September 15, 2016

Lydia Ko tees off Thursday September 15, 2016 T: 582-7800 | F: 582-7044 www.arubatoday.com

Teen star eyes success at Evian Page 17

General Disdain

In this photo taken Sept. 3, 2014, former Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks at the State Department in Washington. Powell, in newly leaked emails, criticized both major presidential candidates, calling Donald Trump “a national disgrace” and lamenting Hillary Clinton’s attempt to equate her email practices with his.

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

In Leaked Emails, Powell Laments State of US Politics JEFF HORWITZ MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In a trove of newly leaked emails, former Secretary of State Colin Powell calls

Donald Trump “a national disgrace” and suggests his own Republican Party is “crashing and burning.”

Powell also laments Hillary Clinton’s attempt to equate her use of private

email at the State Department with his.

The emails, posted on the website DCLeaks.com and first reported by Buzzfeed News late Tuesday, offer insight into the unvarnished

opinions of the respected retired Army general who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush. wThe messages run from March 2015 through last

month.

Powell, 79, did not respond Wednesday to a phone message or email seeking comment.

Continued on Page 4

A2 UP

Thursday 15 September

FRONT

Russia urges Syrian rebels to separate from ‘terrorists’ Doctor: Israel’s SARAH EL DEEB NATALIYA VASILYEVA Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Russia said Wednesday that separating Syrian rebels from ‘ter-

reached over the weekend after marathon negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Underscoring

ance with other insurgent groups makes it difficult for the United States to target them without the danger of inflicting harm on other opposition groups.

A Russian Su-25 ground attack jet takes off at Hemeimeem Air Base in Syria. Five years of failed efforts to quell the fighting in Syria have persuaded many observers that the war may be unresolvable. But a closer look at the landscape allows a glimmer of hope that a turning point may have been reached with the truce that took effect Monday, Sept. 12, 2016.

(Russian Defense Ministry via AP)

rorists’ is a “key task” to ensure that the Russia-U.S.brokered cease-fire continues to hold in Syria, where a relative calm has prevailed since the truce went into effect two days ago.

Russian Lt. Gen. Victor Poznikhir said rebels had violated the truce 60 times since it came into force sunset Monday. For their part, opposition forces said they had recorded some 28 various violations by government troops on Tuesday.

The cease-fire deal was

the complexity of the new arrangement, the deal was not made public in its entirety even as it came into effect.

By evening Wednesday, there were no reports of major violations of the agreement, which calls on all parties to hold their fire, allowing only for airstrikes against the extremist Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

One of Syria’s most powerful factions, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham’s battlefield alli-

Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday and they agreed that “as a whole, despite sporadic reports of violence, the arrangement is holding and violence is significantly lower,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

The two diplomats also agreed to extend the current truce by another 48 hours, Toner said.

Earlier, Russia’s Poznikhir had underlined Moscow’s intention to extend the

cease-fire by 48 hours. The Syrian government has already agreed to maintain the cease-fire until Sunday.

The agreement is also to allow for humanitarian aid to reach besieged areas, with the rebel-held part of the northern city of Aleppo as a priority.

However, some 20 trucks carrying U.N aid and destined for rebel-held eastern Aleppo remained in the customs area on the border with Turkey on Wednesday “because of lack of de facto assurances of safe passage by all parties,” Jens Laerke, deputy spokesman for the U.N. office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told The Associated Press in an email.

The trucks are carrying mostly food items, and are destined for the estimated 250,000 residents of eastern Aleppo. Details of who is to distribute the aid were still being worked out.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said humanitarian aid to Syrians was being held up by a lack of security arrangements. He said he had been in touch with the Russian government, urging them to exercise influence on the Syrian government to let the trucks in, and with the Americans to get Syrian armed groups to cooperate.

Separately, Turkey sent a pair of trucks to the Syrian border town of Jarablus to deliver food and children’s toys on the third day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.q

US official says IS has lost half its territory in Iraq BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi forces aided by the U.S.led coalition have retaken half the territory the Islamic State group once held in the country, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday during a visit to Baghdad.

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken also announced $181 million to address a humanitarian crisis that has festered in Iraq despite progress on the battlefield. More than 3.3 million Iraqis remain dis-

placed from their homes due to violence, according to the United Nations.

Despite a series of major defeats in recent months, IS still controls Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Iraq hopes to launch an operation to retake Mosul this year, which U.N. and U.S. officials say could displace another 1 million people.

Blinken said the way authorities handle the potential displacement in Mosul will be an important “test

case” for lasting political reconciliation in the country. Iraq remains deeply divided, with many in the Sunni minority viewing the Shiite-led government with suspicion and ethnic Kurds in the north pursuing greater autonomy.

“The painstaking work of reconciliation and governance... will ensure that Daesh, once defeated, stays defeated,” Blinken said, using an Arabic acro-

nym for IS. The extremist group swept across northern and western Iraq in the summer of 2014, and at that time many Sunnis welcomed IS as an alternative to what they saw as the increasingly sectarian rule of then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

At the height of its power, IS ruled a self-declared caliphate stretching across a third of Iraq as well as large swathes of neighboring Syria.q

Peres showing improvement

ARON HELLER Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres’ condition was showing slight improvements after he suffered a major stroke, with his physicians saying Wednesday that he had regained consciousness and squeezed his doctor’s hand, while the nation rallied in prayer and support for the 93-year-old elder statesman and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Dr. Yitzhak Kreiss, director of the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, said Peres’ condition remained serious Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after the stroke. But he said Peres’ neurological signs were improving.

He said that Peres, who had been placed in and out of a medically induced coma, was regaining consciousness from time to time and reacting to stimulation. Peres remained on mild sedatives and a respirator, Kreiss said.

“He is slightly more aware,” he told reporters. “We are trying to reduce some of the sedation in order to evaluate him, and that’s a good sign.”

Rafi Walden, Peres’ sonin-law and personal physician, told the crowd that Peres had “responded well” when the dosage of medication was reduced.

“I am pleased to say that he understands what is being said to him, is responsive, and even warmly squeezed my hand. We are impressed by the way the state of his recognition has improved considerably in the last few hours,” Walden said.

Earlier Wednesday, Walden said there appeared to be no imminent threat to his life anymore. The question was what kind of damage was sustained and what kind of recovery he could make, Walden said.

In a phone briefing with reporters, Walden said earlier that Peres suffered a stroke in the right side of the brain and was being ventilated and sedated.q

U.S. NEWS A3

Thursday 15 September

As Suu Kyi visits, US announces lifting of Myanmar sanctions MATTHEW PENNINGTON Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Wednesday the U.S. is lifting economic sanctions and restoring trade benefits to former pariah state Myanmar as he met with Aung San Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner who is now the nation’s de facto leader.

Obama hailed a “remarkable” transformation in the country also known as Burma, which spent five decades under oppressive military rule. Suu Kyi’s party swept historic elections last November, and the visit by the 71-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, deeply respected in Washington, is a crowning occasion in the Obama administration’s support for Myanmar’s shift to democracy, which the administration views as a major foreign policy achievement.

The U.S. has eased broad economic sanctions since political reforms began five years ago and Obama has visited the country twice.

But the U.S. has retained more targeted restrictions on military-owned companies and officials and associates of the former ruling junta. U.S. companies and banks have remained leery of involvement in one of Asia’s last untapped markets.

“The United States is now prepared to lift sanctions that we have imposed on Burma for quite some time,” Obama said as he sat alongside Suu Kyi in the Oval Office. He said it was “the right thing to do” to ensure Myanmar benefits from its transition. Asked by a reporter when sanctions would be lifted, Obama said “soon.”

Suu Kyi concurred it was time to remove all the sanctions that had hurt the economy. She urged Americans to come to the country and “to make profits.”

Congressional aides said that Suu Kyi requested the removal of the national emergency with respect to Myanmar — the executive order authorizing sanctions that has been renewed an-

President Barack Obama and Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi pause before speaking to media at the conclusion of a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016.

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

nually by U.S. presidents for two decades.

The Treasury Department said that Obama’s decision will be legally effective when he issues a new executive order to terminate the emergency. A U.S. official said that 111 Myanmar individuals and companies will

be dropped from a Treasury blacklist and restrictions will be lifted on new investment with military and on the imports of rubies and jade. But penalties intended to block the drug trade and to bar military trade with NorthKorea would still apply, as would a visa ban barring

some former and current members of the military from traveling to the U.S. The official and aides spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hailed the an-

nouncement as “historic.”

But human rights groups say there are powerful reasons for retaining sanctions.

Military abuses continue in ethnic minority regions.

Rohingya Muslims remain displaced by sectarian violence and denied citizenship. The military and its associates still have huge stakes in the economy.

“Obama and Suu Kyi just took important tools out of their collective tool kit for dealing with the Burmese military, and threw them into the garbage,” said John Sifton, deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch.

It estimates the industry is worth nearly half of the nation’s economic output.

Suu Kyi addressed problems in western Rakhine state, where more than 100,000 Rohingyas remain stuck in camps, separated from Buddhists who are the majority in Myanmar.

She said everyone entitled to citizenship in Myanmar should get it.

“We are sincere in trying to bring together the different communities,” Suu Kyi said.q

A4 U.S.

Thursday 15 September

NEWS

In leaked emails, Powell calls Trump a ‘national disgrace’

Continued from front

He earlier told BuzzFeed that he does not deny the emails’ authenticity.

In the emails, Powell said he stayed relatively quiet during the rise of Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. “To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him,” Powell said.

To a former aide he writes: “No need to debate it with you now, but Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.”

Powell, a Republican, also suggests frustration with the state of the nation’s politics. “We all need to start voting for America and not our parties,” Powell writes. “Trump is taking on water. He doesn’t have a GOP philosophy or even a Conservative philosophy.

We need a revolution and it will begin with the GOP crashing and burning up its current form.”

DCLeaks.com has been

alleged to be an outlet for hackers tied to the Russian intelligence groups.

previously released emails from other Washington political figures.

intended to influence the 2016 presidential election. The FBI is investigating

In this Oct. 10, 2008, file photo, former Secretary of State Colin Powell is seen in Washington. Powell, in newly leaked emails, criticized both major presidential candidates, calling Donald Trump “a national disgrace” and lamenting Hillary Clinton’s attempt to equate her email practices with his.

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The website, which says it intends to expose the misuse of political power, has

The release of Powell’s emails is the latest in a string of leaks that appear

how thousands of Democratic National Committee emails were hacked

and released, an embarrassing breach that Clinton’s campaign maintains was committed by Russia to benefit Trump. Powell’s leaked messages include his thoughts on Clinton’s lingering email woes. He criticized Clinton aides for tying him into the controversy over the Democratic nominee’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Powell has acknowledged using a private email account with both senior U.S. officials and for backchannel communications with foreign dignitaries.

Clinton used a private email server located in the basement of her New York home. Powell wrote that he had told Clinton’s “minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try.” In another spot, he declared of Clinton that “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”q

US official: Difficult to alter US elections through hacking

ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi-

dent Barack Obama’s homeland security adviser said Wednesday that

it would be very hard for someone to hack into America’s voting systems in

a way that could alter an election outcome.

Lisa Monaco, speaking at an event commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the Justice Department’s national security division, said election systems by and large are not hooked up to the Internet and are diffusely operated by state and local governments.

“That makes it extremely disparate, extremely diffuse and, as a consequence, extremely difficult to have an effect across the board that would result in a change in results,” Monaco said during a question-and-answer session.

The bigger worry, she said, involves efforts to sow “concern or confusion” about the resilience of the system. To help counter that, the federal government is pushing out to states a set of tools, such as the ability to scan for vulnerabilities and quickly patch them, and best practices that they should apply — including encrypting their voter registration data, she said.

The comments come amid

ongoing concern about the ability by hackers from Russia or other nations to breach voting systems.

The FBI last month warned state elections officials to boost their election security in light of evidence that hackers targeted related data systems in at least two states, Illinois and Arizona.

“The efforts of malicious actors to intrude upon voter registration databases and other elements of our critical infrastructure, as well as our voting infrastructure, are of concern,” she said.

A Homeland Security Department official who is very involved in efforts to secure local elections but wasn’t authorized to speak publicly said the department was not looking at designating election systems critical infrastructure now because of how little time there is until the elections. The official said the focus has been on providing information to states on technical assistance the department can provide to secure their systems as well as existing vulnerability reports it sends out.q

U.S. NEWS A5

Thursday 15 September

Biggest street-gang trial in recent Chicago history begins place,” Beau Brindley said.

Chester, he added, had occasionally sold drugs to acquaintances. But he told jurors that police fabricated evidence about Chester being a Hobos leader.

“At the center of this case is police lies,” Brindley said.

Molly Armour, a lawyer for defendant Arnold Council, echoed that, saying government witnesses had an incentive to lie in hopes of drastically reducing sentences for their crimes.

Poe, Chester and four other co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty. If con-

This photo shows Paris Poe. Poe is one of six defendants on trial for racketeering and other charges are purported leaders of the widely feared Hobos, a South Side gang that federal prosecutors said murdered, maimed and tortured their way into control of some of Chicago’s most lucrative drug markets.

(VCTF, Chicago Division via AP)

MICHAEL TARM Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Six purported leaders of Chicago’s powerful Hobos street gang went on trial Wednesday in a case that could provide a rare look inside the kind of criminal activity fueling gun violence in the nation’s third-largest city.

A prosecutor displayed photos of killing scenes and held up assault rifles during opening statements, telling jurors the defendants murdered, maimed and tortured their way into controlling lucrative drug markets on Chicago’s South Side. The trial is the biggest of its kind in recent city history and could take up to three months. The six men charged with racketeering conspiracy were not “a group of misguided youth” but “an all-star team of the worst of the worst” who “terrorized the city,” federal prosecutor Patrick Otlewski said. He told jurors, “You will look into the eyes of murderers ... every day.”

The prosecutor began with a chilling account of how another defendant, purported Hobos hit man Paris Poe, allegedly killed government witness Keith

Daniels in 2013, shooting him around 25 times at close range while his horrified stepchildren, a 4-yearold girl and 6-year-old boy, screamed inside a car.

The family had just pulled into a parking lot after returning from Sunday dinner at a grandparent’s house, the kids still playing with toys in the back seat, when Poe emerged from behind shrubbery and started firing, Otlewski said.

