us records its highest single-day deaths yet
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Looking at 2021’s mostanticipated titlesPage 12
Volume 79 Edition 188A ©SS 2021 CONTINGENCY EDITION SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2021 Free to Deployed Areas
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NFL
Steady Brady set to lead Bucsinto playoffsPage 24
WORLD
Kim vows toimprove ties withoutside world Page 10
Second Afghan pilot killed in as many weeks amid peace talks ›› Page 4
ORANGE, Calif. — The U.S.
topped 4,000 coronavirus deaths
in a single day for the first time,
breaking a record set just one
day earlier, with several Sun Belt
states driving the surge.
The tally from Johns Hopkins
University showed the nation
had 4,085 deaths Thursday, along
with nearly 275,000 new cases of
the virus — evidence that the cri-
sis is growing worse after family
gatherings and travel over the
holidays and the onset of winter,
which is forcing people indoors.
Overall, the scourge has left
more than 365,000 dead in the
U.S. and caused nearly 22 million
confirmed infections.
Cases and deaths are soaring
in California, Arizona, Texas and
Florida. Those four states had a
combined nearly 1,500 deaths
and 80,000 cases on Thursday.
Thursday ranks as one of the
deadliest days in U.S. history,
with the COVID-19 toll far out-
stripping the nearly 3,000 killed
on 9/11 and exceeding the com-
bined total of nearly 3,900 U.S.
lives lost on D-Day and at Pearl
Harbor.
Many hospitals in Los Angeles
and other hard-hit areas are
struggling to keep up and warned
they may need to ration lifesav-
ing care. Many nurses are caring
for more sick people than typi-
cally allowed under the law after
the state began issuing waivers
to the strict nurse-to-patient ra-
tios.
US records its highestsingle-daydeaths yet
Associated Press
SEE DEATHS ON PAGE 5
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi said Friday she has spoken to the chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about prevent-
ing an “unhinged” President Donald Trump
from ordering military actions including a pos-
sible nuclear strike in his final days and hours
at the White House.
Pelosi said in a statement to colleagues that
she spoke with Gen. Mark Milley “to discuss
available precautions for preventing an unsta-
ble president from initiating military hostili-
ties or accessing the launch codes” for nuclear
war. She said Milley assured her steps are in
place.
She said the situation of “this unhinged pres-
ident could not be more dangerous.”
Pelosi was meeting with the House Demo-
cratic caucus Friday to consider impeachment
proceedings against the president as soon as
next week after the deadly siege of the U.S.
Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that shocked the
nation and the world.
Top lawmakers are sounding alarms that
even though Trump is to leave office Jan. 20
when Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in, he could
do great damage on his way out. And if Trump
were to be impeached by the House and con-
victed by the Senate, he would be pre-
JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally Wednesday in Washington that culminated with the ransacking of the U.S. Capitol.
Impeached again?House Dems discussing swift vote; Pelosi urges DOD to prevent military action
Trump says he will notgo to Biden’s inaugurationPage 9
Associated Press
SEE ATTACK ON PAGE 7
BUSINESS/WEATHER
PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
Boeing will pay $2.5 billion to
settle a Justice Department inves-
tigation and admit that employees
misled regulators about the safety
of its 737 Max aircraft, which suf-
fered two deadly crashes shortly
after entering airline service.
The government and the compa-
ny said Thursday that the settle-
ment includes money for the crash
victims’ families, airline custom-
ers and a fine.
In Indonesia, the brother of two
victims of the first Max 8 crash,
Muhammad Rafi Ardian, 24, and
Rian Ariandi, 24, said he hoped the
case would be settled soon and that
there would be no more crashes.
The two were among 189 who
died on Oct. 29, 2018, when a Max
operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air
plunged into the Java Sea.
Prosecutors said Boeing em-
ployees gave misleading state-
ments and half-truths about safety
issues with the plane to the Federal
Aviation Administration, then
covered up their actions.
“Boeing’s employees chose the
path of profit over candor,” said
David Burns, acting assistant at-
torney general for the Justice De-
partment’s criminal division.
Boeing blamed two former pi-
lots who helped determine how
much training was needed for the
Max. CEO David Calhoun said
their conduct doesn’t reflect Boe-
ing employees as a whole or the
character of the company.
The charge of conspiracy to de-
fraud the U.S. will be dropped af-
ter three years if Boeing follows
the terms of the settlement.
Boeing to pay $2.5B to settle 737 Max caseAssociated Press
Bahrain68/65
Baghdad65/40
Doha70/55
Kuwait City63/49
Riyadh62/47
Kandahar48/17
Kabul38/23
Djibouti80/71
SATURDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Mildenhall/Lakenheath
33/28
Ramstein31/26
Stuttgart31/27
Lajes,Azores56/53
Rota52/46
Morón49/39 Sigonella
61/46
Naples49/45
Aviano/Vicenza36/25
Pápa34/27
Souda Bay66/58
Brussels35/32
Zagan32/29
DrawskoPomorskie 33/30
SATURDAY IN EUROPE
Misawa24/12
Guam86/78
Tokyo46/21
Okinawa55/50
Sasebo39/33
Iwakuni34/27
Seoul17/1
Osan15/1
Busan28/12
The weather is provided by the American Forces Network Weather Center,
2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.
SUNDAY IN THE PACIFIC
WEATHER OUTLOOK
TODAYIN STRIPES
American Roundup ...... 11Comics/Crossword ...... 18Health & Fitness ..........16Movies .......................14Opinion ........................ 17Sports .................... 19-24Video Games........... 12-13
Military rates
Euro costs (Jan. 11) $1.20Dollar buys (Jan. 11) 0.7941British pound (Jan. 11) $1.33Japanese yen (Jan. 11) 101.00South Korean won (Jan. 11) 1069.00
Commercial rates
Bahrain(Dinar) 0.3770Britain (Pound) 1.3583Canada (Dollar) 1.2703China(Yuan) 6.4723Denmark (Krone) 6.0712Egypt (Pound) 15.6990Euro 0.8164Hong Kong (Dollar) 7.7539Hungary (Forint) 293.51Israel (Shekel) 3.1824Japan (Yen) 103.89Kuwait(Dinar) 0.3036
Norway (Krone) 8.3999
Philippines (Peso) 48.10Poland (Zloty) 3.68 Saudi Arab (Riyal) 3.7515 Singapore (Dollar) 1.3236
So. Korea (Won) 1092.90Switzerlnd (Franc) 0.8848Thailand (Baht) 30.08Turkey (NewLira) 7.3542
(Military exchange rates are those availableto customers at military banking facilities in thecountry of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check withyour local military banking facility. Commercialrates are interbank rates provided for referencewhen buying currency. All figures are foreigncurrencies to one dollar, except for the Britishpound, which is represented in dollarstopound, and the euro, which is dollarstoeuro.)
INTEREST RATES
Prime rate 3.25Interest Rates Discount �rate 0.75Federal funds market rate �0.093month bill 0.0930year bond 1.84
EXCHANGE RATES
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3
MILITARY
AUSTIN, Texas — Five military
families filed a lawsuit against the
private companies that manage
housing at Joint Base San Antonio-
Randolph Air Force Base, making
it the second lawsuit in the past
two years to allege poor housing
conditions at the Texas base.
Each family signed a lease be-
tween 2016 and 2018 and was told
the home they were renting was
safe and had “no unresolved is-
sues,” according to the federal
lawsuit filed Dec. 29 in the West-
ern District of Texas against three
companies affiliated with Hunt
Military Communities. After mov-
ing in, the families learned the
homes had “long-standing main-
tenance issues.”
The houses exposed the fam-
ilies to dangers such as lead paint,
mold, roach infestations and sew-
age that led to health problems in-
cluding difficulty breathing, asth-
ma, bronchitis, serious allergic re-
actions, nosebleeds and gastroin-
testinal issues, according to the
lawsuit. When repairs were made,
the company only provided
“band-aid measures” that did not
solve root problems in the home.
The families on the suit are
James C. Hill Jr. and his wife, Kari
D. Hill, and their three children;
Michael English and his wife,
Elldwinia English, and their seven
children and one grandchild; Sean
Skillingstad and his wife, Ressia
Skillingstad, and their two chil-
dren; Rodolfo Castillo and his
wife, Latasha Castillo, and their
five minor children and minor ne-
phew; and Bradley Oliver and his
wife, Deborah Oliver, and two
children. The lawsuit did not in-
clude the ranks of the service
members involved.
“There is a common theme here
of reporting serious problems that
any landlord should know could
lead to health problems,” said Jen-
nifer Neal, an attorney with Watts
Guerra in San Antonio, who is rep-
resenting families on both Ran-
dolph lawsuits.
“An overwhelming number of
our clients have said, ‘We report-
ed mold, they came in, sprayed
bleach on it, painted over it and
called it a day.’ That’s simply not
how you remediate mold proper-
ly. It’s a pattern and practice of the
privatized military housing com-
panies. We have clients who were
on these bases over a span of many
years, so it’s clearly something
that’s been going on for a while.”
The lawsuit requests a trial by
jury to award compensation for
actual damages in the past and fu-
ture, economic damages, mental
anguish damages, reasonable and
necessary attorney fees and costs
of court, among other requests.
Many of the families also want
the suit to protect future military
families from experiencing these
same issues, Neal said.
A spokesperson for Hunt said in
a statement that the company
“takes these matters extremely
seriously and is focused on provid-
ing our residents with healthy and
comfortable homes.” The compa-
ny has introduced reforms and ini-
tiatives to improve living condi-
tions, including at Randolph Fam-
ily Housing, according to the
statement.
One initiative referred to as the
Humidity Project is designed to
assess units for excess moisture
and take corrective action when
necessary. The project includes
the 300 historic homes managed
by Hunt at Randolph.
“The work has produced posi-
tive results in reducing humidity
levels in the homes that have been
completed to date,” the statement
said. “We remain committed to
operating transparently and will
continue to work collaboratively
with the families we house, legis-
lators and other advocates to en-
sure that we are best serving our
military families’ housing needs
across our properties.”
This lawsuit joins at least eight
other cases that have been filed
against private companies con-
tracted by the military to provide
housing on stateside military
bases since a 2018 Reuters news
investigation exposed the danger-
ous conditions of some of base
housing. Other bases where law-
suits are pending include Fort
Hood, Texas; Fort Meade, Md.;
Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune,
N.C.; and MacDill Air Force Base,
Fla.
Though Congress has inter-
vened, creating a tenant bill of
rights and enacting other reforms
to improve oversight, the lawsuits
state that some of the issues plagu-
ing base housing continue to per-
sist.
Nine families filed the previous
lawsuit against Hunt for housing
at Randolph in October 2019 and
the two suits share many of the
same attorneys. The first lawsuit
is now in the discovery phase,
Neal said.
“The only way for us to vindi-
cate the rights of military families
harmed by substandard housing is
by showing these privatized com-
panies that there are many more
families behind those who are in
active litigation,” she said. “It’s
important the court system under-
stands the scope as well.”
Second lawsuit filed over housing conditions at Texas baseBY ROSE L. THAYER
Stars and Stripes
Thayer.rose@stripes.comTwitter: @Rose_Lori
The Marines preparing for In-
auguration Day ceremonies wore
black face masks, white gloves —
and an unusual combination of a
Vietnam-era field jacket in wood-
land camouflage with their khaki-
and-olive green service dress uni-
forms.
Photos of the uncommon en-
semble — made stranger by the
fact that the Corps transitioned to
digital camouflage nearly two
decades ago — drew a number of
“what are they wearing” com-
ments on social media.
“A sad day in Marine uniforms
when we look dumber than the Ar-
my,” Marine veteran Pete Lucier
wrote on Twitter.
It turns out the style is unique to
the historic Marine Barracks
Washington, home to the service’s
elite ceremonial units.
The jacket is a little more rug-
ged for practice sessions than the
formal uniform coats that Marines
wear in ceremonies. But it won’t
be seen at events on Jan. 20, when
Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th
President.
“The Field Jacket is primarily
worn to simulate the Dress Blue
jacket,” said Andre Bastian, a Ma-
rine veteran who spent five years
at the barracks, also known as 8th &
I. “It can only be worn with service
B and C (short and long sleeve)
and only during official barracks
practices.”
Barracks Marines use many
tricks and unusual modifications
to make their outfits look their
best for ceremonies at places like
Arlington National Cemetery and
high-profile events in the capital.
But the field jacket is supposed to
be worn as-issued, Bastian said.
Originally produced in olive
drab, the cold weather field coat
was added to the military invento-
ry in 1966 and became available in
the woodland pattern in 1982, ac-
cording to a 2007 study by David
C. Cole, a former curator at the
U.S. Army Center of Military His-
tory, Museum Division.
Designed for utility, and com-
monly known as the M65 field
jacket, it's also become something
of a style icon, available as a de-
signer knock-off for $500 from Po-
lo Ralph Lauren — about five
times what it costs from a military
surplus store online.
The field jacket’s rough similar-
ities to the blues coat allow a Ma-
rine to place the formal uniform’s
belt at the right height to practice
fixing and unfixing a bayonet to
his M1 Garand rifle, which is also a
throw-back.
“The move itself is tricky, and
requires precision and a little bit
of luck,” said Bastian, an infantry-
man who served at the barracks
from late 2014 to mid-2019. “If you
put your scabbard on your belt
line — you’d be practicing a few
inches off, and you’d get no-
where.”
It's also helpful for officers and
noncommissioned officers who
practice ceremonially drawing
and sheathing their swords.
“Yeah, it looks really weird
from the outside looking in,” Bas-
tian said. “But it’s quite practical!”
Marines drillfor inaugurationin unique style
BY CHAD GARLAND
Stars and Stripes
PHOTOS BY TANNER LAMBERT//U.S. Marine Corps
Marines with Marine Barracks Washington prepare in Washington on Tuesday for the upcomingpresidential inauguration.
The Marines are wearing an unusual combination of a Vietnamerafield jacket in woodland camouflage with their khakiandolive greenservice dress uniforms.
garland.chad@stripes.comTwitter: @chadgarland
PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
MILITARY
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Af-
ghan pilot was gunned down in a
Kabul street this week, the second
to die in an apparent targeted kill-
ing ahead of a second round of
peace talks between the Taliban
and government.
Gunmen on motorcycles killed
the pilot and a civilian Thursday in
western Kabul, said an Afghan de-
fense official who asked not to be
named because he was not autho-
rized to discuss the matter. Offi-
cials did not immediately release
the pilot's name.
Another pilot, Masood Atal,
died outside his house in the
southern city of Kandahar on Dec.
30. He was also gunned down by
assailants on motorcycles, said
Kandahar police spokesman Ja-
mal Nasar Barakzai.
None of the militant groups ac-
tive in Afghanistan, including the
Taliban and Islamic State, have
claimed responsibility for either
killing.
The U.S. has spent years train-
ing Afghan pilots and invested bil-
lions in the country’s air force.
The deaths of the two pilots
could weaken the government’s
air power, which is seen as crucial
to holding off the Taliban. The mil-
itants have stepped up attacks
throughout the country over the
last year — even as they have held
talks with the U.S. and, since Sep-
tember, with the government,
aimed at ending decades of war.
The intra-Afghan talks ad-
journed weeks after they started,
with little to show in the way of
progress and no letup in violence
against Afghans.
A second round is set to begin
Saturday, Taliban spokesman Mo-
hammad Naeem said this week on
Twitter. The talks were mandated
in the deal reached last February
between the U.S. and Taliban,
which also called for international
troops to be withdrawn from Af-
ghanistan by May this year. The
number of U.S. troops in Afghan-
istan is expected to drop to 2,500
by mid-January.
But as the talks grind on, mem-
bers of the security forces are be-
ing threatened and killed. Some
have fled the country or gone into
hiding.
Niloofar Rahmani, Afghanis-
tan’s first female fixed-wing avia-
tor, was granted asylum in the U.S.
in 2018 after receiving death
threats from the Taliban.
Mohammad Naiem Asadi, a hel-
icopter pilot reputed to have killed
more Taliban than anyone else in
the Afghan air force, went into
hiding last year after the Pentagon
reversed its decision to allow him
to move to the United States with
his family.
Asadi had received numerous
death threats from the Taliban
and was approved to come to the
U.S. in October, only to learn
weeks later that authorization had
been withdrawn.
At least 168 members of Af-
ghanistan’s security forces died in
targeted killings in 2020, a report
published on Jan. 2 by the New
York Times said. The U.S. has also
accused militant groups of the tar-
geted killings of scores of civilians
and called on all sides in the con-
flict to reduce violence.
“The Taliban’s campaign of un-
claimed attacks and targeted kill-
ings of government officials, civil
society leaders and journalists
must also cease for peace to suc-
ceed,” Col. Sonny Leggett, spokes-
man for U.S. Forces in Afghanis-
tan, said Monday on Twitter.
Afghan pilotsgunned downahead of talks
BY J.P. LAWRENCE
Stars and Stripes
Zubair Babakarhail contributed to this report.lawrence.jp@stripes.comTwitter: @jplawrence
TOKYO — The third wave of
coronavirus infections in Japan’s
capital city worsened Friday, as
the number of new cases there ex-
ceeded 2,000 individuals for a sec-
ond consecutive day.
The U.S. military in Japan as of
6 p.m. Friday reported 67 people
newly infected with the virus, the
majority of them at Yokosuka Na-
val Base, where a cluster emerged
in December. U.S. Forces Korea
reported a contractor at Yongsan
Garrison, Seoul, tested positive
Thursday, a news release said.
U.S. bases in the greater Tokyo
metro area imposed curfews and
new limits on travel and other ac-
tivities after Japan declared a
state of emergency Thursday in
the city and three surrounding
prefectures.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Gov-
ernment reported 2,392 people
tested positive for the virus Fri-
day, the second largest number so
far, according to public broadcast-
er NHK. Severely ill patients in
Tokyo number 129, also a record,
NHK reported. The metro govern-
ment on Thursday reported 2,447
people infected, its highest one-
day total.
The number of people testing
positive but waiting on treatment
or hospitalization is also growing,
partly because of a shortage of
hospital beds and treatment facil-
ities, according to NHK.
Yokosuka, the home, 35 miles
south of Tokyo, of the 7th Fleet, re-
ported 44 individuals had tested
positive for the coronavirus since
Tuesday, according to a Facebook
post. The naval base has 111 people
with the virus under observation.
Of the new cases, 14 fell ill with
symptoms of COVID-19, the coro-
navirus respiratory disease; 16
were discovered during contact
tracing; five tested positive during
medical screening; and five are
new arrivals to Japan, according
to the base. A base employee test-
ed positive during contact tracing.
Citing a growing cluster of un-
known origin, base commander
Capt. Rich Jarrett on Wednesday
imposed an 8 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew
for everyone associated with the
base, including families and civil-
ian employees, whether they live
on or off the installation.
Naval Air Facility Atsugi, 25
miles northwest of Yokosuka, re-
ported seven new patients Friday:
Two were tested upon their arriv-
al, three developed symptoms,
one tested positive while in quar-
antine and one was a close contact
of another infected individual,
base spokesman Sam Samuelson
said.
Atsugi commander Capt. Man-
ning Montagnet on Thursday or-
dered an 8 p.m.-5 a.m. curfew sim-
ilar to Yokosuka’s, which permits
duty travel.
Yokota Air Base, the headquar-
ters of U.S. Forces Japan in west-
ern Tokyo, reported 12 people
tested positive between Wednes-
day and Friday, according to a
Facebook post. Seven were in
quarantine after arriving from the
U.S.; four were also in quarantine
after contact with another infect-
ed individual; the one remaining
person “was identified and quar-
antined,” but the base provided no
further information.
Yokota’s commander, Col. An-
drew Campbell, on Friday put Yo-
kohama off-limits, along with cen-
tral Tokyo, to all base personnel
and prohibited dining in restau-
rants from 8 p.m-5 a.m. in Tokyo,
Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama
prefectures until Feb. 7. Takeout
or deliveries are permitted after 8
p.m.
U.S. Army Japan, headquar-
tered at Camp Zama, 26 miles
southwest of Tokyo, also imposed
new limits, including bans on pub-
lic transportation, travel beyond
93 miles of the base and “non-es-
sential,” off-base activity from 8
p.m.-5p.m., according to a Face-
book post.
Marine Corps Air Station Iwa-
kuni, 500 miles west of Tokyo, on
Friday reported four new corona-
virus cases, none of whom were in
quarantine when they tested posi-
tive, according to a Facebook post.
Commander Col. Lance Lewis
ordered the base locked down
overnight Thursday until 9 p.m.
Friday to “conduct aggressive
contact tracing” and stop the vi-
rus’s spread, according to the
base.
The base schools and Child De-
velopment Center were closed,
personnel were ordered to remain
at home unless involved in essen-
tial activities and shopping off-
base was curtailed, among other
measures.
Surge mounts in Tokyo; US bases impose curfewsBY JOSEPH DITZLER
Stars and Stripes
ditzler.joseph@stripes.comTwitter: @JosephDitzler
J.P. LAWRENCE/Stars and Stripes
Assassinations of Afghan pilots leave families like that of Mohammed Shah, killed in 2018, grieving andangry at a government they say did not protect their loved ones.
AKIFUMI ISHIKAWA/Stars and Stripes
A store in Yokohama, Japan, displays signs encouraging customers totake measures to prevent a coronavirus infection on Wednesday.
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5
tons of oxygen. And then you just see them
die. They just die.”
The outbreak has taken another turn for
the worse in Arizona, with the state now
leading the nation with the highest CO-
VID-19 diagnosis rate over the past week.
More than 132,000 people nationwide
are hospitalized with the virus.
In Los Angeles County’s Henry Mayo
New Hall in Valencia, nurse Nerissa Black
said the hospital is overwhelmed with pa-
tients, likening the situation to New York’s
at the beginning of the pandemic.
