State among college football elite

Top: Clemson QBD.J. Uiagalelei passesagainst Syracuse in a34-28 victory Saturdayin Clemson, S.C. Right:Ohio State QB Justin Fieldsthrew four touchdown passesagainst Penn State Saturday ina 38-25 win in State College, Pa.PHOTOS BY KEN RUINARD, TOP,AND BARRY REEGER, RIGHT/AP

Service academies:� No. 22 SMU puts clamps on Navy triple-option; No. 25 Boise State tops Air Force, Page 23

Warriors’ Kerr assists arena ballot drop-off » Page 20

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