Badly injured, Daniels stumbled out of the car. Poe walked up, stood over him and kept shooting, Otlewski said. As he described the slaying, the prosecutor walked toward Poe, who was sitting behind a defense table. “Who would do such a thing?” he asked and then pointed at Poe. “That man is in this courtroom ... in that blue shirt — a cold-blooded murderer.”

An attorney for alleged Hobos boss Gregory Chester told jurors the circumstances of the defendants’ lives were relevant, saying his client struggled against all odds to survive in what he called the “caldron where these men grew up without opportunities.”

“This case is about that

victed, they each face up to life in prison.

The onus is on government attorneys in a racketeering case to demonstrate a pattern of criminal behavior by the defendants within a carefully organized structure. Another defense attorney, Carl Clavelli, said the Hobos often acted haphazardly as individuals and did not meet the racketeering test.

“This is not like the mafia or the Ku Klux Klan where members come and go and the organization persists,” he told jurors.

The men’s motives for killing, the prosecutor said, fell into three categories: killing to boost their status and territory, killing over drugs and killing to eliminate those cooperating with law enforcement, like Daniels, who only days earlier had testified against the Hobos before a grand jury.

The judge ordered that jurors’ names be kept secret to ensure they are not subject to intimidation. U.S. marshals have said they are already investigating reported threats against several likely witnesses.q

A6 U.S.

Thursday 15 September

NEWS

Police: Kidnapping suspect points to remains of 3rd person ANN SANNER Associated Press ASHLAND, Ohio (AP) — A woman’s report that she was being held captive in a home led to the arrest of a kidnapping suspect, a murder confession and the discovery of the remains of three other people, authorities said.

Suspect Shawn Grate remained jailed Wednesday on an abduction charge as authorities identified one of the bodies and continued working to identify the other remains and collect evidence.

A decision on additional charges will come Thursday, the Ashland County prosecutor said.

The woman whose 911 call led to the grisly discoveries whispered to a dispatcher she was afraid of waking her captor.

“I’ve been abducted,” the woman said in the Tuesday call, begging, “Please hurry.”

Police said officers following up on the woman’s report Tuesday found her and Grate at a home that was supposed to be unoccupied. Investigators also found the remains of two

Ashland Police Department and Ohio BCI execute a search warrant on a home on Tuesday, Sept.

13, 2016, in Ashland, Ohio. Authorities say a woman reported being held captive, leading to the arrest of a kidnapping suspect, a murder confession and the discovery of three bodies. Two bodies were found Tuesday at a home in Ashland. The third was found in nearby Madison Township.

(Tom E. Puskar/The Times Gazette via AP)

people at the home, Chief David Marcelli said.

Police confirmed Wednesday that one of the bodies at the home was that of Stacey Stanley, of Greenwich, who’d been reported missing from Huron County.

Stanley’s sister had told the Mansfield News Journal she had been missing since Sept. 8 and was last seen at an Ashland gas station when she got a flat tire.

That’s several blocks from where she was found, at a rundown home that faces a coin-operated laundromat.

The house was cordoned off Wednesday with yellow police tape, and two bouquets of sunflowers were placed in front with a teddy bear and a cross with Stanley’s name and the message: “You are loved by many.”

“She’d give anybody anything,” her son Kurtis Stanley said Wednesday. “She’s a very kind-hearted woman.”

Kurtis Stanley said his mother had health problems and was retired.

Barbara Balsizer, who cleans and closes the laundromat, said she hadn’t seen lights on at the house or noticed anything suspicious.

“If I had seen anything out

of the ordinary, I would’ve called the police,” Balsizer said.

Bruce Wilkinson, pastor and director of Pump House Ministries, which owns the home and one next to it, said they had been vacant since March and were being renovated. He said they were padlocked and checked weekly.

The coroner hadn’t determined Stacey Stanley’s cause of death or identified the second body in the home, police said.

Grate pointed investigators to a third person’s remains at a property near Mansfield in neighboring Richland County, police said.

He confessed that he’d killed a woman in June at a house that was destroyed by fire that month, Richland County prosecutor Bambi Couch Page told the Mansfield News Journal.

Grate, who’s homeless, has a long criminal record and served time in prison on a burglary charge beginning in 1997, records show. He couldn’t be reached for comment while in custody Wednesday. It was unclear whether he had an attorney.q

Records: Mom solicited men to sexually assault daughter, 10 SUSAN BRYAN Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The mother of a 10-yearold New Mexico girl who was found dead and dismembered told police she looked for men online and at work to sexually assault her daughter, according to search warrants in the case.

The documents showed

Michelle Martens told police that she had set up encounters with at least three men before the girl was drugged, raped and killed last month. The Albuquerque Journal was first to report on the warrants late Tuesday.

The single mother told investigators she didn’t set up the sexual assaults for the money but did it be-

cause she enjoyed watching, according to the warrants. It’s unclear how long she had been arranging meetings before Victoria Martens’ death or if police have identified any of those men.

Police found the girl’s dismembered body inside the apartment she shared with her mother on the day she was expected to celebrate

her 10th birthday. The slaying ignited outcry and vigils.

Laura Bobbs, a local minister and spokeswoman for the family, cried when she learned about the details outlined in the search warrants.

“Jesus Christ. My poor baby, my poor baby,” she exclaimed, referring to Victoria. “She never told us this

was going on. I would ask her all the time, ‘Are you OK?’ She would tell me yes.”

Bobbs reiterated Wednesday that there were no indications from Michelle Martens or the girl that anything was wrong.

“I would see this woman every day. There were no signs. How did she hide this from us?,” she said. q

U.S. NEWS A7

Thursday 15 September

THURSDAY

APNewsBreak: Report cites lax security at mental hospital MARTHA BELLISLE Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) — Corrections officials who investigated the April escape of two violent patients from Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital say they discovered a list of mistakes, blunders and deceptions at what should be a secure facility.

Investigators tasked with assessing security at Western State Hospital determined there were no routine inspections; 25,000 master keys were missing; thousands of tools used to open patient windows had been misplaced; and management was unwilling to recognize that failing to focus on security puts patients and the public at risk, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press in response to a public records request.

The report said that attitude was the main cause of the April 6 escape by Anthony Garver, who was confined amid allegations that he tortured and killed a woman, and Mark Alexander Adams, who has multiple domestic violence convictions. Adams was caught the next day, but Garver made it across the state and was captured several days later.

Hospital CEO Cheryl Strange said the hospital had made significant safety improvements since the escapes. “Western State Hospital remains laser-focused on ensuring safety, security, active treatment, quality care and meeting the requirements set by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,” Strange said in a statement.

Strange said hospital officials would replace locks and issue new keys on all

exterior doors.

The escapes prompted Gov. Jay Inslee to order a team of experts to evaluate security at the 800-bed hospital. Their report said staff cooperated with the investigation, but hospital leaders weren’t responsive to requests for documents or open to feedback.

Inspectors said the problems they found were similar to those identified during a security assessment six years ago.

“Just as in its 2010 report, the 2016 team also found that there is a lack of awareness of the foundational role security plays in the operation of a psychiatric hospital” that houses dangerous patients, investigators said.

Garver and Adams were civilly committed to the hospital after treatment failed to restore their competency to face trial.

Garver was charged with murder in the 2013 killing of a woman who was tied to a bed and stabbed to death. Since arriving at the hospital in 2014, he was known for his violent outbursts, primarily against

A sign is shown near an entrance to Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Wash. Corrections officials who investigated the April 2016 escape of two violent patients from Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital say they discovered a list of mistakes, blunders and deceptions at what should be a secure facility.

(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

women, the report said.

The reports also said that Garver was “clearly identified to hospital leadership as an escape risk.”

The two men were housed in a ground-floor room with a window facing a busy street and bus stop. They escaped through a win-

dow that other patients had complained to staff about “for quite some time” because it was broken to the point that wind blew through the room, creating a whistling sound that disrupted their sleep, the report said.

When a security officer

went to the ward after the escape to inspect the window, maintenance staff were already repairing it and refused to stop to allow photos or an inspection, which hampered law enforcement efforts to learn what had happened, the report said.q

Officials: Arrest made in arson fire at Florida mosque TERRY SPENCER Associated Press FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A 32-year-old Florida man has been arrested and is facing a charge of arson with a hate crime enhancement in connection with a fire that heavily damaged the mosque that Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen occasionally attended, authorities announced Wednesday.

Joseph Michael Schreiber was arrested without incident Wednesday afternoon and was being interrogated by investigators probing a fire set late Sun-

day that extensively damaged the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, said Maj. David Thompson of the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.

Thompson told a news conference that Schreiber was taken into custody on a street in Fort Pierce by authorities acting on tips from members of the community and aided by surveillance video taken from the mosque and elsewhere. He said the arson charge, coupled with a hate crime enhancement under Florida law, could bring up to 30 years in prison in event of a conviction.

The fire was set late Sunday on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The blaze also coincided with the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.

Thompson said a search warrant was executed at Schreiber’s home, where investigators reported finding evidence linked to the arson, as well as anti-Islamic social media posts.

Schreiber was previously sentenced twice to state prison for theft, records.

The Florida Department of Corrections records show he served his first stretch from March 2008 to July

2009 and his second from June 2010 to August 2014.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Schreiber had an attorney.

No one was injured in the fire, which burned a 10-by10-foot hole in the roof at the back of the mosque’s main building and blackened its eaves with soot.

Mateen was killed by police after opening fire at the Pulse nightclub June 12 in a rampage that left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded.

He professed allegiance to the Islamic State group. q

A8

Thursday 15 September

WORLD NEWS

European Parliament: Polish policies are anti-democratic WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The European Parliament slammed Polish government policies as anti-democratic for the second time this year Wednesday and urged reforms by the end of next month.

But members of Poland’s conservative ruling party brushed off the parliament’s resolution as non-

binding.

They said the European Union should focus instead on such issues as the migrant crisis and Brexit.

The parliament’s vote in Strasbourg was the latest development in a standoff between Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, which is critical of many EU policies,

and EU leaders and lawmakers who insist the Polish government should adhere to the rules and values of the 28-member bloc.

The vote was 510-160 with 29 abstentions. Polish opposition leader Grzegorz Schetyna said the lopsided tally reflects widespread criticism of the government among EU nations and the

growing isolation of Poland’s ruling party, which has controlled the government, the Polish parliament and the presidency since last year.

The resolution said that the continuing judicial paralysis that has resulted from government interference with Poland’s major constitutional court and the

government’s blocking of some of the Constitutional Tribunal’s verdicts “endanger democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law in Poland.”

The European lawmakers urged Poland to solve the constitutional crisis within the three-month deadline set on July 27 by the European Commission. q

EU chief appeals for more unity in Europe rife with division RAF CASERT LORNE COOK Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — With Britain walking away and some eastern nations routinely showing open hostility, the European Union’s chief painted a bleak picture Wednesday of the bloc and implored the 27 remaining nations to stop bickering at a time when ever more people question its relevance. While the U.S. president almost invariably lauds a strong union in his State of the Union address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s annual speech to the European Parliament was rife with awkward truths.

“We should admit we have many unresolved problems,” he said, and asked an existential question about the future, if any, for the EU — “will Europe disappear from the international scene?”

After a half-century of unremitting growth, the EU has stalled, as was highlighted

by June’s shock referendum result in Britain, when it became the first member state to ever decide to leave the constantly expanding bloc.

“The facts are plain: The

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker waves to the audience prior to deliver his State of the Union address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Sept.

14, 2016. Juncker, the head of the European Union’s executive said that the EU “still does not have enough Union” and that the bloc still needs more united action to move forward in the face of widespread opposition to more centralized powers for the bloc.

(AP Photo/Jean Francois Badias)

world is getting bigger. And we are getting smaller,” Juncker said, adding that only standing together, however difficult that is, can fix the problem.

Juncker wants to reinvigorate the union from within, despite the chorus of voices criticizing the EU’s centralized decision-making and institutions.

He specifically said the EU must do more in the defense field, and no longer be overly dependent on the U.S. He said it should start with the creation of an EU military headquarters and work toward a common military force.

Britain has always staunchly defended NATO as the main military alliance and

routinely blocked attempts to bolster EU defense.

Juncker said greater defense cooperation also makes economic sense for the bloc’s member states, since it would reduce wasteful duplication of effort by individual nations, and he called for a specific defense fund before the end of the year to boost

common research projects.

Nigel Farage — a leader of the campaign for the U.K. to leave — said the speech was more of the bad old EU, of increased power-grabbing. “It is clear that no lessons are going to be learned from Brexit,” he said. “Indeed (Juncker’s speech) was the usual recipe — more Europe, in this particular case, more military Europe.”

Last year, Juncker drew up an obligatory scheme for member states to share 160,000 refugees in Greece and Italy and any other overwhelmed country among their EU partners.

Slovakia and others have refused to take part. Hungary even launched a legal challenge.

One year on, fewer than 5,000 refugees have been moved and on Wednesday, Juncker acknowledged his power had met its match. Instead of obligatory, he said, “solidarity must be voluntary, must come from the heart.”

It cuts to the core of the power struggle within the EU, as the 27 EU leaders, minus Britain’s Theresa May, meet in Bratislava on Friday, looking for ways to move forward.q

French, German ministers in Ukraine to revive peace deal MOSCOW (AP) — French and German foreign ministers visited Ukraine Wednesday in a bid to shore up a 2015 peace deal that has floundered amid continuing fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Jean-Marc Ayrault and Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko to discuss ways to secure a

durable cease-fire and implement the political provisions of the Minsk agreement, which was brokered

by France and Germany.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russianbacked separatist rebels and Ukrainian government troops has killed more than 9,500 people since it began in April 2014.

The February 2015 deal

helped end large-scale battles, but smaller clashes have continued to claim lives and a political settlement has stalled.

Separatist rebels on Tuesday declared a unilateral cease-fire, and Steinmeier said at a news conference that Ukraine agreed to observe the truce starting midnight Wednesday, according to Interfax. He

added that if the ceasefire holds, it would create conditions for pulling back the conflicting sides’ troops from several areas.

Ayrault said that securing the truce and pulling back troops should help set the ground for the next phase of the settlement, in which the Ukrainian parliament would adopt constitutional changes giving a special

status to the rebel regions and call elections there, Interfax said.

The Minsk deal envisaged that Ukraine gets back control of the rebellious regions’ border with Russia, widely seen as a conduit for weapons, after granting them broad autonomy and holding local elections there.q

WORLD NEWS A9

Thursday 15 September

Munich ramps up Oktoberfest security after summer attacks DAVID RISING Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Munich authorities are ramping up security precautions for this year’s Oktoberfest to reassure the millions of visitors expected to attend the event starting Saturday after Bavaria suffered three attacks in a week this summer.