She was assigned six patients but could
spend only about 10 minutes with each of
them per hour, including the time it takes
for her to change her protective gear.
“It’s very hard to decide which one
should I go see first: the patient who has
chest pain or the patient whose oxygen
level is dropping,” she said.
At St. Joseph Hospital south of Los An-
geles, nurses in the COVID-19 ward de-
scribed being overwhelmed as the deaths
mount.
“Just today we had two deaths on this
unit. And that’s pretty much the norm,”
said Caroline Brandenburger. “I usually
see one to two every shift. Super sad.” She
added: “They fight every day, and they
struggle to breathe every day even with
Deaths: Doctors struggling to handle huge surge in patientsFROM PAGE 1
VIRUS OUTBREAK
The desperately awaited vacci-
nation drive against the coronavi-
rus in the U.S. is running into re-
sistance from an unlikely quarter:
Surprising numbers of health care
workers who have seen firsthand
the death and misery inflicted by
COVID-19 are refusing shots.
It is happening in nursing
homes and, to a lesser degree, in
hospitals, with employees ex-
pressing what experts say are un-
founded fears of side effects from
vaccines that were developed at
record speed. More than three
weeks into the campaign, some
places are seeing as much as 80%
of the staff holding back.
“I don’t think anyone wants to
be a guinea pig,” said Dr. Stephen
Noble, a 42-year-old cardiothorac-
ic surgeon in Portland, Ore., who
is postponing getting vaccinated.
“At the end of the day, as a man of
science, I just want to see what the
data show. And give me the full da-
ta.”
Alarmed by the phenomenon,
some administrators have dan-
gled everything from free break-
fasts at Waffle House to a raffle for
a car to get employees to roll up
their sleeves. Some states have
threatened to let other people cut
ahead of health care workers in
the line for shots.
“It’s far too low. It’s alarmingly
low,” said Neil Pruitt, CEO of
PruittHealth, which runs about
100 long-term care homes in the
South, where fewer than 3 in 10
workers offered the vaccine so far
have accepted it.
Many medical facilities from
Florida to Washington state have
boasted of near-universal accept-
ance of the shots, and workers
have proudly plastered pictures of
themselves on social media re-
ceiving the vaccine. Elsewhere,
though, the drive has stumbled.
While the federal government
has released no data on how many
people offered the vaccines have
taken them, glimpses of resistance
have emerged around the country.
In Illinois, a big divide has
opened at state-run veterans
homes between residents and
staff. The discrepancy was worst
at the veterans home in Manteno,
where 90% of residents were vac-
cinated but only 18% of the staff
members.
In rural Ashland, Ala., about 90
of some 200 workers at Clay Coun-
ty Hospital have yet to agree to get
vaccinated, even with the place so
overrun with COVID-19 patients
that oxygen is running low and
beds have been added to the inten-
sive care unit, divided by plastic
sheeting.
The pushback comes amid the
most lethal phase in the outbreak
yet, with the death toll at more
than 350,000, and it could hinder
the government’s effort to vacci-
nate somewhere between 70% and
85% of the U.S. population to
achieve “herd immunity.”
Administrators and public
health officials have expressed
hope that more health workers
will opt to be vaccinated as they
see their colleagues take the shots
without problems.
Medical journals have publish-
ed extensive data on the vaccines,
and the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration has made its analysis pub-
lic. But misinformation about the
shots has spread wildly online, in-
cluding falsehoods that they cause
fertility problems.
There have been no signs of
widespread severe side effects
from the vaccines, and scientists
say the drugs have been rigorous-
ly tested on tens of thousands and
vetted by independent experts.
States have begun turning up
the pressure. South Carolina’s
governor gave health care work-
ers until Jan. 15 to get a shot or
“move to the back of the line.” Ge-
orgia’s top health official has al-
lowed some vaccines to be divert-
ed to other front-line workers, in-
cluding firefighters and police,
out of frustration with the slow up-
take.
“There’s vaccine available but
it’s literally sitting in freezers,”
said Public Health Commissioner
Dr. Kathleen Toomey. “That’s un-
acceptable. We have lives to
save.”
Health workersrefuse vaccine,causing delays
Associated Press
JAE C. HONG/AP
Medical workers wait in the holding area after getting the PfizerBioNTech COVID19 vaccine at St. JosephHospital in Orange, Calif., on Thursday.
WASHINGTON — More than
7,000 Department of Veterans Af-
fairs patients had died of the coro-
navirus as of Thursday — equa-
ting to about 24 people killed each
day since the first veteran’s death
in March.
The VA reported 7,099 total
deaths Thursday and nearly
16,000 active coronavirus cases.
Only seven days into the new year,
January is already on pace to be
the agency’s deadliest month.
About 1,300 VA patients died of
the virus in December, and the
year ended with 6,500 dead VA pa-
tients. The department has re-
corded about 600 deaths in Janu-
ary with 24 days to go.
In addition, the VA has reported
13 employee deaths so far this
month, bringing the total employ-
ee deaths to 104. December was
previously the deadliest month for
employees, with 16 deaths.
Deaths and cases are increasing
at the same time the department is
working to vaccinate its health
care staff and most vulnerable pa-
tients. The VA had administered
146,000 vaccines as of this week,
including 132,000 health care
workers and 14,000 veterans. The
vaccines are being administered
at 195 VA sites across the country.
VA Secretary Robert Wilkie has
praised the pace of his agency’s ef-
forts to vaccinate employees and
veterans.
“This is a massive undertaking
that is happening at a rapid pace,”
Wilkie said in a statement.
Other officials, though, have ac-
knowledged that vaccine distribu-
tion has gotten off to a sluggish
start. About 2 million Americans
received their first dose of the cor-
onavirus vaccine by the end of
2020, falling far short of expecta-
tions that 20 million people would
be vaccinated by that time.
“We agree that number is lower
than what we hoped for,” Dr. Mon-
cef Slaoui, chief adviser to Oper-
ation Warp Speed, said Dec. 30.
“We know it should be better, and
we’re working to make it better.”
The VA is first vaccinating resi-
dents and staff of the agency’s
long-term community living cen-
ters, as well as spinal cord injury
centers. After that phase, the VA
will shift its focus to vaccinating
VA employees who treat coronavi-
rus patients.
Of the nearly 16,000 active coro-
navirus cases among VA patients
Thursday, the facilities reporting
the highest numbers were in Lo-
ma Linda and Long Beach, Cali-
fornia. The numbers reflect na-
tionwide trends showing multiple
days of record-setting coronavi-
rus deaths in those areas.
The VA’s data on cases and
deaths does not include all veter-
ans in the United States, nor does
it include the hundreds of deaths
that have occurred at 162 state-
run veterans’ homes.
Because of a bill signed into law
this week, the VA is required to
publicize coronavirus deaths and
cases at state-run veterans’ homes
for the first time by Feb. 4.
7,000 VA patients die of coronavirus since MarchBY NIKKI WENTLING
Stars and Stripes
Wentling.nikki@stripes.comTwitter: @nikkiwentling
PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP
ALBANY, N.Y. — For months,
as they planned for a possible re-
surgence of the coronavirus, New
York’s leaders talked about how a
strict set of scientific metrics
would guide decisions about
whether to reimpose restrictions
and closures that helped tame the
virus in the spring.
But as COVID-19 has made its
expected comeback, several sta-
tistical thresholds that were once
supposed to trigger shutdowns
have been eased or abandoned.
The latest example came this
week, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo
made clear he had reversed
course on a plan to force schools to
switch to remote-learning in re-
gions where 9% or more of the
people who seek coronavirus tests
are found to have the virus.
Schools can officially stay open
in counties that cross that thresh-
old, if they launch testing pro-
grams and can show that the virus
is spreading at a lower rate among
students than in the general pop-
ulation, Cuomo said.
It’s a reversal from July, when
the governor’s advisory council of
educators, students, parents and
leaders of schools and unions set
the 9% metric. At the time, Cuomo
warned it would not be “intelli-
gent” to keep schools open if they
crossed that line.
Now, seven out of the state’s 10
regions have crossed that thresh-
old since late December, along
with over half of the state’s 62
counties.
School leaders are awaiting spe-
cifics on Cuomo’s latest announce-
ment, according to Lowry, who
questioned whether New York has
the capacity to launch new testing
programs across the state.
And unions representing teach-
ers and school staff have objected
to the change, saying the state is
endangering workers by keeping
schools open.
ArkansasLITTLE ROCK — The number
of coronavirus patients in Arkan-
sas' hospitals rose again to a new
record high Thursday as 25 more
people died from the virus.
The Department of Health said
the state's COVID-19 hospitaliza-
tions, which had dropped a day
earlier, rose by five to 1,326. The
total number of people dead from
COVID-19, the illness caused by
the virus, since the pandemic be-
gan now total 3,926.
The state's coronavirus cases
rose by 3,323 to 245,916.
Four percent of the state's 1,155
intensive care unit beds and near-
ly 22% of its 8,951 hospital beds are
available, according to the Health
Department. There are 427 CO-
VID-19 patients in ICUs around
the state.
Legislative leaders on Thurs-
day also released proposed rules
and safety procedures that they
and the secretary of state had
agreed upon for the 2021 session,
which is set to begin on Monday.
ArizonaWINDOW ROCK — Navajo Na-
tion health officials on Thursday
reported 257 new coronavirus
cases and six more deaths.
The latest figures increased the
tribe’s totals since the pandemic
began to 24,521 cases and 844
known deaths.
Health officials said more than
212,000 people have been tested
for COVID-19 on the reservation
and more than 12,600 have reco-
vered.
The number of infections is
thought to be far higher than re-
ported because many people have
not been tested, and studies sug-
gest people can be infected with
the virus without feeling sick.
On Monday, the Navajo Depart-
ment of Health identified 73 com-
munities with uncontrolled
spread of COVID-19 on the tribe’s
vast reservation that covers parts
of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
FloridaTALLAHASSEE — Florida
broke its record for the highest
single-day number of coronavirus
cases since the pandemic began,
tallying 19,816 new cases on
Thursday, while the state’s death
toll reached 22,400.
Statistics from the Florida De-
partment of Health on Thursday
showed the totals surpassed the
previous single-day record, which
was 17,783 cases on Wednesday.
Since the pandemic started in
March, about 1.4 million people in
Florida have contracted COVID.
As of 3 p.m. Thursday, 7,331 peo-
ple in the state were hospitalized
with the virus.
People are eager for vaccines,
and have swamped online regis-
tration sites in some counties.
Florida followed federal recom-
mendations in starting vaccina-
tions first for front-line medical
workers plus residents and staff of
nursing homes in mid-December.
So far, more than 329,000 peo-
ple, or about 1.5 percent of the
state's population, have received a
COVID vaccine in Florida.
IllinoisSPRINGFIELD — The number
of COVID-19 cases in Illinois has
topped one million, the Illinois De-
partment of Public Health an-
nounced Thursday
Public health officials an-
nounced the milestone as they re-
ported 8,757 confirmed and prob-
able coronavirus cases, including
177 deaths, bringing that total to
including 17,272.
A total of 1,008,045 COVID-19
infections have been diagnosed
across the state since March, the
fifth highest total in the nation.
More than 21 million cases have
been diagnosed nationwide.
“As this disease continues to
wreak havoc on our nation — with
the United States setting another
record for the most COVID-19
deaths in a day just yesterday — it
is critical that we take extra cau-
tion today and in the months
ahead to reduce the spread, bring
down hospitalization rates, and
save lives,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said
in a statement.
New JerseyTRENTON — Civil jury trials in
New Jersey will resume in a vir-
tual format next month on a limit-
ed basis, the state Supreme Court
announced Thursday.
Under the order signed by Chief
Justice Stuart Rabner, virtual civ-
il trials will be held in vicinages
covering Atlantic, Cape May,
Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem,
Monmouth, Passaic and Union
counties beginning on February 1.
During this first phase, trials
will proceed only if both parties
consent to the virtual format.
Virtual civil trials will be held
across the state beginning on April
5, with consent from the parties
not required. The trials will be re-
stricted at first to cases involving a
single defendant or plaintiff and a
limited number of witnesses, ac-
cording to the order.
Jury selection will be conducted
remotely, and the courts will pro-
vide computer tablets to jurors
who need them. Up to two addi-
tional alternate jurors will be se-
lected, beyond the number nor-
mally seated in an in-person trial,
in case empaneled jurors experi-
ence technical difficulties.
North CarolinaCHAPEL HILL — The flagship
school of North Carolina’s univer-
sity system announced Thursday
that it is delaying the start of in-
person undergraduate classes for
the spring semester, citing record
numbers for COVID-19 and hospi-
talizations.
The University of North Caroli-
na at Chapel Hill said in a state-
ment on its webpage that while
classes will begin on Jan. 19 as
scheduled, it is delaying the start
of in-person undergraduate class-
es for three weeks. Chancellor Ke-
vin Guskiewicz said only a limited
number of undergraduate courses
were planned for in-person in-
struction. He said start dates for
graduate and professional pro-
grams may vary and all programs
have the option of starting remote-
ly.
Students can return to campus
residence halls beginning Jan. 13
as planned, but students will have
the option to return or delay their
move-in date up until Feb. 7, the
day before classes are to begin. All
students will be in single-occu-
pancy rooms, and housing fees
will be prorated according to
when students choose to move in.
TexasAUSTIN — Texas reported its
first known case of a person infect-
ed with the new variant of the cor-
onavirus on Thursday, and health
officials announced they will send
most of the vaccine the state re-
ceives next week to large provid-
ers who can conduct large-scale
vaccinations.
Texas also set new state highs
with nearly 14,000 hospitalized
COVID-19 patients, and 393 newly
reported deaths.
Texas joins a handful of states
with at least one known case of the
new variant of the virus that caus-
es COVID-19. It was first identi-
fied in the United Kingdom and
appears to spread more easily
from person to person. But state
health officials say there is no evi-
dence it causes more severe dis-
ease, and say current vaccines are
expected to still be effective.
The infected person was identi-
fied as a Houston-area man who is
between 30 and 40-years old who
has no travel history.
PennsylvaniaPennsylvania schools should
consider a return to in-person in-
struction for elementary-age stu-
dents, state health and education
officials said Thursday, a change
from previous state guidance that
recommended online-only educa-
tion in areas where the coronavi-
rus is raging.
Since the beginning of the aca-
demic year, state officials have
urged virtual instruction in coun-
ties with a “substantial” level of
community transmission — a
number that rose rapidly as the vi-
rus surged this fall and winter. For
the past month, all 67 of Pennsyl-
vania’s counties have been
deemed to have a substantial level
of viral spread.
State officials now want schools
to consider bringing elementary
students back to the classroom,
saying that’s where they belong.
“We know that educators and
families recognize that students
benefit from being physically in
their classroom. Research has
taught us that this is especially
true for our youngest learners,”
Noe Ortega, acting secretary of
the state Department of Educa-
tion, said at an online news confer-
ence Thursday.
As infections climb,NY avoids closuresby shifting metrics
CURTIS COMPTON, ATLANTA (GA.) JOURNALCONSTITUTION/AP
School nurse Dorothy Burns gets a Moderna COVID19 vaccination from a DeKalb County public healthworker at the DeKalb COVID19 BrandsMart USA drive through testing site Thursday, in Doraville, Ga.
Associated Press
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7
NATION
The U.S. Capitol Police officer
who died after responding to riots
at the Capitol was a veteran who
served on two overseas tours be-
fore joining the police force, the
military said.
Officer Brian D. Sicknick died
Thursday after being injured on-
duty while “physically engaging
with protesters,” the Capitol Po-
lice said in a statement. Support-
ers of President Donald Trump
stormed the building Wednesday
as lawmakers
were tallying
votes to confirm
Democrat Joe
Biden had won
November's
election.
A rioter hit
Sicknick on the
head with a fire
extinguisher, said Alexandra Li-
mon, a correspondent for Nexstar
Media Group, in a Twitter post
citing an unnamed source.
Sicknick, who joined the force
in 2008 and served with its First
Responder Unit, returned to his
division office and collapsed, the
police said. He was taken to the
hospital and died the next day.
The National Guard confirmed
that Sicknick had served as a tra-
ditional drilling member of the
Air National Guard in his home
state of New Jersey. The 42-year-
old joined in 1997 and was honor-
ably discharged in 2003 at the
rank of staff sergeant.
“We are saddened by the loss of
one of our former New Jersey Na-
tional Guard Citizen-Airman,”
said Army Lt. Col. Barbara G.
Brown, a spokeswoman for the
New Jersey Guard.
He served as a fire team mem-
ber and leader at the 108th Securi-
ty Force Squadron, 108th Wing, at
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lake-
hurst, southeast of Trenton,
Brown said.
During his time in the Air
Guard, he deployed to Saudi Ara-
bia in 1999 as part of Operation
Southern Watch — the U.S.-led
mission to patrol no-fly zones in
Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War —
and Kyrgyzstan in 2003 in support
of the war in Afghanistan, she
said.
“Staff Sgt. Sicknick’s commit-
ment to service and [to] protect
his community, state, and nation
will never be forgotten,” Brown
said in an emailed statement.
“Our condolences and thoughts
are with his family, friends and
those who worked with him dur-
ing his law enforcement career.”
Fallen policeofficer wasAir Guardveteran
BY CHAD GARLAND
Stars and Stripes
Sicknick
garland.chad@stripes.comTwitter: @chadgarland
vented from running again for the
presidency in 2024 or ever hold-
ing public office again. Trump
would be only the president twice
impeached.
Conviction in the Republican
Senate at this late date would
seem unlikely. But it’s a measure
of his uncomfortable position that
there has been a noteworthy lack
of GOP statements attacking
Democrats’ calls for his removal.
The final days of Trump’s presi-
dency are spinning toward a
chaotic end as he holes up at the
White House, abandoned by
many aides, leading Republicans
and Cabinet members. He was
tweeting again after his Twitter
account was reinstated, reverting
to an aggressive statement that
his supporters must not be “disre-
spected” after he sent out a cal-
mer Thursday video decrying the
violence.
Calls are mounting for legal ac-
tion following the Capitol attack,
in which one protester was shot to
death by Capitol police and Capi-
tol police officer Brian Sicknick
died. Three other people died
from “medical emergencies” dur-
ing the demonstration.
Strong criticism of Trump, who
urged the protesters to march to
the Capitol, continued unabated.
“Every day that he remains in
office, he is a danger to the Repub-
lic,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-
Calif.
Schiff, who led Trump’s im-
peachment in 2019, said in a state-
ment that Trump “lit the fuse
which exploded on Wednesday at
the Capitol.”
Articles of impeachment are
expected to be introduced on
Monday, with a House vote as
soon as Wednesday, according to
a person familiar with the plan-
ning and granted anonymity to
discuss it.
Pelosi and Democratic Senate
leader Chuck Schumer have
called on Vice President Mike
Pence and the Cabinet to invoke
the 25th Amendment to force
Trump from office. It’s a process
for removing the president and in-
stalling the vice president to take
over.
But action by Pence or the Cabi-
net now appears unlikely, espe-
cially after two top officials, Edu-
cation Secretary Betsy DeVos and
Transportation Secretary Elaine
Chao suddenly resigned in the af-
termath of the violence at the Cap-
itol and would no longer be in the
Cabinet to make such a case.
Trump had encouraged loyal-
ists at a rally Wednesday at the
White House to march on the Cap-
itol where Congress was certify-
ing the Electoral College tally of
Biden’s election.
Pelosi discussed the prospect of
impeachment with her leadership
team Thursday night, hours after
announcing the House was willing
to act if Pence and other adminis-
tration officials did not invoke
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment
— the forceful removal of Trump
from power by his own Cabinet.
Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3
House Democrat told CNN: “Ev-
eryone knows that this president
is deranged.” One leading Repub-
lican critic of Trump, Sen. Ben
Sasse of Nebraska, said he will
“definitely consider” impeach-
ment.
Schumer said he and Pelosi
tried to call Pence early Thursday
to discuss the 25th Amendment
option but were unable to connect
with him.
Most Democrats, and many Re-
publicans, put the blame squarely
on Trump after swarms of protes-
ters bearing Trump flags and
clothing broke into the Capitol
and caused destruction and evac-
uations.
Three Democrats on the House
Judiciary Committee began
Thursday to circulate articles of
impeachment. Reps. David Cicil-
line of Rhode Island, Jamie Ras-
kin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of
California wrote in the articles
that Trump “willfully made state-
ments that encouraged — and
foreseeably resulted in — immi-
nent lawless action at the Capi-
tol.”
The House impeached Trump
in 2019, but the Republican-led
Senate acquitted him in early
2020.
Pelosi said “a threshold was
crossed of such magnitude” that
Trump should not be allowed to
make any decisions.
During a news conference
Thursday, she challenged several
Cabinet members by name, in-
cluding Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and Treasury Secretary
Steve Mnuchin.
“Do they stand by these ac-
tions?” Pelosi asked. “Are they
ready to say that for the next 13
days this dangerous man can do
further harm to our country?”
Pence has not publicly ad-
dressed the possibility of invoking
the 25th Amendment
Attack: Democrats push Pence to remove TrumpFROM PAGE 1
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE / AP
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., holds a news conference on the day after violent protestersloyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, on Thursday.
“Every day thathe remains inoffice, he is adanger to theRepublic.”
Rep. Adam Schiff
D-Calif.
PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
Thousands of National Guard
troops from surrounding states
will deploy to Washington, D.C.,
by the weekend to bolster defens-
es around the national capital af-
ter a mob of President Donald
Trump’s supporters on Wednes-
day forced their way into the U.S.
Capitol, the Army’s top civilian
said Thursday.