Deputy Police Chief Werner Feiler told reporters Wednesday that the festival’s approximately 30-hectare (75-acre) venue will be fenced to ensure all visitors go through security controls and the grounds will be monitored by multiple video cameras.

In addition, backpacks and large bags will be banned and additional officers will be on hand, Feiler said.

Though there is a “high abstract danger” of an attack at the 17-day festival, which is expected to draw 6 million visitors to the Bavarian capital, the deputy chief said authorities are unaware of any concrete security threats.

“Every visitor can feel secure at Oktoberfest,” he

said, adding that authorities would make the security measures as unobtrusive as possible so as not to impinge upon participants’ fun.

Bavaria was shaken this summer by three attacks in a week. Two were carried out by asylum-seekers and claimed by the Islamic State group; several people were wounded, but only the attackers were killed.

In an unrelated incident, a teenager fatally shot nine people at a Munich mall before killing himself.

Bavaria’s top security official, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, told The Associated Press there remains today a “fundamentally high risk of terror attacks in Germany overall.”

“We don’t see any special risk for Oktoberfest, but it’s clear such an internationally known festival would naturally be a possible attack target,” Herrmann said.

The festival, which dates back to 1810, boasts 14 festival halls this year where visitors will be able to foist

Employees prepare a sign at the main entrance of the ‘Theresienwiese’, the area of the Oktoberfest, in Munich, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. Authorities are stepping up security for this year’s Oktoberfest, which is expected to draw 6 million visitors in the Bavarian capital. The world’s largest beer festival will be held from Sept. 17 to Oct. 3, 2016.

(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

liter-sized steins of special Oktoberfest beer brewed by the six major Munich breweries.

During times of peak attendance, Munich police plan to have some 600 officers on hand, about 100 more than last year. An-

other 450 security guards will be checking bags and performing other tasks. The number of security cameras has been raised to 29 from 19.

Given the size of Oktoberfest — on some days as many 600,000 visitors turn

up — the atmosphere is generally friendly and the number of disruptive incidents few.

In the only major attack, a far-right extremist set off a bomb killing 12 people and himself in 1980, wounding more than 200.q

France arrests 3 minors in a week in counterterror offensive THOMAS ADAMSON ELAINE GANLEY Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French counterterrorism police arrested a 15-year old boy on Wednesday following two recent thwarted attacks, marking the third such arrest of a 15-year-old in a week.

A security official said the suspect was arrested in northeastern Paris and turned 15 only a few days ago. In a separate case, a 15-year-old was arrested last Thursday on suspicion

he was about to carry out a knife attack, a judicial official said on Wednesday. Yet another 15-yearold was arrested Saturday on suspicion of planning something similar.

The two officials were not authorized to speak publicly about the cases and demanded to remain anonymous. It was unclear if the three boys knew each other, in real life or online.

However, officials are investigating if a potential link could be Rachid Kassim, who they say is a French Is-

lamic State member tied to at least four plots to attack France since June.

The boy arrested on Wednesday has links to Kassim, according to the security official, while the judicial official said investigators were trying to verify whether the boys arrested Saturday and Thursday also had links to the jihadi.

The boy arrested on Thursday in Rueil-Malmaison, west of Paris, was handed a preliminary charge three days later of criminal terrorist association, the ju-

dicial official said. Investigators were also trying to verify whether he had links to Adel Kermiche, one of two young men who slit the throat of a priest as he said Mass in a church in Normandy in June.

Kassim’s precise role is under investigation, but he is believed to have become a key instigator who directs recruits in encrypted forums on how and where to carry out the Islamic State group’s call for European Muslims to strike at home.

Most recently, he was be-

lieved to be in contact with a 19-year-old in an unprecedented cell of French women who failed in their attempts to detonate a car bomb near Notre Dame Cathedral and kill police.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that Wednesday’s arrest was part of French authorities’ efforts to target people vulnerable to “calls to carry out killings, led by a certain number of actors in Syria.”

But he didn’t elaborate on any direct links between the boy and the IS group.q

A10 WORLD

Thursday 15 September

NEWS

Prosecutors: Brazil’s Silva ‘commander’ of graft scheme M. SAVARESE P. PRENGAMAN Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian investigators on Wednesday charged former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with money laundering and corruption, calling him the “maximum commander” of the mammoth graft scandal roiling Latin America’s largest nation.

While the charges against Silva were expected — police recommended them last month — the characterization of his role in the kickback scheme at state oil company Petrobras was stunning.

The so-called Car Wash investigation the last two years has led to the jailing of dozens of businessmen and top politicians. While Silva, president between 2003 and 2010, has long been implicated, before Wednesday prosecutors had never said that he was anything more than a beneficiary.

Silva was “the maximum commander of the corruption scheme identified as Car Wash” Deltan Dallagnol, head of the task force investigating, said during a

televised news conference from the southern city of Curitiba.

“We are not judging here

scheme going back more than a decade. He said prosecutors could show that Silva had met at key

va, who left the presidency with very high approval ratings, used a network of illegal campaign financing

Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a trial in Brasilia, Brazil. Federal investigators charged Lula with money laundering and corruption on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016 in connection with a sprawling corruption investigation at state-run oil giant Petrobras.

(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

who (Silva) is or was as a person, but what he did or didn’t do to the people,” Dallagnol said.

Dallagnol put up diagrams that purported to show Silva’s connection to various players in the kickback

times with people involved in the scheme, such as Marcelo Odebrecht, the former president of the big Odebrecht construction company who has been jailed.

Dallagnol alleged that Sil-

and kickbacks for political support in Congress.

Silva’s lawyer, Cristiano Zanin Martins, blasted Dallagnol, saying he had shown himself unfit for the job.

“His political behavior is incompatible with the role of

Mercosur gives Venezuela December 1 deadline ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — The four original nations of South America’s Mercosur trading bloc announced Tuesday that they are giving Venezuela until Dec. 1 to comply with its commitments when it joined in 2012 that it would comply with all the group’s requirements.

Brazil’s foreign minister tweeted that Venezuela would be suspended from the group if it failed to meet

the deadline.

The ultimatum was contained in a statement from Mercosur founders Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay that was released by the Foreign Ministry of Paraguay, where the group has its headquarters.

The statement gave no details about the requirements that Venezuela had not met.

But Paraguayan Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga re-

cently said that among the things Venezuela needed to do was protect human rights and enact a law guaranteeing free movement of citizens of the member nations. He also said Venezuela was not allowing opposition groups to protest freely.

On Twitter, Brazilian Foreign Minister Jose Serra said the group would suspend Venezuela as a member if the group’s demand is not met.

He also said that the four countries agreed that Venezuela would not take over the bloc’s rotating presidency as scheduled and instead Mercosur will be presided over by a commission of one member each from the four founding states.

Mercosur took in Venezuela as a member in an effort to link the region’s most powerful agricultural and energy markets.q

a federal prosecutor,” said Martins.

Despite a litany of accusations against Silva, there were only two actual charges: money laundering and corruption.

Silva, his wife and five others were accused of illegally benefiting from renovations at a beachfront apartment in the coastal city of Guaruja in Sao Paulo state. The improvements, valued at about $750,000, were made by construction company OAS, one of those involved in the kickback scheme emanating from Petrobras.

Prosecutors also believe Silva benefited from OAS paying the rent of storage unit to house symbolic gifts that Silva received while president.

Silva acknowledges having visited the penthouse but says he never owned it.

Sergio Moro, the judge overseeing the probe, must now decide whether Silva will stand trial.

In a separate case related to Petrobras, Silva will go on trial on charges of obstruction of justice.

While his Workers’ Party has lost much support amid corruption scandals in recent years, Silva continues to enjoy popularity nationwide and has signaled his intention to run for president in 2018.

The yawning gap between the verbal accusations Wednesday and what Silva was accused of raised many questions about the future of the investigation.

Silva, who denies wrongdoing, has long been trying to get the cases against him removed from the jurisdiction of Moro, who has become famous for locking up prominent figures the last two years. q

WORLD NEWS A11

Thursday 15 September

A Colombian general’s journey to peace with rebels CESAR GARCIA JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — For 40 years, army Gen. Javier Florez battled the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Now his mission is to make sure thousands of the rebels are safe as they disarm and return to civilian life under a historic peace deal.

It’s an improbable journey that Florez says has forced him to alter his soldier’s perspective as the country undergoes profound changes after more than five decades of conflict.

“There are situations as a soldier that you don’t understand,” Florez told The Associated Press in an interview Monday, describing his shift from one of the FARC’s most feared military adversaries to one of its most trusted government confidants.

The transformation began when President Juan Manuel Santos two years ago asked Florez to give up his position as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the armed forces’ No. 2 position. He wanted the general to negotiate faceto-face with the FARC on how 6,000 guerrilla fighters would turn over their weapons and reintegrate into civilian life.

The 59-year-old Florez said he sweated making his decision. At that point, peace negotiations were dragging into their third year and many in the U.S.-backed military questioned whether years of hard work driving the rebels to the edges of the jungles would be undone by a piece of paper.

Between three coffees and a cigarette, or maybe three cigarettes and a coffee, Florez jokes, he

thought about the political vortex into which he was plunging his family.

“I thought they would call me a traitor, as in fact happened,” he said, recalling the attacks on social media he suffered from retired officers and conservative opponents of Santos’ peace effort.

The sacrifice appears to have paid off. Last month, Santos and the FARC announced they had reached a deal to stop fighting. In the coming weeks, the accord will be signed at a ceremony and then voters are expected to ratify it in a nationwide referendum.

The cease-fire component negotiated by Florez sets out a detailed protocol by which the FARC will mobilize its troops to 28 rural areas across Colombia and over six months gradually turn over their weapons to a United Nations-led mission of international observers.

Key to the accord, Florez said, was guaranteeing the FARC will be treated with dignity and not as a surrendering force despite the widespread contempt many Colombians hold for the group over its past involvement in drug trafficking, kidnapping and bombing of civilian targets.

That was something he struggled with the night before his first meeting in

In this 2014 photo, the new Colombian armed forces commander Gen. Juan Pablo Rodriguez, right, talks to newly appointed chief of staff Gen. Javier Florez, left, and army commander Gen. Jaime Lasprilla, center, in Bogota, Colombia. After battling the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia for 40 years, Gen. Florez’s mission is now to ensure that thousands of the guerrillas safely disarm before returning to civilian life under a historic peace deal reached in 2016.

(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Cuba with a rebel known as Carlos Antonio Lozada, a warlord Florez had personally hunted years before as head of the military’s elite Omega forces.

He said two fellow generals who were on the government’s negotiating team from the outset, former police chief Oscar Naranjo and former military chief Jorge Enrique Mora, gave him a last-minute pep talk that prepared him for what would become the toughest mission of his life.

“They calmed me down,

making me understand that I wasn’t just representing the armed forces but something bigger: the Colombian people,” Florez recalled.

Over coffee breaks and leisurely walks at the convention center in Havana where talks took place, he began to understand that Lozada faced many of the same pressures from inside the FARC not to cede too much to the government.

By the end, enough trust had been built up that Florez recently toured with

Lozada a guerrilla camp where he would have been a trophy prisoner not long ago.

Under the deal, both rebels and soldiers who committed abuses in the line of duty will have to confess their crimes to special peace tribunals or face up to 20 years in prison. That grates on some conservative critics, who say putting professional soldiers before the same courts that will judge rebels who systematically subverted the rule of law is a humiliation.q

Venezuela:

Government, opponents resume talks amid stalemate

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s opposition and the government have held backdoor negotiations as the two sides retrench in their positions for and against a referendum on cutting short President Nicolas Maduro’s term.

Opposition leaders said Tuesday that the two private meetings with government officials took place in recent days. The Democratic Unity alliance issued a statement accusing Maduro of trying to “dynamite” the mediation effort

after government representatives failed to show up for a third meeting without explanation.

It’s unclear what was discussed, but the opposition said it’s not yielding on its demand that a recall referendum be held this year

and called for a march Friday.

Maduro also confirmed the talks.

The Union of South American Nations has been trying to activate dialogue between the two sides, so far with little success.q

A12 WORLD

Thursday 15 September

NEWS

Cuba dissident says duped into ending hunger strike M. WEISSENSTEIN A. RODRIGUEZ Associated Press HAVANA (AP) — Guillermo “Coco” Farinas became one of Cuba’s best-known dissidents by starving himself — launching two dozen hunger strikes demanding government concessions on human rights.

He started his 25th strike in late July with the demand that President Raul Castro halt what Farinas called the worsening repression of dissidents since Cuba and the United States declared detente in December 2014.

As the strike entered its second month, the dissident’s backers claimed he was close to death.

On Monday those worries evaporated. Farinas announced he was ending his protest because the European Parliament had just voted to link improved ties with Cuba and progress on human rights. Also on the table: naming Farinas a special parliamentary adviser on civil society on the island.

The only problem: Not a word of it was true.

The “Farinas Amendment” was the creation of a faked website that masqueraded as the blog of the European Parliament for nearly a week, issuing reports widely distributed by anti-Castro Spanishlanguage media including the U.S. government-funded Marti news network.

“It’s really weird,” said Kristof Kleemann, the chief of staff for German member of parliament Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, whom the bogus site described as the sponsor of the “Farinas Amendment.”

‘’Our people tell us that the website that published this article, that this website is a fake website.”

Farinas charged that the site was a dirty trick by the

with European diplomats based in Havana but did not check Monday’s report with them before declaring an end to the strike, according to Jorge Luis

and drinking away from the public eye.

“There’s no precedent for Cuban authorities publishing false information of this type or imitating es-

In this 2013 photo, Cuban dissident Guillermo “Coco” Farinas appears at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France. Farinas said he was fooled into ending a nearly two-month hunger strike Monday, Sept. 12, 2016, by a faked website that masqueraded as the blog of the European Parliament.

(AP Photo/Christian Lutz)

Cuban government aimed at fooling him into ending a protest that was drawing too much attention.

There’s no public evidence of a tie to the Cuban government or, indeed, anyone else. Because it was hosted on WordPress, a widely used blogging platform, the page’s individual registration is impossible for the public to trace.

“Creating this page was an act of espionage,” Farinas said. “They were under pressure from the hunger strike and the possibility of my dying and they created a fake page so that I would stop.”