Army Secretary Ryan McCar-
thy said more than 5,000 troops
from six states will join the 1,100
D.C. Nation Guard members al-
ready on duty in Washington to
man checkpoints around the city,
including positions around the
Capitol. McCarthy, in a phone call
Thursday with reporters, called
“horrible and shameful” the siege
one day earlier of the Capitol
Building by angry Trump back-
ers. Some attacked police, broke
into the Capitol and delayed a
vote by lawmakers to certify
President-elect Joe Biden’s victo-
ry.
National Guard troops from
Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey,
Delaware, Pennsylvania and New
York will deploy to D.C. in the
coming days, McCarthy said. The
Army secretary said they would
remain in the city, working 12-
hour shifts, for as many as 30
days, but at least through the Jan.
20 inauguration of Biden.
“We are singularly focused on
putting a plan in place to ensure
that we have the adequate level of
capability to support this next re-
ally extraordinary milestone of
the transfer of power on the 20th
of January,” McCarthy said.
“We’re keenly focused on that.”
In a statement Thursday, Act-
ing Defense Secretary Christoph-
er Miller condemned Wednes-
day’s assault on the Capitol and
committed to doing his part to en-
sure the peaceful transfer of pow-
er to Biden’s administration later
this month. He praised the Na-
tional Guard for helping secure
the Capitol on Wednesday night,
allowing Congress to complete its
early Thursday morning certifi-
cation of Biden’s victory.
“Our Republic may have been
disrupted yesterday, but the re-
solve of our legislators to conduct
the people’s business did not wav-
er,” Miller said. “Due to their ef-
forts, supported by local and fed-
eral law enforcement and the Na-
tional Guard, the attempts of
those who tried to stop our gov-
ernment from functioning
failed.”
The entire D.C. National Guard
was activated Wednesday amid
the riot. Some were deployed to
the Capitol in riot gear to help lo-
cal and federal law enforcement
secure the building. National
Guard troops deployed so far
have not been armed with fire-
arms or non-lethal weapons.
McCarthy said Thursday that
Pentagon officials were consider-
ing changes to “the rules for the
use of force,” which includes au-
thorizations to carry weapons. He
did not elaborate on potential
changes to those rules.
McCarthy defended the Na-
tional Guard’s response to the riot
Wednesday, after lawmakers and
others raised questions about how
the president’s supporters were
able to overrun security around
the building. The Army secretary
said the Pentagon had provided
all the Guard forces that D.C. offi-
cials had requested before
Wednesday. The troops’ response
once the melee began was com-
plicated by the need for D.C. or
Capitol Hill police officials to for-
mally request more troops or mis-
sion changes for Guard forces.
Top Pentagon officials then had to
approve those requests before
troops could be moved, he said.
Trump supporters successfully
delayed the congressional vote to
certify Biden’s win, breaking
through security and entering
both chambers of Congress, forc-
ing lawmakers to evacuate to se-
cured locations throughout Capi-
tol Hill. Ashli Babbitt — a 35-
year-old woman identified by
news reports as an avid Trump
supporter and Air Force veteran
— was shot to death by police dur-
ing the incident, law enforcement
officials said. Three other people
died of medical emergencies dur-
ing the incident, and more than 50
officers were injured, police said.
Congress reconvened after po-
lice secured the Capitol late
Wednesday.
McCarthy said more than 100
D.C. National Guard troops were
among those who helped secure
the Capitol grounds. They were
moved from traffic checkpoints
around Washington to the D.C.
National Guard Armory, where
they were outfitted with riot gear
and sent to Capitol Hill, he said.
“We were in position in less
than two hours to go and help sup-
port the clearing of the Capitol,”
McCarthy said. “Clearly the Capi-
tol was under duress and if you’re
under duress, minutes and sec-
onds count … I get it. But [Guard
troops] were moving hard and
fast.”
McCarthy said hundreds of
troops would remain stationed
around the Capitol Building
through at least Jan. 20. He told
reporters about 850 National
Guard troops would be stationed
on Capitol Hill by Thursday eve-
ning, where they had nearly com-
pleted positioning a 7-foot non-
scalable fence around the com-
plex.
On Monday, officials an-
nounced the Pentagon had ap-
proved the activation of about 340
D.C. National Guard troops to
help local law enforcement with
crowd and traffic control.
Miller said Wednesday that he
agreed to activate D.C.’s entire
Guard force after he and Army
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had
separately spoken with Vice Pres-
ident Mike Pence, Senate Major-
ity Leader Mitch McConnell, R-
Ky., and House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif. Those top U.S. of-
ficials were at the Capitol when
the mob stormed the building.
“We are prepared to provide
additional support as necessary
and appropriate as requested by
local authorities,” Miller said in a
statement. “Our people are sworn
to defend the Constitution and our
democratic form of government,
and they will act accordingly.”
The out-of-state deployments
could grow larger in the coming
days or be scaled back, a defense
official said Thursday, calling the
situation “still very, very fluid.”
In a statement announcing he
would send 500 of his National
Guard troops to Washington, New
Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the
forces were needed to “protect
our democracy and facilitate the
peaceful transition of power.”
“Our republic is built on the
principles of democracy, peace,
the right of the American people
to freely choose their leaders,”
Murphy said in a statement. “The
brave men and women of our Na-
tional Guard will be deployed in
order to preserve those sacred
principles.”
Thousands of Guard troops deploying to DCBY COREY DICKSTEIN
Stars and Stripes
JOHN MINCHILLO/AP
DC National Guard stand outside the Capitol on Wednesday after a day of rioting.
dickstein.corey@stripes.comTwitter: @CDicksteinDC
WASHINGTON — Three days
before supporters of President
Donald Trump rioted at the Capi-
tol, the Pentagon asked the U.S
Capitol Police if it needed Nation-
al Guard manpower. And as the
mob descended on the building
Wednesday, Justice Department
leaders reached out to offer up
FBI agents. The police turned
them down both times, according
to senior defense officials and two
people familiar with the matter.
Despite plenty of warnings of a
possible insurrection and ample
resources and time to prepare, the
Capitol Police planned only for a
free speech demonstration.
Still stinging from the uproar
over the violent response by law
enforcement to protests last June
near the White House, officials al-
so were intent on avoiding any ap-
pearance that the federal govern-
ment was deploying active duty or
National Guard troops against
Americans.
The result is the U.S. Capitol
was overrun Wednesday and offi-
cers in a law enforcement agency
with a large operating budget and
experience in high-security
events protecting lawmakers
were overwhelmed for the world
to see. Four protesters died, in-
cluding one shot inside the build-
ing. A Capitol Police officer died
Thursday after being injured in
the Wednesday melee.
The rioting and loss of control
has raised serious questions over
security at the Capitol for future
events. The actions of the day also
raise troubling concerns about the
treatment of mainly white Trump
supporters, who were allowed to
roam through the building for
hours, while Black and brown pro-
testers who demonstrated last
year over police brutality faced
more robust and aggressive polic-
ing.
“This was a failure of imagina-
tion, a failure of leadership,” said
Houston Police Chief Art Aceve-
do, whose department responded
to several large protests last year
following the death of George
Floyd. “The Capitol Police must
do better and I don’t see how we
can get around that.”
Acevedo said he has attended
events on the Capitol grounds to
honor slain police officers that had
higher fences and a stronger secu-
rity presence than what he saw on
video Wednesday.
Army Secretary Ryan McCar-
thy said that as the rioting was un-
derway, it became clear that the
Capitol Police were overrun. But
he said there was no contingency
planning done in advance for what
forces could do in case of a prob-
lem at the Capitol because De-
fense Department help was turn-
ed down. “They’ve got to ask us,
the request has to come to us,”
said McCarthy.
Capitol Police rejected offers of federal help to quell mobAssociated Press
NATION
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9
NATION
WASHINGTON — President
Donald Trump said Friday he
won’t attend President-elect Joe
Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20,
undercutting his message a day
earlier that he would work to en-
sure a “smooth, orderly and seam-
less transition of power” to his suc-
cessor.
Trump offered no clues for how
he would spend his final hours in of-
fice, and will be the first incumbent
president since Andrew Johnson to
skip his successor’s inauguration.
Traditionally, the incoming and
outgoing presidents ride to the U.S.
Capitol together for the ceremony,
as a symbol of the nation’s peaceful
transition.
Trump’s comments come two
days after a violent mob of his sup-
porters occupied the Capitol for
several hours as lawmakers were
tallying the electoral votes that cer-
tified Biden’s victory. Biden will
become president at noon on Jan.
20 regardless of Trump’s plans.
“To all of those who have asked, I
will not be going to the Inaugura-
tion on January 20th,” Trump
tweeted. The move had been wide-
ly expected, as Trump for months
falsely claimed victory in the elec-
tion and promulgated baseless
claims of voter fraud. His own ad-
ministration said the election had
been fairly run.
Vice President Mike Pence was
expected to attend the inaugura-
tion. Pence spokesman Devin Mal-
ley said “Vice President Pence and
the Second Lady have yet to make a
decision regarding their attend-
ance.”
Biden’s transition team had no
immediate comment on Trump’s
announcement. But Jen Psaki, the
president-elect’s incoming White
House press secretary, said last
month that whether Trump attend-
ed the inauguration was not top of
mind for Biden.
On Thursday, with 12 days left in
his term, Trump finally bent to re-
ality amid growing talk of trying to
force him out early, acknowledg-
ing he’ll peacefully leave after Con-
gress affirmed his defeat.
Trump led off a video from the
White House on Thursday by con-
demning the violence carried out in
his name a day earlier at the Capi-
tol. Then, for the first time on cam-
era, he admitted his presidency
would soon end — though he de-
clined to mention Biden by name or
explicitly state he had lost.
“A new administration will be in-
augurated on Jan. 20,” Trump said
in the video. “My focus now turns to
ensuring a smooth, orderly and
seamless transition of power. This
moment calls for healing and rec-
onciliation.”
By next morning, however,
Trump was back to his usual divi-
sion. Instead of offering condolenc-
es to the police officer who died
from injuries sustained during the
riot, Trump took to Twitter to com-
mend the “great American Patri-
ots” who’d voted for him.
“They will not be disrespected or
treated unfairly in any way, shape
or form!!!” he tweeted.
Thursday evening’s address
came at the end of a day when the
cornered president stayed out of
sight in the White House. Silenced
on some of his favorite internet
lines of communication, he
watched the resignations of several
top aides, including two Cabinet
secretaries.
And as officials sifted through
the aftermath of the pro-Trump
mob’s siege of the U.S. Capitol,
there was growing discussion of
impeaching him a second time or
invoking the 25th Amendment to
oust him from the Oval Office.
Democratic House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi declared that “the
president of the United States incit-
ed an armed insurrection against
America.” She called him “a very
dangerous person who should not
continue in office. This is urgent, an
emergency of the highest magni-
tude.”
Neither option to remove Trump
seemed likely, with little time left in
his term to draft the Cabinet mem-
bers needed to invoke the amend-
ment or to organize the hearings
and trial mandated for an impeach-
ment.
Fears of what a desperate presi-
dent could do in his final days
spread in the nation’s capital and
beyond, including speculation
Trump could incite more violence,
make rash appointments, issue ill-
conceived pardons — including for
himself and his family — or even
trigger a destabilizing internation-
al incident.
The president’s video Thursday
— which was released upon his re-
turn to Twitter after his account
was restored — was a complete re-
versal from the one he put out just
24 hours earlier in which he said to
the violent mob: “We love you.
You’re very special.” His refusal to
condemn the violence sparked a
firestorm of criticism and, in the
new video, he at last denounced the
demonstrators’ “lawlessness and
mayhem.”
Aides said the video was also
meant to slow the exodus of staffers
and ward off potential legal trouble
for Trump once he leaves office;
White House counsel Pat Cipollone
has repeatedly warned the presi-
dent that he could be deemed re-
sponsible for inciting Wednesday’s
violence.
Trump won’t attend inaugurationAssociated Press
WILMINGTON, Del. — Presi-
dent-elect Joe Biden is set to intro-
duce the governor of Rhode Island,
the mayor of Boston and a small-
business advocate from California
as the newest members of his eco-
nomic team.
Biden on Thursday announced
Gov. Gina Raimondo as his choice
to become commerce secretary,
Mayor Marty Walsh as his candi-
date for labor secretary and Isabel
Guzman as his pick to lead the
Small Business Administration.
One of Biden's top challenges af-
ter he takes office Jan. 20 will be to
nurse an economy reeling from the
coronavirus pandemic back to
health. He said the newest mem-
bers of his economic team will help
achieve that “by building an econo-
my where every American is in on
the deal.”
“They share my belief that the
middle class built this country and
that unions built the middle class,”
said Biden, who planned to intro-
duce Raimondo, Walsh, Guzman
and a fourth candidate at an event
Friday in Wilmington, Del.
With the picks, which require
Senate confirmation, Biden moved
astep closer to rounding out a Cabi-
net that he has pledged will be the
most diverse in history. He has yet
to name a candidate for CIA direc-
tor.
Raimondo, 49, is a former ven-
ture capitalist serving her second
term as governor after previously
serving as state treasurer. A Demo-
crat, she had been mentioned as a
possible candidate for Biden's
health secretary, but said last
month that she would stay in Rhode
Island and continue to focus on the
coronavirus pandemic.
As commerce secretary, Rai-
mondo would help set the Biden ad-
ministration's trade policy and pro-
mote U.S. opportunities for growth
domestically and overseas.
"Rhode Island may be small, but
our economy is mighty on the
strength of our small businesses
and innovative technologies," Rai-
mondo tweeted Thursday night.
She pledged that as commerce sec-
retary “I will harness that same
American ingenuity to create
good-paying union jobs and build
our economy back better than ever
before.”
The Biden administration’s
stance on international trade will
likely mark a significant shift away
from President Donald Trump’s
heavy-on-tariffs approach. Trump
slapped tariffs on Chinese steel and
other goods to punish Beijing for
what the administration said were
unfair currency practices and po-
tential national security threats.
Those moves
were largely op-
posed by U.S. al-
lies, including
Canada.
Biden opposes
Chinese tariffs
and has prom-
ised to improve
U.S. relation-
ships with countries around the
hemisphere and globe. But he
hasn’t indicated that undoing the
tariffs will be a
top priority. In-
stead Biden has
promised to
oversee an ag-
gressive “Buy
American” cam-
paign that would
use federal funds
to purchase $400
billion of U.S.-made goods and
spend another $300 billion on new
research and development from
domestic technology firms.
Walsh, 53, has been Boston's
mayor since 2014. When the Demo-
crat took the oath of office in 2018
for his second term, Biden presi-
ded over the inauguration. Walsh
was a state representative for more
than a decade before becoming
mayor. He also has a long history
with organized labor, formerly
serving as president of Laborers
Local 223 and heading the Boston
Building Trades — a union umbrel-
la organization.
The son of Irish immigrants,
Walsh grew up in Boston's work-
ing-class Dorchester neighbor-
hood. He survived a childhood bout
with cancer and has been open
about his early struggles with alco-
hol, using his history with addiction
to encourage people to get help.
Walsh on Thursday pledged as
labor secretary to work as hard for
working people and those trying to
move into the middle class "as you
do for your families and liveli-
hoods. You have my word.”
Guzman, director of California's
Office of the Small Business Advo-
cate in the California Governor’s
Office of Business and Economic
Development, has played a role in
the state’s economic recovery from
the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a
former senior adviser and deputy
chief of staff at the SBA, and was an
adviser at the first California-char-
tered, Latino-formed business
bank to form in Los Angeles in over
35 years.
Biden picksRaimondo, Walshfor Cabinet posts
BY DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Associated Press
Raimondo
Walsh
NEW YORK — A woman who
falsely accused a Black teenager of
stealing her phone and then tack-
led him at a New York City hotel
was arrested in her home state of
California.
Miya Ponsetto, 22, was jailed
Thursday in Ventura County, a
spokesperson for the sheriff's of-
fice there said. It wasn't immedi-
ately clear what charges she might
face.
The New York Police Depart-
ment flew detectives out to Califor-
nia earlier Thursday with a war-
rant for Ponsetto's arrest. The trip
followed days of intense media cov-
erage of the fracas at the hotel and
demands by the teen's family and
activists that she face criminal
charges.
Ponsetto's lawyer, Sharen Gha-
tan, said in an interview before the
arrest that her
client is “emo-
tionally unwell"
and remorseful
for her Dec. 26
conflict with 14-
year-old Keyon
Harrold Jr. at
Manhattan’s Ar-
lo Hotel.
The teen's father, jazz trumpeter
Keyon Harrold, recorded the con-
frontation and put the video online.
In his video, an agitated woman
is seen demanding the teen's
phone, claiming he stole it. A hotel
manager tries to intervene. Keyon
Harrold can be heard in the record-
ing telling the woman to leave his
son alone. Ghatan confirmed that
Ponsetto is the woman in the video.
Security video later released by
the NYPD shows Ponsetto franti-
cally grabbing at the teen as he
tried to get away from her through
the hotel’s front door. She’s seen
clutching him from behind before
both tumble to the ground.
Ponsetto's missing phone had
been left in an Uber and was re-
turned by the driver shortly after-
ward, Keyon Harrold has said.
Ventura County Sheriff's depu-
ties arrested Ponsetto after spot-
ting her driving near her home in
Piru, northwest of Los Angeles,
said department Capt. Eric Bus-
chow.
She drove two blocks before
stopping her vehicle, then refused
to get out of the car, Buschow said.
“She tried to slam the door on one
of the deputies and that’s when they
just reached in and forcibly re-
moved her,” he said, adding that
the sheriff's office would ask coun-
ty prosecutors to charge her with
resisting arrest.
Woman who accused Black teen ofstealing phone is arrested in Calif.
Associated Press
Ponsetto
PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
WORLD
SEOUL, South Korea — North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un
stressed the need to drastically
improve his nation’s ties with the
outside world as he addressed a
major political conference for the
third day.
State media said Kim also re-
viewed relations with rival South
Korea but didn’t explain what
steps he said he wanted to take.
Observers have expected Kim to
use the first congress of the rul-
ing Workers’ Party in five years
to send conciliatory gestures to-
ward Seoul and Washington as
he faces deepening economic
troubles at home.
In his speech on the third day
of the meeting Thursday, Kim
“declared the general orientation
and the policy stand of our party
for comprehensively expanding
and developing the external rela-
tions,” the Korean Central News
Agency said Friday.
Kim also examined relations
with South Korea “as required by
the prevailing situation and the
changed times,” KCNA said.
The congress is the party’s top
decision-making body that re-
views past projects, lays out new
priorities and reshuffles top offi-
cials. It was convened as Kim
struggles to overcome what he
calls “multiple crises” caused by
an economy battered by pandem-
ic-related border closings, a se-
ries of natural disasters and U.S.-
led economic sanctions.
In his opening-day speech,
Kim admitted his previous eco-
nomic plans had failed and
vowed to adopt a new five-year
development plan. On the second
day of the meeting, he said he
would bolster his country’s mil-
itary capability.
Kim, who inherited power up-
on his father Kim Jong Il’s death
in late 2011, turned 37 on Friday.
His birthday hasn’t yet been des-
ignated a national holiday like his
father’s and grandfather’s.
KCNA said the congress would
continue, suggesting it was hav-
ing a fourth-day session on Kim’s
birthday.
After a provocative run of
weapons tests in 2016-17 to ac-
quire the ability to strike the U.S.
mainland with nuclear weapons,
Kim abruptly launched high-
stakes nuclear diplomacy with
President Donald Trump, which
awarded him long-desired legiti-
macy on the world stage. He also
met Chinese, Russian, South Ko-
rean and other world leaders.
But as his diplomacy with Trump
stalled and the coronavirus
forced him to close his country’s
borders, Kim has been focusing
domestically to mitigate the eco-
nomic shocks from the pandem-
ic.
South Korea’s spy agency said
Kim is worrying about U.S. Pres-
ident-elect Joe Biden, who is to
take office on Jan. 20. Biden has
called Kim a “thug” and is un-
likely to hold any direct meetings
with him unless North Korea
takes serious steps toward denu-
clearization. The Kim-Trump di-
plomacy broke down during a
summit in Vietnam in early 2019
after Trump rejected Kim’s offer
to dismantle his main nuclear
complex, a limited disarmament
step, in return for broad sanc-
tions relief.
Some observers say North Ko-
rea is frustrated because the
South has failed to break away
from Washington and revive
stalled joint economic projects
held back by the U.S.-led sanc-
tions. They also speculate that
North Korea initially thought
South Korea would help it win
sanctions relief.
The observers say North Korea
may reach out to South Korea
first to promote a mood of recon-
ciliation before pushing for talks
with the Biden administration.
Kim pledges toboost ties withoutside world
BY HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press
COPENHAGEN, Denmark —
The countries whose citizens were
killed when Iran accidentally shot
down a Ukrainian jetliner said
Friday they want Iran “to deliver
justice and make sure Iran makes
full reparations to the families of
the victims and affected coun-
tries.”
In a joint statement marking the
one-year anniversary of the Uk-
raine International Airlines Flight
752 crash, Ukraine, France, Cana-
da, Britain and Sweden said they
want Tehran “to provide a com-
plete and thorough explanation of
the events and decisions that led to
this appalling plane crash.”
Sweden earlier had said that
Iran had agreed to compensate
the families’ of the foreign victims.
The shootdown by the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard happened
the same night Iran launched a
ballistic missile attack targeting
U.S. soldiers in Iraq, its response
to the American drone strike that
killed Guard Gen. Qassem Solei-
mani in Baghdad on Jan. 3.
The plane was en route to the
Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The vic-
tims included 57 Canadian citi-
zens as well as 11 Ukrainians, 17
people from Sweden, four Af-
ghans and four British citizens.
At first, Iran had denied its in-
volvement in the plane crash but
then announced that its military
had mistakenly and unintentional-
ly shot down the Ukrainian jetlin-
er.
The statement was signed by
ministers of Afghanistan, Canada,
Sweden, Ukraine and the U.K.
5 nations want Iran to deliver justice on downed plane Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
— The United Arab Emirates an-
nounced on Friday that it would
reopen its borders and airspace to
Qatar after boycotting the tiny en-
ergy-rich country alongside its
Gulf allies since 2017.
The decision to restart com-
merce and travel would take ef-
fect on Saturday, Foreign Minis-
try official Khalid Abdullah Bel-
hou was quoted as saying by the
UAE’s state-run WAM news
agency.
The move comes after Saudi
Arabia declared a breakthrough
in settling the yearslong rift with
Qatar during the annual Gulf
summit this week, saying the
kingdom would restore diplomat-
ic ties and that its allies would fol-
low suit.
Saudi Arabia announced the re-
opening of its airspace and bor-
ders with Qatar earlier this week.
National carrier Qatar Airways
said it had started to reroute some
flights through Saudi airspace,
with the first flight cruising over
Saudi skies from Doha to Johan-
nesburg, South Africa on Thurs-
day night.
The president of the United Na-
tions’ civil aviation arm, Salvatore
Sciacchitano, welcomed the eas-
ing of Gulf airspace restrictions
on Thursday, saying the resolu-
tion would “help assure the im-
portant socio-economic benefits
of international air connectivity
can be better optimized.”
The UAE indicated on Friday
that its restoration of full diplo-
matic relations with Qatar would
take longer. Belhou said the fed-
eration of seven sheikhdoms is
continuing talks to “end all other
outstanding issues.” Opposition to
Qatar’s support for Islamist
groups like the Muslim Brother-
hood runs deeper in the UAE than
in Saudi Arabia, which is primar-
ily concerned with Qatar’s close
ties with regional foe Iran.
Bahrain and Egypt, which had
joined the UAE and Saudi Arabia
in isolating Doha, have yet to pub-
licly elaborate on their pledges to
ease the boycott signed this week
in the ancient Saudi desert site of
al-Ula.
The four Arab states severed
commercial and diplomatic ties
with Qatar in 2017, accusing the
country of cozying up to Iran and
financing extremist groups in the
region, charges that Doha denies.
This week’s breakthrough fol-
lowed a final push by the outgoing
Trump administration, which has
been seeking to end the dispute
that has troubled America’s for-
eign policy and defense strategy
in the region and hampered U.S.
attempts to further isolate Iran.
The boycott only pushed Qatar
closer to Iran, for instance by
forcing Qatar Airways to change
routes through Iranian skies.
Analysts estimate the move has
given the Islamic Republic hun-
dreds of millions of dollars in
overflight fees.
The reopening of Saudi and
Emirati airspace to Qatar is crit-
ical as the country prepares to
host the 2022 FIFA World Cup,
which is expected to draw over 1
million foreign soccer fans.
SAUDI ROYAL COURT / AP
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, welcomes Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim binHamad alThani upon his arrival to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council's 41st Summit in AlUla, SaudiArabia, on Tuesday.
Easing dispute, UAE announcesreopening of borders to Qatar
Associated Press
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11
AMERICAN ROUNDUP
Train cars derail afterhitting tree on tracks
OR OREGON CITY — A
Union Pacific train
carrying lumber derailed after
hitting a large tree that had fallen
on the tracks along Highway 99
between Canby and Oregon City,
authorities said.
The Clackamas County Sher-
iff’s Office said three locomotives
and 15 rail cars derailed at around
1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The engineer of the train com-
plained of pain, KGW-TV
reported. No one else was injured.
None of the debris or rail cars
blocked the highway, which was
temporarily fully closed, KGW-
TV reported.
The Oregon Department of
Transportation said one south-
bound lane of Highway 99 near
South End Road would remain
closed for up to two days.
Elusive shrew spotted for 1st time in years
CA AVALON — A tiny
mouse-like animal has
been spotted on Santa Catalina Is-
land off Southern California for
the first time since 2004, showing
that the species is not extinct.
A Catalina Island Shrew was
spotted in a photograph taken by a
remote “camera trap” during a
major effort to detect the diminu-
tive animal early last year, the
Catalina Island Conservancy said
Wednesday.
“We have been looking for the
Catalina Island Shrew for years,”
said conservancy wildlife biolo-
gist Emily Hamblen said in a
statement. “I thought, and really
hoped, that they still existed some-
where on the Island.”
The Catalina Island Shrew was
listed as a species of special con-
cern by the California Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife in 1996.
An adult shrew is just 3.74 inch-
es long, including tail, and they
weigh about 0.14 ounce. Accord-
ing to the conservancy, shrews
have such a high metabolism they
can’t survive long without eating.
Bronze statue of minerbadly damaged in crash
MI HOUGHTON — An
iconic statue that cele-
brates the mining heritage of the
Upper Peninsula has been badly
damaged by a speeding car.
The bronze statue of a miner has
been near downtown Houghton
since 1980. The right foot and left
leg were broken off in the crash
Sunday night. The miner’s lunch
pail was found in the snow, The
Daily Mining Gazette reported.
Houghton is looking for some-
one to repair it, City Manager Eric
Waara said.
“This isn’t a piece of steel you
just start welding on. This is a
bronze piece of art,” Waara said.
The statue was created by the
late artist Elizabeth “Liz” Biesiot.
“He is an iconic part of the com-
munity, so we’re going to try to do
right by the original artist’s vision
and get that right. ... It’s going totake us a little time,” Waara said.
The driver in the crash wasn’tinjured.
Police: Airplane and partsstolen from airport
AZ COTTONWOOD — Po-lice are searching for
suspects after a plane was stolenfrom the Cottonwood Airport onNew Year’s Eve.
Police said the suspects brokeinto the airport just before mid-night on Dec. 31 by disabling andforcing the main gate open.
The suspects then stole a boxtrailer that had an airplane insideand also stole airplane parts.
Phoenix TV station ABC 15 re-ported that the total loss is esti-mated at up to $80,000.
Archaeological find haltsproposed road project
MA NORTHAMPTON —The discovery of Na-
tive American artifacts that ap-pear thousands of years old hasprompted Massachusetts officialsto pump the brakes on a plannedroad improvement project.
The state Office of Energy andEnvironmental Affairs said Tues-day that a traffic roundabout pro-posed in Northampton has beenpulled from the state’s Environ-mental Policy Act review withoutprejudice, the Republican news-paper of Springfield reported.
The agency said the state De-
partment of Transportation will
conduct public outreach in re-
sponse to an outpouring of com-
ments during the review process.
Energy officials say the transpor-
tation agency eventually intends
to re-submit its proposal.
The more than $3 million pro-
ject was slated to start last sum-
mer, but tens of thousands of peo-
ple signed a petition calling for the
site’s preservation.
Archaeologists hired by the
state to survey the site before con-
struction uncovered stone blades,
tools and other evidence of an an-
cient human settlement in 2019.
Man charged withthrowing explosive device
PA PITTSBURGH — Fed-
eral prosecutors in
western Pennsylvania say a man
is facing federal charges in con-
nection with an incendiary device
thrown from a moving vehicle into
a parked sport utility vehicle over
the weekend in Pittsburgh.
The U.S. attorney's office said
Charles Baker, 33, is charged with
illegal possession of an unregis-
tered destructive device and be-
ing a felon in possession of a de-
structive device. Prosecutors said
he was also charged as a felon in
possession of a firearm, the de-
vice, stemming from previous
burglary, trespass and drug con-
victions.
Police said the device was
thrown from a moving pickup
truck into the rear passenger area
of the parked SUV in the Lawren-
ceville neighborhood just after 9
p.m. Sunday. No injuries were re-
ported.
Man sentenced forthreatening ex-wife
FL TAMPA — An Indiana
man has been sentenced
to four years and 10 months in fed-
eral prison for threatening his ex-
wife over several years and mail-
ing a dead rat to her Florida home.
Romney Christopher Ellis, 57,
of Indianapolis, was sentenced
Tuesday in Tampa federal court,
according to court records. He
pleaded guilty in April to making
interstate threats and mailing in-
jurious articles.
According to a criminal com-
plaint, Ellis had engaged in a four-
year-long campaign of harass-
ment against his ex-wife, who
lives in Tampa, through text mess-
ages, photographs, videos and
mailings. He threatened to decap-
itate her and set her on fire, inves-
tigators said. He routinely made
racially and sexually charged
statements in the text messages,
including sending sexually expli-
cit images of himself. Ellis sent
text messages stating that he had
traveled from Indiana to Florida
to see his ex-wife. On one occa-
sion, Ellis mailed a package to the
victim’s home containing a dead
rat and black rose.
Postal inspectors executed a
search warrant at Ellis’ Indiana-
polis home in February. Prosecu-
tors said they recovered a hand-
written note containing the names
and addresses of his ex-wife, as
well as her family and friends.
Theme park to openduring winter months
VA RICHMOND — Busch
Gardens Williamsburg
is keeping its gates open during
the winter for the first time since it
opened 45 years ago, park officials
said.
The popular theme park is look-
ing at ways to rethink its oper-
ations during the coronavirus pan-
demic by hosting smaller limited
capacity special events, the Rich-
mond Times-Dispatch reported.
“We had to figure out how to op-
erate safely and how to operate
(economically) and still give our
members and guests something
that they love doing,” park spokes-
woman Cindy Sarko said.
The park said it will operate on
certain weekends in January,
February and March for three
new limited capacity events, in-
cluding Mardi Gras and St. Pa-
trick’s Day. The winter events will
be held on Fridays, Saturdays and
Sundays and will admit a maxi-
mum of 4,000 people each for each
of the slots on those days, the park
said. Busch Gardens held similar
limited capacity events last year.
DARYN SLOVER/AP
Jim Carmichael, of Poland, Maine, rides his fat bike along the East Ridge Trail on Wednesday at Range Pond State Park in Poland, Maine. Themath teacher at Auburn Middle School rides throughout the winter, often on his way home from work.
Fat bike fun
From wire reports
PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
VIDEO GAMES
For its many miseries, 2020 deliveredsome extremely memorable videogames. And now, with the arrival ofthe PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X,
there’s more reason than usual to get excitedfor the offerings of the year ahead.
Here are the titles we’re most eagerly an-ticipating. While not all release dates havebeen confirmed, we’ve included games thatare supposed to arrive before Jan. 1, 2022.
Hitman 3
Available on: PC, PlayStation 5,
Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo
Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One,
Stadia
Recent games in the Hitman
franchise have taken a games-as-
service approach; they are sup-
ported and expanded upon long
after their initial release. IO
Interactive is continuing that
with the release of Hitman 3.
Coming Jan. 20, players who
already own Hitman 1 and Hit-
man 2 can import their maps into
the third game to continue from
where they left off, and can ex-
pect regular updates to the game
post-launch.
This assassination game puts
you in the shoes of Agent 47, a
cipher who plans out kills like a
series of puzzles in large loca-
tions ripe with opportunity. At its
best, the Hitman franchise offers
plenty of replay value: You can
hunt down foes with different
methods each time. The polished
and at times comedic gameplay
offers creative situations like
disguising yourself in a flamingo
suit at a racetrack or finishing off
a target by slapping them with a
dead fish. For Hitman 3, fans of
the series can expect new levels
and under-the-hood improve-
ments, like an engine that sup-
ports 300 active NPCs at once,
making locations feel busy and
lived in.
— Elise Favis
Halo Infinite
Available on: PC, Xbox Series
X/S, Xbox One
The expectations for this title
are high. Halo Infinite will lift
the Xbox again. Halo Infinite will
change online multiplayer. Halo
Infinite will rescue the series
from its yearslong lull. Halo
Infinite will, at least, be good.
The game was sent back into
incubation after a chilly, meme-
filled reception to a preview this
past summer. Now with the addi-
tion of Joseph Staten, the original
trilogy’s writer, as creative direc-
tor, Halo Infinite is getting all the
fixings it can to meet the above
expectations, and hopefully sur-
pass them.
It’s also expected to boost the
already-rich fortunes of the Xbox
Game Pass subscription service,
where it will be offered free. Pair
that with the ability to play the
game on the cloud via xCloud,
and it’s clear it’s in Microsoft’s
best interest to make Halo Infi-
nite the crown jewel of its entire
strategy. The game should be
social. It should be addicting. It
should feel like a whole other
world. At the very least, it should
be a good Halo title. It’s up to
Staten and the team at 343 Stu-
dios to recapture that old magic.
— Gene Park
Deathloop
Available on: PlayStation 5, PC
First-person action shooters
nowadays need something differ-
ent — different aesthetics, differ-
ent gameplay, different gim-
micks — to stand out in a genre
saturated by bland, same-y
games. Deathloop appears to
have all three. It takes place in a
deliciously campy world filled
with ’60s-styled music and spy
show splash screens.
You play as Colt, a hired gun
tasked with assassinating eight
targets before midnight. The
problem? You’re being hunted by
Julianna, an agent hired to kill
Colt before he hits his targets. If
you die, or fail to kill all eight
targets before midnight, the loop
repeats. The game is a Ground-
hog Day-like scenario where you
slowly learn things about the loop
and are doomed to repeat it until
you successfully kill all targets
without dying yourself.
If the concept isn’t enough to
get you excited, the competitive
aspect of the game should. Other
players can assume the role of
Julianna, and hunt Colt players
down before they kill their eight
targets. Add the fact that Arkane
Lyon and Bethesda, the devel-
opers of the Dishonored series,
are at the helm, and you’ve got a
game that can definitely break
the mundane first-person action
shooter mold.
— Jhaan Elker
The most anticipated games of 2021
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Horizon Forbidden West involves exploring a new frontier in a postapocalyptic world in an attempt to locate the source of a deadly infectious disease.
New gaming platforms should make this year’s titles more exciting, immersive than everThe Washington Post
IO Interactive
Hitman 3 has lots of replay value.
Microsoft
Halo Infinite developers hope to recapture the franchise’s magic.
SEE TITLES ON PAGE 13
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13
VIIDEO GAMES
Far Cry 6Available on: PC, PlayStation 5,
Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4,
Xbox One, Stadia
I guess the question of whether
“will Giancarlo Esposito be
good” is out the window. He
always seems to knock perform-
ances out of the park. Really, it’s
the legacy of Far Cry that’s at
stake here. The first game revo-
lutionized the first-person shoo-
ter, while the third cemented
what’s now recognized as the
Ubisoft formula for open-world
games.
Will the sixth game finally
upend the tower-climbing, ban-
dit-camp-raiding, hunting loop
that the past three titles and most
Ubisoft games have adhered to?
Ubisoft has claimed it would
start reinventing some of its
series, so there’s some hope that
a true next-gen Far Cry might
finally push the developers into
new waters. It remains to be seen
whether developing for the last-
gen consoles might hold this title
back in the same way it did Cy-
berpunk 2077. But for the most
part, Ubisoft is pretty good at this
thing. Let’s see if they can be
better.
— Gene Park
God of War sequelAvailable on: PlayStation 5 (and
possibly PlayStation 4; Sony has
not confirmed whether it’s a
next-gen exclusive)
There’s no release date yet
(though Google says it’s 2021),
nor even a confirmed title, but
anticipation swirls given the
greatness of the game’s prede-
cessor. The 2018 installment of
the God of War franchise from
Santa Monica Studio injected
protagonist Kratos into Norse
mythology for a rumble with
some of the gods lower down the
divine pecking order from the
better-known Odin and Thor.
The beautifully rendered, in-
terdimensional, open-world ad-
venture game explored the rela-
tionship between Kratos and his
son, Atreus, as the latter realizes
that he too is a god — one with a
different name than the one his
father gave him.
The final scenes of the 2018
game appeared to set the stage
for what the upcoming Play-
Station exclusive will chronicle:
A mega-scrap with the God of
Thunder et al, possibly tied into
the events of Ragnarok, the leg-
endary war that doomed Odin
and a number of other Norse
deities. And given what Sony’s
studios have been able to in-
troduce via the haptics of the
DualSense, it’s exciting to won-
der what Kratos’ ax or the Blades
of Chaos could feel like with the
PS5’s controller.
— Mike Hume
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
Available on: PC, Xbox Series
X/S
Announced at The Game
Awards 2019, this sequel to 2017's
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
astounded the audience with an
evocative trailer centering on
protagonist Senua. The first
game followed her harrowing
descent into hell, where she
aimed to save the soul of her
dead lover. The journey was
captivating even in its most un-
comfortable moments, and pro-
found in how it tackled mental
illness and psychosis, a condition
rarely portrayed in video games.
Far more than a simple hack-
and-slash action game, Hellblade
was praised by critics as a work
of art.
We don’t know much about the
sequel, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade
II, but we hope developer Ninja
Theory will go to the same
lengths and take the same care as
they did in its predecessor.
— Elise Favis
Resident Evil VillageAvailable on: PC, PlayStation 5,
Xbox Series X/S
Capcom has been on a creative
roll that started with the inspired,
first-person reinvention of Resi-
dent Evil VII. The revamped RE
Engine has powered some of best
games of recent years, including
Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2
Remake and Monster Hunter
World. Capcom seems to realize
that the survival horror genre it
helped to invent has an eager
audience that isn’t done with
frights and zombies and invento-
ry management.
The Resident Evil series has a
weird history of becoming really
good, and then flubbing a sub-
sequent game by leaning a little
too hard into successful ideas.
Resident Evil 4 made way for a
goofier, more action-packed
series, while VII returns the
series to its roots. Village signals
the return of hero Chris Redfield,
so it seems Capcom is interested
in returning to the old lore of the
games. That could be good or bad
news, considering how nonsensi-
cal the entire story has been.
Still, Capcom has shown a lot of
growth in how it designs its hor-
ror setpieces. Both remakes of
the second and third sequel were
practically new titles altogether,
ones that recontextualized the
old games in fresh, exciting
ways. Village may yet discover
new ways to needle our anxiety.
— Gene Park
Horizon Forbidden WestAvailable on: PlayStation 5, Play-
Station 4
The Horizon series is a new
and exciting RPG IP that takes
place in a post-apocalyptic world
where humanity is forced to live
in tribes to survive in a world
overrun by advanced machines
(large robots in animal form).
You play as Aloy, a critically-
adored hunter voiced by Ashly
Burch who sets out on a journey
to discover more about her and
humanity’s past. Despite the
original game releasing right
when Legend of Zelda: Breath of
the Wild came out, Horizon Zero
Dawn more than held its own, in
encouraging players to explore
its rich, unique world.
Horizon Forbidden West con-
tinues Aloy’s story, and while
we’ve only seen one trailer so far,
we know that it involves explor-
ing a new frontier in an attempt
to locate the source of a deadly
infectious disease. Coincidental
timing aside, Forbidden West
looks to repeat the same magic
that captivated audiences the
first time around.
— Jhaan Elker
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
Available on: PC, PlayStation 5,
Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4,
Xbox One
For a long time, a remaster of
the original Mass Effect trilogy
felt more like rumor than reality.
Reports suggested the project
was delayed from its targeted
May 2020 release, though the
game hadn’t even been an-
nounced yet. Finally, BioWare
confirmed late this year that the
studio is working on the project.
Modernized versions of the three
games will come in the spring,
returning fans to the Normandy
starship where they can travel to
different galaxies, fight off the
Reapers and Collectors and find
love among the stars.
Aside from its release window,
little is known about Mass Effect:
Legendary Edition. The collec-
tion will include all of the games’
downloadable content, faster
frame rates, 4K compatibility
and visual enhancements. Exact-
ly what tweaks are being made
beyond that are unknown.
— Elise Favis
Psychonauts 2Available on: PC, Xbox Series
X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One,
macOS and Linux
2005’s Psychonauts is a de-
lightfully weird game, where you
play as a young boy named Raz
with psychic abilities, who at-
tends a summer camp with other
children who wield similar pow-
ers. The platformer became a
cult hit, and more than 15 years
later, we’re seeing the contin-
uation of its story.
In Psychonauts 2, you once
again play as Raz, and the story
takes place shortly after the
events of the first game. Instead
of returning to summer camp,
Raz will join the “psychonauts,”
agents with full-fledged psychic
powers, at their headquarters,
where he must prove himself as
an intern.
In 2015, a successful crowd-
funded campaign on Fig to kick-
start the game’s development
raised $3.3 million, but the re-
lease window continued to shift
with every passing year. In 2019,
Microsoft acquired the developer
of the game, Double Fine. We’re
hoping 2021 will be the year
Psychonauts 2 gets out the door.
It’s been a long time coming.
— Elise Favis
Super Mario 3D World:
Bowser’s FuryAvailable on: Nintendo Switch
The best co-op game to come
out of Nintendo’s last generation
will finally be released from Wii
U purgatory. Super Mario 3D
World: Bowser’s Fury has up-
scaled textures and better per-
formance, and on top of that, it
will include brand new content,
including a new world. Not much
is known about the new content
other than a tantalizing shot of a
level featuring stormy weather
and a sphinx.
But the most exciting feature?
Online play. Super Mario 3D
World was already a great couch
party experience that took the
classic 2D Mario level structure
and applied it to 3D environ-
ments with 3D Mario games’
typically tight controls. It created
a quasi-competitive environment
where you take risks for a higher
personal score at the hilarious
cost of your teammates’ lives.
Taking this balance online is the
boost the original needed to be-
come a go-to party game.
— Jhaan Elker
Five Nights at Freddy’s:Security Breach
Available on: PC, PlayStation 5,
PlayStation 4
Indie developer Scott Caw-
thon’s Five Nights at Freddy’s
franchise has become one of
YouTube’s biggest gaming hits.
In the series, you need to survive
rampaging animatronics seem-
ingly possessed by the spirits of
dead children that once inhabited
a Chuck E. Cheese-like pizzeria.