Farinas and his camp frequently speak directly

Artiles, a dissident from the central city of Santa Clara who has served as Farinas’ spokesman during much of the protest. Artiles said Farinas’ camp had learned of the report in a call from backers in Miami. He declined to provide further details.

The Cuban government did not respond to a request for comment, but it has long accused Farinas and fellow dissidents of being charlatans focused on winning support from anti-Castro exiles in South Florida. Hunger strikes have been the target of particular skepticism, with government backers accusing strikers of secretly eating

tablished institutions as we see in this case,” said Iroel Sanchez, a Havana opinion columnist and blogger with close ties to the Cuban government. “Mr. Farinas himself has been a systematic source of false information about himself and his ‘activism’ for profit, inventing all sorts of myths.”

Artiles said Farinas had been on a total “hunger and thirst” strike at home but was given intravenous nutrition and hydration after he was rushed unconscious to the hospital five times during his strike.

Farinas said the discovery that the report was fake would not cause him to restart his protest.q

Son from elite family sent to prison in Haiti for kidnapping PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A man from a wealthy Haitian family has been convicted of running a kidnapping ring that preyed on other members of the elite in this impoverished country.

Clifford Brandt, who briefly escaped during a mass jail uprising in 2014, was

convicted of charges that included kidnapping and sentenced to 18 years of hard labor at a hearing Tuesday before an investigative judge in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Judge Jeudilien Fanfan Joseph also convicted two co-defendants, Ricot Pierre-Val, who sentenced to 18 years,

and Carlo Bendel SaintFort, who got a 19-year sentence. He found two others not guilty and ordered their immediate release.

Brandt, 45, was first jailed in 2012 for allegedly kidnapping two adult children of another wealthy family and demanding a ransom of $2.5 million. A 2012 re-

port from Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network alleged that Brandt was the leader of a kidnapping gang that had at least 13 victims. He escaped from a maximum-security lockup in a mass breakout in 2014 but was recaptured a couple of days later near the Dominican border.q

Dominican woman classified as man in Miami prison suing EZEQUIEL LOPEZ Associated Press SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — A Dominican woman who says she was wrongly classified as a man and held with male inmates for 10 hours in a Miami prison filed a U.S. federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging negligence and civil rights violations.

The filing comes three years after Fiordaliza Pichardo was arrested at Miami’s international airport on what attorneys say was a decades-old drug trafficking charge that was later dismissed.

The $5 million suit names the Miami-Dade Corrections Department as a defendant.

Pichardo’s lawyers say she was initially booked as a female at the Metro West Detention Center but medical staff examined her and reclassified her as a man because they determined she had “non-traditional male characteristics.” Lawyers say Pichardo was then placed with 40 male inmates in an open cell where she was allegedly taunted and sexually harassed.

Miami-Dade Corrections spokeswoman Chandra Gavin said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

Pichardo, who is married and has three children, was 50 years old at the time of the incident in November 2013.

“She was humiliated,” attorney David Kubiliun told The Associated Press.

“The officials acted with deliberate indifference by failing to protect her rights.”

Kubiliun said he did not know what the prison’s medical staff meant by “non-traditional male characteristics.”

“We believe that those words were used as a cover-up to their unlawful actions,” he said. “We are in the process of finding out what those motivations were.”q

LOCAL A13

Thursday 15 September

The First Workshop of Top Chef Pablo Ranea a Big Hit!

SEROE BLANCO - The first workshop that top chef Pablo Ranea from Argentina taught last Tuesday morning was a big hit. Twenty-five EPI students looked on closely when the chef from Mendoza presented Latin American techniques for making two recipes: ceviche and skirt steak empanadas, authentic Argentinian style.

The workshop lasted 1.5

hours and was most interesting. Chef Pablo is on Aruba not only to teach workshops, but also for a Pop-Up Charity Luncheon and a Pop-Up Charity Dinner. The locations are Tango Argentine Grill at the Arawak Garden and Hadicurari Restaurant; the proceeds of both events will go to SABA, the foundation for the homes of the elderly.q

A14 LOCAL

Thursday 15 September

Loyal Visitors Honored at the Aruba Beach Club PALM BEACH - Recently the Aruba Tourism Authority had the great pleasure of honoring a group of loyal and friendly Visitors of Aruba, at the Aruba Beach Club, as Distinguished Visitors and Emerald Ambassadors. The symbolic honorary titles are presented in the name of the Minister of Tourism as a token of appreciation to guests who visit Aruba for 10-to-19 and 35-and-more consecutive years. The honorees for Distinguished Visitors were Mr. Joseph and Ms. April Shewchuk of New Jersey, and Mr. Leonel and Mrs. Gladys Zerpa and their daughters Ms. Leonella and Ms. Lorena Zerpa of Valencia, Spain.

The honorees for Emerald Ambassadors were Gus-

tavo Añon and Ynecel Obando, Roberto and Silvia de Biase, and Domingo and Mercedes Añon, all from Caracas, Venezuela.

All the honorees are loyal members of the Aruba Beach Club, and they love Aruba very much because of the friendly people, the climate, beaches, restaurants and the safety. They

say Aruba feels like a second home, the employees at the Aruba Beach Club are like a family to them and the resort is their home away from home. The certificates were presented by Ms. Marouska Heyliger representing the Aruba Tourism Authority together with associates from the Aruba Beach Club.q

LOCAL A15

Thursday 15 September

14-Year-Old Esha From Aruba Makes Music Her Therapy ORANJESTAD – Esha Alwani, a 14 year old from Aruba, who writes beautiful lyrics and composes her own songs, made a generous donation to Fundacion Autismo Aruba just recently.

In April, Esha performed at the Best of Aruba Awards, where her CDs were on sale, and she decided to donate the proceeds from the event to Fundacion Autismo Aruba, giving back to the beautiful island that raised her. Her debut EP ‘Beautiful’ is now available for purchase on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, CD Baby, and can be streamed on Spotify as well.

Though born and raised in Aruba, Esha has family in India and her visits to India combined with her island heritage infused her music with a culturally diverse flavor and empowered her lyrics with a global concern that connects to a broad audience.

Esha began writing songs when she was only six. “Because of my Tourette’s,” she explains,” I was having challenges making friends.

I thought that the best way for people to understand

my issues was through my music.”

In her personal life, Esha struggles with Tourette’s syndrome and the uncontrolled movements associated with the disorder.

These days, she’s learned to manage her challenge and isn’t letting anything slow her down as she pursues a career in music.

“I’ve found a way to cope through songwriting,” she

says. “When you find something that you really love and put effort and time into it, it can have a positive impact on all areas of your life. You can get so lost in what you love doing that it’s easy to forget about your problems. My advice to others dealing with challenges is to find what you love and let it save you. My songs helped me overcome my worst struggles. I’d heard stories of people who had disorders like Tourette syndrome, and could not be cured. I’ve had business people, college graduates, and even some doctors ask me ‘What is Tourette Syndrome?’ This is what pushed me to tell my parents that I wanted to create a CD in order to spread awareness to that disorder other similar ones.”

Esha created a Facebook page with the message ‘Music is My Therapy’, where she now shares her story and her music.q

A16 LOCAL

Thursday 15 September

Caribbean Leaders to Convene in Saint Lucia for Conservation Meetings

CASTRIES, SAINT LUCIA Next week, Caribbean leaders from up to 15 nations, including Ministers and other government officials, private sector and civil society, will convene in Saint Lucia for a five-day event to advance regional marine conservation goals, sustainable finance strategies and cooperation in the Caribbean.

The Fourth Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) Annual Meeting and the First Meeting of the Caribbean Challenge Initiative (CCI) Council will be held in Castries from September 19-23, 2016 and will be attended by nearly 80 Caribbean and international participants.

The Caribbean Challenge Initiative (CCI) is a coalition of governments, companies and partners committed to protecting twenty percent of the Caribbean marine and costal environment by 2020 through

the establishment of marine protected areas, other conservation initiatives,

dowment fund of US $42 million contributed by the German Government

and increased corporate responsibility. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) has partnered with the CCI to provide the financial framework to sustainably fund the effective management of the Caribbean marine environment.

The CBF is a regional en-

through the German Development Bank (KfW), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through World Bank (WB) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

CBF provides an innovative financial solution to bridge the funding gap for envi-

ronmental initiatives. The CBF, together with an initial set of eight national conservation funds, form the Caribbean Sustainable Finance Architecture.

Through the CBF, funding will be available for conservation activities from mangrove restoration to managing some of the region’s marine protected areas. CCI and CBF participating jurisdictions include Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Grenada, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the US Virgin Islands, a list which may grow during the course of next week’s meetings.

The CBF regional funds will be distributed through recently established National Conservation Trusts on participating islands. The Trusts have to raise their own funding locally, but double

their resources and impact by receiving a dollar from the CBF for every dollar raised nationally.

“Environmental degradation in the Caribbean is serious. The CCI and CBF are bringing multiple actors to the table to take down barriers, collaborate and advance conservation actions that are meaningful for our Caribbean livelihoods and national economies,” says Yabanex Batista, CBF Chief Executive Officer. The meetings mark a historic moment for Caribbean collaboration, both inter-governmental as well as through growing partnerships with the tourism industry and non-governmental organizations.

Throughout the week, attendees will analyze challenges, determine solutions, share successes, and develop a strategic plan for achieving sustainable conservation goals on the path to 2020 and beyond.q

SPORTS A17

Thursday 15 September

In this Sept. 1, 2016, file photo, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones poses in Arlington, Texas.

Associated Press

TEEN SPIRIT

Forbes: Cowboys worth $4.2B, most valuable team in NFL NEW YORK (AP) — Not only are the Dallas Cowboys the most valuable team in the NFL, they are worth more than any franchise in sports.

Forbes’ NFL valuations show the Cowboys worth $4.2 billion, easily topping the league for the 10th straight year. Next closest are the New England Patriots at $3.4 billion.

Earlier this year, Forbes cited Jerry Jones’ team as the world’s most valuable franchise.

Dallas has $700 million in revenues and $300 million in operating income.

The average NFL team is worth $2.34 billion, a 19 percent increase over last year. That increase is primarily due to more rights fees for Thursday night games, the Rams’ relocation from St. Louis to Los Angeles, the Vikings moving into their new stadium in Minneapolis and the Atlanta Falcons nearing completion of their new stadium.Stan Kroenke’s Rams made the biggest change in value, up 100 percent.

Team values are determined by equity plus net debt and based on each team’s current stadium (with adjustments for pending new stadiums and renovations). q

Ko holds vivid memories heading into Evian Championship

Lydia Ko, of New Zealand, tees off from the 18th tee at the Manulife LPGA Classic golf tournament, in Cambridge, Ontario, on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016.

Associated Press Page 19

A18 SPORTS

Thursday 15 September

Dolphins know they need to improve in AFC East play ANDY KENT Associated Press DAVIE, Fla. (AP) — To become a playoff contender, the Miami Dolphins know they need to fare better within their division.

Their first chance at that this season comes Sunday at New England, a place where Miami hasn’t won in eight years. And if that trend holds on Sunday, the Dolphins will already be two games back in the AFC East. “You have to play well for 60 minutes,” Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “I think that’s the biggest key for us and probably the part where we’ve failed in the past. We’ve had good halves there, but just haven’t put a full game together up there.”

The Dolphins were 1-5 in division games last season. Only San Diego had a worse division record.

The Dolphins haven’t finished a division schedule with a better-than-.500 record since 2009, and have lost 23 of their past 36 games against AFC East

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (3) passes against the Miami Dolphins in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, in Seattle.

Associated Press

opponents.

The last time Miami won at New England was 2008 — when Tom Brady wasn’t playing. Brady will be missing again on Sunday, serving the second game of his four-game suspension and leaving the Patriots offense

again in the hands of Jimmy Garoppolo, who won his opener at Arizona.

“He doesn’t want to go out there and make any mistakes and he went out there and accomplished that, in my opinion,” Dolphins defensive lineman

Ndamukong Suh said.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why they came out with a win. At the end of the day, we have to make sure we go in there and get him rattled.”

Playing before a raucous crowd in Seattle didn’t

seem to bother the Dolphins, who were leading late before losing 12-10.

If nothing else, Seattle may have provided a taste of what Miami will face at Foxborough on Sunday.

“They’re both tough places to play and when you go up there you better bring your ‘A’ game,” Dolphins coach Adam Gase said.

NOTES: A day after placing DT Earl Mitchell (calf) on injured reserve and signing LB Donald Butler, the Dolphins re-signed DT Chris Jones and waived rookie QB Brandon Doughty. ... RB Arian Foster didn’t practice Wednesday and that may become a weekly occurrence, part of his maintenance after recovering from a torn Achilles. “I don’t think he really is a guy that needs contact more than what he’s going to get on Sunday,” Gase said. ... In addition to Foster, C Mike Pouncey (hip), DE Mario Williams (concussion), DT Jordan Phillips (ankle) and LB Jelani Jenkins (knee) did not practice.q

Chicago tops Minnesota in overtime in WNBA The Associated Press ROSEMONT, Illinois (AP) — Courtney Vandersloot hit two free throws to force overtime and Cappie Pondexter made a go-ahead layup with 21.3 seconds left to help the Chicago Sky beat the league-leading Minnesota Lynx 98-97 on Tuesday in the WNBA. Chicago played without the reigning Most Valuable Player Elena Delle Donne, who had surgery Tuesday to repair her injured right thumb.

The Sky moved a game ahead of the Indiana Fe-

ver into fourth place in the WNBA standings, which would give it a first-round bye in the upcoming playoffs. Minnesota remains a 1½ games ahead of Los Angeles for the top seed in the Western Conference.

Indiana, meanwhile, fell to Connecticut 89-87 after Shenise Johnson’s 3-pointer from the corner bounced off the rim with 17.9 seconds left.

Jasmine Thomas scored 21 points for the Sun, who rallied from an 11-point deficit in the third quarter.

Washington kept its slim

playoff hopes alive with a 75-62 win over New York.

Stefanie Dolson scored a career-high 23 points and Tierra Ruffin-Pratt had a season-best 19 for the Mystics, who need to win their final two games and get some help to make the playoffs.

San Antonio ended a sixgame losing streak with a 71-67 win over Atlanta. Astou Ndour scored a careerhigh 20 points for the Stars.