Five Nights at Freddy’s was
never about graphical fidelity,
and it only recently ventured into
true 3D space with the VR game
Help Wanted. But that didn’t stop
it from featuring in Sony’s offi-
cial stream alongside AAA giants
like Final Fantasy XVI, Call of
Duty and Spider-Man: Miles
Morales — a high mark of vali-
dation for an indie developer.
Not much is confirmed about
the story or gameplay other that
it involves an ’80s mall envi-
ronment ripped straight out of
something like TV’s “Stranger
Things,” and hiding from a new
antagonist in a bunny suit called
Vanny.
It will be interesting to see
where this series goes, graphi-
cally and gameplay-wise, with its
new PlayStation cred.
— Jhaan Elker
Cyber ShadowAvailable on: PC, Nintendo
Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Dripping with 8-bit nostalgia,
action platformer Cyber Shadow
is evocative of NES classics like
Ninja Gaiden Batman. You play
as a ninja who navigates through
the futuristic ruins of a world
called Mekacity to rescue the
rest of his clan.
The game is drop-dead gor-
geous, with big sprites, snappy
animations and massive, over-
the-top bosses. Developed by
one-man studio Mechanical
Head and published by the mak-
ers of indie darling Shovel
Knight, the game looks to contin-
ue the recent trend of excellent
retro-style titles like The Mess-
enger and Bloodstained: Curse of
the Moon.
— Joe Moore
Titles: Technical advances expectedFROM PAGE 12
Nintendo
Super Mario 3D World: Bowser’s Fury adds online play to the game.
EA
Mass Effect: Legendary Editionwill contain all of the threegames’ downloadable content.
PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
MOVIES
interest and, she hopes, the sweetheart to redeem his
gender. But the quest for vengeance doesn’t stop at the
gender divide, as Cassie also targets women she consid-
ers complicit in the crime against Nina — including one
portrayed by Connie Britton.
Rather than choosing one villain, Mulligan says, the
film is “much more about our general approach to this
kind of stuff as a society and a reaction to what we’ve
grown up with.”
“Women have played a part in that,” she continues.
“We’ve all bought tickets and laughed at comedies that
have made this stuff seem really trivial and funny for so
long.”
Cassie’s own actions aren’t immune to criticism, Fen-
nell says, which is where Mulligan’s strengths as a per-
former come in. Beneath all the glitter, “Promising Young
Woman” is a portrait of grief, of a woman whose revenge
plot has gone from noble to “miserable.” Cassie has spent
years hanging onto a ghost, continuing to torment herself
almost as much as she does the men.
Fennell and Mulligan chatted about their childhood
best friends to build out a backstory for Cassie and Nina,
who never appears in the film. The actress declines to
expand on the imagined story, noting that the mystery is
“why film is so interesting — what you don’t see or hear is
almost as important as what you do.” Nina’s physical
absence is just as deliberate; she is a constant presence in
Cassie’s mind.
“What [Cassie] does is an addiction,” Fennell says.
“She stays on this road that is miserable and lonely and
cold and dangerous. But there’s this other one, which
It had to be Carey Mulligan.
Writer-director Emerald Fennell had just seen
her in “Wildlife,” Paul Dano’s directorial debut
about a woman trapped in an empty marriage in
1960s Montana. The performance sparked the same sense
of awe Fennell felt after “An Education,” the 1960s com-
ing-of-age drama for which Mulligan, 35, earned an Oscar
nomination a decade ago. Steve McQueen and the Coen
brothers directed her in between, a span of her career
that also included an acclaimed supporting turn in the
art-house thriller “Drive.”
The English actress’ roles were diverse, but her inimi-
table screen presence threaded them together. She has a
certain quality to her, Fennell said in an interview with
The Washington Post. No matter how quiet the character,
you don’t mess with her. So when the time came for Fen-
nell, also 35, to cast the lead in her own feature debut —
“Promising Young Woman,” whose protagonist seeks to
avenge her lifelong best friend’s sexual assault — she
knew Mulligan could strike the right tone.
“There’s something so exciting about someone who
only does the stuff they want to do, and it’s a treat to see
them,” Fennell says. “She’s so interesting, Carey. ... I just
had a feeling that she would be incredible, and honestly,
the fact that she said yes, I was blown away.”
At first, “Promising Young Woman” may seem a sur-
prising choice for Mulligan. Perhaps it’s the candy-col-
ored aesthetic and blaring pop music, a stark contrast
with the sober hues and tone of, say, “Inside Llewyn Da-
vis.” People often think of her as a period actress these
days, Fennell says — nodding to the streak of films that
also includes “Suffragette” and “Mudbound” — but she
hasn’t always existed in that space.
You could argue that Fennell’s film is deceptively bub-
ble gum, a layer of sugar coating its sour core, a taste we
more often associate with gut-wrenching work. But that’s
just the point, according to Fennell: Who’s to say all the
girly stuff isn’t serious, too?
“Nobody suspects the person with the multicolored
manicure to scratch their eyes out,” she adds.
Fennell subverts genre conventions — par for the
course with the director, who helmed the second season
of BBC America’s “Killing Eve” — while Mulligan’s char-
acter, Cassie, surprises those around her. Her projected
femininity allows her to hide in plain sight. Having drop-
ped out of medical school, Cassie spends her days as a
barista and, at night, swings by bars, trolling for self-
proclaimed “nice guys” — the same sort who assaulted
her friend, Nina. She pretends to be blackout drunk, and
the men offer to take her home, only to try to take ad-
vantage of the nearly unconscious woman they just met.
Then, when they least expect it, Cassie snaps back into an
alert state.
Mulligan’s decision to play Cassie came down to “just
feeling like I wanted to do it,” she said in a separate in-
terview. She recalls getting continually “wrong-footed”
by the script, drawn into its humor and romance before it
turned dark “within half a page.” The shoot lasted just
over 20 days, during which Mulligan threw herself into
Cassie’s fury (but not to the extent that she took the char-
acter home with her, she adds, beyond the Barbie-esque
nails and blonde hair extensions).
“It’s a similar reason to why the Coen brothers thought
it was so funny to cast me in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ as a
sort of enraged woman,” Mulligan says. “I suppose people
can get to know you from a certain performance, and it
can be hard to break out of that sometimes.”
Fennell set out to defy expectations with her supporting
cast as well, selecting beloved figures to play the secretly
skeevy men. Former teen heartthrob Adam Brody (“The
O.C.”) appears at the very start, with “New Girl” favorite
Max Greenfield popping in later on. Comedian Bo Burn-
ham plays Cassie’s former classmate, Ryan, her love
every single other person is saying, ‘Look, it’s rainbows
and sunshine and love,’ and all of that fluff. We all, as an
audience, want her to choose that path, too. It’s about
showing how hard her journey is.”
Mulligan was daunted at first and admits that she won-
dered whether Fennell — an actress herself, most recog-
nizable to American audiences as Camilla Parker Bowles
in “The Crown” — ought to play Cassie instead. Mulligan
tends to call cut on herself mid-take, a habit she says
Dano helped curb on “Wildlife” by encouraging her to
channel her self-doubt into the character’s state of mind.
She returned to this advice for a scene in “Promising
Young Woman” in which Cassie runs into Ryan mid-
scheme, faking drunkenness outside a bar with her arm
around another man. She straightens up immediately, her
usual confidence traded for deep shame. Mulligan was
having one of those nights when “just everything feels
wrong,” she says. But then she realized that’s exactly
what Cassie felt.
“In film, a lot of the opportunities that have come my
way have been much more in a sort of serious, domestic
space,” Mulligan says. “I’ve become really interested in
the last couple of years in these kinds of characters ...
where women are allowed to be flawed and troubled by
things and behave in ways we don’t necessarily agree
with, even. But we still root for that person.”
Mulligan takes a dark turn‘Promising Young Woman’ aligns with actress’ desire to defy expectations
BY SONIA RAO
The Washington Post
Focus Features
Carey Mulligan stars as Cassie in “Promising Young Woman,” by filmmaker Emerald Fennell.
“I’ve become really interestedin the last couple of years inthese kinds of characters ...where women are allowed tobe flawed and troubled bythings and behave in wayswe don’t necessarily agreewith, even. But we still rootfor that person.”
Carey Mulligan
FOCUS FEATURES/AP
Cassie, played by Mulligan, seeks to avenge her bestfriend’s assault in “Promising Young Woman.”
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15
BOOKS
We’re all anxious to leave 2020 in the dust. But
before barreling onward, take one last look
back to survey your favorite reads. They
might inspire which titles you pick up in
2021. Here are 14 books, from a variety of genres, to con-
sider based on recent favorites.
If you enjoyed “Little Disasters,” by Sarah
Vaughan, read “The Push,” by Ashley Audrain (Jan. 5):
What happens when a mother doesn’t love her daughter?
Audrain’s debut is a tense, chilling dip into the dark side
of motherhood, narrated by Blythe, whose own upbring-
ing raises the question: Can one inherit an inability to
parent? “The Push” is uncomfortable and provocative.
If you enjoyed “Think Like a Monk,” by Jay Shetty,
read “Think Again,” by Adam Grant (Feb. 2): If there
hasn’t been enough room in your brain to give your own
thoughts any thought, we hear you. But Grant, an orga-
nizational psychologist, coaches readers on how to better
understand their unexamined — and unchallenged —
beliefs. “Think Again” delivers smart advice on unlearn-
ing assumptions and opening ourselves up to curiosity
and humility.
If you enjoyed “The Particulars of Peter,” by Kelly
Conaboy, read “When Harry Met Minnie,” by Martha
Teichner (Feb. 2): In 2016, CBS News correspondent
Teichner and her bull terrier, Minnie, were introduced to
a woman dying of liver cancer. The woman wanted to
ensure that her own bull terrier, Harry, would have a
good home when she was no longer around. The sweet —
if wrenching — memoir is an ode to our dearest four-
legged friends, and the people they lead us to.
If you enjoyed “Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most
Daring Wartime Spy,” by Ben Macintyre, read “The
Princess Spy,” by Larry Loftis (Feb. 9): In 1943, Aline
Griffith, an American fashion model, was recruited by the
Office of Strategic Services to hunt for Nazi supporters
among Spain’s social elite. While there, she met and mar-
ried a Spanish aristocrat, making her the Countess of
Romanones. Loftis, a historian who’s written two previous
nonfiction spy thrillers, delivers a rich, deeply researched
account of Griffith’s espionage escapades.
If you enjoyed “Transcendent Kingdom,” by Yaa
Gyasi, read “Of Women and Salt,” by Gabriela Garcia
(March 30): This family saga centers on five generations
of strong Latinas: Maria, one of the only women to work
at a Cuban cigar factory in the 1800s; Carmen, an im-
migrant who’s found success in the United States; Jea-
nette, who’s addicted to drugs and abusive men; and
Gloria, who’s taken into custody by ICE, leaving her
young daughter behind. Their stories are a mesmerizing
patchwork of determination, courage and survival.
If you enjoyed “Joy at Work,” by Marie Kondo and
Scott Sonenshein, read “Laundry Love,” by Patric
Richardson (March 30): Richardson loves doing laundry
— yes, laundry. He’s made a fulfilling career out of it,
running Laundry Camp at the Mall of America to teach
others his techniques. In “Laundry Love,” he shares his
favorite tips and hacks for sorting your laundry, figuring
out which settings to use for the best results — and
changing your relationship with the often dry task. Add it
to your laundry, ah, reading list for spring.
If you enjoyed “All Adults Here,” by Emma Straub,
read “Early Morning Riser,” by Katherine Heiny (April
13): When you enter a relationship with a man who has
had relations with, well, half the town, things will prob-
ably get weird. Jane, the star of Heiny’s offbeat and funny
new novel, falls for Duncan — who comes with an over-
size load of small-town baggage. The story, which spans
17 years, sparkles with Heiny’s trademark witticisms and
cutting observations.
If you enjoyed “The Searcher,” by Tana French,
read “What Comes After,” by JoAnne Tompkins (April
13): Two neighboring families in the remote Pacific
Northwest are reeling over the deaths of their teenage
sons when a pregnant girl with a secret emerges from the
woods. As she becomes entangled in both families’ lives,
they’re forced to reckon with their shared histories.
“What Comes After” is a mystery — and a gritty med-
itation on loss and redemption, drenched in stillness and
grief.
If you enjoyed “Sex and Vanity,” by Kevin Kwan,
read “Dial A for Aunties,” by Jesse Q. Sutanto (April 27):
When Meddelin Chan accidentally kills her blind date,
her mother — naturally — calls in the “meddling Asian
aunties” to dispose of the body. Despite good intentions,
they problematically ship the body to the over-the-top,
very important island wedding Meddy’s company is plan-
ning. Netflix has signed on to adapt the delightful rom-
com.
If you enjoyed “I Hold a Wolf by the Ears,” by Laura
van den Berg, read “The Rock Eaters,” by Brenda
Peynado (May 11): Peynado’s curious story collection
blends science fiction and fantasy, drizzled with magical
realism: levitating children who eat rocks to stay tethered
to the ground; oblations performed to cattle-like angels;
lost limbs that correspond to lost rights. It’s a genre-bend-
ing sociopolitical commentary with prose that shines.
If you enjoyed “Big Summer,” by Jennifer Weiner,
read “Malibu Rising,” by Taylor Jenkins Reid (May 25):
It’s 1983 in Malibu, and the famous Riva siblings are
hosting their annual end-of-summer party — a legendary
affair. By morning, the house is in flames, a blaze fueled
by smoldering secrets and long-simmering drama. Reid
has once again crafted a fast-paced, engaging novel that
smoothly transports readers between decades and story
lines.
If you enjoyed “When No One Is Watching,” by
Alyssa Cole, read “The Other Black Girl,” by Zakiya
Dalila Harris (June 1): Hulu has already snagged the
rights to Harris’ bold debut, about a young editorial as-
sistant who’s the only Black employee at a New York
publishing company — until another woman arrives.
Their budding friendship turns sinister as ominous notes
hint at bad intentions. It’s a thrilling, edgier “Devil Wears
Prada” that explores privilege and racism.
If you enjoyed “You Should See Me in a Crown,” by
Leah Johnson, read “Blackout,” by Dhonielle Clayton,
Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley
Woodfolk and Nicola Yoon (June 22): Talk about star
power: Six YA powerhouses teamed up for this epic cele-
bration of Black joy. As New York is blanketed in heat-
wave-rendered darkness, six young couples are forced to
confront their feelings. The story, which plays out over a
single day, is a love letter to New York and teen romance.
If you enjoyed “The Night Watchman,” by Louise
Erdrich, read “Brothers on Three,” by Abe Streep (Sept.
6): In 2018, Streep wrote a piece for the New York Times
Magazine about the Arlee Warriors, a high school basket-
ball team on Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation. It
inspired “Brothers on Three,” in which Streep follows the
Warriors — and their community — as they forge their
way on the court and into adulthood. It’s a rich, expansive
portrait of modern Indigenous life, set amid a suicide
crisis.
What to read in 2021Your favorite read of 2020 could inspire picking up one of these new titles
BY ANGELA HAUPT
Special to The Washington Post
Ernest Cline’s 2011 debut novel, “Ready
Player One,” a kind of Willy Wonka-meets-
“Tron” adventure story, validated the dig-
ital diversions of gamers and 1980s enthusi-
asts alike with its arcade in-jokes and allu-
sions to John Hughes movies.
With the release of “Ready Player Two,”
the Austin, Texas-based author tweaks the
expectations of his own brand of nostalgic
escapism with an Easter egg of ambivalence
regarding the addictive nature of the very
internet-based obsessions that initially
inspired him.
“Well, yeah, you know, I am 10 years
older than when I wrote the first book, and
20 years older than when I started the first
book,” Cline says. “I’ve matured, and my
life has changed a lot.”
Cline, who is married to poet Cristin
O’Keefe Aptowicz and has two daughters,
says he actually has a love/hate relationship
with the internet and its corresponding
technology.
Regarding the
warnings of too
much social
media and
screen time
that seem sewn
into his sequel,
Cline says: “I
try to show the
good side and
the bad side of
technology, but
this one is
definitely more
of a cautionary tale.”
In “Ready Player Two,” our hero Wade
Watts, who has gone from living the life of
a poor gamer to winning control of the
virtual reality system OASIS, finds out
about a technology called ONI that has
been kept from the public. This sup-
pressed technology enables users to expe-
rience OASIS with all five senses, to re-
cord and even upload real-life experi-
ences.
ONI is a highly addictive, potentially
brain-damaging simulation that will
change the world forever.
“That’s the end point in the evolution of
video games and virtual reality,” Cline
says. “When it becomes indistinguishable
from reality. Then it becomes like you
can’t tell the difference or feel the differ-
ence or smell or hear the difference. Then
it would feel the same as reality and be-
come highly addictive — especially since
it would be a reality that you could have
control over.”
Cline, who admits that his own addiction
to games in his 20s inspired his first novel,
is not sure how he would take to the kind of
virtual reality temptations he details in his
new book.
“I am glad that technology does not exist
yet so I don’t have to find out,” he says,
adding: “Once this technology becomes a
mind-altering substance, then it, too, will
have to be regulated like a narcotic.”
If Cline is ambivalent about the tech-
nology he writes about, he is also unsettled
about how the more dystopian aspects of his
first novel (such as reality TV stars entering
politics and the havoc caused by a world-
wide pandemic) have become real.
“It was strange to see so much of the story
come true just in nine years,” Cline says. “I
set it 25 years in the future when it was
published. A lot of it, especially the virtual
reality aspects of it, came true. And a lot of
its dystopian elements ... you know, some of
them where I was being playful or suggesti-
ng that reality TV stars would be elected to
public office … that was something that I
just threw in there that I was not thinking
would come true, much less in less than a
decade.”
Regarding the uncanny way elements of
the “Ready Player One” universe have lined
up with the real world, Cline says: “I worry
sometimes that the only thing you need to be
prescient is to be pessimistic.”
‘Ready Player Two’ blurs lines between video games, realityBY ROBERTO ONTIVEROS
The Dallas Morning News
Ballantine
Malibu Rising; Think Again; The Other Black Girl
PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
Marco Kaltofen was 11 when he
noticed his first white hairs.
As his hair grew whiter, his
middle-school friends started
calling him “the professor.” By his
mid-30s, it was completely white, as it had
been for three of his grandparents. His
parents went white in their 40s, “so I had
no chance of avoiding this,” Kaltofen says.
Now 61, he is a civil engineer who lives in
Boston. He wears his white hair in a pony-
tail.
“White hair is part of my identity, and I
am completely at peace with it,” he says.
Then there is Joe Rees, 75, a retired
customs attache who lives in Washington.
He is balding, but the hair that remains —
on the sides and in the back — is the same
dark brown it always has been. He jokingly
attributes this to “clean living and a pure
heart,” although, like Kaltofen, it probably
is genetic. His mother’s black hair didn’t
start to go gray until she was in her 70s, and
was “50/50” when she died at 88, he says.
Still, “I’d rather be gray than bald,” he
says. “That way, I wouldn’t have to worry
about wearing a hat all the time.”
To be sure, Rees and Kaltofen are excep-
tions, since most people start graying in
their 50s and 60s. Nevertheless, their expe-
riences are among the many mysteries of
gray, white or silver-looking hair that sci-
entists are exploring to learn more about
aging. They want to know why some people
turn gray early and others late — or not at
all — and what this might signal about their
health. They also want to understand the
factors that hasten graying, and even
whether gray hair is reversible — which
could be a boon to those allergic to hair dye,
or who hate spending money to keep the
gray away.
Most important, studying gray hair could
point to new approaches in promoting
healthier aging, says Candace Kerr, health
scientist administrator in the National
Institute on Aging’s Division of Aging Biol-
ogy.
“While graying is one of the markers of
aging — aging is the ultimate risk factor for
why hair goes gray — it highlights the need
for better understanding of the mecha-
nisms that drive aging and age-related
diseases,” she says. “To be able to target
these pathways will be critically important
for our aging population to live longer and
happier lives.”
Hair that looks gray, white or silver
actually is colorless. Hair color comes from
melanin, a pigment produced by cells in
the hair follicles. Over time, these cells
suffer damage and become depleted, losing
their ability to make melanin. This results
in new hair without pigment — meaning,
no color.
People use “gray,” “white” and “silver”
interchangeably to describe hair that is
turning or has turned. Its appearance —
whether it looks, gray, white or silver —
depends on how much natural color, or
pigment, remains, experts say. Hair that
has lost all its color typically appears white.
Studies have identified a number of
factors that also may speed up gray hair,
including smoking, diet, stress and genet-
ics.
“Our hair color depends on a set of spe-
cialized stem cells called melanocyte stem
cells, and every time a new hair grows,
these melanocyte stem cells have to divide
in two and make a new melanocyte, [or]
pigment cells,” explains Melissa Harris,
assistant professor of biology at the Uni-
versity of Alabama at Birmingham. “These
pigment cells stay in the base of your hair
and their job is to produce pigment. These
melanocytes reach out skinny arms, called
dendritic processes, that shuttle the pig-
ment to the hair shaft as it grows. So if all
your melanocyte stem cells disappear, so
do your melanocytes and so does your hair
pigment. Thus — gray hair.”
Because stem cells directly influence
hair color, studying gray hair can provide
insights about why stem cells age and ulti-
mately fail, offering important clues about
the workings of other stem cells in the body
— for example, those found in muscles,
bones and organs. In turn, these ultimately
could point to whether gray hair could be a
marker for disease, or the opposite, a long-
er life. Previous studies have not shown a
relationship between life span and gray
hair, including whether late onset of gray
hair predicts longevity. Some research,
however, indicates that gray or white hair
can be a sign of early heart disease, regard-
less of age.