And Nneka Ogwumike had 24 points and 10 rebounds to lead Los Angeles to a 9085 victory over Phoenix.q

Chicago Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot (22) steals the ball from Minnesota Lynx guard Renee Montgomery (21) during the first half of their WNBA basketball game at the Allstate Arena, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Rosemont, Ill. Associated Press

SPORTS A19

Thursday 15 September

Teen star Lydia Ko eyes success at Evian and 3rd major title

Lydia Ko, of New Zealand, watches her shot from the 18th tee at the Manulife LPGA Classic golf tournament, in Cambridge, Ontario, on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016.

Associated Press

JEROME PUGMIRE AP Sports Writer EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP) — Defending champion Lydia Ko starts her bid for a third major title by the age of 19 at the Evian Championship, the final major of the season.

But it will be hard to match her performance last year, let alone improve it.

She became the youngest major champion in LPGA history with her six-shot triumph, sinking a 15-foot birdie putt to close with a final-round 63 for an LPGA record low last round by a winner at a major.

“A lot of memories of walking down the 18th on that last day,” Ko said Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s opening round. “It was so much more than I could have ever imagined.”

Since then, the South-Korean born New Zealander has picked up five more titles, including a second major at the ANA Inspiration in April. She also came back from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics with a silver medal, finishing behind

South Korean Inbee Park.

Ko truly announced her arrival on the biggest stage as a 16-year-old when she finished second in Evian in 2013 — the year it became the fifth major in women’s golf.

Tipped as a future great in her mid-teens, she was already the youngest winner on the Tour after winning the 2012 Canadian Women’s Open.

There has been no stopping her, and last year she became the youngest woman or man to be ranked No. 1.

As well as clinching a third major, Ko has another target in mind. She hopes to win the third edition of the Rolex Annika Major Award, which rewards the player with the best combined record at all five majors and is named after 10-time major winner Annika Sorenstam.

“It would mean so much,” Ko said. “Without players like her, there might not be a Tour like it is today.”

American Michelle Wie won it in 2014 and Park was last year’s winner.

Also in contention this year are women’s PGA champion Brooke Henderson, U.S. Open winner Brittany Lang, and British Open champion Ariya Jutanugarn.

Ko and the 20-year-old Jutanugarn will clinch the trophy with a win. They are also competing for the Rolex Player of the Year award, which is shaping up as a two-way race between them.

Ko is just five points ahead of Jutanugarn, while Henderson sits is third place — although the 19-year-old Canadian is a long way back.

“To me it’s very cool. It’s been like this when we were juniors because we played together, Lydia used to be No. 1, I’m second, and Brooke used to play really good,” Jutanugarn said.

“To me it’s just like junior golf again — but we’re professionals and we can have fun and make some money, so that’s more fun.”

Jutanugarn leads the LPGA Tour with five wins this year, and all of those have been won without using a driver.

“I tried to hit driver on Monday, but I’m not really comfortable because this course is really narrow,” she said. “So, no driver this week.”

China’s Shanshan Feng, who placed third here last year, will be in confident mood after her bronze medal at the Rio Olympics.

She was stunned by her reception when she returned to China.

“When I landed in Guangzhou it was surprising kind of because there were more than 100 people waiting for me, and that made me feel like I was a star,” she said. “I think there will be more people that will actually start to join the sport.

But it’s going to take a little time.”

She has certainly being doing her bit to draw more attention to golf.

When the nation’s Olympic medalists met China President Xi Jinping on their return home, she made quite an impression.

“The others didn’t say anything. But when it came to my turn, I was like, ‘President, you’re so handsome.’” she said. “I did say that.

I mean, I really felt that. I think it’s a compliment. So it’s nothing bad.”

One notable absentee at Evian this year is Park, who is getting rehabilitation on her troublesome thumb.

But South Korean Hyo Joo Kim, the 2014 champion, is competing. She shot the lowest round in major history with a 61 during the first round here two years ago.

Americans Lexi Thompson, last year’s runner-up, twotime major winner Stacy Lewis are also in action.q

A20 SPORTS

Thursday 15 September

Moss’ HR lifts Cardinals over Cubs, 4-2

NL Capsules ST. LOUIS (AP) — Brandon Moss broke out of a lengthy slump with a tiebreaking home run and Aledmys Diaz connected in his return to the starting lineup, leading St. Louis over Chicago.

The Cardinals ensured that the runaway Cubs won’t clinch the NL Central at Busch Stadium. Chicago’s magic number is three, and the series in St. Louis wraps up Wednesday.

St. Louis remained a halfgame behind the New York Mets for the second wildcard spot.

Moss began the day mired in a 1-for-41 skid. He hit a two-run homer in the sixth off Jason Hammel (14-9).

Alex Reyes (2-1) pitched 4 1-3 innings of scoreless relief. Kevin Siegrist got his second save.

METS 4, NATIONALS 3, 10 INNINGS WASHINGTON (AP) — T.J. Rivera hit his first major league home run, connecting for the Mets in the 10th off Washington closer Mark Melancon.

New York has won eight of 10 and is a half-game ahead of St. Louis for the second NL wild card.

Rivera drove in three runs.

His shot off Melancon (2-2) helped snap the Nationals’ four-game winning streak.

Jeurys Familia (3-3) got the win despite allowing two runs in the ninth for his fourth blown save. Jerry Blevins struck out Daniel Murphy for the final out to earn his first save.

St. Louis Cardinals’ Brandon Moss hits a two-run home run in the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Associated Press

MARLINS 7, BRAVES 5 ATLANTA (AP) — Ichiro Suzuki scored two runs and drove in another in the 900th multihit game of his career and Miami boosted its fading wild-card hopes.

Miami is five games out of a playoff spot.

Justin Nicolino (3-6) earned the win with two hitless innings. A.J. Ramos worked a perfect ninth for his 35th save.

Matt Wisler (6-12) got the loss.

Freddie Freeman hit his career-high 30th homer for Atlanta. Matt Kemp also homered.

PIRATES 5, PHILLIES 3 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Sean Rodriguez had a pinch-hit three-run homer in the ninth inning to lift Pittsburgh.

The Pirates remained six games behind the Mets for the second NL wild card.

Rodriguez hit for pitcher Felipe Rivero (1-5) with two on and one out and connected off Jeanmar Gomez (34).

Tony Watson struck out two in the ninth for his 12th save.

REDS 6, BREWERS 4 CINCINNATI (AP) — Joey Votto homered and drove in two runs, Dan Straily pitched a career-high eight

innings and Cincinnati took advantage of some sloppy Milwaukee fielding for its fifth straight win.

Matt Garza (5-7) allowed five runs, only one earned, in five innings.

DIAMONDBACKS 11, ROCKIES 4 PHOENIX (AP) — Jean Segura homered twice and Brandon Drury added his second homer in two nights to lead Arizona.

Segura hit solo shots off starter Jorge De La Rosa (88) in the first and fourth innings, setting a career high with his 13th and 14th homers.

Drury homered in the fifth to give the Diamondbacks a 7-4 lead, and Paul Goldschmidt had three hits, scored three runs and stole his 25th base in support of winning pitcher Robbie Ray (8-13).

The Rockies dropped to 7 1/2 games behind St. Louis for the second NL wild card.

Matt Koch gave up two hits and struck out four over four innings for his first save.

PADRES 6, GIANTS 4 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ryan Schimpf hit a goahead three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning for the San Diego Padres as the Giants’ bullpen gave up a lead and chance to gain ground on the division-leading Dodgers.

Hunter Strickland (3-3) started the ninth and allowed two runs, three singles and a bases-loaded walk to Wil Myers, then Steven Okert entered to try to get the final out.

Jake Smith (1-0) pitched the eighth for his first career victory after San Diego claimed him from the Giants in July, then Kevin Quackenbush finished for his second save as some Giants fans booed.

In other NL N.Y. Mets 4, Washington 3, 10 innings; N.Y. Yankees 3, L.A. Dodgers 0; Pittsburgh 5, Philadelphia 3; Cincinnati 6, Milwaukee 4; Miami 7, Atlanta 5; St. Louis 4, Chicago Cubs 2; Arizona 11, Colorado 4; and San Diego 6, San Francisco 4.q

Yankees-Rays, Giants-D’Backs set for MLB April 2 openers NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball’s 2017 season will open Sunday, April 2 with the New York Yankees at the Tampa Bay Rays and the San Francisco Giants at the Arizona Diamondbacks. Both games will be televised by ESPN, which also will select a third game for that day.

Thirteen games are scheduled for April 3, the commissioner’s office said Wednesday as it released

the 2017 schedule: Toronto at Baltimore, Pittsburgh at Boston, Philadelphia at Cincinnati, Detroit at the Chicago White Sox, Seattle at Houston, San Diego at the Los Angeles Dodgers, Colorado at Milwaukee, Kansas City at Minnesota, Atlanta at the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Angels at Oakland, Chicago Cubs at St. Louis, Cleveland at Texas and Miami at Washington.

The Rays will host the Oak-

land Athletics in a doubleheader on June 10. It will be MLB’s first scheduled doubleheader since July 16, 2011, when the A’s hosted the Angels.

Atlanta’s opener at SunTrust Park against San Diego will be April 14.

The All-Star Game will be at Miami on July 11, and the regular season is scheduled to end Oct. 1. The amateur draft is set to start June 12.q

San Francisco Giants’ Angel Pagan, right, slides safely back to first base under the late tag of Arizona Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt on a snap throw from Diamondbacks catcher Welington Castillo during the sixth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, in Phoenix.

Associated Press

SPORTS A21

Thursday 15 September

Hardy, Reimold power Orioles to 6-3 victory over Red Sox The Associated Press BOSTON (AP) — J.J. Hardy, Nolan Reimold and Jonathan Schop homered and the Baltimore Orioles beat Boston 6-3 Tuesday night to pull within two games of the AL East-leading Red Sox. The Orioles also tied Toronto for the wild-card lead.

Dylan Bundy (9-5) gave up three runs over 5 1/3 innings. Zach Britton pitched a scoreless ninth for his 42nd save.

Xander Bogaerts homered for Boston, which had won five of six.

Drew Pomeranz (10-12) gave up five runs and four hits in two-plus innings.

MARINERS 8, ANGELS 0 ANAHEIM, California (AP) — Taijuan Walker pitched a three-hitter for his first career shutout as Seattle won its season-high seventh straight.

Walker (6-10) was perfect through 5 2/3 innings before Kaleb Cowart reached o throwing error by shortstop Ketel Marte. Kole Calhoun ended Walker’s no-hit bid with a leadoff single in the seventh inning. Walker matched a career high with 11 strikeouts in his first complete game since July 31, 2015.

Nelson Cruz and Norichika Aoki hit home runs and Seth Smith hit a grand slam to close the scoring.

Angels rookie Alex Meyer (0-3) gave up four earned runs and five hits over four innings in his fourth major league appearance.

YANKEES 3, DODGERS 0 NEW YORK (AP) — Jacoby Ellsbury and Didi Gregorius came off the bench and hit back-to-back homers in the seventh inning, sending the Yankees over the NL West leaders.

Gary Sanchez added a leadoff home run in the eighth as New York stayed two games behind in the AL wild-card race.

Adam Warren (3-1) retired both batters he faced, and Dellin Betances got four outs for his 11th save.

Ross Stripling (4-7) gave up homers on consecutive

pitches.

RANGERS 3, ASTROS 2 HOUSTON (AP) — Jurickson Profar hit a tiebreaking single and AL West-leading Texas rallied for two runs in the ninth inning.

The Rangers improved to 15-3 against Houston this year. The Astros are 4 1/2 games back in the wildcard chase.

Rougned Odor fanned with one out in the ninth but reached on a wild pitch. He later scored on Elvis Andrus’ two-out triple against Ken Giles (2-4), and Profar singled.

Alex Claudio (4-1) pitched the eighth and Tanner Scheppers worked a perfect ninth for his first save.

RAYS 6, BLUE JAYS 2 TORONTO (AP) — Drew Smyly pitched 5 2/3 innings to remain unbeaten at Rogers Centre, Alexei Ramirez and Steven Souza Jr. hit home runs and Tampa Bay stopped Toronto.

The Blue Jays are tied with Baltimore for the AL wildcard spots. Toronto is 3-8 in September.

Ramirez hit a three-run homer off Marcus Stroman (9-8) in the fifth.

Smyly (7-11) is 4-0 at Toronto.

TWINS 8, TIGERS 1 DETROIT (AP) — Jorge Polanco homered and drove in four runs and Brian Dozier added three more hits to his torrid second half for Minnesota.

The Tigers lost for the third time in 14 games against Minnesota, costing them precious ground in a crowded race for the second AL wild card.

Kyle Gibson (6-9) dominated, allowing one run and five hits in eight innings.

Matt Boyd (5-4) took the loss in his worst outing since June. He gave up seven runs, eight hits and a walk in 3 2/3 innings.

ATHLETICS 5, ROYALS 4 KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) — Pinch hitter Yonder Alonso delivered a two-run double in the eighth inning to rally Oakland.

Defending World Series champion Kansas City

dropped five games out of the wild-card race with only 18 games left.

Rookie Matthew Strahm (21) took the loss.

John Axford (6-4) pitched one inning. Ryan Madson closed for his 30th save in 36 tries.

WHITE SOX 8, INDIANS 1 CHICAGO (AP) — Todd Frazier and Carlos Sanchez each drove in two runs in a seven-run sixth inning and Chicago handed AL Central-leading Cleveland its second straight lopsided loss.

The Indians, who have allowed 19 runs in two games, maintained a sixgame lead over Detroit.

Jose Quintana (12-10) held

Baltimore Orioles pitcher Zach Britton, left, is congratulated by outfielder Adam Jones after defeating the Boston Red Sox 6-3 in a baseball game at Fenway Park, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Boston.

Associated Press

Cleveland to five hits over eight innings.

Trevor Bauer (11-7) took the loss.

In other AL games it was N.Y. Yankees 3, L.A. Dodgers 0; Tampa Bay 6, To-

ronto 2; Baltimore 6, Boston 3; Minnesota 8, Detroit 1; Oakland 5, Kansas City 4; Chicago White Sox 8, Cleveland 1; Texas 3, Houston 2; and Seattle 8, L.A. Angels 0.q

Pigeon Power: Birds swoop into stadium, Yankees fly high BEN WALKER AP Baseball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A flock of newcomers quickly swoops into Yankee Stadium and suddenly a team that wobbled all season turns into a playoff contender in Major League Baseball.

So exactly who’s gotten the New York Yankees flying so high? A rookie slugger, a fresh set of pitchers?

Sure, they’ve helped. But maybe it’s something more.

“Pigeon power,” outfielder Aaron Judge said. “They’re fueling us.”

OK, go ahead and laugh.

Then look at the Yankees’ record ever since dozens and dozens of pigeons began descending for picnics at the park.

Sometimes, these birds arrive early, searching for new seeds that keep the grass so green and fresh.

More than 85 of them recently roamed the yard before batting practice.

Often, they stick around for the game, hardly ruffled by the balls that go whizzing past them.

In the sixth inning last weekend against Tampa Bay, six gray pigeons lounged in medium left-center field, a half-dozen hung out in shal-

In this Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016 photo, pigeons land in the outfield during the sixth inning of a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium in New York.

Associated Press

low center and seven others strolled in right-center.

No surprise, moments later the Yankees hit back-toback home runs to break open a scoreless game.

“They’re fearless,” longtime head groundskeeper Dan Cunningham said.

Speedy, too.

“I don’t worry about them too much because they’re pretty fast,” star center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury said.

“They can take care of themselves.”

No birds have been hit yet.

Certainly nothing like that spring training episode

many years ago when a fastball by Randy Johnson struck a dove in mid-flight.

And they aren’t pesky, like the seagulls that hover around AT&T Park during San Francisco Giants games.

Scorned and shooed away all around town, these pigeons relax at Yankee Stadium. Oh, and they seem to prefer day games.

When line drives get too close, they simply flap away and settle somewhere else, perhaps on the warning track in deep center or near the foul lines. q

A22

Thursday 15 September

SPORTS

U.S. will mix Tortorella hockey with speed, skill at World Cup STEPHEN WHYNO AP Sports Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — John Tortorella stood in the middle of the ice and bellowed at the top of his lungs: “Too slow! We’re too slow. Move the puck and skate.”

Tortorella was imploring Team USA to practice the way he wants them to play at the World Cup of Hockey. The U.S. was built to be big, strong and physical in hopes of beating up a favorite like, say Canada.

But to win the tournament, the Americans will need to mix speed, skill and scoring with the old-school Tortorella hockey principles of grinding it out and blocking shots. The team’s identity is in-your-face aggressive, while NHL MVP Patrick Kane and talented winger Zach Parise and others will bring the flash and flair as the Americans attempt to avenge a disappointing finish at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

“I think a big part of our team and our makeup is our willingness and our physicality, but we also have some skill,” Tortorella said. “There’s going to be some fast teams here and we do have speed. I think people have kind of got locked in because the way we’ve gone with our team, yeah, we have some grind to it, but we still have a very quick hockey club here and that has to play into it.”

Tortorella earned acclaim

U.S. forward Derek Stepan (21) celebrates his goal with the bench during the second period of an exhibition game against Finland, part of the World Cup of Hockey, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Washington.

Associated Press

in 2004 when he coached the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup with the mantra of “safe is death.”

In subsequent stops with the New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks and now the Columbus Blue Jackets, the firebrand coach has tried to win by clogging up the middle and demanding players sacrifice their bodies to get in front of pucks.

In a best-on-best tournament with star players, Tortorella still wants a buy-in, a commitment to team hockey. The U.S. goal is to

be difficult to play against by dictating tempo up the ice and cashing in on the scoring ability of Kane, Pavelski, Max Pacioretty and captain Joe Pavelski.

Pavelski believes playing on NHL-size ice in Toronto benefits the U.S., which could get lost on the outside of a wider international rink. It also makes speed imperative.

“You can’t just play a gritty game,” said Kane, the Hart Trophy winner with a league-best 106 points last season. “With the team in here, the players we have,

we want to play a little bit more a physical brand and make it harder on teams to have the puck and when they don’t have it, keep it from them and make it harder to get it back. We feel we have all those ingredients in here.”

U.S. general manager Dean Lombardi didn’t want to make an all-star team, either. He wanted to recapture the magic of the 1996 World Cup champions, who beat Canada to win that tournament 20 years ago.

He chose gritty players like

Detroit Red Wings winger Justin Abdelkader at the expense of better scorers.

Like legendary coach Herb Brooks said at the 1980 Olympics, the U.S. doesn’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.

But it has more than most NHL teams, which presents a challenge on how to handle a group of stars.

Tortorella has to “manage how much rope he gives those guys,” said forward Brandon Dubinsky, who has played for him in New York and Columbus.

“Kaner’s not going to play (Tortorella’s) type of crashand-bang game, and he goes out and plays 100 points a year.

You’ve just got to let that guy play. ... It’s just finding a balance but at the same time trying to have an identity as a whole of guys that are just going to go out there and grind away.”

Even if Jonathan Quick, who will start in goal in the opening game Saturday against Team Europe, is at his best, the Americans need to produce goals.

They’ll look to Kane, Parise, Pavelski and Sochi shootout hero T.J Oshie for that but also muck and grind and try to dredge up offense.“There’s a time and a place for all of that and establishing ourselves early in games of our physical presence and getting in on the forecheck and our territorial game,” center David Backes said. q

FC Dallas beats Revolution 4-2 for U.S. Open Cup title

FC Dallas’ Maximiliano Urruti holds the trophy as the team celebrates its 4-2 win over the New England Revolution in the U.S. Open Cup soccer final, Tuesday Sept. 13, 2016, in Frisco, Texas.

Associated Press

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Maximiliano Urruti scored twice and Mauro Diaz had a goal and three assists to help FC Dallas beat the New England Revolution 4-2 on Tuesday night for the U.S. Open Cup title. Dallas won its first Open Cup championship since 1997 — which was under its previous name of the Burn — to earn a spot in the 2017 CONCACAF Champions League.

Urruti tied it at 1 in the 15th

minute. He settled Diaz’s cross with his left foot and one-touched it home with his right. Matt Hedges made it 2-1 in the 40th. A corner kick was deflected outside the 18-yard box and Diaz’s chip found the head of Hedges.

Diaz put Dallas in front 3-1 when he rolled a penalty kick under Chris Seitz’s arm in first-half stoppage time.

Urruti finished a breakaway in the 61st for a 4-1 lead.

New England’s Juan Agudelo opened the scoring in the sixth minute. After a Dallas turnover deep in its own end, Gershon Koffie played a through ball and Agudelo spun his defender to send a shot into the back of the net. Agudelo tapped home a deflected cross in the 73rd.

It was a rematch of the 2007 final, which New England won 3-2 in the same stadium.q

TECHNOLOGY A23 Uber gives riders a preview of the driverless future Thursday 15 September

DAKE KANG Associated Press PITTSBURGH (AP) — Uber riders in Pittsburgh can get a glimpse of the future by summoning a car capable of handling most of the tasks of driving on its own.

On Wednesday, a fleet of self-driving Ford Fusions began picking up Uber riders who opted to participate in a test program. While the vehicles are loaded with features that allow them to navigate on their own, an Uber engineer sits in the driver’s seat and can seize control if things go awry.

Uber’s test program is the latest move in an increasingly heated race between tech companies in Silicon Valley and traditional automakers to perfect fully driverless cars for regular people. Competitors such as Nissan and Google have invested hundreds of millions of dollars and logged millions of miles test-driving autonomous vehicles, but Uber is the first company in the U.S. to make self-driving cars available to the general public.

“That pilot really pushes the ball forward for us,” said Raffi Krikorian, Director of Uber AdvancedTechnologies Center (ATC) in Pittsburgh, the company’s main facility for testing selfdriving vehicles. “We think it can help with congestion, we think it can make transportation cheaper and more accessible for the vast majority of people.”

Removing the cost of the driver is one way to make rides more affordable. But that prospect didn’t sit well with some Uber customers.

“It scares me not to have a driver there with an Uber,” said Claudia Tyler, a health executive standing near the entrance of an office in downtown Pittsburgh.

A reporter from The Associated Press tried out the service Monday. The ride through downtown Pittsburgh and over some bridges went smoothly, with the car waiting for oncoming traffic before making a turn and at one point stopping for a vehicle that

A group of self driving Uber vehicles position themselves to take journalists on rides during a media preview at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, Monday, Sept. 12, 2016.

Associated Press

was backing into a parking space. Parking, however, was a task the human driver had to perform.

Approaches to driverless technology differ.

Google, a unit of Alphabet, and Ford Motor Co. want to perfect the fully driverless car — no steering wheel, no pedals — before letting the public climb in for a ride. Others are adding autonomous features in phases, while relying on the driver to take over in certain circumstances.

Many experts predict that it will be years, if not decades, before the public is being driven around in fleets of fully driverless vehicles under any condition.

“Because vehicles are driving at seventy miles per hour on the highway, if something goes wrong, things could go wrong very bad, very quickly,” said Carnegie Mellon engineering Professor Raj Rajkumar.

“Thistechnology needs to be ultra-reliable before we can take the human out of the driving equation.”

NuTonomy, a spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, got the jump on Uber globally three weeks ago when it began picking up passengers in self-driving taxis in Singapore. The company said Tuesday that its six taxis — with backup drivers — haven’t had any ac-

cidents since the service launched.

The Uber vehicles are equipped with everything from seven traffic-light detecting cameras to a radar system that detects different weather conditions to 20 spinning lasers that generates a continuous, 360 degree 3-D map of the surrounding environment.

During the demonstration for reporters two engineers

were seated in front — the backup driver and another monitoring the car’s 3D map and scribbling notes on how to improve the car’s software. The engineers must undergo a week of safety orientation or more to drive the cars, with additional training as the vehicles continue to be refined.

Pittsburgh is a particularly good place to experiment,

they said, because the city is a research hub for selfdriving cars and has notoriously bad driving conditions, including snowstorms, rolling hills and a tangled network of aging roads and bridges. Uber executives are watching to see how the cars handle these challenges before saying when fully driverless vehicles will be ready to hit the roads.

“We actually think of Pittsburgh as the double black diamond of driving,” Krikorian said. “If we can really tackle Pittsburgh, that we have a better chance of tackling most other cities around the world.”

Bill Peduto, the mayor of Pittsburgh, lobbyied the Pennsylvania state government to allow ride sharing in the city. “Lots of people think steel built Pittsburgh.

It was innovation,” Peduto said. “Regulations rarely if ever come before innovation, and if you try to put regulations first, all you do is guarantee innovation will occur somewhere else.”

Uber officials hope the initial trial will teach them how to ease public fears of adopting the leadingedgetechnology. q

Dangerous smartphones: What Note 7 owners should do Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Samsung plans a software update for its Galaxy Note 7 designed to prevent the battery in the mobile phone from exploding or catching fire. The company is also offering replacements for the 2.5 million phones it’s sold globally, but a new Note 7 is not available yet.

Here are three things Note 7 owners should do: TURN IT OFF Samsung has said that the phone should be turned off immediately. The company has said that of the 35 known cases where the phone has caught fire, as of Sept. 1, most happened while the phone was charging. Its latest software update is meant to protect those consumers who

are continuing to use the phone. The update for users in South Korea will start Sept. 20, and the company hasn’t said when it will be available in other countries.

TURN IT IN The company has set up an exchange for people to replace their Note 7s. But the replacement phones won’t be available until Sept. 19 in South Korea, and it’s unclear when they’ll be available in the U.S. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has said it’s working with Samsung on an official recall, and the agency is figuring out if the replacement phones are an acceptable replacement for the dangerous ones.

But Samsung says U.S. users can replace Note 7s now

In this Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016, file photo, models hold Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones during a launch event at the company’s headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.

Associated Press

with a different model — either a temporary one until the new Note 7 is available or a permanent switch for the company’s Galaxy series. q

A24 BUSINESS

Thursday 15 September

Ford, banking on mobility, expects lower 2017 profit

DEE DURBIN AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday that a plan to embrace “mobility” and spend billions on electric and autonomous vehicles will hurt its bottom line in the short term but lead to frothier profit margins in the future.

Ford said profit from its core business of selling cars and trucks will improve over the next three years.

But its ambitious plan to invest in emerging businesses will damp pretax profit next year before it rebounds in 2018.

The maker of the bestselling F-150 pickup truck and the iconic Mustang muscle car has said it will invest $4.5 billion to bring 13 new electric and hybrid vehicles to market by 2020.

Ford has also promised to put a fully autonomous vehicle into ride-hailing or car-sharing fleets by 2021.

“We are making choices: Where to play, where not to play and how we’re going to win,” Ford CEO Mark Fields told investors and Wall Street analysts who gathered at the company’s headquarters for a day-long presentation.

Fields said Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford has a unique opportunity to remake its business at a time when it’s healthy and profitable.

“Usually when we had to do it, our backs were up against the hot pipes and we were in crisis,” Fields said. The company recently bought Chariot, a crowd-sourced shuttle service in San Francisco, and is partnering with bikeshare company Motivate.

It’s also investing in companies that make sensors and maps for autonomous cars. Ford says 30 vehicles are sold each minute in the U.S., but 9 million miles are traveled. If people want to travel by autonomous taxi or shared rides, Ford wants to provide the cars, the service or both. The company believes autonomous cars could make up 20 percent of global vehicle sales by 2030.q

Stocks shed early gains; energy, consumer companies fall MARLEY JAY AP Markets Writer NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks surrendered early

wonder if the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week, and they’re also speculating about the

interest rate environment rather than a falling one,” he said.

The Dow Jones industrial

Trader Thomas Donato, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks surrendered early gains and finished mostly lower Wednesday as energy companies skidded with the price of oil.

(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

gains and finished mostly lower Wednesday as energy companies skidded with the price of oil. Apple led technology companies higher. The mixed finish came after three days of big, erratic moves.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 96 points about an hour after trading began, but those gains slipped away as the day wore on. The price of oil fell about 3 percent for the second day in a row and energy companies fell with it. Household goods companies also slipped. Bond yields decreased after a big gain the day before, and high-dividend utility stocks made gains.

Investors have sent stocks in different directions as they

health of the global economy.

Bonds also reflected that confusion as they changed direction again. Yields fell and prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.70 percent.

A day earlier it jumped to 1.73 percent, the highest in almost three months.

David Lefkowitz, senior equity strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas, said investors aren’t sure what the Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Japan will do. But he said they’re expecting higher interest rates, or at least less economic stimulus.

“There’s now a growing consensus that perhaps we’re looking at a rising

average lost 31.98 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,034.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dipped 1.25 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,125.77.

The Nasdaq composite climbed 18.52 points, or 0.4 percent, to 5,173.77.