A 2018 mouse study by “Team Hair-Us”
(Harris’ nickname for her lab colleagues)
found a connection between MITF (mi-
crophthalmia), a transcription factor (a
protein involved in gene expression) im-
portant in managing pigment production,
and the innate immune system, suggesting
that some people’s hair may turn gray in
response to serious illness or chronic
stress. They discovered a relationship
between genes involved in hair color and
those that trigger an immune response to a
viral infection, suggesting this interaction
could increase the chances of developing
gray hair.
“MITF, in a sense, shields melanocyte
stem cells from our own immune system,”
she says. “Normally our immune system
protects our bodies from infection. But for
melanocyte stem cells, too much immune
response is bad for their health, and this
leads to their loss and to gray hair. Why
melanocyte stem cells are so sensitive to
our own natural means for protection, we
still don’t know.”
“There is still much to learn about what
regulates these stem cells and what may
contribute to their loss,” says Ya-Chieh
Hsu, associate professor of stem cell and
regenerative biology at Harvard Universi-
ty and principal faculty member of the
Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
Among other things, Hsu studies the
effect of stress on graying. Most of us are
familiar with those “before-and-after”
photographs of U.S. presidents — most
recently Barack Obama — showing a strik-
ing increase in gray hair during their
terms, even in relatively young presidents.
It’s known as the “Marie Antoinette Syn-
drome,” after the 18th-century French
queen whose hair allegedly turned white
overnight before she went to the guillotine
and her death at age 38 during the French
Revolution.
“With the aging process, we gradually
lose melanocyte stem cells one by one over
a very long period of time,” Hsu says.
“What we found in our research was that
the stress can accelerate that process.”
Hsu and her colleagues found that stress
stimulates the same nerves that trigger the
“fight-or-flight’’ response, which in turn
causes permanent damage to the pigment-
producing cells in hair follicles. The fight
or flight response “is thought to be a good
thing in stressful situations because it can
drive us and other organisms to respond to
danger rapidly,” Hsu says. This activation
“causes a spike in the neurotransmitter
norepinephrine.”
But norepinephrine also tells melan-
ocyte stem cells to pump up their activity
and proliferate, “and too much norepine-
phrine, in this case triggered by stress,
causes the melanocyte stem cells to burst
into so much activity it leads to rapid deple-
tion of the stem cell reservoir,” she says. “If
all the stem cells are depleted, no more
pigment-producing cells can be produced
anymore, and the hair turns gray.”
Other stress hormones — ACTH (adre-
nocorticotropic hormone) for example —
can cause melanocyte stem cells to migrate
away from the hair follicle before they can
produce the melanocytes needed for hair
and skin color, according to research.
“Such hormones are known to increase
in the body after stress, and may have the
potential to promote the loss of these cells,
regardless of age,” says study author May-
umi Ito, associate professor in the depart-
ments of cell biology and dermatology at
the New York University Grossman School
of Medicine.
Ito also found that certain cell-signaling
proteins called endothelins (substances
known to constrict blood vessels and raise
blood pressure) bind to melanocyte stem
cells and, in doing so, keep them healthy.
Interrupting the process causes cell loss
and early graying in mice. They are study-
ing whether the same happens in human
hair follicles, hoping to find ways to pre-
serve or regenerate the key stem cells that
give hair its color.
All of this raises the intriguing possibility
that scientists could discover ways to pre-
vent or reverse gray hair.
“Team Hair-Us” recently published a
paper describing a topical drug combina-
tion that increased melanocyte stem cells
in gray mice, ridding them of their gray
and restoring their original fur color —
perhaps for good. Because the treatment —
originally developed to regrow hair —
replenished pigment-producing stem cells,
the effects could be long-lasting, Harris
says.
“We didn’t keep the mice forever, so we
don’t know,” says Harris, who plans more
studies. “This has made us very interested
in whether gray hair really is permanent,
and if we can do something about it. We
really want to know — and so does every-
one else we talk to — is whether and when
we can bring this to humans.”
Scientists investigatingwhy some go gray sooner,and if it can be reversed
BY MARLENE CIMONS
Special to The Washington Post
HEALTH & FITNESS
KATRINA GOLDSAITO/For The Washington Post
Marco Kaltofen, 61, says he first started noticing white hairs at 11. His hair wascompletely white by the time he reached his 30s like that of three of his grandparents.
Getting to the root of gray hair
Hair color comes from melanin, a pigment producedby cells in the hair follicles. Over time, these cellssuffer damage and become depleted, losing theirability to make melanin. This results in new hairwithout pigment — meaning, no color.
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17
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stripes.com
OPINION
Inever thought I would see Americans
attack their own institutions of gov-
ernment in the manner or scale Presi-
dent Donald Trump's supporters did
at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
Ialso never thought that, in addition to being
frightening and disturbing, a seditious in-
surrection incited by the president of the
United States could look so utterly pathetic.
There is no contradiction between ac-
knowledging the danger of what happened
and recognizing that the people posing that
danger made fools of themselves. In fact, it's
essential to do so. Trump's supporters
should not be allowed to memorialize this
disgraceful day as a bold, noble revolt and
the people who participated in this mob as
committed patriots or daring commandos.
Part of stigmatizing what happened and
standing up to it should be turning the rioters
into laughingstocks.
Take one photo in wide circulation, of a
man walking off with a lectern with the seal
of the speaker of the House attached to it.
He's dressed like a suburban dad, in Asics
sneakers, unremarkable jeans, a gray wool
coat — and a Trump knitted hat. And yet, in
the middle of a brazen theft that also hap-
pens to be a gesture of profound disrespect to
the institutions of government, he's grinning
widely and waving to the camera.
Yes, it's an image of impunity. This is the
expression and behavior of a person who be-
lieves that when his president tweets "when
the looting starts, the shooting starts," that
threat applies only to other people.
But it's also an image of a punch-drunk idi-
ot. There's no grandeur in mugging like a
high school student on senior prank day
while stealing a completely useless object.
Given the way law enforcement appears to
have collapsed in the face of the rioters, this
theft isn't even a daring heist; it's a goofy,
childish act.
Then there's the fellow who broke into
Nancy Pelosi's office and was photographed
first with his feet on a desk and later with a
piece of mail he pilfered from the speaker.
His hyped-up Facebook postings before
Wednesday only make his behavior more ri-
diculous: Only a coward makes a lot of noise
about being prepared to die violently, then
tries to turn making off with an envelope into
an act of hyper-macho heroism, complete
with bare-chested posing.
Yes, the mob included a masked man
wearing a Punisher badge — a visual that's
become an endorsement of vigilante justice,
including, disturbingly, among police offi-
cers — and carrying plastic ties as if prepar-
ing for a hostage-taking. Yes, rioters broke
windows, took down American flags and pa-
raded Confederate ones. It is reasonable to
be afraid of violence. It is right to be sickened
that a woman was shot and killed and four
other people died because of this nonsense.
But the day's resonant news photos also in-
cluded Trump supporters wandering
through the halls of the Capitol with their
phones out like gawking tourists, and rioters
playing out their fantasies of being action
stars. These are not serious political actors.
They are not commandos. All of them come
across as silly fantasists.
Even ostensibly-menacing graffiti like a
scrawled "Murder the Media" on a Capitol
building door or "WE WILL NOT BACK
DOWN," written in red ink on a file folder left
in Pelosi's office, shrinks down to size the
longer one looks at it. These are the hasty im-
provisations of people who find themselves
in the radical equivalent of the dog who
caught the car: They had no plan, they have
no message, and they don't even have the
penmanship or flair to produce striking im-
ages.
And Trump's speech inciting the attempt-
ed putsch? It was dangerously effective, if
less coherent than Bluto Blutarsky's rallying
cry at the end of "Animal House." Like the en-
tirety of his presidency, Trump's behavior
was as embarrassing as it was horrifying.
The attack on the Capitol that followed
was the same kind of "futile and stupid ges-
ture" that followed Bluto's call to arms. The
foolishness of the day in no way diminishes
the horror of what happened. Instead, it
magnifies it. That the Capitol was attacked
because the president of the United States is
too deluded and selfish to acknowledge real-
ity, and because his remaining supporters
have enthusiastically enlisted in his self-de-
ception, is a monstrous thing.
History should remember Jan. 6 for what
it was: both shameful and dumb. It may not
be grand. But it's the only way to truly ex-
plain what happened in Washington, and to
try our best to make sure this particular idio-
cy never happens again.
A pathetic, horrifying insurrection BY ALYSSA ROSENBERG
The Washington Post
Alyssa Rosenberg writes about the intersection of culture andpolitics for The Washington Post's Opinions section.
WASHINGTON
The storming of the U.S. Capitol of-
fers a reminder that the most dev-
astating attacks often aren't the
ones that take us by surprise but
those we see coming and don't take adequate
steps to avoid.
Officials who planned for Wednesday's
pro-Trump rallies knew the "protesters"
(that mild term seems laughable now) would
march on the Capitol. They knew some of the
extremists might try to break through the pe-
rimeter. But they decided to trust the assur-
ances of the Capitol Police that they could
control the situation.
The reassuring words I heard from senior
officials are haunting: "I can see no situation
where the cops can't handle it," one told me,
after describing the possibility of an assault
on the Capitol. That's agonizing to replay.
This disaster didn't sneak up on the Defense
and Justice departments and the mayor's of-
fice; they saw it approaching. But they
thought the 6,000 to 8,000 law enforcement
officers available were adequate to handle
the problem.
Now that looks like a wrong call. Law en-
forcement did indeed get the situation under
control by Wednesday night, with limited
bloodshed. But that was only after the Capitol
had been invaded and ransacked, members
of Congress terrorized, four people died, and
the most precious symbol of American de-
mocracy desecrated.
Some mistakes are obvious: The FBI un-
derestimated the number of protesters, pre-
dicting a maximum of 20,000, which turned
out to be less than half the number who
showed up. The Capitol Police didn't stand
their ground at the perimeter or at the Capi-
tol itself. The mayor was slow to request addi-
tional troops from the D.C. National Guard.
The acting attorney general was similarly
tardy in ordering elite FBI units into the Cap-
itol. And the Pentagon brass worried more
about avoiding politicization of the military
than about stopping an insurrection.
In a seeming acknowledgment of the inad-
equate response, Capitol Police Chief Steven
Sund announced Thursday night that he was
resigning. But as we look for who to blame in
this catastrophe, let's focus on the real cul-
prits: President Donald Trump, who incited
the rioters and urged them toward the Capi-
tol; the 13 Republican senators and 138
House members who challenged President-
elect Joe Biden's victory and egged on the in-
surgents; and the smug, self-appointed patri-
ots who trashed the people's house. Trump
should face legal action for fomenting this
riot. The members who risked the lives of
their colleagues by encouraging the fanatics
should be censured. The insurgents who ran-
sacked the Capitol should be arrested and
prosecuted.
D.C.'s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser
and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, both tried to avert a mili-
tarization of the response to protests, similar
to what happened in D.C. and many other ci-
ties during the racial justice protests that fol-
lowed George Floyd's death. Wanting to
avoid overreaction, they probably underre-
acted. That carried costs, but also benefits.
A "net assessment" of the Capitol siege (to
use the term beloved by Pentagon strate-
gists) is that Trump's ragtag army of sedition
has lost big. Their narrative of victimization
has turned upside down; their claims of elec-
tion fraud have been demonstrated to be
false. Biden's election has been certified, and
leading Republicans such as Vice President
Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have finally bro-
ken from Trump.
More force is coming to avoid any repeat in
the run-up to Biden's inauguration: The Pen-
tagon, working with the mayor's office, is mo-
bilizing more than 6,000 additional National
Guard troops, calling on nearby states. Jus-
tice Department officials have pledged to
colleagues that they will arrest those who
vandalized the Capitol. The active-duty mil-
itary hasn't been deployed and shouldn't be
needed.
Thinking about Wednesday's events, it's
useful to indulge in what Harvard professor
Ernest May liked to call "Applied History."
What if the situation had turned out differ-
ently — and force had been used more ag-
gressively, as in past efforts to deal with civil
strife. The 1989 Tiananmen Square mas-
sacre is an extreme example. The Trump an-
archists don't deserve comparison with the
brave Chinese pro-democracy activists. But
they wanted similar images of a brutal gov-
ernment crackdown, even martyrdom, that
could have energized their movement for
years.
Trump's fanatical followers didn't get their
wish. Instead, they got what they deserved —
public revulsion and failure.
What went wrong with protection of the CapitolBY DAVID IGNATIUS
Washington Post Writers Group
PAGE 18 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
ACROSS
1 Impose
4 Zilch
8 Mama — Elliot
12 Fire sign?
13 Slanted type
(Abbr.)
14 Queue after Q
15 PBS funder
16 Young cow
17 Wine label
datum
18 Newspaper
section
21 Frazier foe
22 Allow
23 Once and again
26 Conditions
27 Plead
30 Part of Q.E.D.
31 Bake sale org.
32 Pop choice
33 Novelist Rand
34 Soon-to-be grads
35 “Yippee!”
36 Moo — pork
37 Ecol. watchdog
38 In agreement
45 TV explorer
46 Read quickly
47 Cotillion celeb
48 Let fall
49 “Would — to
you?”
50 Narc’s org.
51 Fill fully
52 “— Lang Syne”
53 Blue hue
DOWN
1 Glazier’s sheet
2 Secondhand
3 Popular Asian
cuisine
4 Kidman of
“The Hours”
5 Arcade pioneer
6 Painter Salvador
7 Farm crop
8 Burial chamber
9 Cruising
10 Male deer
11 Foolproof
19 Diplomacy
20 French article
23 Afternoon social
24 Sardonic
25 Author Fleming
26 “— a Wonderful
Life”
27 Short do
28 “Xanadu” band
29 The “G” of
LGBTQ
31 Former German
kingdom
32 Bloke
34 “Thar — blows!”
35 Unlocked
36 Form
37 Cybermessages
38 Probability
39 Director Ephron
40 Jog
41 Rights
advocacy org.
42 Tosses in
43 Nerd’s kin
44 Online
auction site
Answer to Previous Puzzle
Eugene Sheffer CrosswordFra
zz
Dilbert
Pearls B
efo
re S
win
eN
on S
equitur
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Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19
SCOREBOARD/COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Men’s Top 25 FaredThursday
No. 1 Gonzaga (11-0) beat BYU 86-69.Next: at Portland, Sunday.
No. 2 Baylor (10-0) did not play. Next: atTCU, Saturday.
No. 3 Villanova (8-1) did not play. Next: atUConn, Friday, Jan. 15.
No. 4 Texas (9-1) did not play. Next: atNo. 14 West Virginia, Saturday.
No. 5 Iowa (10-2) beat Maryland 89-67.Next: vs. Minnestota, Monday.
No. 6 Kansas (9-2) did not play. Next: vs.Oklahoma, Saturday.
No. 7 Creighton (9-2) did not play. Next:vs. St. John’s, Saturday.
No. 8 Wisconsin (10-2) beat Indiana 80-73. Next: at Michigan, Tuesday.
No. 9 Tennessee (8-1) did not play. Next:at Texas A&M, Saturday.
No. 10 Michigan (10-0) did not play. Next:at Penn St., Saturday.
No. 11 Houston (9-1) did not play. Next:vs. Tulane, Saturday.
No. 12 Illinois (9-3) beat Northwestern81-56. Next: vs. Maryland, Sunday.
No. 13 Missouri (7-2) did not play. Next:vs. LSU, Saturday.
No. 14 West Virginia (9-3) did not play.Next: vs. No. 4 Texas, Saturday.
No. 15 Rutgers (7-3) did not play. Next:Ohio St., Saturday.
No. 16 Minnesota (10-3) did not play.Next: vs. No. 5 Iowa, Sunday.
No. 17 Oregon (8-2) lost to Colorado 79-72. Next: at Utah, Saturday.
No. 18 Texas Tech (9-3) did not play.Next: at Iowa St., Saturday.
No. 19 Clemson (9-1) did not play. Next:at North Carolina, Saturday.
No. 19 Virginia Tech (8-2) did not play.Next: vs. Notre Dame, Sunday.
No. 21 Duke (4-2) did not play. Next: vs.Wake Forest, Saturday.
No. 22 Virginia (6-2) did not play. Next: atBoston College, Saturday.
No. 23 Michigan St.(8-3) did not play.Next: vs Purdue, Friday.
No. 23 Saint Louis (7-1) did not play.Next: vs. Davidson, Friday, Jan. 15.
No. 25 Florida St. (5-2) did not play. Next:at Pittsburgh, Saturday.
Thursday’s men’s scores
EAST
Bryant 93, CCSU 68Iowa 89, Maryland 67LIU 78, St. Francis (Pa.) 75Merrimack 97, Sacred Heart 90, OTNortheastern 81, Hofstra 78, OTSt. Francis (NY) 70, Mount St. Mary’s 55
SOUTH
Belmont 77, SE Missouri 66E. Kentucky 69, Jacksonville St. 66, OTMorehead St. 57, Tennessee Tech 54Tennessee St. 74, UT Martin 62
MIDWEST
E. Illinois 74, Murray St. 68Illinois 81, Northwestern 56Wisconsin 80, Indiana 73, 2OT
SOUTHWEST
Cincinnati 76, SMU 69
FAR WEST
Colorado 79, Oregon 72Colorado St. 74, UNLV 71Gonzaga 86, BYU 69Idaho St. 73, N. Arizona 69Montana St. 79, N. Colorado 67S. Utah 85, Idaho 80San Diego St. 65, Nevada 60San Francisco 88, Portland 64Southern Cal 87, Arizona 73Stanford 91, Washington 75Texas Rio Grande Valley 96, St. Mary’s
(Texas) 67UCLA 81, Arizona St. 75Washington St. 71, California 60
Women’s Top 25 faredThursday
No. 1 Stanford (9-0) did not play. Next: vs.No. 11 Oregon, Friday.
No. 2 Louisville (9-0) beat Virginia Tech71-67. Next: at Florida St., Sunday.
No. 3 NC State (10-0) did not play. Next:vs. Virginia, Thursday, Dec. 14.
No. 3 UConn (6-0) did not play. Next: atvs. Providence, Saturday.
No. 5 South Carolina (7-1) did not play.Next: at No. 10 Kentucky, Sunday.
No. 6 Baylor (8-1) did not play. Next: atKansas, Wednesday.
No. 7 Arizona (8-1) did not play. Next: vs.Oregon St., Friday, Dec. 15.
No. 8 Texas A&M (11-0) beat No. 10 Ken-tucky 77-60. Next: at No. 13 Arkansas, Sun-day.
No. 9 UCLA (6-2) did not play. Next: vs.Colorado, Friday.
No. 10 Kentucky (9-2) lost to No. 8 TexasA&M 77-60. Next: vs. South Carolina, Sun-day.
No. 11 Oregon (8-1) did not play. Next: atNo. 1 Stanford, Friday.
No. 12 Maryland (8-1) beat No. 23 Michi-gan St. 93-87. Next: vs. Purdue, Sunday.
No. 13 Arkansas (10-3) lost to Tennessee88-73. Next: No. 8 Texas A&M , Sunday.
No. 14 Mississippi St. (7-2) beat Florida68-56. Next: vs. Mississippi, Sunday.
No. 15 Michigan (8-0) beat Nebraska 64-62. Next: vs. Illinois , Sunday.
No. 16 Ohio St. (6-0) beat Illinois 78-55.Next: vs. Rutgers, Sunday.
No. 17 Texas (8-1) did not play. Next: atWest Virginia, Saturday.
No. 18 South Florida (8-1) did not play.Next: vs. Houston, Saturday.
No. 19 Indiana (6-3) beat Penn St. 85-64.Next: vs. Wisconsin, Sunday.
No. 20 DePaul (6-3) did not play. Next: vs.St. John’s, Wednesday.
No. 21 Gonzaga (9-2) did not play. Next:vs. Portland, Saturday.
No. 22 Northwestern (5-2) did not play.Next: vs. Iowa, Saturday.
No. 23 Michigan St. (8-1) lost to No. 12Maryland 93-87. Next: vs. Nebraska, Sun-day.
No. 24 Syracuse (5-1) did not play. Next:at Georgia Tech, Thursday, Dec. 14.
No. 25 Missouri St. (4-2) did not play.Next: vs. Bradley, Sunday.
Thursday’s women’s scores
EAST
Boston College 64, Notre Dame 61Hofstra 68, Northeastern 57Indiana 85, Penn St. 64Mount Saint Mary 76, St. Francis Brook-
lyn 68Providence 62, Butler 50St. Francis (Pa.) 76, LIU 72Wagner 67, Sacred Heart 62
SOUTH
Alabama 67, LSU 59Georgia Tech 67, Clemson 55Jacksonville St. 74, E. Kentucky 60Louisville 71, Virginia Tech 67Mississippi 62, Auburn 58Mississippi St. 68, Florida 56Morehead St. 65, Tennessee Tech 62Tennessee 88, Arkansas 73UT Martin 80, Tennessee St. 39Wake Forest 63, Miami 60
MIDWEST
Austin Peay 73, SIU-Edwardsville 54Drake 74, Evansville 50Illinois St. 74, Indiana St. 60Maryland 93, Michigan St. 87Michigan 64, Nebraska 62Murray St. 76, E. Illinois 68Ohio St. 78, Illinois 55Valparaiso 63, N. Iowa 56
SOUTHWEST
Texas A&M 77, Kentucky 60
FAR WEST
BYU 71, Loyola Marymount 57E. Washington 78, Weber St. 57Idaho St. 70, N. Arizona 66Montana St. 54, N. Colorado 46Pacific 83, San Francisco 63Portland St. 66, Sacramento St. 64, OTSan Diego St. 59, Nevada 43Santa Clara 77, Saint Mary’s (Cal) 59UNLV 80, Colorado St. 76
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
DEALS
Thursday’s transactionsBASEBALL
Major League BaseballAmerican League
HOUSTON ASTROS — Agreed to termswith RHP Ryne Stanek on a one-year con-tract.