After four months of public negotiations, seed and weedkiller maker Monsanto agreed to be bought

by German drug and farm chemical company Bayer for $57 billion in cash. Bayer makes a wide range of crop protection chemicals that kill weeds, bugs and fungus, while Monsanto is known for its seeds business and the weedkiller Glyphosate. It rose 66 cents to $106.76.

Benchmark U.S. crude lost $1.32, or 2.9 percent, to fin-

ish at $43.58 a barrel in New York. That came after a 3 percent drop on Tuesday.

The international standard, Brent crude, fell $1.25, or 2.7 percent, to $45.85 a barrel in London.

Energy companies also as well. Chevron gave up $1.01, or 1 percent, to $98.42 and Murphy Oil lost $1, or 3.8 percent, to $25.14.

Drugstore chains Walgreens fell $1.27, or 1.5 percent, to $80.98 and CVS Health shed $1.49, or 1.6 percent, to $89.44.

Apple picked up $3.88, or 3.6 percent, to $111.83, for its second day of big gains. Apple rose Tuesday after T-Mobile said it’s getting strong preorders for the new iPhones. Apple gets most of its revenue from the iPhone, and those sales, while still enormous, have finally started to decline in the last year. That’s hurt Apple stock, which traded above $130 a little more than a year ago.

Stocks are at their lowest levels in two months after big losses Friday and Tuesday. In between came a big gain on Monday.

“We’re just kind of reverting back to a normal level of volatility,” Lefkowitz said.

“We got almost lulled to sleep because things were so unusually quiet in the last six weeks of the summer.”

Dermatology drug developer Vitae Pharmaceuticals soared to $20.85 after it agreed to be bought

by Allergan, the maker of Botox. The deal values Vitae at $21 per share, or $606 million. Vitae, which doesn’t have any approved products, closed at $8.10 on Tuesday. Allergan rose $4.71, or 2 percent, to $244.81.q

Value of Oprah’s stake in Weight Watchers down $116M NEW YORK (AP) — Oprah Winfrey’s big investment in Weight Watchers has paid off so far, but her Midas touch could be in question given the company’s recent struggles.

Winfrey bought a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers for $43.2 million in October and joined the company’s board. The company’s stock more

than doubled the day the purchase was announced, and by November, Winfrey’s stake was worth nearly $180 million.

Weight Watchers shares have been in a bit of a freefall since, losing more than two-thirds of their value in less than a year. The value of Winfrey’s shares is down by more than $116 million.

Weight Watchers CEO James Chambers announced Monday that he was stepping down. The company said Winfrey will play an active role in selecting a new leader.

Winfrey, who has had a very public struggle with her weight, discussed the issue in a commercial for Weight Watchers last year and in January announced

that she had lost 26 pounds (12 kilos) on the program.

In May, she said she didn’t think she would ever go off the plan.

Weight Watchers has faced stiff competition as people turn to popular step-counting fitness gadgets like Fitbit and free weight-loss apps in an effort to manage their weight.q

BUSINESS A25

Thursday 15 September

Facebook selects New Mexico for new data center over Utah L. WHITEHURST S. BRYAN Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Facebook has chosen a village on the edge of New Mexico’s largest metropolitan area as the location for its new data center, an announcement that spread quickly Wednesday as elected officials celebrated a hard-sought win that could have ripple effects for the state’s struggling economy.

News of the social media giant’s decision to build in Los Lunas, just south of Albuquerque, comes after a roller-coaster contest between New Mexico and Utah to attract the facility.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich broke the news on social media, and the rest of the congressional delegation followed minutes later.

Gov. Susana Martinez in a statement welcomed what she described as a stellar, cutting-edge company. In Los Lunas, village officials were rejoicing.

“This is huge for the state of New Mexico, for the region, for the whole Southwest. This is a big win,” said Ralph Mims, the village’s economic development director.

The courting of Facebook began more than a year ago with a meeting between the Republican governor and Facebook executives. During a visit to California, Martinez and her economic development team pitched the sparsely populated state as a good place to do business.

New Mexico wasn’t on the radar before that August 2015 meeting.

“With the improvements we’ve made over the past several years, New Mexico is finally competing again, and in this case, it’s a big win for the people of our state and our economic future,” the governor said.

While the project has enjoyed broad political sup-

port in New Mexico, local leaders in Utah pushed back against a tax-incentive plan they saw as too generous.

Utah supporters said the project would bring a high-tech cachet that could draw other companies to West Jordan, but critics said the cost was too high for land that could attract other development.

The village of Los Lunas, meanwhile, agreed to give up all property taxes for 30 years in exchange for annual payments from Facebook that start at $50,000 and top out at less than $500,000. The complex economic development agreement also involves tax breaks on billions of dollars in computer equipment over time.

In Utah, an initial $240 million tax-break plan publicly fell apart one night in August after several leaders said the lure was too rich.

Talks were revived the next morning, but two weeks later, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said the deal looked dormant, if not dead.

West Jordan Mayor Kim Rolfe said he’s disappointed that his city wasn’t chosen and the tax-break package was unfairly maligned. The billion-dollar project would have been an economic boon, bringing construction jobs as well as tax revenue after the breaks, he said.

A critic of the Utah plan, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, said the cost to taxpayers was too steep.

“We will walk away from a bad deal. We’re not so desperate that we’re willing to give everything away,” he said. The costbenefit analysis is different for New Mexico, he said.

Data centers are key to the booming cloud-computing economy, but they typically bring few local jobs.q

Bayer buying Monsanto, creating chemical giant LINDA A. JOHNSON DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writers American seed and weedkiller company Monsanto and German medicine and farm chemical maker Bayer are combining in a deal that could help farmers produce higher yields to address challenges from

of a bid emerged.

Because Bayer is mainly funding the deal through debt, by selling bonds and stock, Jefferies LLC analyst Jeffrey Holford wrote to investors, Bayer’s increased debt load could limit investment in its “suboptimal” prescription drug pipeline and its consumer

ing operations, that is pressuring farmers to be more productive.

“It’s going to take a lot of innovation to ensure that everybody can be fed,” and the combined company will be able to speed up product improvements to help, Liam Condon, head of Bayer Crop Sci-

The Bayer AG corporate logo is displayed on a building of the German drug and chemical company in Berlin, Germany. Bayer AG said it has signed a deal Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016, to acquire seed and weed-killer company Monsanto for about $66 billion in cash.

(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

global warming to rising food demand from a fastgrowing global population.

Consumers could benefit from more-affordable and healthier food options as well as the companies’ using their expertise to help farmers limit their chemical use and environmental impact, company executives said Wednesday after the all-cash deal was announced.

It comes amid record harvests driving crop prices to painfully low levels for many farmers.

After four months of courtship, Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer AG said Monsanto Co. accepted its third offer. In addition to the $57 billion price for shareholders, Bayer is assuming $9 billion in Monsanto debt.

It will pay Monsanto shareholders $128 per share, $6 above its initial offer and a 44 percent premium over the St. Louis company’s closing price before rumors

health business.

The deal would create a global agricultural and chemical giant with a broad array of products.

Fitch Ratings noted the combined Bayer would have a 25 percent share in some markets, “almost certainly drawing regulatory scrutiny and posing antitrust obstacles.”

That’s because the deal combines two of the six U.S. and European companies that dominate in agrochemicals.

“It will ... create an innovation engine for the next generation of farming,” Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant said.

The world’s population is expected to jump by nearly 3 billion people, to 9 billion, by 2050.

Together with the effects of warmer temperatures, more-severe storms, less land available for farming and the need to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from farm-

ence, told The Associated Press.

Affordability also is an issue, Condon said, as people in many poor countries spend more than half their income on food, compared to 10 percent to 15 percent in the U.S. Bayer and Monsanto both are well known to farmers and home gardeners.

Monsanto sells seeds for fruits, vegetables, corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops, plus heavily advertised Roundup weed killer. Bayer sells chemical and biologic crop protection products and the Bayer Advanced garden chemicals line.

Both companies offer services in “digital farming,” helping farmers use data from sensors in their fields and satellites to improve crop yields by choosing the best seeds and applying just the right amount of chemicals at the right time throughout the growing season. q

A26 COMICS

Thursday 15 September

Mutts

Conceptis Sudoku

6 Chix

Blondie

Mother Goose & Grimm

Baby Blues

Zits

Yesterday’s puzzle answer

Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

CLASSIFIED A27

Thursday 15 September

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A28 SCIENCE

Thursday 15 September

Survival of the smallest? Bigger sea species more threatened SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — In the Earth’s oceans these days, the bigger a species is, the more prone it is to die off. That’s unheard of in the long history of mass extinctions, a new study finds.

As subfamilies of marine animal species — called genera — grow larger in body size, the likelihood of them being classified as threatened with extinction increases by an even greater amount, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science . In past extinctions, smaller creatures were more prone to die off, or size didn’t matter, said study lead author Jonathan Payne, a paleobiologist at Stanford University.

Almost none of the genera that have species averaging 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) long are threatened with extinction, But 23 percent of those that are 3.9 inches (10 centimeters) are threatened, 40 percent of those that are 39 inches (1 meter) are endangered and 86 percent of those that are 32.8 feet (10 meters) are vulnerable, Payne said.

These are species that are not extinct yet, but are on the respected Red List of threatened and endangered species created by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In this Feb. 6, 2016 file photo, a blue whale raises its tail above the water surface off the coast of Long Beach, Calif.

Associated Press

“The proportion of species that are threatened increases enormously as body size increases,” Payne said.

Take the blue whale , not only the largest living animal, stretching close to 100 feet long, but the largest to ever have existed, Payne said. It’s on the IUCN endangered list and has lost as much as 90 percent of its population in the last three generations, according to the IUCN. On the other end of the spectrum is a grouping of fish, bioluminescent bristlemouths , that are about three inches long. They are

the most abundant creatures with a backbone; the population is estimated to be in the trillions.

Payne compared fossil records, looked at past mass extinctions and compared them to current threats, concentrating on 264 genera that have the best modern and ancient records. Payne concentrated on oceans, where the fossil records are better over time. The mass extinction 65 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs didn’t kill off bigger marine species at higher rates than smaller ones, unlike what’s happening now,

Payne said.

The study “shows us how unusual this crisis of biodiversity we have right now,” said Boris Worm, a top marine scientist at Dalhousie University in Canada. He wasn’t part of the study but praised it. “We have had mass extinctions before.

This one is totally different than what has happened before.”

Worm spoke from a break during research in Canada’s Bay of Fundy, where after a more-than-20year career he finally saw his first underwater right whale and basking shark .

“They are both in trouble

and both among the largest of their kind,” Worm said.

Payne’s study didn’t try to explain why larger animals were more threatened, but both he and Worm point to one main suspect: humans. Mostly through fishing and hunting, but also through environmental degradation such as warmer and more acidic oceans, humans have made it tougher for the biggest marine animals to survive, they said.

Catherine Novelli, the U.S. undersecretary of state for environment, said a world oceans conference that starts Thursday in Washington, will see the announcement of “many more” areas where nations set aside large areas of the seas where animals are protected and fishing is prohibited.

Duke University biologist Stuart Pimm also praised the study as both compelling and disturbing because “even if some species do hang on, we have massively changed the ecology of much of the oceans.”

Payne said there is still hope, since these species haven’t gone extinct yet.

He points to northern elephant seals which had a population below 100 in the early 1910s, but are now more than 100,000 strong. But they are the exception.q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Thursday 15 September

A red carpet revolt? Miley Cyrus takes a stand DERRIK J. LANG AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — If a celebrity doesn’t walk a red carpet, are they still a celebrity?

In the next phase of her career, that’s the bold question Miley Cyrus will face after her unprecedented vow to “never do a red carpet again.”

With Hollywood’s awards season kicking off at Sunday’s Primetime Emmys, will other celebs sidestep the frenzy and follow Cyrus off the carpet? In show business, such a daring declaration could have implications beyond what’s beneath those designer heels.

In recent years, media shenanigans on red carpets have prompted push-back from such A-listers as Julianne Moore, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston.

Last awards season, they opted against sticking their well-manicured and bejeweled hands in front of E!’s “mani-cam,” while younger actresses like Jena Malone and Elizabeth Moss publicly mocked the paw parade.

“I couldn’t care less, to be honest,” said Emmys host Jimmy Kimmel after ceremoniously unrolling the red carpet Wednesday morning outside the Microsoft Theater. “I’ll be up in my dressing room staring at people on the red carpet while it’s happening.”

Cyrus’ last appearance on a red carpet was back in December at the premiere of the Netflix film “A Very Murray Christmas.”

Cyrus ominously captioned an Instagram photo of herself posing on it: “(hashtag) mylastredcarpet4eva.” Apparently, she meant it.

“I had to do the premiere, and I will never do a red carpet again,” the singeractress said in the October issue of Elle magazine , out Wednesday.

“Why, when people are starving, am I on a carpet that’s red? Because I’m ‘important’? Because I’m ‘famous’? That’s not how I

roll. It’s like a skit — it’s like ‘Zoolander.’”

Stacy Jones, president of entertainment marketing agency Hollywood Branded , said stars who shun the red carpet lose fame and fortune. She expects Cyrus, who is appearing as a coach on the latest season of the NBC singing competition “The Voice” and starring in the upcoming Amazon series “Crisis in Six Scenes,” will likely miss out on future roles and deals because of her decision.

“It’s part of the job,” said Jones. “In today’s world, when you sign up to be a celebrity, you’re singing up to be in the limelight.

You’re going to be in gossip columns and have paparazzi follow you. You will have fans idolize you. It’s damaging to your career and people you work with to say you won’t be part of the glitz and glamour that comes along with the job.”

Over the past nine decades, the red carpet has transformed from simply serving as an elegant entrance to Hollywood premieres and ceremonies into a publicity-generating business where celebrities are expected — and often paid — to pose in front of logos and be probed by the media.

Now, it’s not just about flashing smiles for photographers and answering the clichéd question, “Who are you wearing?” On today’s red carpets, awareness is raised and brands are built.

Jones said she once worked with a company that sponsored a premiere party at the Toronto International Film Festival where the film’s star refused to walk down or pose on the red carpet.

The company decided that night to pass him over for a seven-figure deal to support his music project.

“Miley has worked so hard to get where she is in celebritydom,” said Jones. “It doesn’t make sense that she would give up any chance in the spotlight to

at least support the projects and causes she cares about in her life.”