NEW YORK YANKEES — Acquired OFGreg Allen from San Diego in exchange forLHP James Reeves.
National LeagueMILWAUKEE BREWERS — Agreed to
terms with INF/OF Pablo Reyes on a minorleague contract.
NEW YORK METS — Acquired INF Fran-cisco Lindor and RHP Carlos Carrascofrom Cleveland in a trade for INFs AmedRosario and Andres Gimenez along withtwo minor league players, RHP Josh Wolfand OF Isaiah Greene.
FOOTBALLNational Football League
CLEVELAND BROWNS — Activated S An-drew Sendejo from the reserve/COVID-19list. Placed S Ronnie Harrison Jr. on the re-serve/COVID-19 list. Placed LB MontrelMeander on the practice squad/COVID-19list.
DALLAS COWBOYS — Released OT Jor-dan Miller from the practice squad.
GREEN BAY PACKERS — Declined to acti-vate RB Patrick Taylor from reserve/NFI .
HOUSTON TEXANS — Released C GregMancz from the practice squad.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS — Signed P DustinColquitt to the practice squad.
LOS ANGELES CHARGERS — ActivatedWR Keenan Allen, TE Hunter Henry and SDerwin James from the reserve/COVID-19list.
LOS ANGELES RAMS — Activated LT An-drew Whitworth from injured reserve.Waived LB Natrez Patrick.
MIAMI DOLPHINS — Announced DLcoach Marion Hobby has mutually left theteam. Signed WR Kirk Merrit to a reserve/futures contract.
NEW YORK GIANTS — Announced S An-toine Bethea retirement. Waived RB De-vonta Freeman from injured reserve. Acti-vated WR Davis Sills from the reserve/CO-VID-19 list and signed him to a renegotiat-ed contract.
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES — Announcedthat defensive coordinator Jim Schwartzwill be leaving the team.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS — Activated TEEric Ebron and OLB Cassius Marsh fromthe reserve/COVID-19 list.
TENNESSEE TITANS — Activated K Ste-phen Gostkowski from the reserve/CO-VID-19 list. Placed G Aaron Brewer on thereserve/COVID-19 list.
HOCKEYNational Hockey League
NASHVILLE PREDATORS — Announced apartnership with the Carolina Hurricanesto use the Chicago Wolves (AHL) for 2021-22 player development due to the Milwau-kee Admirals not playing the 2021-22 sea-son. Announced loan of F Egor Afanasyevto CSKA Moscow (KHL).
NEW JERSEY DEVILS — Signed D Sami Va-tanen to a one-year contract.
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — AnnouncedDave Randorf to be play-by-play announ-cer for 2021 season.
SOCCERMajor League Soccer
COLUMBUS CREW FC — Signed MF KevinMollino.
INTER MIAMI CF — Announced managerDiego Alonso mutually agreed to leaveclub.
NASHVILLE SC — Agreed to terms withgeneral manager Mike Jacobs to a con-tract extension through the 2023 season.
NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION SC—Signed D A.J. DeLaGarza and MF Emma-nuel Biateng.
SPORTING KANSAS CITY SC — Re-signedMF Roger Espinoza to a new 2021 contract.
National Women’s Soccer LeagueORLANDO PRIDE — Signed D Toni Press-
ley to a one-year 2021 contract with an op-tion for an additional year.
COLLEGENCAA — Named Mike Bobinski to the Di-
vision 1 Men’s Basketball Committee.AUSTIN PEAY STATE UNIVERSITY —
Named Shane Tucker assistant footballcoach for the tight ends.
PRO FOOTBALL
NFL playoffs
Wild-card PlayoffSaturday’s games
Indianapolis at Buffalo Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Tampa Bay at Washington
Sunday, Jan. 10Baltimore at Tennessee Chicago at New Orleans Cleveland at Pittsburgh
Divisional PlayoffsSaturday, Jan. 16 and Sunday, Jan. 17
Lowest seed remaining at Green Bay Lowest seed remaining at Kansas City TBD vs. TBD TBD vs. TBD
Conference Championships Sunday, Jan. 24
AFCTBD NFCTBD
Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7 At Tampa, Fla.
TBD
Sentry Tournament of ChampionsPGA TourThursday
Kapalua, Maui, HawaiiPurse: $6.7 million
Yardage: 7,596; Par: 73First Round
Harris English 32-33—65 -8
Justin Thomas 31-34—065 -8
Robert Streb 32-35—67 -6
Sergio Garcia 34-33—67 -6
Nick Taylor 34-33—67 -6
Ryan Palmer 34-33—67 -6
Sungjae Im 35-32—67 -6
Patrick Reed 33-34—67 -6
Adam Scott 34-34—68 -5
Patrick Cantlay 34-34—68 -5
Brendon Todd 33-35—68 -5
Martin Laird 35-34—69 -4
Carlos Ortiz 34-35—69 -4
Richy Werenski 35-34—69 -4
Marc Leishman 34-35—69 -4
Joaquin Niemann 34-35—69 -4
Bryson DeChambeau 34-35—69 -4
Viktor Hovland 36-33—69 -4
Daniel Berger 33-36—69 -4
Collin Morikawa 35-34—69 -4
Xander Schauffele 34-35—69 -4
Brian Gay 35-35—70 -3
Andrew Landry 34-36—70 -3
Kevin Kisner 35-35—70 -3
Cameron Smith 35-35—70 -3
Abraham Ancer 35-35—70 -3
Webb Simpson 35-35—70 -3
Scottie Scheffler 36-34—70 -3
Jon Rahm 35-35—70 -3
Stewart Cink 34-37—71 -2
Jason Kokrak 37-34—71 -2
Billy Horschel 35-36—71 -2
Kevin Na 35-36—71 -2
Cameron Champ 33-38—71 -2
Lanto Griffin 38-33—71 -2
Dustin Johnson 34-37—71 -2
Hudson Swafford 36-37—73 E
Michael Thompson 38-35—73 E
Hideki Matsuyama 37-36—73 E
Mackenzie Hughes 35-38—73 E
Tony Finau 35-39—74 +1
Sebastián Muñoz 37-38—75 +2
GOLF
SPOKANE, Wash. — Corey
Kispert scored 23 points as top-
ranked Gonzaga beat rival BYU
86-69 on Thursday in a hastily
scheduled game after both teams
lost their original opponents to
COVID-19 issues.
Jalen Suggs added 16 points for
the Bulldogs, while Drew Timme
and Andrew Nembhard scored 12
each. Gonzaga (11-0, 2-0 West
Coast Conference) won its 45th
consecutive home game, the long-
est streak in the nation.
Matt Haarms and Caleb Lohner
each scored 13 points for the Cou-
gars (9-3, 0-1), who had not played
since Dec. 23 after a pair of WCC
games were postponed because of
COVID-19. BYU was hurt by poor
shooting most of the game.
The Bulldogs were supposed to
play Santa Clara on Thursday and
the Cougars were scheduled to
play Pacific. But both those teams
had to drop out because of CO-
VID-19 protocols, so Gonzaga and
BYU decided to play each other a
month early.
No. 5 Iowa 89, Maryland 67:
Luka Garza scored 17 of his 24
points in the decisive first half,
and the visiting Hawkeyes roared
back from an early deficit by
keeping the Terrapins scoreless
for nearly eight minutes.
Garza made nine of his 14 field
goal attempts, including 2 of 4
from beyond the arc.
Jordan Bohannon chipped in
with 18 points for Iowa (10-2, 4-1
Big Ten).
Aaron Wiggins scored 17 for
Maryland (6-6, 1-5), and Donta
Scott added 13.
No. 8 Wisconsin 80, Indiana 73
(2OT): D’Mitrik Trice scored 21
points and Tyler Wahl made con-
secutive three-pointers in the sec-
ond overtime to lead the Badgers
past the visiting Hoosiers.
Wahl finished with a career-
high 12 points as Wisconsin (10-2,
4-1 Big Ten) won for the seventh
time in its last eight games. Nate
Reuvers added 14 points and Mi-
cah Potter had 10.
The Hoosiers’ Trayce Jackson-
Davis scored 23 points on 10-of-16
shooting. Aljami Durham added
15, Jerome Hunter had 12 and Rob
Phinisee 10 for Indiana (7-5, 2-3).
No. 12 Illinois 81, Northwest
ern 56: Kofi Cockburn scored 13
of his 18 points in the second half
and the visiting Fighting Illini beat
the Wildcats.
Cockburn also had 12 rebounds
in his eighth double-double of the
season, asserting himself in the
middle after Illinois (9-3, 5-1 Big
Ten) got off to a rough start. Ayo
Dosunmu added 15 points, and
Trent Frazier and Adam Miller
each scored 14.
The Illini trailed by as many as
16 before completely overwhelm-
ing Northwestern (6-4, 3-3) in
their fourth straight win.
Colorado 79, No. 17 Oregon
72: McKinley Wright IV reco-
vered from a scary fall to score 21
points, including a game-sealing
scoop layup with 27 seconds left,
and the host Buffaloes held off the
Ducks.
Grad transfer Jeriah Horne
added 17 points for Colorado (8-3,
2-2 Pac-12), which improved to
10-0 against Oregon (8-2, 3-1) all-
time in Boulder.
YOUNG KWAK/AP
Gonzaga guard Martynas Arlauskas, right, dribbles the ball as forwardPavel Zakharov, left, a sets a screen against BYU guard SpencerJohnson during the Bulldogs’ 8669 win Thursday in Spokane, Wash.
Kispert, Suggslead top-rankedGonzaga past BYU
Associated Press
TOP 25 ROUNDUP
PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
NBA/SPORTS BRIEFS
LOS ANGELES — LaMarcus
Aldridge scored a season-high 28
points and the San Antonio Spurs
beat the NBA champion Los An-
geles Lakers 118-109 on Thursday.
“He scored for us and he
worked hard on D,” said Spurs
coach Gregg Popovich about Al-
dridge. :You know, he’s guarding
Anthony Davis out there. That’s a
pretty tough job. So he played a re-
ally good all around game."
Two nights after topping the
Clippers to snap a four-game los-
ing streak, San Antonio picked up
another win at Staples Center.
Demar DeRozan added 19
points and eight assists for the
Spurs, who were 16 of 35 on three-
pointers after making 20 from be-
yond the arc against the Clippers.
LeBron James scored 27 points
and Anthony Davis added 23
points and 10 rebounds for the
Lakers, who had their four-game
winning streak snapped.
San Antonio scored the first
nine points and never trailed.
Mavericks 124, Nuggets 117
(OT): Luka Doncic came within
one rebound of his second straight
triple-double, finishing with 38
points and 13 assists to lead Dallas
to a win at Denver in overtime.
Doncic sat out Sunday’s loss to
Chicago and responded with his
first triple-double of the season
against Houston on Monday. He
followed that up with a season
high in points.
Nikola Jokic scored 20 of his 38
points after halftime and grabbed
11 rebounds for the Nuggets. Ja-
mal Murray added 21 points and
nine assists.
Josh Richardson scored 14
points, including five straight in
overtime to give the Mavericks
the lead for good.
Jokic capped a 17-point fourth
quarter with an 18-foot jumper at
the horn to send the game to over-
time.
Nets 122, 76ers 109: Joe Har-
ris had a season-best 28 points and
host Brooklyn, playing without
Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant,
beat NBA-leading Philadelphia.
Without their two superstars in
uniform — blue uniforms, a
throwback to 30 years ago in New
Jersey — the Nets jumped out
quickly and had a double-digit
lead for much of the second half
while winning their second
straight, both without Durant.
Caris LeVert had 22 points, 10
assists and seven rebounds, and
Jarrett Allen added 15 points and
11 boards for the Nets.
Irving was ruled out Thursday
afternoon for personal reasons.
The Nets already knew they’d be
without Durant for a second con-
secutive game because of the
NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Joel Embiid started slowly be-
fore finishing with 20 points and 12
rebounds for the Sixers (7-2), who
beat Washington on Wednesday.
Ben Simmons was limited to 11
points.
Trail Blazers 135, Timber
wolves 117: Damian Lillard had
39 points, including seven three-
pointers, and host Portland hand-
ed Minnesota its sixth straight
loss.
CJ McCollum added 20 points
for the Trail Blazers, who led by 33
in the second half. Jusuf Nurkic
had 17 points and seven rebounds
before Portland rested its starters
in the fourth quarter.
D’Angelo Russell and Anthony
Edwards each scored 26 points for
the Timberwolves (2-6), who con-
tinue to struggle without Karl-An-
thony Towns as he recovers from a
dislocated left wrist. He’s missed
six games, coinciding with Minne-
sota’s losing streak.
Cavaliers 94, Grizzlies 90:
Andre Drummond had 22 points
and 15 rebounds, and Larry Nance
Jr. added 18 points on 7-for-7
shooting from the field to lead Cle-
veland to a win in Memphis.
Cedi Osman scored 16 points as
the Cavaliers snapped a two-game
skid. JaVale McGee added 13
points.
Cleveland was minus leading
scorer Collin Sexton, who sat out
with a left ankle sprain. Jonas Va-
lanciunas led the Grizzlies with 17
points and 10 rebounds.
ASHLEY LANDIS/AP
San Antonio Spurs forward LaMarcus Aldridge, left, shoots against Los Angeles Lakers forward KyleKuzma during the Spurs' 118109 win in Los Angeles. Aldridge scored a seasonhigh 28 points.
Spurs stop Lakers’ 4-gamerun, win 2nd straight in LA
Associated Press
ROUNDUP
28Points for Joe Harris, a season-high, inthe Brooklyn Nets' 122-109 win overthe Philadelphia 76ers. New Jersey'stop two scorers, Kevin Durant andKyrie Irving, did not play for Brooklyn.
Source: Associated Press
Eastern Conference
Atlantic Division
W L Pct GB
Philadelphia 7 2 .778 —
Boston 6 3 .667 1
New York 5 3 .625 1½
Brooklyn 5 4 .556 2
Toronto 1 6 .143 5
Southeast Division
W L Pct GB
Orlando 6 2 .750 —
Atlanta 4 4 .500 2
Miami 3 4 .429 2½
Charlotte 3 5 .375 3
Washington 2 6 .250 4
Central Division
W L Pct GB
Indiana 6 2 .750 —
Milwaukee 5 3 .625 1
Cleveland 5 4 .556 1½
Chicago 4 5 .444 2½
Detroit 1 7 .125 5
Western Conference
Southwest Division
W L Pct GB
New Orleans 4 4 .500 —
Dallas 4 4 .500 —
San Antonio 4 4 .500 —
Houston 2 4 .333 1
Memphis 2 6 .250 2
Northwest Division
W L Pct GB
Utah 4 4 .500 —
Portland 4 4 .500 —
Oklahoma City 3 4 .429 ½
Denver 3 5 .375 1
Minnesota 2 6 .250 2
Pacific Division
W L Pct GB
Phoenix 6 2 .750 —
L.A. Clippers 6 3 .667 ½
L.A. Lakers 6 3 .667 ½
Golden State 4 4 .500 2
Sacramento 4 4 .500 2
Thursday’s games
Brooklyn 122, Philadelphia 109Cleveland 94, Memphis 90Portland 135, Minnesota 117San Antonio 118, L.A. Lakers 109Dallas 124, Denver 117, OT
Friday’s games
Phoenix at DetroitCharlotte at New OrleansOklahoma City at New YorkWashington at BostonBrooklyn at MemphisOrlando at HoustonUtah at MilwaukeeChicago at L.A. LakersL.A. Clippers at Golden StateToronto at Sacramento
Saturday’s games
Denver at PhiladelphiaAtlanta at CharlotteMiami at WashingtonPhoenix at IndianaCleveland at MilwaukeeSan Antonio at MinnesotaOrlando at DallasPortland at Sacramento
Sunday’s games
Utah at DetroitChicago at L.A. ClippersDenver at New YorkOklahoma City at BrooklynL.A. Lakers at HoustonMiami at BostonSan Antonio at MinnesotaToronto at Golden State
NBA scoreboard
NBA LeadersThrough Jan. 7
Scoring
G FG FT PTS AVG
Beal, WAS 8 93 70 274 34.3
Curry, GS 8 74 57 237 29.6
Harden, HOU 5 42 44 147 29.4
Doncic, DAL 7 66 51 193 27.6
Lillard, POR 8 68 52 221 27.6
Irving, BKN 7 71 22 190 27.1
McCollum, POR 8 76 24 214 26.8
Rebounds
G OFF DEF TOT AVG
Drummond, CLE 9 36 92 128 14.2
Capela, ATL 6 24 55 79 13.2
Gobert, UTA 8 25 79 104 13.0
Randle, NY 8 16 80 96 12.0
Embiid, PHI 8 14 80 94 11.8
Jokic, DEN 8 23 70 93 11.6 Associated Press
Hall of Fame manager
Lasorda dies at 93Tommy Lasorda, the fiery Hall
of Fame manager who guided the
Los Angeles Dodgers to two
World Series titles and later be-
came an ambassador for the sport
he loved during his 71 years with
the franchise, has died. He was
93.
The Dodgers said Friday that
he had a heart attack at his home
in Fullerton, California. Resusci-
tation attempts were made en
route to a hospital, where he was
pronounced dead shortly before
11 p.m. Thursday.
Lasorda had a history of heart
problems, including a heart at-
tack in 1996 that ended his man-
agerial career.
He spent the last 14 years with
the Dodgers as special adviser to
the chairman.
Donald, Kelce unanimous
AP All-Pro Team choicesDynamic defensive star Aaron
Donald and unstoppable tight end
Travis Kelce are unanimous
choices Friday for The Associated
Press NFL All-Pro Team.
Donald and Kelce swept the
votes from a nationwide panel of
50 media members who regularly
cover the league. It is the sixth
All-Pro selection for Donald, who
has helped the Los Angeles Rams
to the top-ranked defense in the
NFL, and the third for Kansas
City’s record-setting Kelce.
Joining Donald and Kelce are
15 players returning to the squad,
and 14 newcomers. Seattle line-
backer Bobby Wagner also makes
his sixth squad.
In other NFL news:
For the third straight day,
the Cleveland Browns can’t get in
their facility to practice as CO-
VID-19 testing continues. The
team has not been able to practice
this week leading to its playoff
game Sunday night in Pittsburgh.
The Browns were awaiting final
test results and permission from
the NFL to practice Friday.
The league maintains the game
will be played as scheduled.
The Atlanta Falcons have in-
terviewed a pair of offensive coor-
dinators, Nathaniel Hackett of the
Green Bay Packers and Joe Bra-
dy of the Carolina Panthers, for
their head coaching job.
Olympic silver medalist
Manyonga faces banOlympic long jump silver medal-
ist Luvo Manyonga was provision-
ally suspended in a doping case on
Friday and could be banned from
this year’s Tokyo Games.
The Athletics Integrity Unit
said it sent Manyonga a “notice of
charge” in the case, which is
based on suspected breaches of
whereabouts rules.
BRIEFLY
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21
NHL
TAMPA, Fla.
Winning Stanley Cup
championships in
consecutive seasons
is rare. The Tampa
Bay Lightning are confident they
can do it.
Even without leading scorer
Nikita Kucherov, who’ll miss the
year after undergoing hip sur-
gery.
The Lightning are that talented
with a highly skilled offense fea-
turing captain Steven Stamkos,
Brayden Point, Tyler Johnson,
Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde and
Alex Killorn, as well as an experi-
enced, playoff-tested defense an-
chored by Vezina Trophy finalist
Andrei Vasilevskiy and Conn
Smythe Trophy winner Victor
Hedman.
Equally important, general
manager Julian BriseBois said, is
the champs entered training camp
with the type of attitude required
to give themselves a chance to be-
come just the fourth team in near-
ly 30 years to win back-to-back
NHL titles.
“It’s not going to be easy. It
wasn’t going to be easy even with
Kuch in the lineup, and now it’s
more of a challenge,” BriseBois
said. “The mindset of the players
as a whole, the hunger and how ex-
cited they are to get a chance to
chase another Cup and go back to
back ... I’ve just been really struck
by how positive everyone’s mind-
set is.”
The Pittsburgh Penguins were
the last club to hoist the Cup in
consecutive seasons, winning in
2016 and 2017.
The only other teams to accom-
plish the feat in the past 30 years
were the 1990-91 and 1991-92 Pen-
guins, and the 1996-97 and 1997-98
Detroit Red Wings coached by
Scotty Bowman.
Bowman, a Hall of Famer who
won a record nine Stanley Cups as
a head coach, was also behind the
bench with the 91-92 Penguins fol-
lowing the death of Bob Johnson.
He believes it’s more difficult to
win back-to-back titles in today’s
game.
During a 15-season stretch from
1973-74 through 1987-88, Phila-
delphia won consecutive titles,
Montreal and the New York Islan-
ders each won four in a row, and
Edmonton won back-to-back
championships on two different
occasions.
“I think it’s more of the fact that
teams are more fairly equal,” said
Bowman, now a senior advisor
with the Chicago Blackhawks.
“Just a certain player or a certain
injury, something could throw you
off in the next season. How hungry
are they?”
Forward Pat Maroon joined the
Lightning last year after winning
the Cup with St. Louis the previous
season. He believes Tampa Bay
has all the components necessary
to reign again.
“I’m very confident. We’ve got
all the pieces. We’ve got the goal-
tending. We’ve got the defense-
men. We have the offensive pow-
er,” Maroon said.
Another hurdle
To repeat as champions, the
Lightning once again will have
overcome challenges presented
by the pandemic.
“It’s going to be extremely
tough, but we’re going to have to
rely on ourselves and ultimately
other teams, too,’’ said Stamkos,
who appears to be healthy again
after missing the end to the regu-
lar season and all but one game of
the playoffs because of a core
muscle injury.
“The rules are in place. Every-
thing has gone smooth so far. But
we’ve seen what can happen in the
NFL, MLB and the NBA in terms
of one guy kind of breaking the
rules and other guys have to quar-
antine or not be able to play,”
Stamkos added.
When the team won its only oth-
er Stanley Cup title in 2004, Tam-
pa Bay didn’t get a chance to de-
fend the following year because
labor strife forced cancellation of
the 2004-05 season.
CHRIS O'MEARA/AP
Mikhail Sergachev is part of Tampa Bay’s playofftested defense. The Stanley Cup champion Lightningresigned Sergachev to a threeyear, $14.4 million contract in the offseason.
Lightning embrace taskof defending Stanley Cup
BY FRED GOODALL
Associated Press 4The Tampa Bay Lightning are seekingto become only the fourth team in thepast 30 years to repeat as Stanley Cupchampion. The Pittsburgh Penguinsare the last team to do so, in 2016and 2017. The Penguins also wonback-to-back titles in 1990-91 and1991-92 and the The Detroit RedWings repeated as champs in 1996-97 and 1997-98.
Source: Associated Press
KINGMAN, Alberta — Larry
Asp grew up playing shinny, an in-
formal type of hockey, outside in
this tiny rural town he calls home
again after 40 years away. Since
returning, he also holds the keys to
the outdoor “Rink of Dreams” that
gives the 90 local residents the
chance to skate outside during the
keen Canadian winters.
Out here on the prairie an hour’s
drive southeast of Edmonton, the
ice in the former “Lutefisk Capital
of Alberta” doesn’t seem to freeze
as long as it used to, not like when
Asp was a kid. He unlocked the
doors to the rink, which in late
September was simply dirt after a
summer of hosting barrel racing
and other equestrian events, and
gazed into the wind-swept dis-
tance.
“We’re kind of at the mercy of
the elements,” said Asp, a retired
member of the Kingman Recre-
ation Association board. “In the
springtime because of the (rink’s)
white boards and the sun, it starts
melting back from the boards
pretty quickly. You’d be really
lucky if you got four months out of
it.”
After a warm fall, the rink was
back to being a rink again by mid-
December and the skating — and
the hockey — had begun. Two
hours to the southwest in the Town
of Sylvan Lake, the skating sur-
face on the 544-acre namesake
body of water opened Dec. 19 this
year for activities that last until
the melting begins, usually in mid-
March.
Pond hockey has been a tradi-
tion for generations in places like
Kingman and Sylvan Lake, across
Canada, parts of the U.S. and cold
environments around the world.
Yet winter sports are, as Asp
notes, at the mercy of the ele-
ments.
Experts say climate change is
making for shorter, freezing win-
ters and poses a threat to the very
existence of the outdoor stick and
puck games at the root of hockey.
“The climate is warming, we
are having more variability, there
is less ice coverage overall,” said
Michelle Rutty, assistant profes-
sor of faculty of environment at
the University of Waterloo in On-
tario. “It is conceivable that we
will continue to see sort of a short-
er season, so pond hockey is abso-
lutely at risk. There’s no denying
that.”
The Winter Classic, an annual
headline event on New Year’s Day
for the National Hockey League,
was put off this year because of the
pandemic. No fond memories of-
fered by players recalling how
they laced up their skates outside,
no fans bundled up in large, open-
air stadiums to watch their teams
play through whatever Mother
Nature had to offer.
A generation from now, profes-
sional players might not even have
those childhood memories.
“Everything has changed so
much that they all have access to
arenas,” said Craig Berube, the
Stanley Cup-winning coach in St.
Louis who grew up in tiny Cala-
hoo, less than two hours from
Kingman. “Everybody’s got an
arena in their town. They’re not
going on ponds and playing hock-
ey anymore.”
Where they still can play out-
doors, they do. Indoor arenas
sprung up everywhere in the
1960s and ‘70s, but Canada still
has an estimated 5,000 outdoor
hockey rinks, according to the In-
ternational Ice Hockey Federa-
tion.
Neither Hockey Canada nor the
Canadian Parks and Recreation
Association keep data on the num-
ber of youth or adult players out-
doors, though it’s an obvious and
beloved part of the country’s fab-
ric. Kingman, like scores of other
communities, has Friday night
skating parties that serve as a
gathering event. A frozen corner
of the 16-mile Sylvan Lake fea-
tures two hockey surfaces, a place
for casual skating and sometimes
even a track to get up in speed.
“This is the quintessential Can-
adian experience out there,” said
Joanne Bjornson, who has worked
for the Town of Sylvan Lake for
eight years. “Every community
has an outdoor rink to skate on or
to play a little stick and puck on.”
TOWN OF SYLVAN LAKE, ALBERTA/AP
Town residents play hockey on 544acre Sylvan Lake, Alberta.Experts predict fewer freezing days and less ice coverage in thewinter over the next several decades, suggesting it will become morechallenging to maintain hockey rinks on ponds.
Hockey traditionsskating on thin ice
BY STEPHEN WHYNO
Associated Press
PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
NFL
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The
Bills have such a wealth of depth
at receiver, Stefon Diggs found
himself playing the role of traffic
controller for quarterback Josh
Allen last weekend.
With Diggs double-covered
running a route to the left of the
end zone, he pointed to the other
side, where Isaiah McKenzie was
wide-open for a 14-yard touch-
down catch in Buffalo’s season-
ending 56-26 romp over the Mia-
mi Dolphins.
“It’s not like Josh needs me to
point at him to tell him where to
throw the ball. I’m pretty sure he
saw it,” Diggs said with a chuckle
on Wednesday. “But it’s just a
natural reaction when you see a
guy open like, ‘Hey, hey.’ ”
It’s been that way for a pass-
happy offense for much of the
season in which the Bills set a sin-
gle-season franchise record with
501 points and matched the NFL
single-season record with 13 play-
ers scoring a TD receiving, in-
cluding one by Allen.
That depth could come in
handy Saturday when the AFC
East champions (13-3) host their
first playoff game in 24 years by
facing the seventh-seeded Indi-
anapolis Colts (11-5).
Injuries are suddenly catching
up to Buffalo, with slot receiver
Cole Beasley in jeopardy of mis-
sing his second consecutive game
with a knee injury, while Diggs
(oblique) and McKenzie (ankle)
are also nicked up.
Diggs, who did not practice
Wednesday, said he’s fine. Coach
Sean McDermott did not provide
updates on McKenzie or Beasley,
who has not practiced since get-
ting hurt in a 38-9 win at New En-
gland on Dec. 28.
Though missing Beasley would
be a concern, after he finished
second on the team with 82 catch-
es and 967 yards, both career
highs, it’s somewhat mitigated by
how Allen has spread the ball to
whomever is on the field.
In a season Diggs became the
team’s first player to lead the
NFL in catches (127) and yards
receiving (1,535), the Bills had
others making significant contri-
butions.
Rookie Gabriel Davis ranked
second on the team with seven
touchdowns, followed by McKen-
zie, who scored five times on just
30 catches.
And don’t forget John Brown. A
year after leading Buffalo with 72
catches for 1,060 yards, the out-
side speedster has been limited to
just nine games because of ankle
and knee injuries and a stint on
the reserve-COVID-19 list.
On Sunday, Brown returned af-
ter missing five games to show
he’s ready to reestablish his pres-
ence with four catches for 72
yards and a touchdown in just one
half of work.
“That was something I needed
to be able to test the water and get
a good feeling and get my own
confidence back up,” Brown said
of making his first catch, a 7-yar-
der over the middle, on the Bills’
second snap from scrimmage.
Colts coach Frank Reich is fully
aware of the challenges Buffalo
presents his defense, which has
been better against the run than
the pass this season.
“They are hot, and they de-
serve the respect that we are giv-
ing them,” said Reich, a former
NFL quarterback who spent nine
seasons with the Bills, where he
served as Hall of Famer Jim Kel-
ly’s backup.
“But I also know, every team,
no matter how good they are, us
included, you can disrupt every
offense,” he added, by noting the
Kelly-led Bills had their let-
downs, too. “They are a very good
team, just like the teams we were,
but we weren’t flawless. Nobody’s
flawless.”
PHOTOS BY ADRIAN KRAUS / AP
Above: Buffalo Bills wide receiver John Brown (15) celebrates his touchdown with wide receiver StefonDiggs (14) in a 5626 defeat of the Miami Dolphins on Jan. 3. Below: Bills wide receiver Isaiah McKenziehauls in a touchdown catch against the Dolphins.
Bills’ wealth of depth atreceiver makes foes pay
BY JOHN WAWROW
Associated Press
RENTON, Wash. — Patience
can be difficult when at times ear-
lier this season racking up yards
and scoring points came so easily
for Russell Wilson and the Seattle
Seahawks.
But no team has tested Wilson’s
patience during his careermore
than the Los Angeles Rams. Or
has thrown the Seahawks quar-
terback for more sacks or given
him more headaches.
In other words, don’t expect
easy yards or easy points for Seat-
tle on Saturday when the Sea-
hawks host the Rams in the NFC
playoffs.
“I mean, they do everything
well,” Wilson said.
Just two weeks ago, the Sea-
hawks struggled through a 20-9
victory over Los Angeles. After an
ugly first half, Seattle got a couple
of big plays early in the second
half and pieced together just
enough offense to clinch the NFC
West title.
Wilson threw for 225 yards and
a touchdown and ran for another
in that victory. But he was also
sacked five times after being
sacked six times when the teams
met in November, a Seattle loss.
Throughout his career, no team
has troubled Wilson like the
Rams. He’s 8-10 against them, the
only team he has a losing record
against. His passer rating of 94.5
against Los Angeles — while still
excellent comparatively — is the
second-lowest of any team he’s
faced more than four times.
He’s also been sacked 72 times
in 18 games by the Rams, an aver-
age of four per game.
“They’ve got a great defensive
line. They’ve got really good line-
backers that can run side by side.
The DBs can really play,” Wilson
said. “They’re coached extremely
well. It’s going to be a great
matchup.”
The big plays, the easy touch-
downs that defined the first half of
the season for the Seahawks and
put Wilson in the MVP conversa-
tion have mostly dried up over the
final month of the year. Seattle’s
offense hasn’t been as much ex-
plosive as it’s been just efficient
enough. After topping 30 points in
seven of the first eight games, the
Seahawks have done that just
once during the second half of the
season.
“The thing I think that we’re
pleased with is the last couple of
weeks, going up against some
good defenses, it took us a little
while to get started, but we made
some adjustments, we did some
things,” Seattle offensive coordi-
nator Brian Schottenheimer said.
“There was never any panic, our
guys were poised. They knew that
we would sort through the is-
sues.”
In his last six games, Wilson
topped 250 yards passing only
once, a mark he achieved in seven
of the first eight games to start the
season. But during that six-game
stretch, Wilson threw only three
interceptions.
It might be boring and at times
infuriating for fans. But it’s how
Seattle views its best chances for
success, especially with a defense
playing markedly better.
“We’re going to mix our game,
do the things that we like doing,
and see if we can find a way to get
enough points to win the game.
Whatever it is, it is,” Seattle coach
Pete Carroll said.
ELAINE THOMPSON / AP
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (3) tries to fend off asack by Los Angeles Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald (99).
Wilson knows theproblems, headachesRams can present
BY TIM BOOTH
Associated Press 8-10Russell Wilson’s career record againstthe Rams, the only team he has alosing record against. His passer ratingof 94.5 against the team is his sec-ond-lowest against any team he hasfaced four or more times.
Source: Associated Press
Saturday, January 9, 2021 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23
MLB /NFL
he’s been able to do this season
without benefit of a normal offsea-
son or preseason to prepare for his
transition to a new team.
With a franchise-record 40
touchdown passes, he joined Aa-
ron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Peyton
Manning and Dan Marino as the
only quarterbacks to throw at
least 40 in multiple seasons. His
mark also tied Russell Wilson for
the second most in the league this
year behind’s Rodgers’ 48.
“When he first signed, I said,
‘OK, we’ll be a 40 (touchdown) and
10 (interception) team,’” Arians
said. “I was expecting practice, I
was expecting OTAs and those
things. What he’s done with none
of that — especially this last half of
the season — is incredible.”
Brady enters the playoffs com-
ing off throwing for 1,067 yards
and 10 touchdowns over the last
eight quarters that he played.
He rallied the Bucs from dou-
ble-digit deficits to win four times
this season and has thrown for at
least two TDs in seven consecu-
tive games.
“As a player, he really hasn’t
changed,” Gronkowski, the quar-
terback’s favorite target in New
England, said. “From the second I
first met him, he’s been all-in —
all-in with practices, all-in at
meetings, all-in trying to get better
every single day.”
In some ways, Brady has ex-
ceeded Arians’ expectations.
“His leadership is beyond any-
thing I’ve ever seen. Peyton Man-
ning is the only thing close,” said
Arians, who’s worked with Man-
ning, Ben Roethlisberger, Carson
Palmer and Andrew Luck while
establishing a reputation as a
quarterback whisperer.
“It’s a never-ending thing with
him, the perfectionist, to get ev-
erything right in practice,” Arians
added. “Also, his calmness on the
sideline in games when we’re not
winning, saying ‘We’re going to
win.’ Those type of things. You put
those in a bottle and you make a
bunch of money.”
It hasn’t been all rosy, though.
While the Bucs went 10-0
against teams that failed to make
the playoffs, they were 1-5 against
opponents that earned berths.
Brady had 10 touchdown passes
and nine interceptions in the loss-
es.
When Arians, who doesn’t sug-
arcoat his assessment of quarter-
backs, spoke publicly about Bra-
dy’s early inconsistency many
wondered if there was a rift devel-
oping between player and coach.
A four-game winning streak to
end the regular season put that no-
tion to rest.
“I feel like we have a great rela-
tionship. From the moment I got
here, we’ve just had great dia-
logue and I certainly appreciate
all the insight he gives me and the
way he coaches and leads,” Brady
said.
“It’s very open, honest dialogue
about how we think, certainly how
I can be most effective,” Brady
added. “Any questions he has, we
always have a great, open line of
communication. I really enjoy my
time getting to know him, and I
have great admiration for him as a
coach, as a man, as what he is off
the field and how he commands
and leads the team.”
Arians said there was never a
problem.
“The chemistry really started in
our first meeting. We first started
talking offensive football and then
the Tampa Bay Bucs. His excite-
ment level and my excitement lev-
el just kept growing and is still
growing,” Arians said.
“We’re still learning each and
every week the little things, the
game plans and situational foot-
ball that we talk out,” the coach
added. “The collaboration has
been awesome and like I’ve said,
it’s our job to keep him healthy,
keep him upright and let him do
his thing.”
Helm: Brady back inpostseason with BucsFROM PAGE 24
LON HORWEDEL/AP
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady sits on the benchduring a game against the Lions, Dec. 26, in Detroit.
CLEVELAND — The Indians
drafted and developed Francisco
Lindor, who blossomed into an
All-Star shortstop and one of base-
ball's best all-around players.
Cleveland chased a World Se-
ries title with him.
They'll now do it without Lindor.
Knowing they could never meet
his price, the Indians dealt the
four-time All-Star and pitcher
Carlos Carrasco to the New York
Mets, who have a new owner will-
ing to spend at baseball's highest
levels in order to get his franchise
back on top.
The cash-strapped Indians sent
Lindor and Carrasco to the Mets
on Thursday for young infielders
Andrés Giménez and Amed Rosa-
rio, and two minor league pro-
spects: right-hander Josh Wolf
and outfielder Isaiah Greene. It's a
move Cleveland hopes can keep it
competitive and capable of ending
baseball’s longest title drought.
The Indians knew this day was
coming. That didn't make it any
easier.
“They’re special people in addi-
tion to special players,” said Chris
Antonetti, the team's president of
baseball operations, adding he
cried when informing the players
they were New York bound.
"Trades like this are really, really
hard to make. But at the same
time, we feel it’s the right thing to
do for us.
“Hopefully this will be — as
painful as it is right now — a trade
that positions us to be successful
moving forward.”
Dealing Lindor, who is eligible
for free agency after the 2021 sea-
son, will cut roughly $30 million
off the Indians' payroll and allow
them to rebuild.
For the Mets, the acquisition is
another sign owner Steve Cohen
means business.
"They did not come cheaply,”
Mets president Sandy Alderson
said of Lindor and Carrasco.
“What we’re trying to do is create
a new reality rather than deal with
perception."
A billionaire hedge fund man-
ager, Cohen bought the team on
Nov. 6 from the Wilpon and Katz
families and pledged to increase
spending. One of his next big-tick-
et items figures to be trying to sign
Lindor to a long-term contract,
something the Indians couldn't do.
Lindor, who will be playing in a
far different spotlight than he ex-
perienced in Cleveland, impacts
the game with his bat, glove and
legs. A two-time Gold Glove win-
ner, he's a career .285 hitter and
averaged 29 homers, 86 RBIs and
21 steals in his six major league
seasons — all with the Indians,
who drafted him in 2011.
He's been the face of the Indi-
ans' franchise, with an infectious
smile and joy for playing that has
made him one of Cleveland's most
popular athletes. But he's gone
now, leaving the Indians without
their best player and fans grum-
bling about owner Paul Dolan.
Cleveland had run out of op-
tions. Lindor has turned down nu-
merous long-term contract offers
from the Indians, betting on him-
self and knowing he could get
more money from a major-market
team in free agency.
It may seem unfair, but Anto-
netti has long acknowledged the
Indians don't have money to throw
around.
“What we have to do is deal with
the reality of what the system is,”
he said. “In this case, we had a top
pick, got a really good player, he
developed into a star, we made
multiple attempts to try to sign
him. That didn’t happen and now
he’s transitioned to another orga-
nization. That’s just the reality of
the professional baseball land-
scape right now.”
Carrasco is one of the game's
best comeback stories, overcom-
ing leukemia to become one of the
AL's steadiest starters. The 33-
year-old righty has an 88-73 ca-
reer record with a 3.73 ERA.
Beyond his stats, Carrasco was
a team leader. But with an abun-
dance of young pitchers, including
Cy Young Award winner Shane
Bieber, the Indians were in posi-
tion to move a player of Carrasco's
caliber to fill more holes.
Carrasco can be replaced. Find-
ing someone to fill Lindor's shoes
will be much tougher.
The 25-year-old Rosario is a
good start. He was New York's pri-
mary shortstop the past three-plus
seasons, though he struggled at
the plate last year and lost playing
time to Giménez.
Big deal: Indians trade starLindor, Carrasco to Mets
BY TOM WITHERS
Associated Press
DAVID DERMER/AP
The Cleveland Indians have agreed to trade fourtime AllStar shortstop Francisco Lindor, pictured, andpitcher Carlos Carrasco to the New York Mets.
PAGE 24 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Saturday, January 9, 2021
SPORTSDodgers’ legend lost
Hall of Fame manager Lasorda diesof heart attack at 93 ›› Page 20
Mets acquire All-Star Lindor, Carrasco from Indians ›› MLB, Page 23
TAMPA, Fla.
New team, same ole Tom Brady.
The six-time Super Bowl champion
who left New England for sunny Florida
is in the playoffs for a NFL-record 18th
time in 21 years, and eager to build on an
ever-expanding legacy in his first postseason appear-
ance with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Bill Belichick and the Patriots are home watching fol-
lowing a historic two-decade run with the 43-year-old
quarterback, who’s now pumping vitality into a fran-
chise with the worst all-time winning percentage in the
four major professional sports.
Brady led New England to the Super Bowl nine times
in 20 seasons, appearing in 41 playoff games and win-
ning 30 — both records.
The Bucs, who will end a 13-year postseason drought
when they face Washington in a NFC wild-card game
Saturday night, have played 15 playoff games in the
club’s 45-season history.
“Anytime you make the playoffs, it’s a good feeling,
and it’s a good opportunity to be playing this weekend, a
privilege for any of us,” Brady said Wednesday.
“We’re a team that’s made a bunch of improvements
over the course of the year, and we have to be at our
best. That’s what this part of the season is all about,” the
three-time league MVP added. “The regular season is
what it is. You realize you put it in the books, but we’re
here to win playoff games.”
Brady left New England in free agency, signing a
two-year, $50 million contract with the Bucs, who’ve
surrounded him with an All-Star cast of playmakers
that includes receivers Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and
Antonio Brown, tight end Rob Gronkowski and running
backs Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette.
An improved defense has helped Brady continue to
defy Father Time, too.
“It’s amazing because when you’re out there watch-
ing him in practice, you’re like, ‘This guy looks like he’s
30, maybe 33 at most,’ ” coach Bruce Arians said.
“It’s just amazing watching him and the way he
works so hard at taking care of himself. That’s not easy
at 43, taking a few shots — hopefully not too many —
and moving on. ... He really is a freak of nature in that
regard.”
It’s never been Brady’s style to call attention to his
accomplishments, so he lets his play speak for what
Steady hand at the helm
Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady led the NewEngland Patriots to the Super Bowl nine times in20 seasons, appearing in 41 playoff games andwinning 30 — both records. With Brady at thehelm, the Buccaneers will end a 13yearpostseason drought when they face Washingtonin a NFC wildcard game Saturday night.
DANNY KARNIK/AP
In first season with Bucs, four-time Super Bowl MVP QB Brady has Tampa Bay in championship hunt
BY FRED GOODALL
Associated Press
NFL PLAYOFFS
SEE HELM ON PAGE 23
“His leadership is beyondanything I’ve ever seen.”
Bruce Arians
Buccaneers head coach, on quarterback Tom Brady
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