While many celebs control when they’ll appear, how they’ll look and who they’ll talk to on red carpets, it’s virtually unheard of for a star to publicly announce a complete boycott of the long-established practice, according to Bonnie Fuller, editor-in-chief of celebrity site HollywoodLife.com .

“I don’t think this is going to set off a trend,” said Fuller.

“It’s integral to the promotional aspect of being a celebrity to do red carpets.

It’s usually part of a contract.”

Fuller noted the anti-carpet stance is in itself part of building Cyrus’ brand. The performer has spent the

In this Dec. 2, 2015 file photo, singer and actress Miley Cyrus attends Netflix’s “A Very Murray Christmas” premiere in New York.

Associated Press

past five years shedding her wholesome “Hannah Montana” reputation in favor of a wild child image.

“At the end of the day, Miley is still 23,” said Fuller.

“She’s got a long career ahead of her. She could have a change of heart.

In the meantime, we’ll respect the choices she’s making right now.”q

A30 PEOPLE

Thursday 15 September

& ARTS

James Patterson’s new book has a killer title

HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A new novel from James Patterson has a title that calls for In this Aug. 30, 2016 file photo, author James Patterson poses for a portrait in New York to promote his latest book, “The Murder of Stephen King.”

Associated Press

a disclaimer and a spoiler alert: “The Murder of Stephen King.”

“A work of fiction,” readers are assured. “All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of Stephen and Tabitha King, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.”

And, yes, the story has a happy ending.

But still, that title.

“I think it’s a good title,” Patterson told The Associated Press during a recent telephone interview. “It’s exactly what the book is.”

Not exactly — the murder is only attempted.

“I guess we could have put in ‘attempted,’” he added.

Patterson’s 150-page book, which comes out Nov. 1, tells of an obsessed fan out to get King and of the detective (who happens to be named Jamie Peterson) trying to save him. The novel is part of his “BookShots” series of “pulse-pounding thrillers under $5 and 150 pages or less.” The prolific Patterson, who averages several best-sellers a year and openly works with coauthors, collaborated with Derek Nikitas on the King story.

Other fiction writers have imagined — or least suggested — the demise of a public figure. Hilary Mantel’s short story “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: August 6th 1983” came out in 2014, after the former British Prime Minister had died. Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives were angered by Nicholson Baker’s 2004 novel

“Checkpoint,” in which an opponent of the Iraq War considers killing then-President George W. Bush and a friend tries to dissuade him.

King, through an assistant, declined comment on Patterson’s book, but confirmed he has received an advance copy.

In “The Murder of Stephen King,” the villain’s motive is explained at the start: “He’ll write a tell-all book from his prison cell and be crowned the new King of Horror. All the readers will scream: The King is dead; long live the King!” Patterson says the novel is clearly a homage to the author, with praise for his work and for King. He notes that King has included crazed readers in his books, notably in “Misery,” and that Patterson has encountered his own share of “buzzing pests” and “scary kooks.”

Patterson says he doesn’t know King, although he has heard he’s a “neat guy.” The book is entirely imagined, down to the King household, as seen by Detective Peterson.

“Classic images come to mind: killer clowns whispering from inside sewer drains, teenage vampires scraping their claws on your bedroom window, creepy

twins in a hotel hallway, rabid dogs and undead cats and crazed prom queens drenched in pig’s blood.

I’m about to meet the guy whose head it all spilled out of,” Patterson and Nikitas wrote.

“But Steve King’s pushing seventy these days, clean-shaven with backswept gray hair. He sits at the kitchen table, so engrossed in a book that his nose is practically touching the pages. His long upper lip gives him a harmless, almost rabbitlike appearance.”

While Patterson speaks warmly of King, King has not returned the compliments in the past. In a 2009 interview with USA Weekend, he said Patterson was “a terrible writer but he’s very successful.” Speaking to the AP, Patterson is dismissive of King’s remarks, calling them “hyperbole,” in the style of Donald Trump.

“I know I’m not a terrible writer,” Patterson says.

“That’s a little over the top.”

Patterson said those who know about his book have not objected to the title, and that some have even found it funny.

And what if King were to write a novel called “The Murder of James Patterson”?q

Review: Michael Chiklis, you made your debut album? Why? MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer There are still a few months of the year left, but there’s already a clear favorite for Most Underwhelming Album of the Year. Hey, Michael Chiklis, step right up and claim your big prize.

Yes, the star of TV’s “The Shield” and Hollywood’s The Thing has an 11-song debut album and it’s pretty much what you feared — bland, derivative power rock. It’s called “Influence” and maybe he was under it when devising this mess?

Chiklis had a hand in writing or arranging all of the tunes except the ill-ad-

vised, pointless cover of David Bowie’s “Fame” that really only makes the loss of Bowie feel more awful.

Lyrically, Chiklis is as vapid as rocks. On one song he sings: “I don’t know the answers/Not sure any more/I know I want the future to be better than before.” If he wanted the future to be better, why release this dreck?

The very worst track is “My Gun,” written from the point of view of a homicidal shooter with the lyrics, “Voices in my head/Tell me to shoot dead/Don’t try and take away my gun, tonight.” q

PEOPLE & ARTS

A31

Thursday 15 September

In this Dec. 16, 2015 file photo, characters from the file, including stormtroopers and Darth Vader pose for photographers upon arrival at the European premiere of the film ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens ‘ in London.

Associated Press

‘Star Wars’ films land at Turner networks Meat Loaf talks stage collapse, in exclusive deal new album and musical

In this June 12, 2007, file photo, Rock star Meat Loaf appears on stage during the first concert of his tour through Germany in Hamburg, northern Germany.

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Turner networks TNT and TBS will be the exclusive basic-cable homes for all the “Star Wars” feature films, thanks to a multiyear deal with the films’ studios.

The deal, announced Wednesday, includes the network premieres of last year’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and the upcoming “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” opening in theaters in December.

The agreement with Walt Disney Studios also includes five of the six original “Star Wars” films, as well as the network television premieres of three future installments.

The 1977 first film, “Star Wars: A New Hope,” completes the collection through a previous arrangement with 20th Century Fox. TNT is set to premiere “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in early 2018, followed in 2019 by this year’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”

The “Star Wars” canon comes to Turner’s airwaves

beginning next Tuesday, when TNT kicks off six consecutive nights of the original six films.

Here’s the lineup (all times Eastern): — Tuesday, Sept. 20: 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. — “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” — Wednesday, Sept. 21: 8 p.m. and 11:05 p.m. — “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” — Thursday, Sept. 22: 8 p.m. and 11:05 p.m. — “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” — Friday, Sept. 23: 8 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. — “Star Wars: A New Hope” — Saturday, Sept. 24: 10:45 a.m. — “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” 1:45 p.m. — “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” 4:55 p.m. — “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” 8 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. — “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” — Sunday, Sept. 25: 5:15 a.m. — “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” 8:15 a.m. — “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” 11:20 a.m. — “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” 2:25 p.m. — “Star Wars: A New Hope” 5:10 p.m. — “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. — “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” 2 a.m. — “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”q

HILARY FOX Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Meat Loaf made headlines when he collapsed on tour, something which surprised him more than the actual fall.

That was June and the international interest still astounds him.

“What floored me was the fact that it literally went around the world,” he says.

“I did an interview with a woman from Japan and that was her first question.

Then I did an interview with someone from Thailand and that was their first question. I finally said, ‘There’s a lot more to report about in the world than me falling down on the stage in Edmonton.’”

The reason for the fall, he says, was dehydration.

“We don’t have the kind of show where we play a song, the singer goes back and gets a drink of water or whatever. The music never stops and so I have very little chance to get back.”

His new album “Braver Than We Are,” out on Friday in the U.S. and released last week in Europe, features old and new songs written

by Jim Steinman. It’s the latest collaboration from the partnership which started over 40 years ago and includes 1977’s “Bat Out Of Hell” and “Bat Out of Hell II:

Back Into Hell” (1993).

In an interview with The Associated Press, Meat Loaf talked about the legacy of the “Bat” albums and the collapse. ____ ON THE COLLAPSE “It was dehydration. That’s all it was. ... I don’t remember being scared. ... I kind of woke up on stage, but I don’t remember what was going on.”

ON WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF HE DIED ON STAGE “I have a plan if I die. The band plays, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ and then they all get off their instruments and they lead the audience in a song, ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game.’ And if it was too morbid to leave me on the stage, take me off the stage and still do the same thing.”

ON THE “BAT OUT OF HELL” MUSICAL “That has been Jim Steinman’s dream, before he met me. And that’s what ‘Who Needs The Young’ (opening album track) was written for. Every song that Jim Steinman has ever written has been for this musical. I won’t give anything away but I’m just happy that my friend and someone who I love dearly and have worked with for over 40 years is finally seeing his

dream come true.

ON THE NEW ALBUM “Every album I’ve ever done; get a song, record it, done — down the line. But with this one, we wanted it to be cohesive. I tried to never finalize a song so that it flowed right to the next one so it’s a very hypnotic record. It also fits in the same category as ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ — nothing like ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ — but there is nothing else out there in the world musically like this piece of music.

ON HIS SENSE OF HUMOR (AND WHETHER PEOPLE GET IT) “They don’t because, take a song like ‘Bat Out of Hell’ — it’s really silly. That I’m dying in the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun, torn and twisted. it’s funny. If you’re doing a comedy, you have to play that character real and the minute you go for comedy, it’s never funny.

So on songs like ‘Bat,’ you have to be honest and you have to be truthful and you have to be in that moment so it works.”

ON TOURING “We will get this (pinched nerve in his back) taken care of and then we will sort out the tour dates.

(On tour), I’m really disciplined. After a show I try not to talk. Days off I don’t talk.

I never leave my room. q

A32 FEATURE

Thursday 15 September

The new downtown: Lower Manhattan reborn 15 years after 9/11 BETH J. HARPAZ AP Travel Editor NEW YORK (AP) — Fifteen years after the Sept. 11th attacks, Lower Manhattan has been reborn.

The revitalization of the city’s downtown, powered by $30 billion in government and private investment, includes not just the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site, but also two new malls filled with upscale retailers, thousands of new hotel rooms and dozens of eateries ranging from a new Eataly to a French food hall, Le District.

The statistics alone are stunning. There are 29 hotels in the neighborhood, compared to six before 9/11. More than 60,000 people live downtown, nearly triple the number in 2000. And last year, the area hosted a record 14 million visitors, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York.

And while there’s plenty to do downtown for free, including seeing the 9/11 memorial park, visitors have also shown a willingness to pay relatively steep prices for certain attractions. The 9/11 museum, which charges $24, has drawn 6.67 million visitors since its May 2014 opening.

The observatory atop One World Trade Center, which charges $34, has drawn 3 million people in the 15 months since it opened. In comparison, the Statue of Liberty gets about 4 million visitors a year.

“I don’t think anyone would have expected that we would have rebounded so robustly, so quickly,” said Jessica Lappin, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. “There’s the physical transformation at the site itself, but there’s also the neighborhood.

There’s an energy here.

People could have given up after 9/11 and nobody would have blamed them.

Instead there has been a tenacity, a dedication that is inspiring.”

The Alliance for Downtown New York was founded before 9/11, in 1995, when the “neighborhood was on its heels,” Lappin recalled.

In this Aug. 19, 2016 photo, the lower Manhattan skyline, including One World Trade Center and the Brooklyn Bridge, are shown in New York. Construction cranes continue working on top of 3 World Trade Center.

(Associated Press )

bar and more, as well as Hudson Eats, with outposts of popular local eateries like Mighty Quinn’s BBQ and Num Pang’s Cambodian sandwiches.

A second shopping center, Westfield, opened in August inside the Oculus, a striking white structure designed by famed archi-

Below ground a massive transit center houses subways and a New Jersey PATH train station.

Elsewhere in Lower Manhattan, a Tom Colicchio restaurant is planned for the just-opened Beekman Hotel; the soon-to-open Four Seasons hotel will host a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, and the storied Nobu restaurant will move downtown from Tribeca. Other downtown attractions include Alexander Hamilton’s tomb in the graveyard of Trinity Church, the National Museum of the American Indian and the SeaGlass Carousel, which opened last year near where boats leave for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

But near the top of many visitors’ New York itineraries these days is a pilgrimage to the place where planes turned the twin towers into smoking piles of twisted steel and rubble. The tranquil park formally known as the National September 11 Memorial features tree-lined walkways and reflecting pools in the footprints of the twin towers.

Bronze parapets around

In this Nov. 11, 2015, file photo, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, pauses at Spencer Finch’s “Trying To Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning” during a visit to The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York.

Associated Press

“The vacancy rate was going through the roof.” At the time, downtown was a strictly 9-to-5 area, keyed to the workday rhythms of Wall Street and City Hall, deserted at night and on weekends. Revitalization efforts were just getting underway “when 9/11 hit and changed everything.”

But as government funding for disaster recovery began to pour in, private investment followed, spurring a massive rebuilding that continues to this day.

For blocks surrounding One World Trade, half-built towers and cranes still clutter the sky, barricades and scaffolding line the streets, and the whine and clatter of jackhammers fill the air. Construction workers

in hardhats are as ubiquitous as tourists. The recession hampered efforts to bring businesses back, but Lappin says private sector employment — 266,000 workers — is finally nearing pre-9/11 numbers.

Conde Nast and Time Inc. have relocated downtown. Group M, one of the world’s biggest advertising firms, will move into Three World Trade Center when it’s complete. So far, three towers have been built with plans for more. The neighborhood is also becoming a shopping destination.

Brookfield Place opened last year with luxury retailers like Gucci and Diane von Furstenberg. It also houses Le District, a French food hall with a creperie, cafe,

In this Aug. 16, 2016 photo, visitors take in the sights at the World Trade Center in New York. Behind them is the newly opened transportation hub.

Associated Press

tect Santiago Calatrava.

The curves of the Oculus’ two ribbed wings are silhouetted by One World Trade rising behind it. Inside the Oculus, retailers range from Apple to Kate Spade to The Art of Shaving. The complex connects to Four World Trade, where the new Eataly NYC Downtown offers a bounty of bread, cheese, coffee, produce, pasta and more.

the pools bear the names of the nearly 3,000 dead.

On Monday, park visitors included three siblings from Barcelona, Arantxa, Meus and Pau Saloni, on their first trip to New York.

“It’s really sad to see all the names, but it’s nice to remember them,” said Meus.

Also visiting Monday were Su-Ting Fu and his family, in town from suburban Westchester. q